AG-DVX200 4K Large-Sensor Handheld Camcorder

Compromises are everywhere in the creative field.

And as far as quirks and deficiencies Canon and the other companies are hardly immune to them.

The XC10 has a VF that's been described as deficient and kludgy and unusable by various users.
It took Canon till Version two to put a quality VF on the C100.

Personally I have two BM cameras that have operated in the studio and in very rugged field environments without a single hiccup in dozens of demanding projects while delivering the kind of image and codecs that most other cameras don't.

I totally love the C100 MK11 for it's features, ease of use and over all IQ, but I wouldn't shoot any of our TV spots with it.
Not that they wouldn't look good - they just wouldn't look as good as with our BM cameras.

By the way Christopher, just picked up an RX10 II specifically for it's 120fps @1080.

But back on subject, and now that I know Barry has one.
Barry could you answer the big question - where does the lens transition from f/2.8 to f/5.6 ?
 
jimagine said:
But back on subject, and now that I know Barry has one.
Barry could you answer the big question - where does the lens transition from f/2.8 to f/5.6 ?
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There are things I can discuss, and things I can't. This is a preproduction unit and is indicative, but not necessarily representative, of what the final unit will be. I would have to ask for clearance to say that. But -- it doesn't ramp to 5.6, or anywhere near that -- it is 2.8 - 4.5. That's 1 1/3 stop difference from the wide angle to full telephoto. There is ramping, but it's not anywhere near like 2.8-5.6, which would be two full stops. It's just a little more than 1/3 of a stop.
 
dustylense said:
Well I've owned 4 different Blackmagics and not a single one of them have come without a quirk, a fault, or a complete failure. So 3-4 years out maybe they will get one right but until then the track record stands as is. So while they listen to the buyer they still prove that a camera capable of what we want that has zero quirks, faults, or failures cost a helluva lot more than what they have offered. But, even still, I applaud what they are doing. But they aren't the the staple or example of how to do it when you compare to companies like Sony, Canon, or Panny.
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BMD cameras def have quirks, but lets not act like Sony, Canon and Panny don't either.
 
Osslund said:
I beg to differ. To me this camera ticks no boxes.
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Then why do you stay in this thread, crapping on it, based on solely youtube images? If you're not interested, move on.

Barry also found the AF100 to be great.
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Compared to the DSLRs of its day, it was. I still use it to this day. I despised everything about the DSLR, I hated hated hated shooting on them. The AF100 gave DSLR-style DOF, with almost zero of the hassle. I found that extremely appealing.

I owned that camera and struggled to get it to where I wanted my images to look. In the end it looked okay but the time I spent to squeeze the little juice out of that camera I wouldn't like to ever do that again. With this in mind I don't see Barrys opinion when it comes to these cameras to credible. To me that is.
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Hey, if we disagree, that's fine. But at least make your opinions based on actual facts and actual proper observations, not off of youtube-recompressed footage shot by someone who had the camera for less than half a day before they were turned into the field to go create footage. And from a preproduction camera, at that. With all due respect, I don't find opinions based on youtube footage to be very credible either, especially when I've got one of them in my hands and can easily see the difference.

But -- again -- you've made your stance very clear. You dislike everything about the DVX200. Fine -- not every camera has to suit every person. You've made your point. You're not interested, so the only reasonable course of action then would be to ignore it and move on, right?
 
Osslund said:
I beg to differ. To me this camera ticks no boxes.
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Great. Go away then? Or are you on a mission to change everyone's mind from purchasing this "terrible" camera?

Osslund said:
Barry also found the AF100 to be great. I owned that camera and struggled to get it to where I wanted my images to look. In the end it looked okay but the time I spent to squeeze the little juice out of that camera I wouldn't like to ever do that again. With this in mind I don't see Barrys opinion when it comes to these cameras to credible. To me that is.
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Could it be.... That maybe the problem was more with you than with the AF? Just saying. Though looking at your past AF100 posts, your AF footage seems great! Or maybe you made the mistake of expecting things from a camera that it wasn't capable of? There are always more expensive products that do more, or sometimes cheaper products that do more in one area, but make other compromises.

BMDs cameras do exactly that. The skew is terrible on many of their HQ cams, not to mention 0 stabilization. 4k RAW looks great, except when you need to pan your camera at a high rate, and God forbid you hand hold it without a gimbal. Or maybe the fact that you need to buy a bunch of expensive vari-NDs for each of your lens if you need to change on the fly. And they don't record audio worth a darn.... The list goes on and on.

This camera fixes those kinds of things. It's a different tool for a different use. And maybe the HQ isn't "quite" as good when it sits on a tripod next to a BMD shooting 4k raw, but clients (and myself) will be overjoyed with what we get, at a 1/4" the data size, with 5x less post-production time & cost, and with the ability to pull the camera off the tripod at a moment's notice and shoot without compromise.
 
jimagine said:
Compromises are everywhere in the creative field.

