Lowlight footage

[delaro]

Just charged the battery for the first time and went outside to try some low light footage.
hpx171. 1080/25p. no CC. no gain.
http://www.l2lr.com/lowlight

[ian lucero]

Great! Keep it coming. I'm very curious how this camera does in low-light. I'll be using mine a lot in theaters where I have little or no control over lighting.

Could you do some tripod shots with a mix of scenarios? If you have the time that is.

[Joe Lawry]

wow those are some clean blacks...

maybe i should pick up a 170

*no joe, you just bought a steadicam.. damnit*

[Jay Rodriguez]

sell the stadicam, lol

EDIT: Just finished DL'ing the footy and checking it out....WOW, that's freaking clean, good lokking footy....

Can u tell us your settings or was that stock? Also, did you do anything to it in post or was that raw?

Very nice.....

[DM_rider]

I get mine Thursday, I can't wait!!

[Justyn]

The 170 has really improved in terms of smear off bright lights. My HVX would be running lines and purple ones at that.. up and down the image. Impressive. There seemed to be some noise in the parking lot area...


What are your settings on the cam? dialing down master ped?

[dantewaters]

Client gets one in tomorrow will do some test (skin tones / and low light in office).
Will post.

[delaro]

nothing in post, just raw footage out of the cam. For the settings everything was set to 0 as far as i remember, high gamma, Norm1 matrix.

[Joe Lawry]

sell the stadicam, lol

its not a money thing.. its a my girlfriend will kill me if i buy another toy and the hvx is still making me money thing..

[USLatin]

It is so crazy that this is such a small sensor and it does so well!
Please post more footage!

[Dan Leniczek]

When you receive your 170's, please check the flip-out LCD's ability to accurately track the video when you do a fairly quick zoom out. I was at the Panasonic Expo in Seattle and had hands on experience with the 170. When I did fairly fast pull-outs, the monitor was unable to keep up with the realtime video and actually jumped. The Panasonic rep confirmed that the monitor lagged with this camera. Keep in mind, this occurred in 24 and 30 frame per second modes only. In 60 fps the monitor worked perfectly. I found this issue to be troubling, especially when confirmed by one of the Panasonic reps present. Please let me know your findings. It will help all of us make more informed purchases.
Thx,
dan

[USLatin]

oh, wow... yea, people, please check for this

nice catch Dan!

[Joe Lawry]

really? thats a worry... wonder why it does this..

[Jay Rodriguez]

Jan responded to this. Here's what she said and below that is the link.


Hi,

I don't see Dan on this thread, but I have no idea what he is talking about. I was at the Seattle event. Any name about a Panasonic employee that said this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jan

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=1418771#post1418771

[USLatin]

Jan responded to this.

But she hasn't said if it happens on production 170's. Yet anyway.

[Dan Leniczek]

Hi Jan...
I do not remember the gentlemen's name but he was Asian I believe. Nice fellow. Shane Ross did an outstanding job as well. Listen, I'm not trying to stir anything up here. I'm just telling the plain truth of my experience. I would also add that I thought the resolution of the LCD monitor of the HPX-170 at the Expo was heads and shoulders above the HVX-200A and the HCM-150. What does that mean? Not quite sure, outside of that was my experience. By the way Jan, I felt the whole Panasonic Expo was excellent and demonstrated that Panasonic has a sincere and genuine interest in their client's satisfaction. That being said, what about the fact that Final Cut Studio in it's current version does not adequately transcode AVCHD to ProRes or AIC. Many of us have been both frustrated and disappointed by this outcome. Being an early adopter has it's pitfalls, but I would say for the record that my impression from Bentley (presenter on AVCHD in Seattle) was that FCP Studio would transcode AVCHD flawlessly. Clearly things can get distorted, but all I ask at my end is an accurate answer to the two following questions.
A-What's up with the transcoding issues in FCP. There are an abundance of posts on this site addressing the issue. Seeing as how Apple has supported AVCHD transcoding for some time now, one would think we would have heard of these issues by now. Why now, right on the heels of the HMC-150's release?
B-What's up with the LCD on the 170? Why did it lag at the Expo and why was that issue confirmed to me buy the aforementioned Panasonic rep?
At the end of the day, I would simply like to purchase a working camera. The 170 and the 150 are at the top of my hit parade as I have a working history with Panasonic gear. Green light or red light, I don't know. It all depends on getting some accurate information from those in know.
Thank you for your time Jan.

dan

[USLatin]

Yes Jan, this is far from being about the guy at the booth. We just want to know if this little bug on the non-production camera was dealt with. That's all that matters.

[delaro]

i checked, tried on a hpx171, and no trouble with super fast zoom and lcd.

[USLatin]

thanks for checking man

[Dan Leniczek]

Delaro,
Make sure you test the zoom on both 720p and 1080i and at all frame rates. Just so we're clear that the camera is clear of any lag issues. Thank you for looking into it, and congrats on the new camera.

dan

[Barry_Green]

That being said, what about the fact that Final Cut Studio in it's current version does not adequately transcode AVCHD to ProRes or AIC.
If there's a bug in the transcoding, that bug is Apple's fault. Many people have downloaded the footage, a few have reported issues, most have not, therefore I wonder if it was a bad download, a bad firewire cable to an external drive, who knows what? The whole transcoding thing is a temporary issue anyway: Apple has already announced that the next update won't require any form of transcoding, it'll support the AVC-HD codec natively. (Of course, I'd bet that it'll still not edit the footage directly, it'll probably require a rewrap to quicktime for no valid reason I can detect, but that's another issue altogether).

