Pana Mojo vs. Sony Sharpness

Justyn said:
I am so much more interested these days in the HMC 150 than the 170.. based in large part on the price and what that difference will allow me to by in addition. I just can't wait to get my hands on one.. at this price... I'm willing to take another chance.
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I would consider the HMC150 for the extra bit of resolution, just at the end of the day I see a lot more of the client base, or production base, requestin' the HPX170 knowing that it's the same P2 workflow they trust with added benefits on set.

Cameras, not a fun thing to deal with.
 
True.. but I'm thinking in terms of a B camera.. as renting a 2nd one at 250 a pop starts to add up over the course of a year. I am also shooting more long-form stuff so I need to be able to shoot and shoot and shoot. I would like a 170 but I'm forced to spend money on other things.. like my wife and kids.
 
Yes, I would like a little more sharpness in my HVX200 but the Panasonic Mojo has sold me.
The overall image is just so beautiful and rich. Thick, I call it.
Check out my website. I have six videos up that are shot with my 200. http://www.thedogfiles.com
 
GraphicPlanet said:
Yes, I would like a little more sharpness in my HVX200 but the Panasonic Mojo has sold me.
The overall image is just so beautiful and rich. Thick, I call it.
Check out my website. I have six videos up that are shot with my 200. http://www.thedogfiles.com
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Beautiful and rich describes it very well!

How do you shoot? The keying looked really good, can you describe the workflow?


And do you happen to have the number of the girl with the IronMaiden patrol cap in Episode 6?:beer:hehehe
 
Thanks Spartacus and Kholi, I appreciate it. My workflow is as follows.
It's usually just me shooting and my assistant/co-producer doing sound.
I shoot 720/24PN, I edit in FCP. When the edit is done, I export using automatic duck into AE.
In there, I color correct using AE features and Colorista, which I really like.
I crush the blacks a bit, add a little saturation, add some fake blurs using masks here and there,
some vignettes and white blow out transitions.
Then I export it as an Animation Codec and put it back into FCP.

I then sweeten the sound with SoundtrackPro.
Very simple, some noise reduction, a little compression and gain.

The Host of the show is shot on green screen that I hang up. A 600 arri with diffusion on her,
a 300 arri over the top of the green screen to give her some edge light and 2 Divalite 400 kinos on the green screen.
I shoot her at 1080PA and bring it into AE. I key it with keylight. I use the 1080PA footage of her in the 720 workspace
at 65% scale and when I cut closer to her I use the same shot at 100%.

Hope that helps! If there's anything else you want to know, just ask.
 
Thanks Puredrifting! I'm one of those crazy dog people. I'm trying to meet some Animal Planet/Discovery/NatGeo people. If anyone knows any, I'd love to know.
 
GraphicPlanet said:
Thanks Puredrifting! I'm one of those crazy dog people. I'm trying to meet some Animal Planet/Discovery/NatGeo people. If anyone knows any, I'd love to know.
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Unless you personally know some producers or execs at the channels through an established working relationship, thats generally not how it's done these days. Almost everything is submitted on-line these days. It allows them to turn you down in a more efficient manner ;-) (sarcasm shining through)

http://producers.discovery.com/
http://www.animalplanet.ca/reports/Article.aspx?aid=237
http://www.natgeotv-int.com/pages/ideas-home

It is a very competitive market, you have to really have a commerically viable show with good sponsors in place. You will also probably have to partner with an established production company vendor and give away a good portion of your budget, credits, etc. to break through with a show. Not trying to be discouraging, just realistic. Your web show has some appealing content, could be a good fit, if you can convince the cable outlets of the same.

Dan
 
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i've been reading through this thread, and it really hits home because I've spent the last couple of months deciding on what to buy after selling my HVX200.

Ultimately the biggest lesson I've learned is that no rule applies across the board to all filmmakers. Everyone here has different eyes; the specs also seem to lie like hell. I have yet to see footage from any camera whereby the "look" is explained entirely by technical detail.

