AG-DVX200 4K Large-Sensor Handheld Camcorder

What is the color balance of your lights, and what type are they? It looks like it's very mixed lighting... without knowing the answer to above, it looks like a combo of fluorescent lamps and daylight.
 
Yes, the lighting in the interview is an LED panel set to daylight and daylight. The concert is pure artificial light. I used one of my pair of Ikan ID508-v2 LED Daylight 2 Studio Lights for the interview and I had it dimmed down about half way.
 
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Hmmmmmm... they both look very yellow. Here's an idea (which doesn't help you after the fact), if you're in a situation where you are able to have all lighting be the same temperature, set it to one of the preset balances. Even in the concert environment, where the lights may be gelled, if the lights are all incandescent, set it to the 3,200k preset. And if in the first situation, where all lighting is set to daylight, try 5,600k. I wonder if the camera is having issues grabbing correct white balance, or if it's an issue with scene 1 (Barry's pic seemed to be a bit yellow).
 
greytail said:
The concert is pure artificial light.
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One further question is how was the white balance set for each camera on the concert? Preset tungsten or white card/white balance? Compared to the GH4 the DVX200 result is obviously wrong - badly wrong - the question is why?

If both cameras were on preset tungsten, it must be down to the camera. If you white balanced, then it's either a case of stray bluish light (daylight?) hitting the card used for the DVX200 or a camera problem.

If you normally white balance (don't use preset) it may be worth recording the actual moment you hit the white balance button. Whatever the card looks like at the start does it become true white when the button is pressed? May be a useful reference if you have any subsequent such problems - if the card was (say) bluish at the start, goes true white when balanced, then the pictures still show a cast it may be useful to show to a client - to prove you didn't simply forget to white balance.
 
Ive measured the SNR ratio of Long GOP 4K on the DVX200 at base ISO500 and am getting on average 5% better quality than the Sony A7RII and A7SII S Log 2 XAVC base ISO recordings, which confirms to me that Panasonic still do a brilliant job with their codecs.
 
white balance at the concert was set up with preset tungsten. The same with the GH4. I will look for two other situations...indoors and outdoors with a face. I will use the A/B presets.
 
I can't remember. I do remember hitting the awb button in front of the camera and waiting for the display to go black. Don't remember what the message was.
 
Yes, that's the black balance procedure, so it probably worked correctly.

I did some outdoor shooting yesterday with my DVX200, starting early in the morning, clear sky, so the sun was low and contrasty, with deep dark shadows. Scene file 1 with a couple of tweaks (reduced sharpening and master saturation by a couple of clicks, mainly). Balanced to a white card and did a black balance at the start. Most of the shots looked good, especially with the sun behind me and where the exposure was just slightly on the dark side, but skin tones in closeups had a definite yellow cast when faces were in full sun. Also, the sky looked paler and more turquoise than in reality. I want to follow up on the hint to turn off the knee function altogether (but then will be afraid of blowing highlights). It does feel like bright areas that get into the knee range are losing color saturation and shifting toward yellow/green.

- Greg
 
You seem to be confirming my experience. So, why would Panasonic put out a scene file like this? I just don't understand. I suppose, if you know what you are doing you can fix it, with the myriad of controls the camera has, but I sure as hell don't know. I guess I have to be patient and wait for Barry :)
 
I got my hands on a DVX200 on Friday courtesy of my local rental house, and have since used it on a short film on Sunday and a corporate shoot today. I am shooting another short with it tomorrow before I have to give it back. I was really looking forward to this camera. At first I was quite disappointed. Initial fiddling did not produce an image anywhere as nice as what we currently get out of our GH4s. And the camera has a few design choices I didn't like. But after today I am feeling better. V-log is very nice. We shot in some very bright, contrasty situations and got a very nice image. I would say keep your light meter close though as exposing via the on camera tools in v-log seemed difficult. Its a very flexible and capable camera.

If we can get a baked in image that looks good and rolls off over exposed skin in a pleasing way then I'll be happy. But it is very frustrating that its so easy to get a good image out of an FS7 or GH4 with out even trying where as the DVX200 feels like a struggle. Reminds me of our AF100's. No doubt there will be a bit of magic to come from fettling with the scene file settings but it would have been nice if it worked out of the box.

I feel like there is sooo much potential in this camera. Sure it seems well suited for run n gun but it also feels like it could be an indie feature weapon in the right hands as well. Considering how much my view has changed since yesterdays shoot I'll be curious how my perception changes after tomorrows shoot.

Here we are looking suitably goofy from today's corporate shoot :)
IMG_4088.jpg
 
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harddrive said:
View attachment 106980View attachment 106981

.......What seems odd is that although the skin tones aren't vastly different between the two images, the stripe on the beach ball changes totally - slightly washed out red on the top image, but orange on the lower. Which may be showing up some of the problem Vaughan Wood is having with the images he has posted?

If I had to choose one image or the other I'd probably go for the lower one in terms of flesh tones overall - but I'd like to compare with the original chart, especially the beach ball..... Is it pink or orange in the original?
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I've now seen a link which shows the original chart (albeit quite small, but you can see what the colours should be) - http://dsclabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/DSC-Labs-Basic-Chart-Use-Matt.pdf (scroll down to near the bottom).

So to answer my own question, the beach ball should be red, not orange. I confess I had also assumed the lower image was the adjusted version, but it does now seem that whilst it seemed to be slightly preferred overall for skin tones, the colour of the ball in the original is wildly incorrect - the adjusted version improves it a lot, but at the expense of making the skin tones much colder. And for any corporate shoot of someone holding a (red) product, then I'd want to get the skin tones looking good - but not want the product to turn from red to orange! They also seem very desaturated compared to the original.

It seems as if the rendition of hue is dependent upon saturation. Get it right for saturated colours, and it goes off for more pastel shades (such as skin tones) - and vice versa?
 
I've read most of this thread but may have still missed it. How well does it pull shallow DOF?

Well, the dvx200 thread has hit 200 pages now. Seems to be a fair amount of interest
 
but it would have been nice if it worked out of the box.
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I think everyone has a different eye for what they like (pro/semi-pro anyway). Maybe with some cameras the manufactures just decide that they know the adjustments controls work, so why should they bother making it look different. The people who buy the cameras are just going to change it anyway.

The way I want my video to look I 100% know that the camera isn't going to work straight out of the box. For me it's the camera (or whatever) not being DOA. :furious3:
 
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