After a Month, My Questions...

kgb

kgb

Active member
Hey everyone, I've been shooting quite a bit of stuff since I bought the HVX-200 about a month ago. I guess I wanted to get some advice from the vets.

One of the first things I've noticed about the HVX is that it requires a lot of light to get a minimal amount of noise. Is it pretty much a full-iris, little to no gain switch setting that will give you the best results? Also, what are some optimal shutter settings? What is the best one for capture a low light situation?

The camera does swimmingly (to quote Ann Coulter on the peaceful state of Afghanistan) with plenty of light, and the ND filters are excellent.

I just bought a 32" LCD TV, and a direct component connection looks fantastic, even the miniDV footage. Is there any accessory that would allow the HVX-200 to output to HDMI or DVI?

What is the best quality way/program to burn a DVD? Do you output a 10-bit uncompressed Quicktime at 480p?

And finally, is a mattebox the only viable solution for optical in-camera filters? I went down to the camera shop to look at some 85mm, 82mm, 77mm and 72mm filters, and all of them had issues with dust, gridlines on the star filters and diffusion.

:dankk2:
 
Don't use gain. Just don't. It looks ugly. If you have to use it wait and do it in post so you can get a better idea of what you are doing and it's reversible. Still don't use it. In general, the best suggestion for reducing noise is to overexpose a tad (remember you actually get 110% before you fully blow out) and then darken a bit in post. This'll help the noise quite a bit. Also, if a situation with a lot of noise, use Cine-like V instead of Cine-like D. You'll lose a bit of lattitude (1/3 stop) but also a lot of noise will be gone as well. For shudder, if you want it to look like film, use the traditional 180d or 1/48 shudder.
 
kgb said:
Hey everyone, I've been shooting quite a bit of stuff since I bought the HVX-200 about a month ago. I guess I wanted to get some advice from the vets.

One of the first things I've noticed about the HVX is that it requires a lot of light to get a minimal amount of noise. Is it pretty much a full-iris, little to no gain switch setting that will give you the best results? Also, what are some optimal shutter settings? What is the best one for capture a low light situation?

The camera does swimmingly (to quote Ann Coulter on the peaceful state of Afghanistan) with plenty of light, and the ND filters are excellent.

I just bought a 32" LCD TV, and a direct component connection looks fantastic, even the miniDV footage. Is there any accessory that would allow the HVX-200 to output to HDMI or DVI?

What is the best quality way/program to burn a DVD? Do you output a 10-bit uncompressed Quicktime at 480p?

And finally, is a mattebox the only viable solution for optical in-camera filters? I went down to the camera shop to look at some 85mm, 82mm, 77mm and 72mm filters, and all of them had issues with dust, gridlines on the star filters and diffusion.

:dankk2:
Click to expand...


Hey there kgb ( love the username ) David speaks the truth and you should definitely follow his post. Its almost exactly what I do. I also have a zebra set to 105 and I watch it carefully. And remeber, JUST SAY NO TO GAIN! That's the devils tool! hehehehe

About the filtering, the first filter I get for ANY camera is a damn good UV haze filter. In fact I had an 82mm UV filter shipped and waiting and it was the first thing that ever touched my HVX.

As for the mattebox being the only way to filter, it is not. But we also aren't filter nuts out here in the woods. I have three or four Cokin Z-pro filters that I slide into a Cinetactics Matteblox HD, and a Formatt 4x4 ND. 6 grad.

I use the cokin filters when I am doing something where I want a pronounced sky color and its specific for that. I would never recommend using a cokin as ND because their grey isn't very neutral but for coloring skies they're just outstanding!

But really our 82mm filters see 90% of the action with us. We have a Tiffen Linear Polarizer, Tiffen Colorgrad ND6 and a couple of other ND filters for dropping the light coming into the camera so we can open wide in bright conditions.

Thats pretty much it for us. The primary function for filters with our HVX is for contolling the amount light coming in, where we want it to come in, or removing glare. Everything else, like softening or color stuff is done in post.

Of course, dust and other little things like that will be an issue and you will need to pay attention for them. Between my vest and my tortlerig pack I must have about a dozen of those premium lens cloths and I also have a couple little compact lens brushes that open up like womens lipstick.

When shooting in the field here in Oregon keeping my optics clean keeps this beaver busy! hehe

As for the HDMI/DVI I may not have an answer, but really we have been totally pleased with component input into a Toshiba 42" plasma. No complaints here at all for 1080 and especially 720! :)

Now as for quicktime and burning DVD, the last project we did was 24 frame and we exported the final piece directly from FCP to Compressor to create the video and sound files and then we slapped them together in DVD studio. This may be overkill for you to get started, but its what we do here to get smoothest cleanest playback. If you're interested in my settings I am happy to share.

Okay, well I'm a tired beaver and heading to the dam for the night. Hope this helps and I'd love to hear about what you have going on! :)

Have a super day!

:beer:
 
Thanks a ton, Travis and David. So I guess I should just pry my gain switch off, from the sound of it.

Travis: What setting do you use in Compressor for DVD output? Resolution-wise and codec...
 
Thanks a ton, Travis and David. So I guess I should just pry my gain switch off, from the sound of it.
Click to expand...

I wish I had. I've ruined a few shows because I accidentall flipped the switch and didn't realize.
 
I have a silly question.
I'm on a mac and all of my p2 folders are locked and i can't delete them.
soo, how do i delete them?
 
Matty_g said:
I have a silly question.
I'm on a mac and all of my p2 folders are locked and i can't delete them.
soo, how do i delete them?
Click to expand...


Hold down option while selecting Delete trash.
 
DavidBeier said:
I wish I had. I've ruined a few shows because I accidentall flipped the switch and didn't realize.
Click to expand...

Yeah me too! Fortunately it was just a couple scenes and there were minimal headaches.

What I have done is go into SW mode and set the gain switches both to 0db. This way it doesn't matter if they get flipped, because I've screwed up with that too! :)
 
Flash Beaver said:
What I have done is go into SW mode and set the gain switches both to 0db. This way it doesn't matter if they get flipped, because I've screwed up with that too! :)
Click to expand...

Hey Travis,

Is it possible to set the gain to a negative setting or is 0db the lowest it will go?
 
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