Canon Competitor

J

Jim Simon

Veteran
So...the money hasn't left the wallet yet. More research still to be done.

I ran some tests with the 200A recently, which I understand has the same chips as the 150. I wasn't overly impressed with the "HDness" of the less than full resolution CCDs. And as much as I abhor the flash banding of CMOS chips, there is a very real possibility that my clients would prefer the sharper image over the artifact-free image.

That means the Canon XF100 is now on the table. Has anyone used both the Panny 150 and the Canon 100? Has anyone worked with media from both? Looking for personal experience opinions here.

Thanks.
 
The new canon xf100, destroys the 150 in almost every way possible. Don't get me wrong, the 150 is a very nice camera, but the Canon is much better in low light, and sharper. plus 50mbps 4:2:2.

The only downfall I see with the Canon is the lens, It's not an L series. And it's only 10x. And the ring on it controls iris and zoom as well.
 
"I measured the XF300 as having a sensitivity equivalent of ISO 125 at 0db gain. This is quite low for a pro-grade camcorder, but is to be expected given the use of 1/3" sensors. Camera makers are, of course, free to declare 0db at whatever level they wish. Usually this is at the sensor's lowest sensitivity level. Though the XF300/305 display a very clean image at 0db, as can be seen in the test clip linked below, -6db is even cleaner, which therefore means that the camera's true native sensitivity is about ISO 64." - Michael Reichmann and Chris Sanderson

Barry says the HMC150 has a sensitivity of ISO 500. This makes it seem unlikely that either the XF100 or XF300 will produce a superior low-light image. Can anyone confirm?
 
Maranfilms,

Considering the xf100 hasn't hit the streets yet, is your opinion based on a review, or personal experience?

Grant
 
I am also looking at the new Canon XF100 and the XA10, but as a replacement for my Canon HFS-10. I use it on a small crane to great effect. I also want to compare them to the new Panasonic TM900 and HMC40. But I would never seriously contemplate using it instead of the '150.

I am also not convinced that Canon's new take on mpeg2 is really an improvement over AVCHD/mpeg4. I think that is still a real question.

Are the XF100's even out yet? I thought they were due in March.
I do like the small Canons for crane work.
 
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The 300 series Canon should be considered as a competitor to more expensive cams like the HPX370 and possibly the EX series Sony Cams. The information gathered in the Canon Codec should be better than AVCHD, and the cmos imagers should be sharper than the HMC150 CCDs. Now that is a lot of should be scenarios and time will tell, but Canon has priced the cam in a much higher range than the HMC-150

Grant
 
Jim Simon said:
That's a good point about the availability. I guess people will have to compare the 300 and the 150.
Click to expand...


I think you are right, that is probably the better comparison. However as ggrantly points out the HPX370 is probably more of a direct competitor than the 150, to the XF300.
 
The 300 is more expensive because of additional features - better lens, more chips, better I/O, etc. But the CMOS imager and codec appear to be the same as the XF100.

I would assume the XF100 would be close in image quality, if not quite as good. Still, the 300 is the only one of the two that is out yet, so it'll have to be the one I compare to the HMC150.

Does anyone have an experience using both the Canon XF300 and the Panasonic HMC150?
 
The XF300 beats HMC150 in almost every area, everything from the bitrate to the ammount of noise... But the XF dosen't have the panny mojo, but in the other hand the XF300 has been BBC approved...
 
ggrantly said:
Maranfilms,

Considering the xf100 hasn't hit the streets yet, is your opinion based on a review, or personal experience?

Grant
Click to expand...

To be honest, my opinion is coming from seeing clips. I should clarify, it's not so much the Canon is much better in low light, it's the Canon has a fantastic noise reduction system. If you go to Vimeo, and search xf100, there's some footage of a carnivale, that is really clean. im yet to see anything from the 150, that looks any where near as good.
 
Yes, the 300 has three chips, and the 100 has only one.

Online footage is just never a good place to judge quality. I'd consider looking only at original, unedited camera footage for a comparison. That's why I was hoping someone here had experience using both.
 
maranfilms said:
If you go to Vimeo, and search xf100, there's some footage of a carnivale, that is really clean. im yet to see anything from the 150, that looks any where near as good.
Click to expand...

Not sure if I agree. I checked out the clip that you referenced. Though it is a carnival at night, it's really not a "low light" situation in most of the shots because they are shots of well-lit booths. If you blow it up and check the dark areas, there's something to be desired. It's very similar to what the HMC150 delivers, in my assessment.

What I did notice in the darker and lower contrast spots was that famous MPEG-2 macroblocking. Naturally, I'm looking at this to judge the comparison, but if I was a typical client, they may not notice it as much. However, it could make a difference with any amount of color work or other manipulation in your NLE.

My take on this comparison...there's not a lot of difference overall in the actual image quality. I believe the XF100 is cheaper though, so that is an advantage worth your consideration.

You may want to also consider the difference between 50Mbps and 21Mbps when calculating your overall cost of SDHC cards and hard disk storage.

And if you're like me, you have a Varizoom PZFI controller that you use a lot, which you can only use with the Panasonic line of cameras. That makes a difference to me, along with some other non-image-related functions the HMC150 has over the XF100.
 
Just noticed the XF100 has a higher resolution LCD (the HMC150's single worst feature, IMHO). It's an actual HD monitor, as opposed to the HMC150 LCD which is (as far as I can tell) identical to the DVX100B LCD...
 
I'm actually not concerned a whole lot with storage space.

The XF100 costs about the same as the HMC150, but it has a full resolution CMOS vs the lesser CCDS of the Panny. The XF300 has three of those full resolution CMOS chips, and uses the same codec as the XF100, and might give a good estimate of the image I can expect from the forthcoming XF100.

The question I'm facing is will my clients prefer the potentially sharper image of the CMOS, even with the flash banding, over the softer CCD image without flash banding.

Oh, how I long for a hand-held full resolution CCD camera!

(Oh, and my controller has a switch to convert from Panny's standard to LANC, so it'll work with either camera.)
 
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