Is the HVX horrible in low light

kevinM said:
Check the first post in this thread.
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Sorry. I meant to say that "I" never said it was unusable. LoL.

Only because you'd quoted me in your post. No harm done.
 
Justyn

I agree............. a VERY entertaining and well shot short.

Did you flaten the color in post or was the scene naturally mono?

Thanks for posting!
JohnG
 
Sure thing guys. I added the tint and turned it B and W in FCP. I then added a natress diffusion filter. It was shot 720... mostly 48fps. Handheld. I used Barry's low light settings for the most part.

Most of the noise also goes away when you deal with the Red color and turn it off.. I love the way the black and white looks and now that I've had the camera for a while I think it'd look better now. I shot this back at the beginning of the summer.


I could find the original footage and post a clip from that. It's amazing how different the raw footage looked... That's the one thing. This format allows for lots of messing with.
 
I would love to see some original footage. Just moving over to FCP from XPRO, I love this look, thinking about shooting my next feature in B&W, any more details on your FCP cc much appreciated. Did you just desaturate? Which tint? Any tweaking of blacks?

BTW, very nice handheld work.
 
I don't think the issue of low light and the hvx is noise, it's just the darkness that I can't seem to fix. My experience so far is any interior that is not well lite just looks dark. My previous camera was the dvx100a. I sold it when I got the hvx but am now tempted to buy another one for interior night shooting.
 
Scrappy said:
I don't think the issue of low light and the hvx is noise, it's just the darkness that I can't seem to fix. My experience so far is any interior that is not well lite just looks dark. My previous camera was the dvx100a. I sold it when I got the hvx but am now tempted to buy another one for interior night shooting.
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That has to do with lowlight performance. I wouldn't go back to DVX100, though. When you could go A1 and get great lowlight performance and an HD-sized image.
 
Justyn said:
That's the one thing. This format allows for lots of messing with.
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To me, the big advantage of the HVX is the format. Not to mention the multiple recording modes, P2, true 24p and variable frame rates. It's all been discussed a thousand times.

I can set up the camera to minimize noise but there is no way to compensate for the fact that HDV has half the color information.

And THATS the bottom line.
 
4:2:2 is good for keying... but 4:2:2 in 720 is bad. You either do 1080 or 480 DVCproHD to get a good key. I tested this with an Arri kit and it's pretty much right.

So, what's the good in having the color space if it's tainted by noise?

the A1 footage shouldn't hold up as well with image manipulation because it's 4:2:0, right? Yeah, it does. HDV or not. You can saturate it as much as you want without showing artifacts, in-camera and in post. Canon's flavor of HDV is a bit different, it seems.
 
Interesting to see is a test on reviews, how do different people review a cam? What numbers do they use, how is their personal opinion with a particular cam and how can you compare that?
Worldwide you see known filmmakers making statements and doing reviews, can you put them in line on subjects and numbers? With snippets, quotes and links and graphs for each number or statement.

Is there noise or not? Is the HVX better to use in low light than the Z1 in numbers or by experience? Would be interesting to see.
 
Kholi said:
When you could go A1 and get great lowlight performance and an HD-sized image.
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I thought A1 could be better in low light when I found NR1, but after playing with it, I gotta give that particular function the thumbs-down. It causes ghosting in pans, etc. It cleans up noise, but the tradeoff isn't worth it, and besides you could always do noise reduction in post if you wanted.

So I go back to my original position -- XHA1 and HVX are equivalent in low light.
 
Barry_Green said:
I thought A1 could be better in low light when I found NR1, but after playing with it, I gotta give that particular function the thumbs-down. It causes ghosting in pans, etc. It cleans up noise, but the tradeoff isn't worth it, and besides you could always do noise reduction in post if you wanted.

So I go back to my original position -- XHA1 and HVX are equivalent in low light.
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How does noise reduction in post stack up to in camera, though? Is NR1 accomplishing the noise reduction the same way as it is inside of the A1?

As well, you could realistically go without the NR1 setting and use it for static shots. I personally do not know of any post options that reduce noise without doing something else to the image.

