HMC150 vs. Canon XH-A1 vs. ?

So in other words it will play back perfectly at 40% slow motion with no post processing necessary (just drop it into a 720/24p timeline)
 
I have visited this forum thanks to Mike Curtis' (hd4indies) link 3 years ago... and greatly appreciate what I have garnered from this community.

I finally registered to offer my 2 cents here. All suggestions so far sound excellent, and I just wanted to add a few (long winded) thoughts.

Tapeless would be a great way to go, as you would eliminate the dreaded head-clog and transport problems encountered often when your camera goes through dramatic heat cycles... you know when your lens starts to fog... imagine what your tape system is going through.

I like what I see about the 150 too, I have this camera on the top of my wish list now. The 170 would a be great step up, but the P2 costs and workflow are daunting. 720P is a great format, and ability to shoot 60 frames for slo-mo would be a big bonus.

The 20x lens of the Canon is the best selling point of the A1 option. Of course the price is good too.

Speaking of HDV, I bought my Sony Z1u 40 months ago, and like many things about it, but it will never have the great "Panny" look. Perhaps the best thing about it though is the transflective LCD display, which many of the Sony's have. This thing is great to view especially in bright sun. No other LCD comes close in terms of brightness and usablity, I have shot a lot of skiing footage, much of it while skiing myself, and the ability to quickly frame and adjust with confidence is vital to me. After decades of capturing similar scenes on 16mm, BetaCam... I am spoiled now, and can't imagine not having this aid.

Since I don't think Sony has a camera of near similar video quality in this price range yet I may be throwing a wrench into the works here, sorry. The Z7 has potential, but costs what the 170 does, plus the solid-state recorder is attached over the battery on the camera-back. This doesn't seem secure or strong enough for "crash-cam" like shooting, where a skiing accident is always possible.

But if you are not moving while shooting, tripod or not, the 150 viewfinder or maybe a HoodMan type shade on the LCD should be more than adequate. Obviously focus is critical in HD, and exposure is key to good looking ski footage. Very easy to overexpose with white background everywhere. Underexposure looks very flat, 2 dimensional, especially wide shots.

I have a Canon 5d mark 2 on order, and this might be a possibility for you too, totally different animal though. But ability to use variety of great lenses, have killer image sensor... and shoot 12 minutes to 4Gb file on CF card... for $3500 with 24-105 image stabilizing lens (true 35mm focal length lenses!) all appeal to me. This camera should have more latitude given it's still heritage. I know the CMOS issues could rule out this option for many, and having only 30p choice is limiting also. Too early to honestly guage this IMO until community can get hands on production models and get real world experience. But I am glad that these types of new offerings, like RED products, drive technology to develop better cameras for all of us.

Sounds like each option has it's plusses and minusses. As others pointed out earlier, get what is easy for you to work with, remember to budget for necessary accessories, try before you buy. I doubt we will ever be offered the "perfect" package, a camera that exactly suits our purposes.

One last thought, no matter which camera, I would definitely review my footage to make a "generous selects" sequence, and then consolidate a copy to have one of my main back-ups be just for the keepers. This would be a much smaller amount of data and simplify the workload and hdd space needs.

Good luck with all of your endeavors, it's the best feeling to view your own dynamic footage, especially on todays HD screens!
 
CreativeHD said:
1. Tapeless would be a great way to go, as you would eliminate the dreaded head-clog and transport problems encountered often when your camera goes through dramatic heat cycles... you know when your lens starts to fog... imagine what your tape system is going through.

2. The 20x lens of the Canon is the best selling point of the A1 option. Of course the price is good too.

3. Perhaps the best thing about it though is the transflective LCD display,...

4. But if you are not moving while shooting, tripod or not, the 150 viewfinder or maybe a HoodMan type shade on the LCD should be more than adequate.

5. I have a Canon 5d mark 2 on order, and this might be a possibility for you too, totally different animal though.
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1. Totally agree

2. Agree

3. Neither the A1 or HMC150 have that. Neither ones LCD are usefull in really strong light.

4. The cup style viewfinder on the HMC150 is better than the A1 viewfinder setup.

5. I think this may be a really good possibility. You would need a tripod for most all shots, but you still need one for the A1 & HMC150 for many shots too. One downside is the cost; body $2,700, 17-40 wide lens $700, 70-200ISF4 tele lens $1,600=$5,000 +bag+batteries+external mic+tripod, etc. You could almost get an EX-1 for that.
 
Jeff, thanks for feedback.

My brother has an EX-1, and that would be a nice top-end choice. Seems like the CMOS issues aren't very big for most shooting styles as I see it.