And as far as quirks and deficiencies Canon and the other companies are hardly immune to them.

The XC10 has a VF that's been described as deficient and kludgy and unusable by various users.
It took Canon till Version two to put a quality VF on the C100.

Personally I have two BM cameras that have operated in the studio and in very rugged field environments without a single hiccup in dozens of demanding projects while delivering the kind of image and codecs that most other cameras don't.

I totally love the C100 MK11 for it's features, ease of use and over all IQ, but I wouldn't shoot any of our TV spots with it.
Not that they wouldn't look good - they just wouldn't look as good as with our BM cameras.

By the way Christopher, just picked up an RX10 II specifically for it's 120fps @1080.

But back on subject, and now that I know Barry has one.
Barry could you answer the big question - where does the lens transition from f/2.8 to f/5.6 ?
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But there is a difference between compromise and flat out failure.
You speak of a viewfinder. I speak of dead pixels, fixed pattern noise, and a line in the sensor. I can work around the viewfinder. It's hard to work around dead pixels and lines in the image.
Also, on the XC-10. Sure, the stock viewfinder is and looks clunky. Kinda like many of the Sony's viewfinders. But you can alway attach a Z-finder to it and improve the performance or experience user ability.

I thought about the RX-10II. But I'm holding off due to the fact I just don't take to Sony's color. And I held off because I'm not gonna chase Sony and their many releases of cameras as of late. I mean, will they release 6 more cameras this week? The second you buy a Sony, a month later they have a new camera. It all good and what not that they continue to make what seems to be better cameras, but I'm gonna settle down on camera purchase and use what I have in house that seem to be working just fine in my applications.

Do us a favor though with that RX10II. Can you shoot and measure the lens at 2.8 wide and then at its longest focal length and in fact tell us if there is light drop off. Because lots of people in here are stating that "If Sony can up a 24-200 equivalent 2.8 in their camera, what can the DVX200 have it". And as Barry points out, an 8X zoom compared to a 13x zoom on a larger sensor????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I swear... The amount of what people think should just be included in a camera these days for pennies on the dollar is mind boggling. It's like they champion the race to the bottom. "I want (notice I state WANT as in entitlement) a camera with 25 stops of DR and 14bit codec that writes to a $25 SD card that does 1000 FPS that comes with a 35X zoom lens with a 1.2 T-stop and has 3 free batteries in the box and is able to monitor LUTs and costs $1995". Seriously people!
 
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Osslund said:

ungraded footage from Kyoto by another shooter
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So, fun story. I shot a couple of presentations not that long ago for a client with my HMC150, and when handing them off via Dropbox, she complained that the resolution didn't look as good as when I shot stuff for her in the past. Did some quick checking, and sure enough, in the interest of file space, I had set bitrate to 4mb/s. Checked on previous projects, and raised the bitrate to 6mb/s. The resolution was quite noticeably improved... by only raising it 2mb/s. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised since at that low a rate, 6mb/s was 50% more data. But that little improvement had a drastic effect on picture quality.

I just downloaded the 1080p .MP4 of the video above... it's 3.7mb/s. You can't seriously judge the sharpness and resolution of a 4k camera shooting at 100mb/s based on a down-rezed file that has been recompressed at least twice and is 1/30th the size of the original. Download the 4k file from vimeo posted earlier... that file is ~22mb/s, and looks substantially better (even as heavily color corrected as it is).
 
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dustylense said:
"a camera with 25 stops of DR and 14bit codec that writes to a $25 SD card that does 1000 FPS that comes with a 35X zoom lens with a 1.2 T-stop and has 3 free batteries in the box and is able to monitor LUTs and costs $1995".
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I don't know, the footage i saw of the pre-production camera on youtube looked kind of blurry with blown highlights. Definitely a POS cam.
 
Osslund said:
I guess just because I do not agree I have no right to post in this subject? A forum is for discussion not agreeing!
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You have every right to do so. It just sounds like you have made-up your mind already. Once that decision has been made it kind of feels like beating a dead horse.
 
Osslund said:
I guess just because I do not agree I have no right to post in this subject? A forum is for discussion not agreeing!
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...But I think you have to wait until the camera is finished first, then take a look at some actual raw footage shot by a competent expert.

Judging a camera when it is several months from being finished and using highly compressed and graded YouTube footage tells us absolutely nothing about the camera.

It will be a completely different story by this October, so you just have to be patient and wait until then.
 
Osslund said:
I guess just because I do not agree I have no right to post in this subject? A forum is for discussion not agreeing!
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Nothing wrong with the input of concern or question of the camera to add to a discussion. But even that should be done in moderation being that it doesn't take multiple posts to convey that a camera doesn't "tick any boxes" for you. Say your piece or peace and go discuss a camera that does tick your box. We've heard your opinion on the camera, and now Barry's credibility according to you, and it's dually noted. Great. By people saying move on, its to mean can the discussion go forward about what this camera does in fact do for the people that are showing interest in it.

