EX-1 and HVX200A Run-n-Gun Experiement: Narrativeish

I liked both materials. The EX1 had more light in it but I think the HVX managed to get closer to the intended mood by being darker.

I watched the clips many times and I appart from the light factor (more with the EX1) I couldn't really see any big differences between the 2 cameras in terms of film look. And I didn't see any jello vision either and I watched the hall scene countless times. All in all 2 very potent filmmaking tools.

And does the HVX A shoot true 1080p ? I thought it just knew 1080i and it somehow converts it in progressive.
 
Avenger007 said:
Appreciate the efforts and sharing. Im still not a fan of vimeo or any other web based uploader when it comes to judging material. I always prefer the big fat 100mb+ QT downloads. Then again I have a very fast connection so maybe my opinion would differ on DSL.

Anywho, I agree that the HVX has the cine gamma edge. I'm not familiar with the EX1 much so I can't judge its capabilities here but I think panny has done a good job with their highlight treatment and gamma. I look forward to the Ult EX1 round but would love to see some convergence footage too. Can you make that happen??
Click to expand...

I'm not the biggest fan of these online video players as well. The file size is huge too download, unless we H.264 it, I guess. However, if you want, PM me, I can possibly get you a full rez h.264 version on a quicktime format.

ULT. EX1 round? We would love to make that happen, reason it's Episode #4, is so there's room to work before and after the story... or maybe we can ditch the story and go onto something else. but yea, this is mainly a test for the boards, though it may not seem like it, a budget was still put into it. Therefore, unless we hurry up and make more money by jobs, rentals, or *cough* donations... we can probably do this again. We are especially excited to test out the convergence equips.
 
Gogu said:
I liked both materials. The EX1 had more light in it but I think the HVX managed to get closer to the intended mood by being darker.

I watched the clips many times and I appart from the light factor (more with the EX1) I couldn't really see any big differences between the 2 cameras in terms of film look. And I didn't see any jello vision either and I watched the hall scene countless times. All in all 2 very potent filmmaking tools.

And does the HVX A shoot true 1080p ? I thought it just knew 1080i and it somehow converts it in progressive.
Click to expand...

HVX shoots 1080i/24pA, with it being (A) for advanced, you can remove the pulldown, thus dropping the interlaced frames when you import to your NLE. It also shrinks down the file size after you remove the pulldown. Only thing is that it restricts it to 1280x1080 as opposed to EX's 1920x1080
 
GageFX said:
Thanks for doing this, Kholi. I've had enough of seeing footage of trees and grass and landscapes and casual panning and people sitting in front of the camera and turning their head or waving their arms.

THIS shows the two in a real life shooting situation - at least how it pertains to many of us here. I dont shoot trees and fields.

Now, while I agree that settings can be changed on the EX1 with more experience and more knowledge of the camera, but you cant change that jello-cam.

For me, between these two cams, for narrative films, it's easily the HVX. If I were to shoot landscapes, the EX1 would be my cam.


Oh, oh, oh.... you said "no worse than the Red". With all due respect, that doesnt matter. That's for the Red vs Whatever test. This is the HVX and EX1. Red doesnt factor into it.
Click to expand...

regarding shooting trees and stuff... yea that's the conversation with me and Kholi that started this project. That's how the idea of shooting this narrative was born. Shouldn't look down on the EX1's capabilities of shooting a narrative, if you just watched the EX1's footage without the panasonic's, it still looks decent... well... aside from the rushed production and the lack of pre-production, all that aside... it still shoots 1920x1080 and can easily be mixed in with the F900 & even the Red.
 
Well done Willis,
You goal seemed to simply be to show how these cameras perform in low light and you succeeded. While there are all kinds of tweaks one can perform to get a better picture, I think it's fair to say the less messing with settings and the more raw basic gives one a clear idea of low light performance.
 
Kholi and team, thanks so much for doing this comparison. I know that there are still a lot of us on the fence trying to choose between an EX1 and a 170, and it was a real treat to get to see them in action, not just shooting charts. Although it was not a 170 but a 200A, that is close enough for me.