I guess since we're all trying to hit a moving target, I have to admit my preference is to keep purchases "affordable" and not live on the bleeding edge! You could have a 150 and a Canon 5D Mk2 with one lens for about what the EX-1 costs. Plus media for EX-1, like P2 is always going to be more than CF and SD cards.

To me the 150 seems like the best solution here because of price point, low media costs, and very little sacrifice in image quality for 720P footage. I would live with the LCD as it seems like a fair trade-off to get all of the positives the HMC150 camera offers! Looks like you're getting a true progressive scan CCD camera with a codec and features that is a few years ahead of the HDV offerings.

I know I made a big deal out of Sony's LCD, I mostly wanted to "put it on the table" because of it's unique benefits, but in reality, I think since Sony has no comparable cameras to the 150, I would only ante up for a Sony if my shooting style centered around relying on their bright LCDs... lots of shooting from the hip... putting the camera into motion tracking action... but with practice shooting under these conditions with a 150 I know my confidence would increase with experience.
 
I Think we've all forgotten about one key feature of the HMC150 that could benefit sindrejibb while shooting in high contrast environments, and that is the DRS function of the camera. I've had the camera for several weeks now, and typically use it to shoot real estate videos. In these challenging situations I have to contend with bright windows, dark corners and everything in between and I am very satisfied with the results. This feature would certainly help significantly when shooting in an environment with snow and bright sun, and where you have no control over the lighting situation.
 
Hey Digitalcapturegroop, how is the flare on blown highlights, do you see that serious purple fringing like on the old DVX or is it more like the Canon A1's sharp white edges?
 
I know we are getting a little off topic here, so I completely understand if this post gets moved. The most noticable effect while using DRS actually has nothing to do with the lens, but more to do with the way the hardware is analyzing the surrounding pixels. In extreme cases where you have an object in the frame that is extremely blown out, you can actually see a halo that surrounds the object and bleeds out into the surrounding pixels. I haven't actually seen any purple fringing, or white edges from using the camera.

The closest thing I can think of to describe the effect is if you are familiar with Premiere's Shadow/Highlight filter? If you overcorrect for the highlights using the filter, you end up with a halo around the brightest objects in the frame.

I have grabbed a couple of screen caps from a Video Tour of a home that I shot a couple of weeks ago where I was really able to see the effects of DRS. Excuse the image quality, these were taken from an .FLV file since I am at work right now. In most cases, like when I am shooting interiors with windows (Images 2-3), you do not see this effect, however, when I am shooting something that is extremely high contrast (Images 4-5) you can really see the effects of DRS. Notice the position of the sun in Images 4 and 5, and of course the color of the railing does not help.

In my opinion this isn't a good thing and I am sure people will fuss about the negative effects that this could have on their images. Fortunately my clientel and I can live with this for the time being considering the product I am producing and the method of delivery I am using. Hopefully Panasonic will be able to fix this, or at least fine tune the effects with a firmware update in the near future.

drsimage1.png


drsimage2.png


drsimage3.png


drsimage4.png


drsimage5.png
 
Thank you for the kind comment. Yeah this was one of the first video projects I worked on with the HMC150. I forgot to mention that my DRS setting was set to 3 when I captured the above images. Obviously the halo effect would be more diminished if I had used a tamer setting of the DRS function.
 
The noise associated with using the DRS function is really only apparent in the shadow areas of the frame. It is not terrible when you are moving the camera, as in a pan, but you will definitely notice some when the camera is stationary. Again, maybe something Panasonic will improve with a firmware update.
 
digitalcapturegroup said:
I know we are getting a little off topic here, so I completely understand if this post gets moved. The most noticable effect while using DRS actually has nothing to do with the lens, but more to do with the way the hardware is analyzing the surrounding pixels. In extreme cases where you have an object in the frame that is extremely blown out, you can actually see a halo that surrounds the object and bleeds out into the surrounding pixels. I haven't actually seen any purple fringing, or white edges from using the camera.

The closest thing I can think of to describe the effect is if you are familiar with Premiere's Shadow/Highlight filter? If you overcorrect for the highlights using the filter, you end up with a halo around the brightest objects in the frame.

I have grabbed a couple of screen caps from a Video Tour of a home that I shot a couple of weeks ago where I was really able to see the effects of DRS. Excuse the image quality, these were taken from an .FLV file since I am at work right now. In most cases, like when I am shooting interiors with windows (Images 2-3), you do not see this effect, however, when I am shooting something that is extremely high contrast (Images 4-5) you can really see the effects of DRS. Notice the position of the sun in Images 4 and 5, and of course the color of the railing does not help.

