adamr316
Well-known member
I finally got my hands on an HVX200P this past month. Last month I shot a short film on it and just yesterday I shot the beginning of a documentary with it. I must say I am very happy with the colors and bokeh of the HVX. The ease of use was also nice (although not as nice as the JVC HD100 but I am an ENG guy after all.)
A local film gathering place opened their equipment rental doors and we are finally able to shoot HD projects with small amounts of money. We are very fortunate that they were able to provide this great service to us and I am grateful to have finally used this excellent camera!
For the film shoot I decided that 720/24p would be our best choice due to some scenes requiring slo motion. I also did not see much of a resolution gain while monitoring the live feed. I was also warned about potential problems with shooting at 1080/24p (do these major issues still exist with new computers?) so I was definitely convinced.
The camera came with Barry Green's excellent HVX book and I read it cover to cover. I decided on using the Filmic scene file provided by Barry. For white balance I used Warm Cards...using the 100 IRE/video white side (not the blues). A firestore 100 hard drive is our recording device and the director purchased a 750 GB Western Digital MyBook to offload footage. As a precaution we also backed up our files (Quicktime mov files...thanks FS-100 3.0!) to DVD-R data.
As Barry's book suggested, I set the Zebra controls to 70% and 105%. Following this advice allowed me to nail the exposure almost perfectly every time. Focus was taken care of easily with the focus assist and EVF detail switches. One of the crew members brought over his new iMac to the set on Day 3 and I was extremely happy with the footage I saw. The most beautiful part was that no capturing was required...the files played right off the hard drives in FCP 6! I know none of this is new to a lot of people here but I had no idea how much this really helps with efficiency. The actors also were impressed!
I also really liked the 24p cadence/motion that I saw. I'm not sure if that's the work of the progressive frame LCD screen or what but it's a lot better than what I've seen in the past on a broadcast video monitor (interlace).
Now...onto the documentary.
I personally do not like the look of 24p for most documentary work. To me interviews and any "live" action should be shot at 60i because the strobing effect (especially with handheld footage) just looks bad. And we're going for the highest resolution that the camera can do...and if it's good enough for the Discovery Channel then it's good enough for me.
I decided to go with this mode for every section except for the re-enactments (this is a history documentary). Those will be shot at 1080/24p for a different visual effect.
I will also shoot the 24p footage with the Filmic scene file instead of the Bright scene file (another Barry Green file) that I slightly modified (less saturation, detail and pedestal) for the interview footage/present day footage.
We used the 1/2 warm cards for white balancing. For exposure I again used Barry Green's advice. This again nailed the exposures spot on. Even when I thought I was underexposing too much I just went with the zebra stripes and it paid off (telling how footage will look on the viewfinder on a bright sunny day is hard if not impossible). The HVX retained shadow detail VERY well and I am very thankful for it. My friend/producer was also very impressed with the visuals the HVX provided.
One thing I do have a question about is noise. Does the HVX process the noise and reduce it after compression to DVCPro HD? When viewing the live component output during a test (it's my only way of seeing HD footage on my TV with the Firestore option) the picture was quite noisy. But while viewing footage later at SD the noise is gone. I know it's a big resolution change (which could be why I'm not seeing the noise in SD) but I'm crossing my fingers that my outdoor footage won't have a lot of chroma noise on "tape." Yes, my gain switch was set to 0 dB during tests and during yesterday's shoot.
Last but certainly not least...audio. For the movie we used a Sennheiser ME67 (it was the best mic they had...we would have rented a Shoeps elsewhere but were on a time crunch of getting equipment unfortunately). It actually was perfectly adequate for our project and it definitely sounds less tinny than the ME66. For the documentary at the last minute I decided to try my old Electro-Voice N/D767a supercardiod microphone for the "people on the street" interviews.
I am VERY glad that I thought of this because the internal mic is just not adequate for this situation. It is fine for non-vital music, ambiance and loud sounds but for crisp voice quality (not to mention isolation because there were a lot of people at the event we were at) an external mic is a must! And the way I like to shoot interviews (back up a bit and zoom in to get smaller DOF) does not work well when using the internal mic.
The internal mic audio was recorded on the left channel and the handheld on the right. The difference is night and day! The audio circuitry on this camera is great and it handles blown audio (especially noticeable during the movie where actors would sometimes yell and scream) very well. ALC mode ON...always!
In conclusion...I do like this camera but would love to see Panasonic release the next model with a lot less noise and low light capability. My eye is on the HPX500. I'm not sure if the live video out footage is what I should expect on my 55" TV after all is said and done (having P2 would have nipped that suspicion in the bud) but I am definitely pleased with what I've seen in the color and versatility department. This camera is a money saver in the long run (no tapes...yay!) and of course a time saver (no HDV transcoding) not to mention headache saver (what drop outs?)
