Something else I just thought of to consider is low light performance.
Not sure what the HV20 is like in low light, but recently I did a shoot of a band, before I had the DVX and I used my VX2000 and the PD170. I had the VX on a tripod stationary covering the stage and then wandered around with the PD170. There were two other cameras also that night, a HVap1 and an FX7 both HDV.
All four cameras went to a mixer and were on 4 monitors with the switcher choosing shots to be projected on a 6 metre wide projector screen to an audience of about 2000.
Before the shoot I was wondering how I could uprez my footage to be equal to the HD cams when the tapes were mixed afterward. The HD boys were looking down their noses at my "inferior" SD cams.
It was pretty obvious within the first ten minutes that the HD cams were having difficulty getting a good picture in the fluctuating and low light environment.
No worries for me, I could still pull creative shots and was having fun like three quarters telephoto to the stage at F2 along the length of a keyboard. The front keys were out of focus as were the keys at the end of the keyboard with the fingers dancing in the middle in full focus. Very dreamy.
The HD cams were struggling just to get an acceptable picture and had to switch to ugly gain to keep the light up.
It was pretty obvious from the 4 monitors which cameras were excelling. My shots were the ones that mostly got projected and ended up taking the best percentage of the final master. The question was how can we make the HD cam shots good enough to mix with the vx/pd170 footage.
In the end, they had to stay close to the stage, picking lighted areas to pull something reasonable. They also exhibited bad smear and strange motion artifacts under those conditions but my shots were clean.
Sometimes the singer moved to the back of the hall where there were no lights. The HD cams went black following her out and even when they switched to maximum gain it was an ugly muddy, misty, grainy shot.
The pd170 was still pulling clean shots at threequarter telephoto and I limited gain to just 6db.
I was as surprised as the HD boys were.
So low light performance can be important, even shooting inside a house on a cloudy day can prove challenging for some cameras.
I have not tested the DVX in interlaced mode/low light yet. In 25P it seems to have some difficulty but not a problem as for films the scene would be lit anyway.
Just something else to consider. These HDV cams are supposed to be "prosumer". If thats the best they can do then what would the consumer HDV cams be like?
Not sure what the HV20 is like in low light, but recently I did a shoot of a band, before I had the DVX and I used my VX2000 and the PD170. I had the VX on a tripod stationary covering the stage and then wandered around with the PD170. There were two other cameras also that night, a HVap1 and an FX7 both HDV.
All four cameras went to a mixer and were on 4 monitors with the switcher choosing shots to be projected on a 6 metre wide projector screen to an audience of about 2000.
Before the shoot I was wondering how I could uprez my footage to be equal to the HD cams when the tapes were mixed afterward. The HD boys were looking down their noses at my "inferior" SD cams.
It was pretty obvious within the first ten minutes that the HD cams were having difficulty getting a good picture in the fluctuating and low light environment.
No worries for me, I could still pull creative shots and was having fun like three quarters telephoto to the stage at F2 along the length of a keyboard. The front keys were out of focus as were the keys at the end of the keyboard with the fingers dancing in the middle in full focus. Very dreamy.
The HD cams were struggling just to get an acceptable picture and had to switch to ugly gain to keep the light up.
It was pretty obvious from the 4 monitors which cameras were excelling. My shots were the ones that mostly got projected and ended up taking the best percentage of the final master. The question was how can we make the HD cam shots good enough to mix with the vx/pd170 footage.
In the end, they had to stay close to the stage, picking lighted areas to pull something reasonable. They also exhibited bad smear and strange motion artifacts under those conditions but my shots were clean.
Sometimes the singer moved to the back of the hall where there were no lights. The HD cams went black following her out and even when they switched to maximum gain it was an ugly muddy, misty, grainy shot.
The pd170 was still pulling clean shots at threequarter telephoto and I limited gain to just 6db.
I was as surprised as the HD boys were.
So low light performance can be important, even shooting inside a house on a cloudy day can prove challenging for some cameras.
I have not tested the DVX in interlaced mode/low light yet. In 25P it seems to have some difficulty but not a problem as for films the scene would be lit anyway.
Just something else to consider. These HDV cams are supposed to be "prosumer". If thats the best they can do then what would the consumer HDV cams be like?
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