So it leaves me to ask this question... What other camera has a large format chip (bigger than 1 inch anyway) that has a fixed 13X zoom, XLR, a good monitor and viewfinder, all the bells and whistles of focus assist and exposure aid, a Log profile, within the layout of a conventional camera layout ergonomically which also comes in at $5000 or less? Oh and also has 4k with 10bit out?

It's fine to discuss the negatives of a camera you've never touched, shot with, and has very early limited footage of. But it's even finer to discuss, "What are the possibilities of this camera and thought process behind it". So far one of your CON's was comparing it with your AF100 experience and you even go as far as basically blaming Barry for your experience and purchase of the camera.

But then again, maybe you wish for multiple dislike buttons on things like Youtube. I'm not sure.
 
Osslund said:
I guess just because I do not agree I have no right to post in this subject? A forum is for discussion not agreeing!
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You have every right to disagree, and state as much and why... it's simply frustrating when you bash a camera because you believe preproduction footage that is 1/4 the resolution and 1/30 the file size of the original, shot by individuals who had only a few hours with the camera is somehow the end all, be all and definitive of the camera, then blow of the opinions of the two individuals in this thread who have actual working units of the camera (one of who for a couple of weeks now) and are saying the footage you're referencing is not even close to indicative of their results. It's especially frustrating when you state that the reason you're blowing off one of those individual's opinions is because you couldn't get a previous camera (which may or may not have been the right tool for your needs) to work to your personal tastes, and that individual was... therefore nothing they have to say is valid. That's like saying because I don't like pizza with pineapple on it, any one who does like it doesn't know what they're talking about when it comes to food.
 
was thinking of my old DVX which I still have... wonder if someone would make a 4k quality lens adapter so you could get a wider view... probably not since the days of every new camera being a fixed lens is somewhat over...

I had one for my DVX... but its somewhere either at the bottom of the ocean or has washed up on the shores of Cancun...

That's a long story...
 
A lot of good comments from knowledgeable people here. But I haven't heard it addressed yet if there is a clunk sound when handling the camera prior to powering it on?? :laugh:
 
Osslund said:
I guess just because I do not agree I have no right to post in this subject? A forum is for discussion not agreeing!
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You've disagreed, you've stated your position, you've stated you have no interest in the product. At that point, yes, move on.

We've had a long, long held policy on this. What you're doing at this point, by continuing to be negative, is called "threadcrapping." Just to show that a) you're not being singled out, and b) this is nothing new, I went searching to find instances of this in the past from other users. Here are a few posts where we've addressed a similar issue:

1. From the Canon EOS C300 introduction thread, I had to make this post in response to someone constantly complaining about how the C300 wasn't what he wanted:
But seriously -- griping and complaining about how the C300 has "a three year old codec from a $3,000 camera" will not, I guarantee you, change anything. It just litters our discussion forum with horse apples that we all have to step around. It's pointless threadcrapping and it really should stop. Those who are displeased should focus their energies on something that has a chance of actually accomplishing something, instead of pointless complaining, y'know?
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2. This is from a nine-year-old thread about the Mac Pro:
This is a textbook case of "threadcrapping." This is a thread for people to discuss the Mac Pro (anybody look at the thread title? It says "Mac Pro" in it.) If anyone feels the need to come in here and threadcrap on those who are wanting to discuss the Mac Pro in peace, then they are put on notice that they are threadcrapping, which is forbidden behavior on this site.

So please, if your only reason to come in this thread is to make some negative anti-Mac comment, save your breath.
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3. This one is also from 2006, in relation to the Sony V1U:
filmmaker1977, if you have absolutely no interest in the V1U, then you are invited to stop participating in this thread. We do not condone people coming in and bashing a particular product, calling these companies "mafia" is unwelcome, harping on chip pixel count when it's been conclusively proven to deliver comparable sharpness is unwelcome.

What you're doing now is called "threadcrapping". We do not condone it. Please stop it.
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One of the most annoying things in life is....Someone stating over and over what they are NOT going to do.
 
dustylense said:
Well I've owned 4 different Blackmagics and not a single one of them have come without a quirk, a fault, or a complete failure. So 3-4 years out maybe they will get one right but until then the track record stands as is. So while they listen to the buyer they still prove that a camera capable of what we want that has zero quirks, faults, or failures cost a helluva lot more than what they have offered. But, even still, I applaud what they are doing. But they aren't the the staple or example of how to do it when you compare to companies like Sony, Canon, or Panny.
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I am familiar with the quirks of the Black Magic camera's as well as the Sony's, Panasonic's and Canon's. Was it not to long ago Sony was having problems with the red channel and skin tones or the recent issues they've had with the PXW-FS7, which in my opinion is a great camera for the money. My point being is that even the big company's have issues with new camera's it's nothing new, at least Black Magic is trying to cater to the industry a lot more than the larger company's. Black Magic does not have camera's like the F55 and F65 to protect. Their not trying to control the industry their trying to give it what it wants at an affordable price.
 
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