What I learned about my little HMC40

[Felipe Henao]

After a retest considering this thread 90% is fine as a general purpose for my personal taste Bob, however you have to do what ever works for you

[Goldenplates]

Steve, I enjoyed your video and thought the video quality on Vimeo was really good. Although I edit in Adobe CS5 and might not be able to match your settings, what resolution and bit rate did you upload with? I typically film in 1920x1080 at the HMC40s top bit rate (24 Mbps), but I upload to Vimeo at 1280x720 at a targeted rate of 10 Mbps.

Dave

[SteveD]

Hi, Dave-

I'm glad you liked the video. Here's the settings I used:
- Camera: PH 1080 30p. It seems to work uploading to Vimeo, YouTube, and burning Blu-Ray discs for home after editing. Good enough for me. And I get plenty of time on 16 GB cards.
- Software export and Vimeo upload: MPEG-4. I use the mpeg4 preset (Avid Studio is really just a high-end Pinnacle product) for h264, 1920x1080, 12,000 kbps (I would think that is 12 Mbps, but in the binary math world it could be different but close), 29.97 frame rate. That 10:13 video I uploaded was an 835 MB file. When I uploaded to Vimeo, they do warn me that the 1080 will get down-scaled by them (to 720, I think). I do it anyway, because I want to have just one mpeg4 master file. I uploaded the same file to YouTube, and they can keep the full 1080. If you want to compare, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilb5Ev3Pb7w&feature=plcp
It's from exactly the same mpeg4 file as I uploaded to Vimeo.

I barely know what I'm doing. The discussions here have helped. It all seems to work, so I'm happy.

On a side note, I'm looking forward to the fall pioneer village volunteer gig, because it will feature a large group of civil war reenactors. The lady that runs it said I could run amongst them (general public not allowed). I have to get some kind of steadycam for that!

Steve

[Denniscasey]

Steve, the video looked great. I am curious why you chose 1080 30p vs other choices (i.e. 1080 60i tv look or 1080 24p film look)? For instance, did it give you the look you wanted, or did it seem to work best when burning Blu-ray, etc? I can't remember what the "native" format is for Blu-ray but did that factor into your 30p choice? I certainly agree with your statement "it all seems to work so I am happy."

I don't do a lot of video (a hobby when I get time), but usually film sports car races at 1080 60i and then burn Blu-rays to give to friends (or DVDs for those who don't have Blu-ray player). The Blu-rays look great even though I think 60i is not their "native" format--probably my editing software makes the necessary conversion for me when burning Blu-rays. Dennis

[TheDingo]

I recently upgraded to the new AC-130's and was bitterly disappointed at what they can do for more than double the cost..they are now on-sold and I'm back with HMC82's again!

Hey Chris, what was the big let-down with the AC-130's ?

I am still using my HMC-150, which I am still very happy with, but I'm curious about what you didn't like with the AC-130 ?

[ChrisHarding]

Hey Dingo

I shoot mainly weddings and the autofocus mainly doesn't work...it drifts all over and if a subject moves out of shot they come back in totally out of focus..I'm running two cameras all the time and although I can go totally manual, I was disappointed that a feature on the camera simply didn't work and Panasonic claim "it's a different system" .... However the BIGGEST thing without any doubt is the fact that footage has NO WOW factor at all....my HMC82's have it and HMC150's have it and my theory is that the new cameras don't use Leica lenses !! I really don't think they have the same result at all...footage is really and truely "flat" 150 images jump out at you!! I used them for close on 80 hours each over 3 months so I think they got a fair test but after that I decided to change back to my old cameras as I prefer shoulder mount anyway despite the small chips!!! The first bit of Realty footage I shoot last week when the HMC82's arrived again had a WOW factor ...big relief!! A lot of people use the 130/160 but I was less than impressed!!

I also found that auto iris only controls the aperture and doesn't do shutter switches like the HMC40/80 so outdoors you and constantly switching ND's in and out...the fact that it needs 4 ND's and in sunlight you need a 1/64th filter or you will over-expose..a cloud passes over and you need another ND change so it was impractical to use two cameras working solo!!!

Just realise that is my take on the situation ...others seem to enjoy the camera!! I watched my weddings over April taken on the 130 and then ones in January with the 82 and you can see the difference!! At double the price it should have been the other way around!!

Chris

[SteveD]

I am curious why you chose 1080 30p vs other choices.

Hi, Dennis -- kind of like asking which is the one true religion, isn't it? From my camera I want the max it can deliver: PH and 1080, since I figured I can down-scale later if I need to. I picked progressive since I could get better still frame captures, although I haven't done that yet. Plus, it works with all I need to do. Also, I'm not delivering to any media outlets that have a particular requirement. And my opinion is that the cinema look (24 fps) is not what I'm after (honestly I can't see much difference, but I haven't tried it much).
-Steve

[Denniscasey]

Thanks for input Steve. As you will discover one of the benefits of this forum is learning from others so I am always interested in the "whys" and it does often come down to individual preferences. The camera has so many features even after one year I have barely tried all the options. Dennis