Barry_Green
Moderator
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HPX300 Preview - In Africa!
- Thread starter Barry_Green
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Luis Caffesse
Admin
Nice writeup, Barry.
Of course I still feel like I've barely broken in my 170
Can't wait to get my hands on this one.
Of course I still feel like I've barely broken in my 170
Can't wait to get my hands on this one.
And done reading... twice. Video works as well. I'll reserve my excitement for a hands-on but I can ALREADY see the difference even in that compressed footage. I swear the HPX170 would've missed so much detail in the Elephant and Rhino skin.
Not to mention all the foliage, etc.
To Kevin: Nice footages already. The first clip was pretty awesome. Especially all that detail in the fur!!!
Barry, I noticed you said something about street price well-under 10K. =P I guess that was a typo?
Regardless, it's pretty much a given that you should expect to pay about 10 ~ 12K after P2 cards and batteries.
Thanks so much for this!
Not to mention all the foliage, etc.
To Kevin: Nice footages already. The first clip was pretty awesome. Especially all that detail in the fur!!!
Barry, I noticed you said something about street price well-under 10K. =P I guess that was a typo?
Regardless, it's pretty much a given that you should expect to pay about 10 ~ 12K after P2 cards and batteries.
Thanks so much for this!
Barry_Green
Moderator
My understanding is that with an MSRP of $10,700 the street price should be well under $10K. Maybe under $9K.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Those are high-res clips, or at least they're supposed to be. They were authored at 1920x1080x23.976 and 1280x720x23.976. Be sure to click the "play in high def" button. And click the "fullscreen" button in the lower right corner.
Oh! I see it now. Thanks!
Were those stills of the female both at 720p or both at 1080? -3dB on the HPX300? It reminds me of the difference between the HPX500 and HVX200 tests you did. Although, this time the image looks a bit cleaner where the HPX300 is concerned.
Sweet.
Were those stills of the female both at 720p or both at 1080? -3dB on the HPX300? It reminds me of the difference between the HPX500 and HVX200 tests you did. Although, this time the image looks a bit cleaner where the HPX300 is concerned.
Sweet.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Those were shots of the DSC Labs CamBelles. Both were 1080p, and I don't remember the gain but I'm pretty sure they were both done at 0dB.
I think a lot of the cleanliness we're seeing is due to the 10-bit codec; 1024 shades of skintone vs. 256.
I think a lot of the cleanliness we're seeing is due to the 10-bit codec; 1024 shades of skintone vs. 256.
Thanks for the detailed review, Barry.
A couple of questions for you:
1. In your EX1 review, you mentioned that the picture softened a little while panning. Did you see the same from the HPX300?
2. Did you get a chance to compare the AVC-Intra 50Mbps vs 100Mbps? If so, how much quality difference is there?
A couple of questions for you:
1. In your EX1 review, you mentioned that the picture softened a little while panning. Did you see the same from the HPX300?
2. Did you get a chance to compare the AVC-Intra 50Mbps vs 100Mbps? If so, how much quality difference is there?
Barry, excelent article! So, the HPX300 was really "real"... You knew it all this time, didn't you?
Anyway, concerning this cam, I have a few questions:
1- Codec- Its obvioulsy superior to XDCAM EX, the question is: In a Octo Core 2.8 computer (2008) (With 8gb ram), is AVC Intra editable real time, or do we have the edit the offline way (proxies)?
2- Concerning DOF: with the Interchangeable lenses available, do we get any advantage in DOF, or are we stuck to Fixed Lens DOF? EDIT, ok, this question doesn't seem to make much sense, but let me explain. I know the 1/3 CCD's should SEE the same, independently of fixed or interchangeable lens design. What I mean is are there in the market any 1/3 Lens that could give me the equivalent of Primes in both 2/3 and S35 formats? Something comparable to a wide 24mm 1.8 Nikkor AI, or a 50 1.4 in therms of DOF? Or are we stuck to Heavy zooming to get shallow DOF? What image performance boost can we get from the other 1/3 glass, excluding zoom range?
3- With the 2/3 ring to use 2/3 glass, won't the 2/3 glass have a different range on the camera? A wide angle becomes not wide, for example?
