highest gain before you see grain?

PerroneFord said:
There is something WAY wrong there brother...
Click to expand...

Unless basspig has one of those "special" EX1's ;-)

Seriously though, I think it was Adam Wilt that tested all the modes' sensitivities and the order from least to greatest was 1080p, 720p and 1080i.
 
Same results for both my EX1s. I did this test last year and repeated it again today with identical results. 60i is about a stop slower.
 
Tried it again with picture profile OFF, just to be sure my PP isn't affecting it because of gamma curves. This is my EX3, shooting a CenterStage XD movie screen with ambient room light:

1080 60i = 26%
1080 24P = 29%
720 24P = 37%
720 60P = 22%


All ABOVE tests with shutter OFF.


Below retested with Shutter @ 180°:

1080 60i = 19%
1080 24P = 22%
720 24P = 27%
720 60P = 15%
 
Last edited:
Sensitivity should be tested apart from shutter speed. Choose a set 1/60th, and then changing the modes will show you what the real sensitivity is.

1080p = 400 ISO
720p = 500 ISO
1080i = 800 ISO
 
I would contend that shutter OFF would test the real speeds. That is where you see the raw sensitivity of the camera at various frame rates and eliminates unequal weighting that you'd get with a shutter setting of ON.

If you have the shutter at a fixed speed, it's not a fair comparison because the dwell angles effectively change with the frame rate. Also, one does not shoot 24P with a 1/60 shutter. It's just abnormal and not representative of the use of 24P.

Using a shutter speed that keeps a given DUTY CYCLE for the chosen frame rates would, in my opinion, reflect a more accurate appraisal.
 
Barry is right here; shutter OFF means something quite different depending on the mode set!

With 60i, it's 1/60
With 30p, it's 1/30

So, your low "measured" sensitivity in 60i shows in fact twice lower than the max sensitivity is in this mode...
 
moldcad said:
Barry is right here; shutter OFF means something quite different depending on the mode set!

With 60i, it's 1/60
With 30p, it's 1/30

So, your low "measured" sensitivity in 60i shows in fact twice lower than the max sensitivity is in this mode...
Click to expand...

Indeed this makes sense now for basspig's results. Having an equal shutter is the fairest way to judge sensitivity of the modes, even if it isn't how we typically shoot. 720/24p with the shutter off you are shooting 1/24 at ISO500. So essentially you're getting about 1 1/3 stop of light over a 1/60 shutter...an equivalent of ISO1250 vs. the 1080/60i mode's max "normal" shutter ability. By that measure 1080/24p shoots 1/3 faster than 1080/60i mode if using a 1/24 shutter. Add 12dB of gain and you got 2 stops of additional light which is a lot of light...over 3200ISO equivalent to 1/60 with no gain.

The way I see it when shooting in low light conditions, cadence be damned. I'm more worried about whether my viewer can see what's on screen vs. any motion artifacts/added blur of my camera movements, etc. and less noise from gain.
 
Last edited:
If 60i measured sensitivity is higher than 24p, it answers the wrong question about which mode to shoot for practical low light.

24p with 1/24th or 1/48th second more than offsets the sensitivity advantage of 60i.
 
adamr316 said:
Anyway, the noise level by adding gain is much less noticeable than say the Panasonic HVX200.
Click to expand...

Hello, my first post here. I don’t own the camera but have had my eye on it. I am primarily interested in low light performance in a 24P camera, and the ½ inch sensor rated at 400 ISO caught my eye…

On the 3 year old “Texas Shootout,” the authors did some tests of the previous generation of cameras under $10K. The Sony HVR-Z1 was the best at handling gain. I realize the EX1 is a totally different camera, but I am wondering how it handles gain compared to the recent generation of cameras from other manufactures around this price point.

Does does the EX1 have more less grain than the HVR-Z1 at +6db and +12db, or is it too hard to tell from the images (first two links below)?

http://www.dv.com/dv/magazine/2006/June/TX-17-Z1.jpg

http://www.dv.com/dv/magazine/2006/June/TX-18-Z1.jpg

http://www.dv.com/article/17652

“At high gains, the Z1 was the cleanest. Its +12 dB pix were better than the others at +6 dB. The Z1 also held its chroma the best as gain was boosted, while the other cameras tended to desaturate unevenly. The XL H1 was a close second in noise levels, while the HVX and HD100 got the worst marks: at +12 dB, they looked like fast 16mm film from the 1970s.”

(BTW, I'm no pro. Just a serious enthusiast that can't find a camera with decent low light performance. I'm hoping the release of the Scarlet 2/3" and the next generation of cameras from other manufactures will put a used EX1 within reach.)

Thanks.
 
Regardless of the Z1's reputation (which I owned) for shooting with gain-up, the Ex1 is in another class. The EX1 is much better at shooting low light video with low grain. There's more sensitivity probably a 0 gain than the Z1 had at +12 (or more).
 
While the EX1 is also cleaner, another factor to consider is that the XDCam CODEC handles noise much better than HDV CODEC, which tends to produce an ugly blocky artifact with the noise from HDV cameras. You could have lots of noise and the XDCam CODEC would still look like film grain, not macroblock noise. That said, the reduced noise of the XDCam EX makes the matter a non-issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top