In my opinion this isn't a good thing and I am sure people will fuss about the negative effects that this could have on their images. Fortunately my clientel and I can live with this for the time being considering the product I am producing and the method of delivery I am using. Hopefully Panasonic will be able to fix this, or at least fine tune the effects with a firmware update in the near future.

(some photos deleted)

drsimage5.png
Click to expand...


I can see how DRS is going to do what it is doing... The bright edge needs to be lowered or it will wash out; however the grass near the edge also is lowered in value in order to keep the relative difference in brightness close. The grass farther away from the bright edge is impacted less by DRS.

It would be interesting to see how this shot would look at different settings: None, Minimum DRS, Mid-DRS, amd Maximum DRS.


Bob Diaz
 
Yeah, now that I have seen what DRS set to 3 will do to the image, it would be advantageous to play around with the function and see if I can still achieve the greater latitude with the image, without affecting the surrounding pixels as much.

I will have to setup some tests and report back on my findings. Seems there are two factors one needs to consider when using DRS: How the function will affect the highlights, and how much noise will be introduced into the shadows.
 
Hmm, this is really hard.

What is the difference between 720p and 1080p? Most of my shootings are going to be watched on computers (on the internet), and not TV's.

And I hear a lot crap about AVCHD, IS it a good format? Many people says it is a consumer-format etc. and has nothing to do in a pro-camera.
 
sindrejibb said:
Hmm, this is really hard.

What is the difference between 720p and 1080p? Most of my shootings are going to be watched on computers (on the internet), and not TV's.

And I hear a lot crap about AVCHD, IS it a good format? Many people says it is a consumer-format etc. and has nothing to do in a pro-camera.
Click to expand...

If the final output is going to be a 320x240 video for the internet, you are better off to get a good SD camera to shoot the video. Shooting 720p (1280x720) or 1080p (1920x1080) and producing a 320x240 video is a bit like using a shotgun to kill a fly; it works, but is overkill. Good SD video cameras are going to be cheaper.


Some common differences between the Consumer AVCHD cameras and the Professional AVCHD cameras are:

* Professional Cameras have a larger image sensor chip size
* Professional Cameras use 3 chips (a few consumer cameras have 3 chips, but most use just 1)
* Professional Cameras use a higher bit rate for recording than consumer cameras
* Professional Cameras cost more, but have more features and are build better than consumer cameras


I can safely say that the image quality of the Panasonic HMC-150 is VERY Good; colors are rich, the image has good dynamic range, the contrast looks right, the image is clean (free of noise), ... There are others here on the forum that will back up what I've just said here.

No camera is perfect and the HMC-150 is not as sharp as the Canon A1. However, on the other hand, the A1 does not do as well in low light as the HMC-150. Each person has to decide what is more important to them.

Anyone who would say that AVCHD is not a professional format, is likely not to have taken the time to look closely at the images coming from the HMC-150.


Bob Diaz
 
Please all me to add a bit to what I said to clear up several things...

In terms of resolution, there is only a slight difference in sharpness between converting an HD 1280x720 image to 320x240 compared to a SD 720x480 image to 320x240. This assumes that both the HD and the SD images are sharp before conversion.

The images you point to are about 506x288 pixels. The different in sharpness should stand out a bit more; however, because these are two different videos, I can't be 100% sure by how much.

In terms of color, contrast, dynamic range, image noise, ..., we have to assume that both image sensors are about the same; like 1/3" CCD vs. 1/3" CCD and current technology. (My Panasonic D-5000 with a single 1/2" CCD is over 20 years old and can't produce as good a dynamic range as current 1/3" CCD video cameras.)

The CCD on the Panasonic NV-GS500 is [FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]1/4.7" CCD (1.07 Megapixels) x 3. The SD video camera, the Panasonic DVX-100b has a 1/3" CCD x 3. In general, I've noticed that the larger CCDs seem to produce better images. In addition to better low light performance, the larger image sensors seem to produce better looking images.

Cameras vary, so assuming things are more or less equal the images are going to be close. However, this is not an absolute, compare a small CCD to a larger CCD or a single chip to a 3 chip, and there are going to be more differences. Even when things should be close, there are differences. The Canon A1 HD video camera (1/3" CCD x 3) seems to produce a less rich image than the Panasonic HMC-150 (1/3" CCD x 3).


I hope this help clear things up.


Bob Diaz






[/FONT]
 
BobDiaz said:
I can safely say that the image quality of the Panasonic HMC-150 is VERY Good; colors are rich, the image has good dynamic range, the contrast looks right, the image is clean (free of noise), ... There are others here on the forum that will back up what I've just said here.

Bob Diaz
Click to expand...

I am Hidef1080 and I approve this message.:thumbup:
 
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