4- When can we expect this one? Also, how much does it weight? (For support gear use)
4- This one is for Dennis, from Cinevate: Does the new B4 Relay option for the brevis works with 1/3 interchangeable cameras like this one?
Cheers, Barry, and thanks for the time!
Panasonic gear has worked for me troughout my professional career. Unfortunately, competition is fierce, and with the DSLR revolution (Canon 5d mark II, for example) and RED Scarlet (yes, its still nowhere to be seen), this seems like a camera that could suit, for example, event shooting, but for Indie Filmmaking, TVC's and Medium end work, not that much of a challenger. If This was 2/3 Cmos, however, or even Panasonic's own mini 4/3 DSLR format (the revolutionary no mirror format) this could very well be "it". At least, at first glance, this is what I think.
EDIT- If this was 2/3 at bellow 9k, I would buy it without a second tought!
Anyway, concerning this cam, I have a few questions:
1- Codec- Its obvioulsy superior to XDCAM EX, the question is: In a Octo Core 2.8 computer (2008) (With 8gb ram), is AVC Intra editable real time, or do we have the edit the offline way (proxies)?
2- Concerning DOF: with the Interchangeable lenses available, do we get any advantage in DOF, or are we stuck to Fixed Lens DOF? EDIT, ok, this question doesn't seem to make much sense, but let me explain
. I know the 1/3 CCD's should SEE the same, independently of fixed or interchangeable lens design. What I mean is are there in the market any 1/3 Lens that could give me the equivalent of Primes in both 2/3 and S35 formats? Something comparable to a wide 24mm 1.8 Nikkor AI, or a 50 1.4 in therms of DOF? Or are we stuck to Heavy zooming to get shallow DOF? What image performance boost can we get from the other 1/3 glass, excluding zoom range?3- With the 2/3 ring to use 2/3 glass, won't the 2/3 glass have a different range on the camera? A wide angle becomes not wide, for example?
4- When can we expect this one? Also, how much does it weight? (For support gear use)
4- This one is for Dennis, from Cinevate: Does the new B4 Relay option for the brevis works with 1/3 interchangeable cameras like this one?
Cheers, Barry, and thanks for the time!
Panasonic gear has worked for me troughout my professional career. Unfortunately, competition is fierce, and with the DSLR revolution (Canon 5d mark II, for example) and RED Scarlet (yes, its still nowhere to be seen), this seems like a camera that could suit, for example, event shooting, but for Indie Filmmaking, TVC's and Medium end work, not that much of a challenger. If This was 2/3 Cmos, however, or even Panasonic's own mini 4/3 DSLR format (the revolutionary no mirror format) this could very well be "it". At least, at first glance, this is what I think.
EDIT- If this was 2/3 at bellow 9k, I would buy it without a second tought!
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The picture of the girl of the HPX 170 is flat and looks like it was shot with the F1 scenefile setting .
The hpx300 looks tweaked.
With that said this looks like a very impressive camera.
The videos are sweet Barry but look abit oversaturated.
I would really love to see this documentary training DVD.
But why doesnt hpx 300 ( US version ) have NTSC /PAL capabilities ?
The hpx300 looks tweaked.
With that said this looks like a very impressive camera.
The videos are sweet Barry but look abit oversaturated.
I would really love to see this documentary training DVD.
But why doesnt hpx 300 ( US version ) have NTSC /PAL capabilities ?
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Barry_Green
Moderator
That was a firestorm that was caused by two factors: CMOS skew, and long-GOP. The CMOS skew issue was eventually settled by Mikko Wilson's article where he demonstrated that using a waveform monitor to measure resolution wasn't a valid technique with a CMOS camera, specifically because the skew causes the waveform monitor's representation of the signal to become... well... skewed.
As for long-GOP, that's just what it is, and the HPX300 doesn't have long-GOP so that wouldn't apply.
I didn't bother. AVC-I 100 is full-raster, whereas AVC-I 50 is prefiltered down (either 1440x1080, or 960x720). The whole point of the 300, as far as I was concerned, is to see how the additional pixels on the chip would translate to the additional pixels in the recording format. Prefiltering it down would just toss out the additional res advantage the chips were supposed to be supplying. Then you go to 4:2:0 color on top of it, and -- naw, we wanted the best.