A local film gathering place opened their equipment rental doors and we are finally able to shoot HD projects with small amounts of money. We are very fortunate that they were able to provide this great service to us and I am grateful to have finally used this excellent camera!
For the film shoot I decided that 720/24p would be our best choice due to some scenes requiring slo motion. I also did not see much of a resolution gain while monitoring the live feed. I was also warned about potential problems with shooting at 1080/24p (do these major issues still exist with new computers?) so I was definitely convinced.
The camera came with Barry Green's excellent HVX book and I read it cover to cover. I decided on using the Filmic scene file provided by Barry. For white balance I used Warm Cards...using the 100 IRE/video white side (not the blues). A firestore 100 hard drive is our recording device and the director purchased a 750 GB Western Digital MyBook to offload footage. As a precaution we also backed up our files (Quicktime mov files...thanks FS-100 3.0!) to DVD-R data.
As Barry's book suggested, I set the Zebra controls to 70% and 105%. Following this advice allowed me to nail the exposure almost perfectly every time. Focus was taken care of easily with the focus assist and EVF detail switches. One of the crew members brought over his new iMac to the set on Day 3 and I was extremely happy with the footage I saw. The most beautiful part was that no capturing was required...the files played right off the hard drives in FCP 6! I know none of this is new to a lot of people here but I had no idea how much this really helps with efficiency. The actors also were impressed!
I also really liked the 24p cadence/motion that I saw. I'm not sure if that's the work of the progressive frame LCD screen or what but it's a lot better than what I've seen in the past on a broadcast video monitor (interlace).
Now...onto the documentary.
I personally do not like the look of 24p for most documentary work. To me interviews and any "live" action should be shot at 60i because the strobing effect (especially with handheld footage) just looks bad. And we're going for the highest resolution that the camera can do...and if it's good enough for the Discovery Channel then it's good enough for me.
I decided to go with this mode for every section except for the re-enactments (this is a history documentary). Those will be shot at 1080/24p for a different visual effect.
I will also shoot the 24p footage with the Filmic scene file instead of the Bright scene file (another Barry Green file) that I slightly modified (less saturation, detail and pedestal) for the interview footage/present day footage.
We used the 1/2 warm cards for white balancing. For exposure I again used Barry Green's advice. This again nailed the exposures spot on. Even when I thought I was underexposing too much I just went with the zebra stripes and it paid off (telling how footage will look on the viewfinder on a bright sunny day is hard if not impossible). The HVX retained shadow detail VERY well and I am very thankful for it. My friend/producer was also very impressed with the visuals the HVX provided.
One thing I do have a question about is noise. Does the HVX process the noise and reduce it after compression to DVCPro HD? When viewing the live component output during a test (it's my only way of seeing HD footage on my TV with the Firestore option) the picture was quite noisy. But while viewing footage later at SD the noise is gone. I know it's a big resolution change (which could be why I'm not seeing the noise in SD) but I'm crossing my fingers that my outdoor footage won't have a lot of chroma noise on "tape." Yes, my gain switch was set to 0 dB during tests and during yesterday's shoot.
Last but certainly not least...audio. For the movie we used a Sennheiser ME67 (it was the best mic they had...we would have rented a Shoeps elsewhere but were on a time crunch of getting equipment unfortunately). It actually was perfectly adequate for our project and it definitely sounds less tinny than the ME66. For the documentary at the last minute I decided to try my old Electro-Voice N/D767a supercardiod microphone for the "people on the street" interviews.
I am VERY glad that I thought of this because the internal mic is just not adequate for this situation. It is fine for non-vital music, ambiance and loud sounds but for crisp voice quality (not to mention isolation because there were a lot of people at the event we were at) an external mic is a must! And the way I like to shoot interviews (back up a bit and zoom in to get smaller DOF) does not work well when using the internal mic.
The internal mic audio was recorded on the left channel and the handheld on the right. The difference is night and day! The audio circuitry on this camera is great and it handles blown audio (especially noticeable during the movie where actors would sometimes yell and scream) very well. ALC mode ON...always!
In conclusion...I do like this camera but would love to see Panasonic release the next model with a lot less noise and low light capability. My eye is on the HPX500. I'm not sure if the live video out footage is what I should expect on my 55" TV after all is said and done (having P2 would have nipped that suspicion in the bud) but I am definitely pleased with what I've seen in the color and versatility department. This camera is a money saver in the long run (no tapes...yay!) and of course a time saver (no HDV transcoding) not to mention headache saver (what drop outs?)