FX1/ZU1 better in low light than the HVX200

Steve Shovlar

Steve Shovlar

DVXuser Sponsor
Well as this camera has now hit the streets I am reading that the Sony is better in low light conditions than the HVX200.

The Sony was not as good in low light conditions as the DVX, but the HVX seems to be worse than the Sony, with dark shadows having a LOT of grain.

What we need is the two cameras side by side for proper comparisons.

But for all the bells and whistles on the HVX, if the grain is bad in low light, that ain't good. Hope its not true but........:undecided
 
If it wasn't this, it would be something else...

Barry has already offered a possible solution to the problem with the noise, one that has already worked on some users. Besides in the HD For Indies comment, Luis said that the noise was about on par with the DVX.
 
Steve Shovlar said:
Well as this camera has now hit the streets I am reading that the Sony is better in low light conditions than the HVX200.
Click to expand...
That MAY well be true, but the more I learn, the less straightforward things become, and the more difficult it may be to ensure you're comparing like with like.

In designing cameras (even in their line up) then many factors can only be improved by compromising others. If 1/3" chip size is given, then more pixels means smaller pixels and less sensitivity - but better resolution. Sensitivity may also be traded for highlight handling, say.

Any HD 2/3" camera is likely to substantially outperform such as the HVX or any 1/3" camera in terms of sensitivity, all else equal. At a price. I'd expect all the 1/3" cameras to be broadly similar, some trading off some aspects more at the expense of any.
 
Hi guys:

I have a lot of firsthand knowledge about shooting with the Z1 as I have produced three docs with it last year and am in production on a big project with it right now. What you are saying is definitely not true, the Z1/FX-1 are SLOW, very unresponsive in low light. With my light meter, I rated the DVX-100A at ASA 700 at 24P 1/24th of a second shutter. Because the Sony is unusable in Cineframe mode, the best you can get is 60i with a 1/30th of a second shutter. At that speed, I rated the Sony Z1 at around an ASA 320.

I key interviews (in dark rooms) with an Arri 300 fresnel through a softbox. In the same rooms, with the same distances, I have to use an Arii 1k open face throughh the same softbox. And even then, I am almost tempted to introduce 3dB of gain, just to get a little kick happening on the faces.

Barry has stated that the pre-pro HVX-200has been testing with is perhaps only 1/2 to 3/4 of stop slower than the DVX-100.

I am confident that the HVX-200 will be significantly better in low light than the Z1. I hate the Z1. I was in Monument Valley last week, shooting outdoor landscapes with it and in daylight exteriors, it did fine. But I also shot two interior interviews and the camera is a just a ***** to light well for in comparison with the DVX-100A. The Z1 seems to have less latitude as well, shadow detail is very poor. Image noise is not very high but it is just a slug as far as speed.

My .02

Dan
 
You are wrong. The Sony PD170 (which is in the same leage as the DVX) is the king in low light conditions. The FX1/Z1 are worse in low light compared to the PD170 even if you operate it at max . gain. How the HVX200 holds against the FX1/Z1 and the other HD cams is not jet tested.

Steve Shovlar said:
Well as this camera has now hit the streets I am reading that the Sony is better in low light conditions than the HVX200.

The Sony was not as good in low light conditions as the DVX, but the HVX seems to be worse than the Sony, with dark shadows having a LOT of grain.

What we need is the two cameras side by side for proper comparisons.

But for all the bells and whistles on the HVX, if the grain is bad in low light, that ain't good. Hope its not true but........:undecided
Click to expand...
 
I just need to know that if I light something and want something black or dark without grain than i can get it.

Can you turn off all gain on this camera? Can you shoot a completely black room and have it be black? That's all i care about.
 
The Sony PD150 is really really good in low light, but i just hate the "over sensitive" fat glowing pixels look it had.
I had two of them and sold them because to my eyes, the image had no finesse at all.
I prefer a less light sensitive camera, as long as it is clean.
It is a matter of taste i guess.
 
aquafox said:
Luis said that the noise was about on par with the DVX.
Click to expand...

and thats ok?
are people expecting the low light quality to be compared favorably with a 3-4 year old DV camera...?
where was technology all these years in between? was it just used to make the image bigger and bigger (resolution)?
 
ooops...

i dont understand here...

I downloaded Kaku Ito's night clip, played back in Final Cut and it looked a lot..i mean a lot cleaner than my DVX100B.
 
thats good to hear Antoine...

unfortunately for Wintel guys like us... its all fear and speculation at this point :undecided
 
redindian said:
and thats ok?
are people expecting the low light quality to be compared favorably with a 3-4 year old DV camera...?
where was technology all these years in between? was it just used to make the image bigger and bigger (resolution)?
Click to expand...