I think the 50mbps mode is mainly made for news or other longform shooters who want to archive tons of footage. I guess in fairness I should have spent some time with both formats, but -- we were focusing on making the most of our trip, so no, I didn't use AVC-I 50.
Jan_Crittenden
Veteran
Not that you need to but if I were you, I would check out the camera against that EX3 before purchse. The !/2 vs 1/3 isn't that huge but the AVC-Intra- vs longGOP is really huge. The ergonomics of the camera is also another huge consideration. Now if you are htinking EX-1, well that is a different price point.
Best,
Jan
So, Jan, are we talking a very competitive 8k street price point for this camera? Any chance for a non bundled P2 one for cheaper price? Also, does the package comes with Baseplate and an Anton Bauer battery, or do we need to purchase separatelly?
EDIT- also, what is the signal to noise ratio in this camera? Light sensibility, compared to the 170?
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Barry_Green
Moderator
Not the whole time, no.You knew it all this time, didn't you?
My dual-core 2.4GHz laptop is fast enough (with EDIUS 5) to handle 1080/24p and 720/24p in realtime. It struggles with 1080/60i, but it does 24p and 720p in realtime. So while I'm not a Mac user and don't have access to an OctoMac to test, I can't imagine you'd get anything less than multiple streams of realtime footage on that hardware.
The laws of optics do not change simply because the lens is removable. :thumbsup:
A millimeter is a millimeter, and the DOF will be the same regardless of the lens design. There are no 1/3" primes that I know of; you could use a 1/3" to 2/3" adapter and use the DigiPrimes or EJ primes or Fujinon cinema primes. But their focal lengths won't be wide enough to give you true wide-angle performance.
All 1/3" imagers are going to perform the same, given the FOV restrictions of 1/3". You either have to open the lens way up, or zoom way in, or (preferably) both, or use a 35mm adapter like a Letus or Brevis. Otherwise, you'll have 1/3" DOF...
Sharper lenses should result in sharper pictures; better glass should exhibit better sharpness and contrast.
A millimeter is a millimeter. A 4.5mm lens will have the same field of view on a 1/3" camera regardless of whether that 4.5mm lens was designed for 1/3" or 2/3". It will not, however, have the same FOV as it would have on a 2/3" camera.
I don't know about availability. With lens & battery it weighs about 14 pounds.
Barry_Green
Moderator
They were shot with the exact same settings on both, white-balanced the same. However, both sides of that picture was auto-level, auto-contrast, and auto-color'd in photoshop to minimize the imaging variables between them so as to show the sharpness and tonality differences. That's what I was trying to illustrate. This was a prototype, and should not necessarily be considered final video quality; as such, I didn't want the discussion to get sidetracked off with whether one looked slightly greener than the other or whatever, because that would be totally irrelevant to the discussion. The chips aren't changing and the codec isn't changing, and those are what contributed to the image I showed. The actual image processing (gamma, color, etc) may or may not change, so I didn't want to get us distracted on that based on a prototype vs. a production model.
Kevin has a formula for how he makes his fooage look the way he does, and he likes a lot of saturation.
It's coming...
That is a very good question and hopefully one that Panasonic will answer for us.
Thanks for the answers, Barry! Just a couple more!
How does in compare in low light vs the hpx170? I assume better signal to noise ratio, mainly due to the superior codec, which could theoretically mean that one could gain up a bit for similar results... Any chance for some of your excelent tests?
Last one: I assume that using the HPX300 with my Manfrotto 519 head and glidecam 4000+smooth shooter is out of the question, right?
Following my very first impression, I'm actually considering this: Since it flips the image on camera (not only the lcd), this means that, if Cinevate are to adapt the Brevis relay for this, and we do not need the flip module, we could have 35mm shoulder mount camera that could be really handhealdable...
How does in compare in low light vs the hpx170? I assume better signal to noise ratio, mainly due to the superior codec, which could theoretically mean that one could gain up a bit for similar results... Any chance for some of your excelent tests?
Last one: I assume that using the HPX300 with my Manfrotto 519 head and glidecam 4000+smooth shooter is out of the question, right?
Following my very first impression, I'm actually considering this: Since it flips the image on camera (not only the lcd), this means that, if Cinevate are to adapt the Brevis relay for this, and we do not need the flip module, we could have 35mm shoulder mount camera that could be really handhealdable...