AG-DVX200 4K Large-Sensor Handheld Camcorder

greytail said:
I am suspicious of how I am achieving a correct white balance with this camera. What techniques/equipment should be used for an interview situation where mixed light is apparent. I was using a white board, but I noticed when I took a reading off a cream colored wall, the reading was completely different, I mean very different. I also have a minolta color meter.. Could I use that?
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The proper way is to use a white card. Not a white sheet of paper, not a white T-shirt, but an actual, proper, professional white card. The other things CAN be used, but their accuracy is not going to be anywhere near what something like a DSC Labs CamWhite would deliver.

You should not be pointing at a cream-colored wall or anything like that. When white balancing, you need to point at something that's as pure white as you can get. If it's colored in any way (such as a cream wall), the camera will adjust its colors to make that object look white, and the result will be distorted white balance. Of course, sometimes this is desirable (such as when using "warm cards"), but in those cases you're deliberately changing the white balance.

If you want accurate white balance, use white cards. Put them in the light that's hitting your subject -- ideally, have your interview subject hold the white card up in front of their face, square to the camera. Zoom in until the white fills the screen, and take the white balance at that point.

I know a lot of people seem enamored with the idea of using variable white balance to "dial in" their color temperature, but I think that's an iffy idea at best. The white balance will examine what's in the frame and "correct" the color output until the white object is actually white -- which should represent accurate color balance. Using the variable white balance to dial in a temperature might get you accurate on the red/blue axis, but it won't do a thing for any color variations on the purple/green or other axes.
 
Barry_Green said:
Using the variable white balance to dial in a temperature might get you accurate on the red/blue axis, but it won't do a thing for any color variations on the purple/green or other axes.
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I know that the following question appears to restate what you just said, but does this mean that when the camera calibrates a white balance it is considerate of the full spectrum, but manually adjusting using variable mode only makes changes along the red/blue axis?
 
Barry_Green said:
...and the most recent change in the 1.25 firmware is notable enough that it would warrant adapting any scene files that had been previously developed.
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Barry, I'm not sure what you are saying here. Did you mean to write "...that it would ~not~ warrant adapting..."?
 
harddrive said:
Not sure I'm understanding your point. Within a scene with fixed lighting middle grey won't change - it's what a card with neutral reflectance of 18% of total will be.
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What I meant was how the exposure resulting from a middle grey source shifts within the DR range of the camera as gain changes. How many stops above and below it. Does the precent of the available range above that point change with gain.
 
The EX1 is not 4K and is no longer available so a comparison with the DVX200 would be rather pointless? I think comparing the AX1 with the DVX200 makes sense as the cameras in many ways are much comparable - both being 4K and in the same price range. To me this test proves that the DVX200 does perform better in low-light than expected.
 
Here is the last quick n dirty cam test we did with the DVX200 before we had to hand it back to Lemac that morning.
No grading, just pulled the footage into Premier, cut it up and dropped a gh4 VLog lut onto it. Its a bit over exposed as it was just exposed by eye and we were just messin around.
In Vlog it is a very capable camera and we were happy with the image. This was with the previous firmware. Have yet to try the new firmware but Lemac are happy for us to give it another try so will see what its like. They just need to sort the baked in looks, and get the focus wheel response to be a bit nicer and it would be mostly there for us.
 
Xoomtell said:
The EX1 is not 4K and is no longer available so a comparison with the DVX200 would be rather pointless? I think comparing the AX1 with the DVX200 makes sense as the cameras in many ways are much comparable - both being 4K and in the same price range. To me this test proves that the DVX200 does perform better in low-light than expected.
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Cameras like the EX-1 or other "broadcast" cameras are known quantities. Light gathering is light gathering. So to see how the DVC200 compared against an industry standard that many people know (F10 @ 2000 lux) is not pointless at all.
 
Looks to me like the EX3 is handling highlights a lot better than the DVX200. This test is not that impressive considering how old the EX3 is, although there is the obvious clear advantage when it comes to depth of field.
 
Has anyone gotten any decent footage right out of the camera using only a properly adjusted scene file? I'm talking no V-Log or adjustments in post. I'm not expecting to run in Auto and get a perfect image. Even with manually white balancing, setting my own gain, shutter and iris, it just seems like any non V-Log image is just dull and lifeless.

I have a few scene files that I'm working on but it seems like I get close in one aspect and then something else gets out of whack. I've tried every scene file that's been posted and nothing makes me feel confident that I could shoot something, pull a card out of the camera and hand it off when that type of project arises. I really believe that the camera has potential but I kind of feel like I paid to be a beta tester.

I'll admit that I'm green when it comes to many of the finer color adjustments and that messing around with a piece of equipment is also how you learn. It's just surprising that nobody has posted anything remotely close to jaw dropping that hasn't been done in V-Log and even that stuff isn't that great.

I would like to think that somebody at Panasonic or otherwise has the ability to make this camera shine and hopefully share that with everyone. I think I would be embarrassed if I were Panasonic. It seems like the camera has most of the features that everyone is looking for in this level of camera but it just fails to make a decent image from a color aspect. I'm not ready to give up yet but this is sure a little frustrating to say the least.
 
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I agree - I almost pulled the trigger ordering the camera, but I am still very much in doubt...My own experience with my old HMC151 and scenefiles was almost like you descibe. How come it is so hard to make just a handfull of nice scenefiles that works nice? Or is it because this camera is too pro for the semi-pros? If so it is not right to try to sell it as a run-and-gun camera. It should be easy to get nice footage out of it out of the box...
 
Hello guys!
I read this a lot of interesting text.
3 weeks ago I bought the DVX 200 cam. The colors were disappointing.
The list of errors: incorrect color reproduction, image noise on 0dB, poor quality
recording 120 frames, jog key error. (The cursor bounce-back in the menu)
The new firmware effect: the colors are correct, the noise disappeared, the deceleration has not improved, continue jog button error.
Still, I'm glad that the image quality and color are very good.
The camera also features other good and give a plus compared to other cameras.
I hope I will soon be in touch demo ...
Cheers from Hungary
 
Yeah. The Z100 certainly looks more natural in color and contrast and the dvx200 looks too red/purple. The blue color at the colorboard looks more redviolet than blue. Wonder if this is with the new firmware update installed? And I also wonder if it would be possible to adjust the dvx200 to look almost the same?
 
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