Someone earlier said that each of these cameras are like different filmstocks. I think that's the truest statement in a long time.

For me, I was one step away from buying an EX1, but I looked at the footage under high magnification, and then compared it to HVX footage. The HVX with its soft chroma edges looked much more conducive to a film-out than the EX1, which looked like legos when magnified. (I'd like to qualify that by saying that less at less than 400% mag, the EX1 did look noticably sharper, and an overall higher quality footage, but more "digital" high def look.) The EX1 plain old looked better on an LCD monitor, but noithing special on a high def DLP projector in a dim theater. Furthermore, there WAS a distinctly cinematic quality to the panny footage. That Mojo we all speak of, is there. There's something dreamy and cinematic to the look. There's also a lot of room to change the look in-cam, yet it always carries this very "movie" look to it.

We all have to remember though, that we often are meyered in chroma and rez specs. These are important as a gauge; but on my projector at the right distance, aside from some minor aliasing, a progressive DVD with good scaling (to high def) from 35mm source looked just as good as native DVCPRO HD footage. At that point of distance, the large increase in resolution had virtually no effect of precieved sharpness or quality of the image. The color, noise, texture, lattitude, and other qualities harder to put into words made the DVD look almost better. This is not a result the specs would have you believe. MPEG-2 vs. DVCPRO HD? "As if!" When I walked to the screen and looked at the DVD it was pixelated garbage. At the right distance, a wonderful theater-like expereince. Conversely I walked up to the screen for the HVX footage. Clear as a bell, and every pixel was pristine. It did not equate to a superior experience, I think because the color on the shot was rather mute, and the lighting was terrible.

This is one reason that while I'm thrilled to see what RED is doing, but at some point that resolution is just not going to matter. (Save for future-proofing current productions for future delivery formats.) As barry said a while ago, we're already up to good enough. And speaking of RED, I have a few R3D files. One is of a hand close up. I took a similar shot with my HVX, and though I will never make the argument that the HVX is better... (The RED one clearly had a significant quality advantage.) I kept thinking to myself, for my own movies, I wish they could give me a 2k, 3k, or 4k image that looked more like the HVX.

The RED one, though highly maliable in post, definitely has a "look" to it, and I find it a little sterile. I just do, sue me. That said, after seeing the redesigned scarlet/epic cameras, I plan on getting a fixed lens 3k scarlet, then when the FF35 is out (and I have the cash), getting one of those with some Nikon lenses and tethering to a laptop, for record and focus.

Between now and next year (although my money is that it'll be 2010 before we see the new RED cams), I've decided on the HPX170. On the side, I'm going to do as much as I can to study the look so I can apply the same panny "mojo" to the RED footage. I also bet come 2012, there will be projects I do that will require a breakneck workflow, and the look will be right for the Panny, so despite having 16-bit color, and 6k recording, I'll end up using the panny.

Especially because there is something about the Panny footage that "blows-up" REALLY REALLY well. It's kind of bizarre. It just gets softer, kind of like film, it doesn't seem to pixelate nearly as much as other sources. This I cannot explain. It's something I've noticed, bigtime, however.

I digress: I wonder if, after significant market saturation with RED, a cottage intustry of "looks" for footage will spring up. You'd pay a price for IP for a certian look, and that will be the new age equivalent to chosing film stock. That or hire people for the look, and this would be analagous to those who design emulsion for filmstock.

Panasonic seems to have made cinema a higher priority for their lineup. I like that. I think they are great cameras. Sony has their own look. They put their eggs into a different basket, so to speak. So pick whatever looks better to you. (Even if it's super8mm, which looks like grainy garbage to me, but if that's what you like, and is the look you want to express your story, full steam ahead.)

