Green Screen Shoot out: T2i vs 7D vs HPX-170 vs EX-3

S

Spiral

Active member
Ahoy shooters,

Myself and a few other working professionals put this together for fun. Before you view this, you should know that it is not meant to be scientific. I'll leave that to folks who get paid to do it, or who have poo loads more time than I do.

Yes, I know that there is compression, and yes I know about all the nuances being lined up, like shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, etc etc. We got close enough to at least be able to judge some of the optics of each camera and how they perform under chroma keying.

So, before the assault begins, just remember, we did it for you (and us :) )
Yes, and I made the music annoying just to poke fun at the grumpy users! - hope it worked.

Conclusion: Man! That Ex-3 is looking good, I must say!



 
I'm not surprised but the differences are even bigger than I expected. And you're shooting the EX at 720 which virtually no one does. Should be up at 1080.
I still don't get why people think that the Canon's really look better than an EX. Low DOF - yes its great , but an EX with a 35mm adapter will still blow them away.

Not scientific , but still quite revealing. Thanks

great music and the talent is lovely.
 
.....what gets me is that all the rest of the cameras were shooting at the size we set them at, but the HPX-170 (instead of shooting 1280x720pn ) outputs a file that is 960 x 720. In addition, they could ALL do 1080p, and the HPX only does 1080i.

More on my HPX bashing (yes, I bash it because I own it,) it continues to shoot a warm- yellow like hue that consistently needs to be corrected, even when white balance is set on every shot. I am going to have to get into my scene files and dial in a sharper, cooler image as I believe that it looks superior. (see the ex-3 footage.)

Maybe I should saved and purchased that EX-3.
 
Spiral said:
.....what gets me is that all the rest of the cameras were shooting at the size we set them at, but the HPX-170 (instead of shooting 1280x720pn ) outputs a file that is 960 x 720.
Click to expand...

That's all the codec stores. 960x720 in 720p mode, and 1280x1080 in 1080 mode. You'd have to use the SDI port to get around that.
 
Interesting test, and yes not scientific but still useful. It also helps if the backdrop is lit properly/evenly and it didn't look like it in this case. Would be interesting to see results from the T2i and 7D at 720p (yes, I know they shoot only shoot 60fps at that resolution).
 
If you like washed-out colors that look like faded VHS, the EX3 is great. Try color correction: with DVCPROHD 4:2:2 you can do anything you want. 4:2:0 is more of a problem. In my opinion Panasonics HVX and HPX simply look the best.
 
daktulus said:
If you like washed-out colors that look like faded VHS, the EX3 is great. Try color correction: with DVCPROHD 4:2:2 you can do anything you want. 4:2:0 is more of a problem. In my opinion Panasonics HVX and HPX simply look the best.
Click to expand...


I predict the rapid demise of the thread...
 
Hi Digitalbard, what you are seeing is the Vimeo, compressed version. The greenscreens were actually lit quite well, especially by the EX-3 clips. I didn't do ANY color correction or lightening of the image because I wanted folks to see the closest image to raw that I could get. This is the reason the keying seems almost "greenless." We worked on that for a while. Anyway, no way for you to tell since you can't see it in the timeline.

Perrone: Thanks for chiming in. I just dug around in Barry's book and found my answer. It's sort of an intangible answer for folks who don't try to understand it (like me) but apparently, the image plays back at 1280 x 720 but it represents a

"prefilter from the square-pixel HD standard of 1280 x 720; the image will be expanded back to 1280 x 720 on playback" - Book of Barry, pg 77

I can hear Barry now, yelling to himself, "Yay! Someone read my book first!" *lol*

...So much to learn, so little time. By the time we learn our cameras, the latest greatest will be out and we'll all be talking about how CRAP the 5D is....just watch! :)
 
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to Daktulus:
It's a matter of taste, I suppose. The point was to NOT color correct, so that folks could see what the cameras were outputting; compressed as they are. I find the EX-3 to be a sharper, cleaner image that keyed quite well. But then, Tomato, tomaaaato.
 
Is the original video downloadable from Vimeo?

In any case, many thanks for taking the time to do it and post. It's much appreciated.
 
Spiral said:
Perrone: Thanks for chiming in. I just dug around in Barry's book and found my answer. It's sort of an intangible answer for folks who don't try to understand it (like me) but apparently, the image plays back at 1280 x 720 but it represents a
"prefilter from the square-pixel HD standard of 1280 x 720; the image will be expanded back to 1280 x 720 on playback" - Book of Barry, pg 77
Click to expand...

Barry is my boy, but this is just a fancy way of saying the camera doesn't record a full raster image, so it's stretched in the camera on playback to take up the space of a full-raster. This is similar to how HDV works which is 1440x1080 recorded, but on playback is stretched to 1920x1080.
 
"More on my HPX bashing (yes, I bash it because I own it,) it continues to shoot a warm- yellow like hue that consistently needs to be corrected, even when white balance is set on every shot. I am going to have to get into my scene files and dial in a sharper, cooler image as I believe that it looks superior. (see the ex-3 footage.)"

Spiral, there is no doubt the EX3 is sharper than the HPX. But color is what the HPX does best, so if you are getting poor results, there is something amiss with your settings.

Grant
 
ggrantly said:
color is what the HPX does best, so if you are getting poor results, there is something amiss with your settings.

Grant
Click to expand...


The above Grant quote is exactly correct. And if you haven't yet discovered "Scene Files" on your HPX170 and are just learning the DVCPROHD codec -- you're not qualified for what you call "HPX bashing."

The only news in this test is that the 7D/T2i didn't look worse.
 
AGMedia said:
The above Grant quote is exactly correct. And if you haven't yet discovered "Scene Files" on your HPX170 and are just learning the DVCPROHD codec -- you're not qualified for what you call "HPX bashing."

The only news in this test is that the 7D/T2i didn't look worse.
Click to expand...


Ahh, there's the grumpy one. Where've you been all this time, AG media? I HAVE discovered the scene files, if you read my post, I was saying "I need to get into them sometime and adjust" not "I've never been in them." Again, the idea with this camera "test" is to to give one an "out of the gate" view of each of the optics as possible - not the scene file, modified, BEST image.

To everyone else, I appreciate the gratitude, it's hard to find. Yes, it took us many hours to complete, and wrangling 4 different cameras is never easy unless you're in L.A.

The T2i, I thought, was the poorest performing out of all, and that's to be expected. If I posted the "HARP" test (in which we played the strings of a harp to show the rolling shutter) you all would "Shudder" or cringe, rather, at the snake like rolling shutter on the T2i.

As for my very own HPX, I've logged many hours shooting with it, and still while I have received some good results, I definitely have my eyes on bigger prizes, like full 1920 x 1080 p (not i) and a larger sensor.

By the way, there were 4 other media professionals there, most of them have with their own companies. So, we didn't just "wing it."
 
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DigitalBard,

Yes, I have left the video for you and anyone else to download locally, so have at! It's a community service, so feel free. Remember that the video is h.264 compression, so it still won't be as clear as viewing in the timeline, but at least you don't have to deal with online re-compression.
 
Thanks for taking the time to share this

Did you key the native footage from each camera in AE , or use an intermediate?
 
As t2i owner, I must say the EX3 definitely looks the best for greenscreen, which I do a lot of.

But am I unhappy?

Nah
 
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