ccd vs cmos

robzoo

robzoo

Member
I have been curious as to what some peoples opinions are about the cmos technology that has developed more and more over the last few years. I am in the market to get a new cam and have been loving the footage and info out here about the hmc150, but being a fulltime student with a family to take care of, the $3000 or more price tag is a little bit hard to swallow. I noticed that the hmc40 is coming out soon with a $2000 price which is a little better, but just seem to hear nothing but negative feedback about the cmos technology from 3ccd lovers. Dont get me wrong I understand sticking by a proven product that has given great results over a long span of time like the 3ccd's have, like I said, I am just curious to find out if anybody has anything good to say about the cmos tech that panny is about to put out there.
 
In good light the cmos may be sharper. The problems come from poor light. Cmos tends to show more grain when the gain is cranked up. Also the crazy rolling shutter causes flash cameras to have horizontal lines across the video and on fast panning things tend to bend in the image.
You haven't told us what your needs are for the camera. If it's for fast moving sporting events, you may want to look at CCD, same goes for a main camera at weddings due to low light and camera flashes.
Now a full raster 1/2" Cmos like on the EX series from Sony has larg enough imagers to do really well in low light but we're talking double the price of the 150!
Again, what are your needs?
 
I will primarily be using the cameras to do shorts, nothing extremely fast paced, or "action sport" drivin, but I am in film school and want to really develp good technique and skill with whatever cam I may get. Great cinematography does for films what great beats do for songs, it pulls you in and makes you want to more. I want a cam thats going to produce great images and at the same time keep up with the changing trend of HD quality, seeing as how more and more HD stuff will become a common platform to use.
I hear a lot that the cmos' have really poor low light capabilties, I checked out the HMC40 specs and this is what it says
Minimum Luminance: Approx. 1 lx (Gain: +34 dB, Slow Shutter: 1/2 sec.)
But im not reall sure what the actual min lux woud be if you adjusted those settings to even the slightest degree.
 
robzoo said:
I will primarily be using the cameras to do shorts, nothing extremely fast paced, or "action sport" drivin, but I am in film school and want to really develp good technique and skill with whatever cam I may get. Great cinematography does for films what great beats do for songs, it pulls you in and makes you want to more. I want a cam thats going to produce great images and at the same time keep up with the changing trend of HD quality, seeing as how more and more HD stuff will become a common platform to use.
I hear a lot that the cmos' have really poor low light capabilties, I checked out the HMC40 specs and this is what it says
Minimum Luminance: Approx. 1 lx (Gain: +34 dB, Slow Shutter: 1/2 sec.)
But im not reall sure what the actual min lux woud be if you adjusted those settings to even the slightest degree.
Click to expand...

you would probably want to consider a camera that has a 4/3" cmos sensor and a tag price of $1500 :happy:
 
In a perfect world you would have lots of money to purchase any camera you want, BUT as you said in the start of the message, you are working with very limited funds. There are only a few issues you will face:

(1) CMOS: Whip pans may show some skew in the vertical lines and bouncing the camera with show vertical distortion. This means that if you do a really fast pan, you must live with the distortion OR use a long shutter speed to hide the distortion OR don't do any shots with a whip pan. A whip pan is a pan when the point on the image moves from one side to the other in less than a second.

(2) CAMERA FLASHES: If the film must have a person taking a picture with a flash camera, the end result may have frame-1 with the bottom half showing the flash, the top half in frame-2 OR you use a longer shutter speed (1/30 to 1/15) and take a chance that the flash fired during long exposure.

(3) LOW LIGHT: If you must shoot in low light, the shot will be dark OR you use super high gain and the shot is grainy OR you use a long exposure time and any movement appears to strobe.

(4) DEPTH OF FIELD: For the same angle of view, the smaller the image sensor, the greater the depth of field. If you are trying to do a shot with the subject in focus and the background out of focus, you won't be able to do this at the wide angle setting. At the higher telephoto settings, this is still possible, but you'll have to work a bit harder to get the shot you want.

(5) MAXIMUM F STOP: With HDTV and small image sensors we start to run into the limits of optical devices. With 1/3" image sensors around F4 is the sweet spot for maximum sharpness. With the smaller 1/4" image sensor, it should be about 1/3 of a stop lower than F4. As you move to higher F Stops, like above F8, the sharpness starts to drop. With ND filters this isn't too much of an issue, but just be aware of it.


Personally, I think that the HMC-40 will work for you. Just like any camera, you have to work within the limits of the camera and all cameras have their limits.


Bob Diaz
 
Yeah the HMC40 seems to be a very adequete cam for the price, I also like some of the footage I've seen from the GH1 ie: "Nightlight" which was visually pretty unbelievable, but would be concerned about audio. I actually have a nice little assortment of lenses so that is another option I have been weighing.
Thanks for all the great feedback.
 
Low light performance is an unknown with the HMC40, but if you go off of the camcorderinfo review of the HS300 (a consumer version using the same chips) they declare that its lowlight performance was some of the best of 2009, so that gives us hope for the 40's performance.
 
I'm sort of in the same situation, weighing the HMC40 vs. the HMC150 and I ultimately want to shoot shorts.

I've decided to wait for the HMC40 to be released so we can get some definitive footage/reviews out there. I believe the release date is just around the corner (Sept. 1st?).
 
Barry_Green said:
Low light performance is an unknown with the HMC40, but if you go off of the camcorderinfo review of the HS300 (a consumer version using the same chips) they declare that its lowlight performance was some of the best of 2009, so that gives us hope for the 40's performance.
Click to expand...
It is about the same score as the HV20/30/40, but they did not compare them side by side, they just crank them up until they register 50 IRE without any regard to noise. They test noise in a different test.

From a German site: http://www.camcorder-test.com/camcorder-1312d44135a1d743996a7de1b5adf9a9.html

HV20 @ 12 lux: http://produktdbimages3.slashcam.de/camcorder-testergebnisse_testbilder_testbild_12_lux_46.jpg
HS300 @ 12 lux: http://produktdbimages1.slashcam.de/camcorder-testergebnisse_testbilder_testbild_12_lux_98.jpg
 
If the first users in the US get their camera on September 1, then we are almost a week from that date. Then comes the fun part as we all look over the footage and talk about what we think.


Bob Diaz
 
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