We all have an embarassment of riches these days. It's never been more exciting. We have the vision stocks for the film purists. We have a multitude of low cost cameras for indie film. Multifunction cameras for ownership that can tackle everything from narrative to commercial work. High end digital in every flavor from RGB stripped, to Bayer, to 3chip, different codecs all with their own pluses, minuses, and looks. DLP slowly but surely on its way to many theaters. And new delivery formats that continue to evolve.And CGI is constantly improving.

It would be a shame if the whole film industry sat still with all of these wonderful advances. With costs lower for aquisition, I hope they will be encouraged to take risks on new content, so audences may be exposed to more diverse selection of material. It seems like a dinosaur struggling to survive after the comet hit.

I've always wanted to see more small independant theaters (and more affordable home theater); 2000$ per print is too much for places like that. Digital Projection, I think will be the biggest change. Then again, who knows what's going to happen as content delivery changes in the near future. It's impossible to really predict. Movie sales, which are supposed to be recession proof, are not getting that same courtesy from the economy this go-around. (I just read a good article on that.) Some execs blamed Halo 3 for the slump. I love going to the movies, and I think everyone else here does too, but after 100 years of churning out 98% crap, and a couple of great movies here and there, maybe THEY should be the ones to focus on content more than tech, as we always seem to remind each other here. We're just trying to play catchup to quality standards. They've had the resources since the dawn of filmmaking.

Rant = over.
 
please post examples. A picture is worth a thousand words.
I found just the opposite. But it was comparing the older HVX200, not the HVX200A.
The new HVX200A compares to the EX1 noise levels. IMO, the new HVX200A is
Panansonics best buy right now.

Before I get arrested by the Panny police, I do agree this is a static shot and does not tell the "whole" story.
But it does tell some of the story. Sony's XDCAM codec is decent, but it does give up a "little" under moderate motion.
This was recently proved by Jim Arthurs comparing Convergent Designs's XDR 4:2:2 100mbps longGOP compared to the stock
XDCAM footage. The 100mpbs LongGOP showed a noticeable improvement over the stock 35mbps XDCAM codec.
Having said that, Convergent Design's NanoFlash capture device (approx $3K tp $3.5K) is going to turn the EX
series into a very clean camera. For that matter, I see the HPX170 also could benefit from the NanoFlash.


This is a screen crop from almost a year ago comparing the original HVX200, Z1, G1. and EX1 There's no magnification.

BTW, I also have the same plan. I'm buying the fixed lens Scarlet. Well, unless it does not fair well as predicted. I imagine it's going to be great.

HVX_Z1_G1_EX1.bmp
 
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I don't have the time to post screenshots at the moment. I should in a bit, but my advice is to take the footage in an NLE with a viewer independent of color space, and magnify it 800%. You will see the smoothness and lack of mosaic with the 422 versus 420 footage. This is why I think it is important for a film out.

As I said, I have no experience with an actual film-out, and at normal viewing distances, and even close viewing at less then 300% magnification it is tough to tell the difference outside of a key.

Furthermore: with the 1080p footage from the EX1, because it is honest to god 1080p, you could bring it into a lossless (visually) 422 10-bit or 8-bit codec, and downsample to maybe 810 lines, or even 720, and likely get almost as much color information. I haven't tried it though. It's just an idea.
 
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arrestthisman: re. your long post: v. nice post. I feel (for many reasons) that 720/30p is the sweet spot of HD. As a stills photographer (and documentary videographer) I cannot quantify the hundreds of hours I have spent trying/testing Zeiss and Leica lenses via adapters on full frame Canon bodies, in the quest for 'best image'.

Re. sharpness, and EX1 vs. Panny HVX200a: again speaking as a stills photographer, I soften at least as often as I sharpen, to get the look I want. If the look is there out of the camera (stills or video), even better.

What folk often forget is that, if you do not actually get to see the alternative image (sharpness or resolution-wise), then the question is, does the subject hold your attention? That aspect is waaaay more important than sharpness (or anything else, for that matter). Just 2¢'s worth, kl
 
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