With that said, I think this test is really a testament to the quality of the Ultimate. We all know that the EX1 is sharper than the 200A. But if you compare the dividers in the window in the opening shot, the details in the hair when they are squated down looking at each other, I think that the 200A looks just as sharp with the Ultimate as the EX1 did with the Extreme. It would really, REALLY be interesting to see this on a full 1080 screen instead on the web - you guys would know a lot better if this was just the effect of compression.

Kholi, what did you think of the noise in the black and shadows at full res between the two? And which do you think handles the highlights better before blowing? Thanks.
 
Last edited:
ddh said:
Well done Willis,
You goal seemed to simply be to show how these cameras perform in low light and you succeeded. While there are all kinds of tweaks one can perform to get a better picture, I think it's fair to say the less messing with settings and the more raw basic gives one a clear idea of low light performance.
Click to expand...

Exactly. This is exactly what Willis wanted and we worked toward. Not really the most scientific "comparison". It should be labeled: having fun with the 200A and EX1.

It's amazing how nice both cameras look with heavy amounts of gain as well.
 
TheMusician said:
Kholi and team, thanks so much for doing this comparison. I know that there are still a lot of us on the fence trying to choose between an EX1 and a 170, and it was a real treat to get to see them in action, not just shooting charts. Although it was not a 170 but a 200A, that is close enough for me.

With that said, I think this test is really a testament to the quality of the Ultimate. We all know that the EX1 is sharper than the 200A. But if you compare the dividers in the window in the opening shot, the details in the hair when they are squated down looking at each other, I think that the 200A looks just as sharp with the Ultimate as the EX1 did with the Extreme. It would really, REALLY be interesting to see this on a full 1080 screen instead on the web - you guys would know a lot better if this was just the effect of compression.

Kholi, what did you think of the noise in the black and shadows at full res between the two? And which do you think handles the highlights better before blowing? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I can't say enough about the Ultimate. It's just nasty, man. I know that some people might not find it worth the money but every time I used it I'm thoroughly impressed at the image quality. I did use it on the EX1 before and the image was pristine, I need to do an EX1 specific project with Willis here soon. We're working on another fun little "dance" thing, or getting it going, anyway.

About the Noise: Both cameras were gained-up. As far as I'm concerned they're on the same level. The EX-1 does seem to have more detail in the shadows, I wonder what would've been the result in cine-gamma modes or when you begin to grade?

The three things I like about the EX1 are the obvious ones: speed, resolution, DR.
 
basspig said:
This was a tricky one.. at first, I thought the first clip was Panny, due to the dark halos around the light, but then I thought it was the EX1 after I watched the second clip, because the second clip was MUCH softer in the beginning.
However the second clip has more detail in the shadows. Though the first seemed a bit sharper overall and maybe a tad cleaner. Hard to tell, as I'm watching this on my internet machine, on a CRT with an single core AMD process that was having trouble keeping up with the decompression process.
Both looked very good though.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I thought. The EX-1 can get better results, as well. Which means the iimage only gets better with user experience.

In the end, however, they're both pretty friggin' nice.
 
weixiang623 said:
I agree we should've spent a little more time with the EX, at first the EX owner was going to come tech for us, but he had other projects to shoot with his other EX. However, like I said, if we were to only post the EX's footage, it wouldn't look as bad as you might think it is. I like the EX's footage by itself, but start to notice a lot of things that could be better when put next to the 200A.

The "point" is to compare the 2 cameras' images *Roughly* shooting the same narrative short with a 35mm adapter undergoing through rough circumstances.
Click to expand...

Again, this pretty much sums it up. Nobody should take this as a science project and more along the lines of us being bored and being stressed out about which Camera we want to end up with.

In the end, we're STILL asking each other... "So... still on the fence about the EX1?".

Futile. But, Fun!
 
aww, thanks Buck, that first comment made me feel better about myself while I was undergoing through a LOT of stress.
Click to expand...