Oh, poor guy, technology doesn't work the way it used to. But physics does.

Everything's gettin smaller, and smaller light-gathering surface will always be noisier and less sensitive than a larger one.

We have capability to take great images, but almost all delivery formats are compressed. Compression uses loads of technology, lets our storage, editing, and playback systems be smaller and cheaper, but not as good as film.

Our music/sound production capability gets better and better, but consumers want 30,000 songs in a matchbook, so the sound quality we tend to listen to has gotten far worse.

Technologie's been active! But it biases convenience over quality for most products.

If it didn't, you wouldn't even be able to consider an HVX...

-Barry
 
Ah..., sorry redindian,

At least, here, it looks very good, honestly.
So good in fact...i postponed two 30 sec. TV adv. to be able to use the HVX.
 
redindian said:
and thats ok?
are people expecting the low light quality to be compared favorably with a 3-4 year old DV camera...?
where was technology all these years in between? was it just used to make the image bigger and bigger (resolution)?
Click to expand...


To be clear, my impression is based off a one time testing of the camera.
I had access to it for about 3 hours, and wasn't able to do any side by side testing.

So, we're just talking about my subjective judgement.
Personally I didn't think the noise was a real issue at all on the HVX.

As far as whether or not it's okay for the HVX to have a noise level that is comparable with the DVX - I think so. People have shot beautiful and clean images with the DVX for years. And from what I've seen those same people will be able to capture some incredible images with the HVX as well.
 
ullanta said:
Oh, poor guy, technology doesn't work the way it used to. But physics does.
Click to expand...

if we keep blaming everything on physics.... we'd be still riding in horses...

humans flying in big aluminum tubes in sky??
"oh! havent u heard of gravity?...the more you cram mass, the greater the gravity pull there is...as Newton demoed with the latest apple treetop.. so forget ur flying dreams willy.... its impossible"

(sorry i work at boeing :happy:

doesnt it sound like the lame JVC SSE explation? when canon/sony was able to do a cam with no split screen?... its the technological choices they make with determines the images... not just physics...

is it just too much to expect lesser noise?
 
Luis Caffesse said:
So, we're just talking about my subjective judgement.
Personally I didn't think the noise was a real issue at all on the HVX.
Click to expand...


thanks luis - thats good to know...
 
redindian said:
if we keep blaming everything on physics.... we'd be still riding in horses...

humans flying in big aluminum tubes in sky??
"oh! havent u heard of gravity?...the more you cram mass, the greater the gravity pull there is...as Newton demoed with the latest apple treetop.. so forget ur flying dreams willy.... its impossible"

(sorry i work at boeing :happy:

doesnt it sound like the lame JVC SSE explation? when canon/sony was able to do a cam with no split screen?... its the technological choices they make with determines the images... not just physics...

is it just too much to expect lesser noise?
Click to expand...

Hey, I didn't say "misunderstood physics"!

I'm just saying... technological trends these days in consumer products at least are towards higher noise with higher convenience rather than higher quality and same convenience.

Anyway, too much to expect lesser noise? From a denser CCD? Yes.
As you yourself said, the Sony HDV cameras also have more noise than the PD170-ish cameras. There's a clear relation between pixel size on the imager and noise characteristics.

That said, hopefully in HD the noise is more film-grain-ish (since it's smaller relative to the picture) and in SD the down-sampling averages a lot of noise away...
 
The nightshot by Kaku did look very clean.
I'm not to worried about this. And yes Sony has a reputation of noise free images (with pd150, 170, etc). But while a pd170 has less noise (low light or not) then a dvx, it also has less color and latitude. And when you turn up the gain you can kiss color goodbye alltogether.
From the few clips I've seen I think you'll be able to do just fine with the hvx. You need to learn the settings and adjust them like you need to, just like with a dvx. Unless you're filming in complete darkness and screening that footage really big, don't worry.
Or did you guys think you could shoot at night with no light for a filmout and have no noise whatsoever? With a 6K camera? Even the big ones don't do that...
 
Oliver, I couldn't agree more. Whenever I hear about this camera is better in low light, I have to ask, what do you mean by low light. There are cameras out there that can see in the dark. Of course you can put your head through the pixels.
I still own two PD150's. Can you see images better with the PD150's? Well yes. But what about the actual quality of the images???

I did a shoot in Elko Nevada about a year and a half ago using two of DVX100's in 16x9 using the anamorphic adapters. I didn't use any gain on my night shots. I also used one PD150 as backup of the same scene (a band with dancing and colored lights) The PD150 was brighter, but the two DVX100's looked like film. You could see into the shadows.

I'll take those kind of images any day over so-called "low light" images.
 
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