NX1user

I've had a DS1 for a couple of months now and it's been very solid. Any problems I've had have been from me trying to cut corners on pre-balancing it. As long as I properly balance it, everything is fine. The only other issues I've had are from not knowing what is happening with it due to the manual not being clear. So, here's some tips on the DS1:
* It starts up in follow mode.
* One button press and you will hear a tone. Now it's in lock mode. (The manual is clear on these two modes).
* Another quick press, gets you a tone and you're back in follow mode.
* To go into half-follow mode requires a two second press. Confusingly, it doesn't give you a tone when you do this.
* To add to the confusion, a five second button press completely disables the joystick. Also no tone. The manual doesn't mention this at all. I imagine that after improper balancing, this undocumented feature causes the most customer confusion.
* Invert mode is easily accessed, just hold the DS1 upside down. You don't even have to turn it off! 
* They don't advertise the DS1 as water proof or resistant, but I've read some people think it is because the wiring is concealed under foam. WRONG! If you carefully look at the DS1 under sunlight you can see the copper wire windings in the motor housings through the gap between pieces. So don't believe the people tag think t may be water resistant.
* I built a double handle rig for it with a couple 15mm rods, two handles and a mounting plate in the middle. That's about another $60 of hardware. It's great for holding the DS1 for longer periods.
I'm happy with my DS1. I got it to work with my NX1, 16-50 S lens combo which is heavy. It does fine. The only problem is that the 16-50 S lens is so heavy that the NX1 has to sit back on the plate very far. This means your tilt range is very limited and that you won't be using any focal lengths longer than 16mm. That's obviously no fault of the DS1.
Here's a couple sample shots where I attached the DS1 to a monopod and used it as a jib (not with the 16-50 S lens):
 

I've had a DS1 for a couple of months now and it's been very solid. Any problems I've had have been from me trying to cut corners on pre-balancing it. As long as I properly balance it, everything is fine. The only other issues I've had are from not knowing what is happening with it due to the manual not being clear. So, here's some tips on the DS1:
* It starts up in follow mode.
* One button press and you will hear a tone. Now it's in lock mode. (The manual is clear on these two modes).
* Another quick press, gets you a tone and you're back in follow mode.
* To go into half-follow mode requires a two second press. Confusingly, it doesn't give you a tone when you do this.
* To add to the confusion, a five second button press completely disables the joystick. Also no tone. The manual doesn't mention this at all. I imagine that after improper balancing, this undocumented feature causes the most customer confusion.
* Invert mode is easily accessed, just hold the DS1 upside down. You don't even have to turn it off! 
* They don't advertise the DS1 as water proof or resistant, but I've read some people think it is because the wiring is concealed under foam. WRONG! If you carefully look at the DS1 under sunlight you can see the copper wire windings in the motor housings through the gap between pieces. So don't believe the people tag think t may be water resistant.
* I built a double handle rig for it with a couple 15mm rods, two handles and a mounting plate in the middle. That's about another $60 of hardware. It's great for holding the DS1 for longer periods.
I'm happy with my DS1. I got it to work with my NX1, 16-50 S lens combo which is heavy. It does fine. The only problem is that the 16-50 S lens is so heavy that the NX1 has to sit back on the plate very far. This means your tilt range is very limited and that you won't be using any focal lengths longer than 16mm. That's obviously no fault of the DS1.
Here's a couple sample shots where I attached the DS1 to a monopod and used it as a jib (not with the 16-50 S lens):
 

Alright,  I've about had it with all this nonsense, tell you what,  I'm going to sitdown this afternoon fire up my engineering workstation and create a brand new stabilizer that will blow this away. That way we can stop this silly thread once and for all.
Expect my product on kickstarter... Mark my words, it will work, it will cost less and it will be easy to use. And everyone will want one. This camera stabilization thing is not really that tough of a nut to crack. 

https://www.instagram.com/ancient_alien_theorist/
 

What I've noticed with 120p is it needs more light than normal. That may be physics though and not the camera.
Once you figure out its quirks, the 120p can look really nice. I'm new to video and this camera gets me great results.
https://youtu.be/dfssnbAYwYk?t=41s
From :41 to 1:19 There are some 120p shots in there and they came out way better than I thought they would (the compression artifacts are all youtube).

What I've noticed with 120p is it needs more light than normal. That may be physics though and not the camera.
Once you figure out its quirks, the 120p can look really nice. I'm new to video and this camera gets me great results.
https://youtu.be/dfssnbAYwYk?t=41s
From :41 to 1:19 There are some 120p shots in there and they came out way better than I thought they would (the compression artifacts are all youtube).

What I've noticed with 120p is it needs more light than normal. That may be physics though and not the camera.
Once you figure out its quirks, the 120p can look really nice. I'm new to video and this camera gets me great results.
https://youtu.be/dfssnbAYwYk?t=41s
From :41 to 1:19 There are some 120p shots in there and they came out way better than I thought they would (the compression artifacts are all youtube).

I generally bring a shit-ton of lighting to shoots, but I've had several more editorial-style gigs with the NX1 and shot as hight as 3200.
1800-2200 or so is still remarkably clean; and there's something cool about higher ISOs with the NX sensor; it's not that soupy mush you get from previous Nikon and Canon DSLRs - it's just kind of "snappy" for lack of a better word. And really crazy clean considering. I try to get the shadows opened up so I can crush 'em back down - at 4K you can see some fine mosquito noise at higher ISOs. 
I was shooting a gig last week about inner city grocers, and we were shooting products in a beverage cooler; my grip knew enough to look at the setup and say "are you sure we're not allowed to light this? Mannnn…" and I was like "Dude - look through the EVF…" He was kind of stunned. Punchy shots with a lot of life.
That said - watch for deep, deep blacks that really eat the light. Even at low ISO, a black knit sweater can look fine until delivery - then there's something about the NX's blocking that H264 sort of grabs onto and you may get some posterized shadows - kinda ugly and you have to tweak your compression for output. Try to get some big soft fill going, open the blacks, and cut your key a bit, balance it back in post. Or raise your ISO and cut your key back. I don't have months of this camera under my belt, but watch those intense blacks...