Rewrapping and transcoding is an optional workflow that Apple is choosing. Premiere Pro CS4 edits the footage directly, as does Vegas 8.0c, and I believe EDIUS 5 does it as well. Apple could do it too, if its customers demanded it loudly enough and if they will deign to listen to the requests.


A-What's up with the transcoding issues in FCP.
Only Apple can answer that. The footage is good.


B-What's up with the LCD on the 170? Why did it lag at the Expo
I haven't seen a production model 170 yet, hopefully mine will be here in a few days. I wonder if you're not seeing typical 24p zooming effects (same as "strobing" but in the zoom direction). Having used a DVX and HVX since 2003, and them using the same LCD panel ever since the DVX100B was introduced, and having used a preproduction 170 and 150, I sincerely doubt there is any hardware issue. Fast snap-zooming under 24p looks weird, just like fast panning looks weird. And you won't see this on most other cameras because most of them don't have the ability to do a true manual zoom. You can, however, see this same effect on an HD100-series or on an EX1 series if you put them in fully manual zoom and snap the zoom quickly. It's a 24p thing, not an LCD thing.

That's my bet, anyway.

[delaro]

i checked on 720p at all frame rates, and 1080i, no trouble for me.

[kyle_doris]

this test is actually quite impressive... usually these types of tests don't do stuff for me but i see a big difference between this and the HVX200 classic.

that's a big win for Panasonic and for me! w00t, i can't wait to get mine.

[Luis Caffesse]

Just saw this thread -

Got my 170 a little over an hour ago, just checked all formats/framerates....
I didn't see anything strange going on with the LCD.

Not sure where this concern started - but I don't see it being as issue in the least.

[Dan Leniczek]

Barry,
Thanks for addressing my questions. I understand what you are saying, and that was not the case with the 170 I was testing. This was a definite lag affect due to the LCD monitor's inability to keep pace with the zoom and pullout speed. Additionally, the Panasonic rep present verbally confirmed that this was the case with the 170 and there is nothing one can do to get around it but simply live with it. I know it sounds awkward, but that's how it went down. I did change frame rates on the camera and it did not occur at 60p. The Panasonic rep confirmed that as well. Interesting. Anyway, the fine DVXuser members such as Delaro and Caffesse have weighed in and confirmed that there is absolutely no issues with the LCD monitor on their new 170's, so issue resolved. Thanks for everyone's interest in my post. Most appreciated.

dan

[DC]

. . . This was a definite lag affect due to the LCD monitor's inability to keep pace with the zoom and pullout speed . . .


Probably not the culprit, BUT . . .

Might the lag you've witnessed be a side effect of the OIS being enabled and no one realized this at the time?

[Luis Caffesse]

Probably not the culprit, BUT . . .

Might the lag be a side effect of the OIS being enabled?

I tried it with both the OIS on and off, and didn't see any noticeable difference.
You would notice an OIS lag on the pans (since it is trying to stabalize camera movement) - but not on a zoom, which is just lens movement.

[frisco]

Gotta say..... That nite street stuff looks nice!

frisco

[USLatin]

I tried it with both the OIS on and off, and didn't see any noticeable difference.
You would notice an OIS lag on the pans (since it is trying to stabalize camera movement) - but not on a zoom, which is just lens movement.

Yea, I don't think the OIS has crop capabilities. Man we are really scratching our heads now aren't we. :)

My guess is that the camera got dropped in the feeding frenzy of the convention. :beer:

[Leo Versola]

Ah, I thought I remembered seeing this thread... Well, a little while ago, I was panning back and forth and noticed that the image would lag just a tad bit every now and then. I thought to myself, what the ????, not another item to be concerned with in addition to the wiggling lens debacle...

However, after some cursory troubleshooting, I narrowed the cause down to having the OIS enabled. Upon disabling the OIS, I could not reproduce the effect at all. So, when locked down on a tripod, you're definitely going to want to disable the OIS to avoid this particular instance from happening. BTW, I could only get it to happen during a pan, not a zoom.

It definitely does happen and I can reproduce it at will but again, it is caused by having the OIS enabled. Not something to freak out about but just keep it in mind...

[puredrifting]

My 200 LCD has always jumped when on tripod with the OIS on. I often am shooting EPK on sets and I alternate constantly between handheld with the OIS on, then run back to the sticks for some more shooting. I almost always forget to switch the OIS off in the heat of the moment and I am always in some nice pan of a subject far away and in the middle of the pan, the picture will jump or lag. Doh!

Is it me, or does it seem that everyone is just looking for the big initial defect on the 170? I guess this always happens with new cameras. So far, no issues with mine although I will be hooking up to the Letus and really doing some serious testing next week.

Dan

[Jay Rodriguez]

Is it me, or does it seem that everyone is just looking for the big initial defect on the 170?
Dan


Exactly what I have been thinking. I've never seen anything like this before, well regarding a panasonic camera. :huh:

[FilmBoy77]

Just charged the battery for the first time and went outside to try some low light footage.
hpx171. 1080/25p. no CC. no gain.
http://www.l2lr.com/lowlight


the sites down....can you post it on vimeo or something if you're having server issues?

[wgzn]

im having that jump as well. havent captured the footage yet, so i dont know if its an lcd or camera issue

[USLatin]

Exactly what I have been thinking. I've never seen anything like this before, well regarding a panasonic camera. :huh:

I think it is because we are getting a light and smaller camera that looks and feels like a DVX but we are paying HVX prices... we might just be a little weirder out by it... it might be psychological more than anything. The bigger wobble issues that only some seem to be having doesn't help either.


I second that it is plain to see that the images are phenomenal. :beer:

[Ksun83]

Can you please repost it. I would love to see it.