DVX100 Contrast Ratio?

Policar,
I hope this is the last post on this wacky communication. After reading the posts I realize that many of you are still in school or just begining in some aspect of the video/film business.

My Apologies to you if I had become aggressive in my quest for information. I guess I'm not as patient as I should be. Let me give you a profile of myself.

I started an advertising agency in 1985, somewhere in the 1990 I began to add tv commercials to the radio and jingles that we produced. My first camera was a Sony single tube camera using 3/4 tape. I'll repeat that . . .single TUBE video camera. Anyhow, the natural progression lead me to the beta sp format using a Sony DX 327 and dxc 535 with Sp Backs.

As we began to investigate NLE editing I also began searching for a digital camera to add to our equipment list. To be honest I have never been interested in making films, its quite a different animal from what we do in our agency.

When I decided to buy this camera (after coming to this site and getting good information) is was based pretty much on the Leica lens, after all a poor quality lens will give you crap recorded very well. Sony has been using Carl Zeiss lenses, which I also respect, but they don't seem to be on anything but consumer camcorders.

Although I've been a "Sony Guy" Panasonic impressed me early on with a svhs camcorder we purchased for doing down and dirty projects.

It wasn't until we got the DVX that I became impresessed with the overall quality and ease of use in the field.

I really believed that this movie mode thing was just a filter or gimmick that is included in most consumer camcorders.
What a surprise.

Hence the reason I have become more active in this board, I wasn't getting the questions answered by searching or reading other boards, even though I purchased dvd's from Birns and Sawyer, DV enlightenment and a book "Cinematography" by Blain Brown.

I see a clear competitive advantage of a film look to our video products, but in order to get the results I need (the rich contrast differences that are in cinematography) I also need to deal with the disadvantages of the video medium when it comes to light and dark.

I've seen it done with clips and samples that have been produced with this camera and I 'd like to find out how it's done.
Gary
 
hi gary.
for the record i'm not still in school. i started shooting video with 3/4" portapacks. i'm a little too young to have shot with tube cameras, but i'm certainly not new to the film/video business.

i wasn't trying to be snide either, just trying to help out with the semantics issue. your main question is a legitimate one, and i don't have a precise answer for you. what i can tell you is that usually when i'm going for a contrasty look, without blowing out or underexposing, i'll go with a key that is around 2.5 stops hotter than the fill side. (which is a 6:1 ratio.) as you have correctly pointed out, the latitude aint there in video. it's better than in the tube camera days, but its not near film.

as for the lens branding thing, that's all marketing crap. don't get me wrong- the lens on the dvx is nice. but panny and sony are doing the same thing that people have been doing for years- (including some of the manufacturers of still cameras from your news-stringer days.) they're buying a name. minolta used to manufacture a line of leicas. cosina makes the cheaper nikons currently, etc, etc. the only time any part of these "zeiss" branded cameras have set foot in germany is after they're manufactured and some german buys one.
 
discs of tron,

I didn't percieve your comments as snide.

About the lens issue, whatever brought me to buy the dvx worked and I'm pretty satisfied. I must point out though, I recently had to encode footage for a client that was shot on Beta SP and with one of the sony's (they both have pretty good fujinon lenses on them) when compared with the new footage shot form the DVX there was a substantial difference in quality.

Now about the lighting ratio, is the 6:1 ratio the max you have used successfully?

By the way, the tube camera on hung around till the 3ccd Sony's took its place. I think we used it as a boat anchor.
 
6:1 (2.5 stops) is the contrastiest i've ever used, but i wasn't trying to push the envelope or anything. i'd assume you could go farther, i've just honestly never tried to see what i coud get away with. i'm definitely conservatve with ratios whenever i'm doing any kind of video though. just the rules of the game, like you said.

like i said, i think the dvx's lens is a very good pro-sumer lens. i just get annoyed when i see "zeiss" on a $500 sony soccer-mom cam. in reality, i wish someone would just make a cam like the dvx (or hvx) that took c-mounts. i think that no lens on any sub- $5000 camera comes close to decent 16mm primes. i'd also accept m42 mount.
 
I'd like to see M42 mount as well. If you get C-mount, you could just mount an M42->C adapter and use M42 lenses.

The HD100 will apparently have an optional c-mount adapter, according to a European HD100 brochure.
 
Hey Policar - kudos, man - Wesleyan is a great school, and you should be proud of getting in, and of your high school accomplishments! You're right - definitely pretty liberal, though... (don't you guys have coed dorm rooms, or coed bathrooms, or some **** like that? Or maybe that's Swarthmore...) But hey, freaky places tend to be good places for the arts, right? Sounds like you are right where you should be for your interests! For my sake, just please don't become Michael Moore... :)

Wells -- are you really 21? Damn -- for some reason I always thought you were an old man! Must be your wisdom beyond your years... (ps - I'm only 28.)

Gary -- enjoyed hearing more of the background about your story and the "quest for the holy grail." Liked how "the debate" worked out in the end to a mutual understanding, too. I laughed, cried a bit -- it was definitely better than Cats...

Barry and Discs -- what the heck are these "adapters" of which you speak? Ways of attaching more bad-ass lenses? Are more bad-ass lenses really necessary? How does one appreciate just how bad-ass a lense really is? Can you actually see it in the image quality?

Dr. Stupid -- why the hell are you on this thread? You have absolutely nothing of substance to contribute!

Dr. Stupid's reply -- because I like shooting the ****. And night shifts at the VA can be very boring...

Oh yeh -- one more thing -- physics. So the whole light and exposure thing is pretty wild. But color -- now color really wigs me out. Anyone know of a nice read on color spaces, color science, color correction principles, etc.? Something with a little scientific grounding, yet accessible? Maybe with some practical tips, as well -- like how do you use histogram functions, gamma curves, etc.? Would love to learn more about that stuff... And compression/resolution -- now that's some ****! I have a freakin' degree in computer science and I still can't understand that crap at all...
 
"The HD100 will apparently have an optional c-mount adapter, according to a European HD100 brochure."

that's great and all, i just wish it was the hvx. one day, i'll tell you about my plan to convert a beaulieu 4008 s8 camera into a state of the art digital camera. keep the cmount, build in a 16mm size ground-glass focusing screen (like a poor man's mini35, with a d.o.f. that i think is a better balance of cinematic and easy to use.) shutter is removed. the cartridge is replaced with a little box containing two 80 gb ipod-sized drives, raided. the camera's motor sets the frame rate, doing all of the rates that the 4008 did, but all are perfectly in sync (the camera's electronics can convert the motion of the motor within a few fps of the intended speed and provide a perfect, digital speed.) the stock door is replaced by one (that doesn't need to open,) that has an lcd screen for storage and battery capacity, two xlr inputs, and a firewire port.

i don't have any engineering ability whatsoever, so i'm looking to partner up with whoever wants to take it on. my investment will be a busted beaulieu 4008, and we'll partner 50/50. any takers? our company will do the conversion on old beaulieus, and we'll sell it for $3000, with a $300 discount if you provide the old beaulieu.

seriously though, i asked jeff kreines, the kinetta guy, if he ever planned to do something aimed more for the "bolex crowd." he told me that it will probably happen shortly after he gets the big one on the market. and i believe he said he was thinking it would be in c-mount.
 
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