The 'stress' factor must've worked in your favor, your face looked quite sweaty in these scenes. And I was thinking they used a water mister to get that look. :^D

And the girl was pretty too, although if I was lucky enough to kiss her I'd make her brush her teeth first. And rinse out her mouth. And if she spit up blood like that in a nice restaurant on our first date, I'd have to call the relationship off. I'm sorry, that's just a pet peeve of mine.
 
By the way, everyone, Willis coordinated this here thing. And he acted in it, just about directed it at the same time. He really put forth the effort so that we all could see (some of his friends who helped and were pretty patient!) what the differences were.
 
Thanks for all the info, Willis and Kholi. And I agree, you did a great job, Willis.

And if you guys want to do a random scene/short for another comparison, I have pro stunt and fight guys ready at a moment's notice to shoot something kick-@ss. So if you want to up the movement and action, I can set that up.

PM me if you are interested. (Or if you just want a hand on your next test.)
 
Again, thanks to both Kholi and Willis, a very nice comparison. The test I would like to see someday is a test exactly like this recorded to nanoFlash or FlashXDR. I am wondering if a true 1920x1080 recording will noticeably increase the resolution of the 170. And I am wondering if a true 4:2:2 recording will make a noticeable difference for the EX1 so we can do more aggessive color corrections. Anybody planning on getting a FlashXDR or nanoFlash? (I need to check if they have posted any footage yet on their site)
 
TheMusician said:
Again, thanks to both Kholi and Willis, a very nice comparison. The test I would like to see someday is a test exactly like this recorded to nanoFlash or FlashXDR. I am wondering if a true 1920x1080 recording will noticeably increase the resolution of the 170. And I am wondering if a true 4:2:2 recording will make a noticeable difference for the EX1 so we can do more aggessive color corrections. Anybody planning on getting a FlashXDR or nanoFlash? (I need to check if they have posted any footage yet on their site)
Click to expand...

Man, both Willis and I had been thinking about the nanoFlash ritually for a while. I wanted to know if the Full Raster Sony Codec would make any major difference and somewhere along the way I lost hope for ecking out enough resolution from the camera to really make a difference.

I want someone to try it, though. The Panasonic brand sorely lacks in the resolution department. And, although Resolution isn't EVERYTHING it sure does help when using adapters.
 
GageFX said:
Thanks for all the info, Willis and Kholi. And I agree, you did a great job, Willis.

And if you guys want to do a random scene/short for another comparison, I have pro stunt and fight guys ready at a moment's notice to shoot something kick-@ss. So if you want to up the movement and action, I can set that up.

PM me if you are interested. (Or if you just want a hand on your next test.)
Click to expand...

We're probably gonna shoot the next short project on REDs. Willis wants some experience with it and I want to do somethin' based around Music. However, fighting is fun...

hmmmmm!
 
Kholi said:
Hey Kubalsky. What gamma settings do you use for the EX-1? When I went to the CineGammas I noticed that color representation was very poor, or worse-than, standards so I went to Standard 3. That probably wasn't the best choice but I don't have that much experience with the Camera. It's not the easiest to navigate.

One thing is certain, either the Extreme is faster than the Ultimate or I was mistaken in thinking that the 200A was as fast as the EX-1 because the EX-1 was about half-a stop brighter.

Both cameras were at +6db of gain the entire time. If the EX-1 has -3dB is that equivalent to +9dB on the 200A?

Either way, for both systems to be using such a high gain setting I think they look really clean.
Click to expand...

I forget what specific gamma settings I have but Im usually using Bill Ravens Picture Profile which is available on Phil Blooms blog and at DVinfo PP thread.
What I really like about this profile is the saturated reds that give night street lights a slightly redder hue and give day shots a more Kodachrome look.

Another favorite is Cine2. I found it brings out alot more tone between different shades of black in night footage. Combining Cine2 with the EX Slow Shutter 16 frames function for long exposure static or timelapse shots gave some incredible results recently.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top