Upgrading The HVX200 viewfinder...

N

ncarota

New member
Hi,

New HVX200 owner here. I'm having alot of difficulty working with the standard viewfinder; it just dosen't resolve enough detail for the type of work we're doing right now(areial shooting). I know it's a bit unfair to expect professional quality viewfinder on such an inexpensive camera, so I was wondering if there are any replacement view finders availible for the HVX yet?

Cheers,
Nick
 
Yes we have one already....Unfortunately due to the limited space on the helicopter it's a bit tedious to use for ariel work and not very natural to shoot with(for me at least :). I was hoping for some sort of upgrade path, but I suppose jerry rigging a better viewfinder through the component output might be my only option...
 
Which viewfinder are you referring to - the Eyepiece or the LCD?

The eye piece has higher rez than the LCD and you could also use it in B/W mode to gain a little more.

Curious why you need more detail resolution? (Focus issue maybe).

BTW I would not be able to shoot aerials with an external monitor and need to have my eye to the camera to eliminate the movement and vibration effects from my "brain"
 
ha ha, with a couple hundred hours helicopter time (none of it shooting) my eyes would be busily viewing my seatbelt/safety strap.
 
Shooter said:
Which viewfinder are you referring to - the Eyepiece or the LCD?
Click to expand...
Eyepiece - I have also dropped the saturation to make it black and white...helps but not enough.

Shooter said:
Curious why you need more detail resolution? (Focus issue maybe).
Click to expand...
Focus is part of it, but it's mostly the dynamic range of the lcd, it's difficult to achieve proper exposure with so little black and highlight detail. I mostly rely on manual apature in the air because of strong reflections you get off buildings when circling.

Shooter said:
BTW I would not be able to shoot aerials with an external monitor and need to have my eye to the camera to eliminate the movement and vibration effects from my "brain"
Click to expand...
My thoughts exactly...
 
A weird suggestion. You can get some Sony Video Glasses that you could connect to the Video out connectors.

I think they are designed for Gaming applications.

Dont know if I would trust them for exposure control and not sure of the refresh rate .
 
Ncarota,

As you obviously do the helicopter thing a lot, do you have any tips to share about best camera settings and stabilising techniques for aerials?

Are you shooting 1080 or 720? Do you overcrank? Do you use a gyro or bungy cord or simply hand held? I shoot aerials very occasionally so there's a lot of room for improvement.

I hope this doesn't detract from your viewfinder question.

Thanks,

Russell.
 
Thanks TylerD and somewhereinLA.
Never heard of the accuview before but damn; 720p native viewfinder?! It probably cost you're first born. The Sony rig is exactly what I was looking for...thanks again.

As for russell, we haven't had that much time in the air with the HVX, as this is our first project using it specifically. The 12 hours or so I've logged with the camera in the air definitely brought up certain issues;

- Positively, absolutely must have a good shoulder mount for the camera if you're doing hand held(as we we're). We were flying a jet ranger with the doors off, except for long distance shoots where we used the window gates. The amount of wind flying through the cockpit made it very difficult to achieve steady non shoulder mounted footage. Overcranking definitely helped with this, but I'd say only half of the footage I took was steady enough to use with out slowing it down. We had our concerns about this before the shoot but we didn't really have any time to get the neccessary parts(we got the camera a day before the shoot)

- Since most of the shooting days we're very sunny I stayed in cine d space with the master ped at -3 at 720p. The noise on the HVX is very serious concern when you're shooting high frequency detail images like ariels, as it's likely to obscure object detail instead of being a textural element of the image. Because of this I was tyring to push the whites as far as I could so we could drop the blacks back down and lose some of the grain in post. This sorta worked, but it really depends on how much post work you want to invest in the footage. We also shot some 1080 stuff with no overcrank and crunched it back down to 720 in post to see if we could minimize the grain by downsampleing. This didn't work as well, and honestly, imo, the hvx really doesn't resolve that much more detail at 1080. Also, going manual iris keep the camera from bouncing up and down the exposure on the super highlights you get when circling your subject.

-For most of the footage I was at f4 with nd 1 or 2 on, as this seemed to be the sweet spot for us on sharpness. This was a bit strange to me but I'm used to cine lenses that find their sweet spot at around f8. In retrospect I would have loved a polarizer and a warming filter for some of the shots, but again we did not come properly prepared. Another issue was that the standard lens hood for the hvx simply was not capable of keeping the glare out. This is by no fault of the camera, as it's simply not designed for the kind of direct, unobscured light. It also caught the wind alot, making steady shots even more difficult. Finding something that is wider, deeper and sturdier for the stock lens is something I would consider a neccessity before going up again.

Again, alot of these issues could have been resolved before the shoot if we had had a bit more time, but it was certainly good to get up there and know exactly what need first hand . The primary reason we we're up there were for still shots anyway, so I can live with the mistakes and call it a learning experience. Oh yeah one more item. Beyond the camera and equipment you've got, the single most important factor for great results in the air is a good pilot. The best pilots I've worked with think like a cameraman. They know what you're trying to shoot, they know the angles you need to hit, and they get in and around a location with a minimal guidance. This will literally save thousands of dollars on longer shoots, and the footage will all that much more spectacular. If you find a good pilot, keep him, build a report, even if he's a little out of the way on certain shoots. He's just as much part of the crew as anyone else :)

Hope all that helps...

Oh and while i'm rambling, this forum is fantastic, as are the people on it. I've really enjoyed trolling through all of it. You guys really have created a strong little community here. Thanks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top