And you're saying equivalent... I guess you'd know more from having both side to side but it just doesn't look the same, to me. The Stop n'a half or so that you reported (Correct me if I'm wrong! Not sure) from the A1 still makes it that much faster in lowlight. Right?
 
Kholi said:
How does noise reduction in post stack up to in camera, though? Is NR1 accomplishing the noise reduction the same way as it is inside of the A1?
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Probably exactly the same way. Just saving a generation of uncompress/recompress by doing it in-camera.

I personally do not know of any post options that reduce noise without doing something else to the image.
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That's exactly the point. In-camera does something else to the image too. There is no free lunch. If there was no side effect, they would have enabled it by default. There is a side effect -- ghosting. You get more ghosting the higher you turn on the setting, but you get ghosting on any setting. Whether in-camera or in-post, it's the same basic technique. NR1 is useful only for a static shot, or if you don't care about the potential for ghosting.

And you're saying equivalent... I guess you'd know more from having both side to side but it just doesn't look the same, to me. The Stop n'a half or so that you reported (Correct me if I'm wrong! Not sure) from the A1 still makes it that much faster in lowlight. Right?
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It's not a stop and a half faster! It's more like 1/4 stop faster, if that. So yes, if you want to look at 1/4 stop then yes, it is a little bit faster and that tiny bit better. But I'm saying fundamentally equivalent.

In my second round of testing, where I thought it might be better is because if NR1 was actually effective, then you could gain up the camera and end up with a brighter picture with effectively the same amount of noise. That would be an improvement. But I'm now saying that NR1 doesn't work well, it does reduce noise but it causes ghosting and so it's not worth the tradeoff.

The sensitivity between the two is about the same. The noise level is about the same. If you use NR1 to lower the Canon's noise, you could also do the same thing with the HVX in post. But you'll get ghosting (from both techniques) so I don't know how practical it is to consider either.
 
Thanks for correcting me on the stops. Couldn't remember! Glad I haven't been pan-handling that around without definites.

Are you still standing by the noise level being different? I still don't get the difference between the HVX's Chroma-noise and the A1's bitty/grainy noise. And why this could contribute to a different "lowlight" look. Because, if they're the same thing in lowlight situations or equivalent, then it's just a different look that's preferable.

Thanks again, Barry. =P
 
Noise levels are comparable, but the type of noise is different. The HVX adds a splotchy/colorful smear that seems like it's "under" the texture of the video. The XHA1 adds a grainy/bitty black & white electronic layer of grit that looks like it's "over" the video. I don't know how to describe it much more than that...

Here, look at this picture from Scott Billups, from the XLH1 vs. the Viper. Look at the grain difference between the Canon and the Viper. That's the kind of noise and quantity of noise the Canon XHA1 delivers. HVX is comparable, but "different".
http://www.cinematography.net/hdcamtests/pixelmonger/_CAR_2.jpg

(be sure to view it at full size; look at the grain on the back of the Beemer and on the wall etc... and note, that wasn't HDV or anything, that was HD-SDI). HVX is just as noisy, but in a different way. It's basically six of one, half-dozen of the other.
 
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That's accurate. I definitely see that kind of noise in the A1. Throughout every image. I suppose it's just a preference on which "noise" characteristics suit one better.

Great chime-in.
 
Kholi said:
How does noise reduction in post stack up to in camera, though?
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If in-camera NR creates ghosting, it will be very difficult if not impossible to correct in post, so I'd rather let the camera shoot a noisy image, and fix it in post. You'll get control over the level of NR, and you can reduce it or leave it off during during motion when it is less noticeable to the viewer anyway.
 
THoff said:
If in-camera NR creates ghosting, it will be very difficult if not impossible to correct in post, so I'd rather let the camera shoot a noisy image, and fix it in post. You'll get control over the level of NR, and you can reduce it or leave it off during during motion when it is less noticeable to the viewer anyway.
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What's the best noise-reduction plug-in you've seen? What program?
 
Barry, what do you think the difference is in stops between the hvx & dvx? And is the gain up comparable to the dvx in terms of amount & quality of noise on the hvx?
 
HVX is one stop slower than the DVX in progressive, and two stops slower than the DVX when in interlaced. Gain and noise seem roughly comparable between the HVX and DVX.
 
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