How Is Panasonic Keeping Up With Sony

Good example, this past weekend... I was DPing a shoot where the main camera was the PDW-355 XDCAM HD and the B-roll was my HVX200. The shoot was actually a 'test run' for myself and someone else to get familiar with the 355 in all its glory... we had the Canon KH20x6.4-KRS HDgc 20x lens...

the rental was a steal and it was a lot of fun to use that camera extensively... but...

by the end of the day we got some great footage from both cameras, i decided to man the HVX200's B-roll mainly since i know the camera so well.

when we previewed the footage that night i was shocked to see how many people were blown away by the HVX200 footage and actually preferred it OVER the 355. granted, if i had some time with that camera and manned it the entire day maybe we could have gotten some great stuff of it too. the slow motion shots we got off the HVX200 flat out blew people away.

simply put, the HVX200 can run with the EX1 ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. i'd take it over that camera almost everytime... mainly because i'm so familiar with it and the image produced always has so much life. so in the case of the HPX500 vs. PDW-355... less money will get you better image quality. just my humble opinion though.

now it appears the producer is looking to use the HPX500 on the production because he was so impressed by the 200's image quality.

i'd say that my first experience with XDCAM HD was very positive though, it was a great camera... just not a purchase i'd ever make for that type of scratch.
 
Thanks for the comparison... it's always encouraging to read the smaller/cheaper cameras can often keep up with the expensive big boys!
 
Not to be a PITA, but the proper term for "vertical pan" is "tilt". I have annoyed more than one director who asked me to "pan up" or "pan down" when I told them that I could not do that. I always point out that you "pan" left and right and "tilt" up and down.
 
pan 2
verb ( panned , panning ) [ trans. ]
swing (a video or movie camera) in a horizontal or vertical plane, typically to give a panoramic effect or follow a subject.
• [ intrans. ] (of a camera) be swung in such a way : the camera panned to the dead dictator.

:)
 
Between the HVX200 and the EX1, the only one that produced footage that made me say "Wow!" was the EX1. But that's not important at all.

The HVX200 is a great camera, made better with the A-model now. One of my professors had been using the film department's HVX200 for his short film and he was showing me some of the footage. Everything he showed me looked great, nothing wrong with the footage at all and it looked sharp. His DP knew how to use the HVX200 well and it showed.

The EX1 is a great camera too. I saw it mostly at this past NAB and every screen I looked at had crisp and clear footage. Everything was on default settings too and that was even better. But did it look better than the HVX200 footage? Maybe in that situation it did, the EX1 being better in low light, maybe not so much anymore thanks to the HVX200A. But had my professor used the EX1 instead of the HVX200 for his short, would the footage look better? Probably not. It would probably look about the same, maybe a little sharper right off the bat.

You've also got to think about that great April Fools "Zelda" movie trailer. That's easily the best HVX200 footage I've ever seen. How did they get that look? Again, the DP knew what he was doing and used the HVX200 to its full potential.

Do I think Panasonic is trailing behind Sony? Maybe technology wise as far as paper goes (Native 1080P vs. Native 720P). But can you really tell the difference in the end? Probably not.

For my needs and shooting style, if I had to choose between the EX1, the EX3, the HVX200, or the HPX500, I'd choose the EX3 as the best all around option. I like the sharp footage of the EX1 and the EX3 has interchangeable lenses, maybe not the nice 2/3" of the HPX500, but I could make do with 1/2". But if I had to make do with the HVX200, would I be disappointed? No. Because it is that good of a camera and it can do everything I could want in a sub-$10,000 camera.

But, as has been mentioned earlier, RED's Scarlet changes everything. 3K for $3,000? There's just no contest unless the SI-2K drops down to the sub-$10,000 market too.
 
But then what would you pay for the lense? I s there a typical lense for the HPX 500 from which we could base the price?
 
There are camera and lense packages that will land you around 17k, then power - depending on what you get add 1500, then p2 whatever it is locally. I also use a btlh80 pana monitor with mine which wlll run you around 2300 with SDI.

BUT, go look at the HPX threads, people are doing it much cheaper than this with SD glass, carrion monitors etc etc.
 
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