I love the tones here! Nice work!!

I've found similar to above. For clean image quality:
100-1600 in 4K/UHD
100-800 in 1080p
You can push in certain situations, but these are the safe limits. 

The deal is that sensors have what they call a "native ISO", which is their own internal native functioning gain level within the device. So all other ISOs are either an amplification applied to that or an attenuation applied to that, so that's why some cameras might give its best result at say 400 ISO.  But like you've heard - it varies from camera to camera.

As far as I have been able to see, the response of the sensor in the NX1 doesn't seem to show any bias towards any one ISO - meaning that it all just looks equally clean in the lower range regardless of what its "native" ISO might be. That's good engineering.
 
I agree with Casey. Just follow normal exposure and ISO techniques and the NX1 should respond with no surprises.

Hell of a camera...ain't it?
 

I had promised myself not to post any more screens without actually posting a video, but I couldnt resist start grading some new stuff. I promise Ill post this video this week :3

Hey all,

I'm new to this forum today, but some of you know me from the Blackmagic forums or DVXUser.
I am shooting almost exclusively Blackmagic RAW these days but I got an NX1 for the high frame rates and for the occasion that some client may insist on 4K.

Lots of GREAT GREAT information being traded around on this thread here. These kooky codecs can drive ya mad, so I applaud those of you struggling through what must feel like endless testing. Thank you.

Right off the bat I wanted to add 2 points here:

First - Variable ND's do indeed all use two 'quarter-plates" (polarizers) against each other and that results in color shifts every time. EXCEPT the SLR Magic Vari-ND. This one is the exception. I have two of them and compared to the others I can assure you that the quality and freedom from color shift is far far better. Want some happy? Go there.

Second - I've read through this entire thread and looked at everyone's stills and videos and I just want to shout: "BIT-RATE!"
Meaning that almost all the image quality issues of this camera are coming from its low recording bit-rate. I've been through this exact routine already during the era of the development of the 'hack' for the Panasonic GH2. Dear lord...it's ALL in the bit-rate. I bring this up because if WE ALL get involved in pushing for a hack for the NX1 that will allow for a much higher bit-rate then it will stand a chance of happening. I haven't checked in with the N500 hack status recently, but it sounds like the ball is rolling. Masses of folks getting involved was what pushed the GH2 hack so far so fast.

All these image quality problems were the same on the stock GH2 - macro-blocking, color breakup, etc., and they are ALL gone now with the 150Mbps hack we ended up with. Yeah, you read that right - 150Mbps just for 1080p. Yeah, that's a card eater, but that doesn't matter anymore at today's memory prices, and watching all those problems vanish was just so delightful. 

Anyhoo, continue getting down wit' your bad selves!
 

You should do all of that. Just don't call it a smear campaign. You're telling the truth, it's not a smear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smear_campaign

If you haven't already, post this to their Facebook account too. If they're like most companies nowadays, a phone call gets you nothing, email gets you nothing, a Facebook post gets your problem solved.

If you haven't already, post this to their Facebook account too. If they're like most companies nowadays, a phone call gets you nothing, email gets you nothing, a Facebook post gets your problem solved.

Avril Lovin - I received my nebula 4200 Pro in December.  It worked just fine at first but then it began to behave erratically.  I noticed magnetic metal shavings increasingly coming from one of the gimbal arms.  One of their customer service representatives sent out parameter updates and after I installed them, the unit is completely unresponsive.  Now one of the arms locks up and will not move. Customer service was responsive for a short while but now they have ceased communication all together.  This unit needs to be replaced immediately.  I expect instructions for how to get a working gimbal from your company promptly.

Can you tell if the NX1 is outputting 24 but the VA is recording 60? Or does the camera switch itself to 60 to match the VA?
Also, can you record in the camera and to the VA simultaneously, like recording 4k internally and 1080 on the VA?
Can you see a big difference between the internal 1080 vs the VA 1080?
I know that's a lot of questions, but us NX1 people have to help each other out!
I've also got an NX1 and was thinking of getting the VA. I asked Black Magic and they didn't have any answers because they don't have access to an NX1.

Could you post an example of the jerky motion?

Okay, here's a video where he uses the DS-1 inverted mode AND he induces the jitter (about 1:00) :
https://youtu.be/UCDqFE7JP2M

Another video completely void of any sample stabilized footage.

Yeah it does a look little mushy compared with the camera's normal output. Compare it to the 120p of an A7 and it looks fantastic.
The two things I've found that help the most are to have the subject well-lit and to have the camera on a tripod. I know those are the basics, but they do make noticeable differences in the quality of the slo-mo.
I haven't played with Twixtor. I'd be curious to see your results though if you'd care to post them.

I've had this same problem, but only when the camera was shut off or went to sleep. I figured it was parking the internals of the lens in a safe position. Is your camera doing this without going to sleep or being turned off?

if i werea betting man I would bet against the Nebular 4200 working as advertised.

They announced this gimbal at the end of August, so I don't think two months is unreasonable or too quick to expect a demo video.