HMC 150 vs XH A1

PaPa

PaPa

Major Contributor
Hey all,

I am looking to find a comparison between the sensitivity from both the HMC150 and the Canon XH A1.

Reason being, as im figuring out what i want to do with my XH A1, do i sell it and go the DVSLR route? Or find something that is better in low light and stick to adapters?

What i want to see is side by side comparison between the two cameras, showing noise at different levels.

I find 0db gain the highest acceptable noise level on the XH A1, and i would like to see what you guys find acceptable on the HMC150 in terms of gain to noise.

If i can gain an extra stop with the gain and the more sensitive nature of the HMC 150 vs the XH A1, then i may just go the HMC route.

Thanks!
 
i've put my hmc150 at -12db and the noise is still nothing too noticeable, i think a lot of people overlook the lowlight capabilities of this camera, it's amazing.
 
I own both and although I have no quantifiable data I can say that the HMC definitely has the edge for noise levels, but then the XH-A1 is way sharper with killer glass over the HMC's weak Leica - it's all compromise folks :)
 
When you say it has an edge...an edge at what recording speed?

The HMC150 records native 24p at 24Mb/s. That is 34% less compression than the Canon 5DM2's 45Mb/s. As a long GOP, especially for frames without much movement it is probably then the HPX170...assuming the HMC150 is at 720p. At different frame rates the HPX170 can increase its bit rate, the HMC can't.

The A1 to HDV would arguably have twice as much compression as the HMC150. That is, as long as you recorded on the camera it is unlikely it would ever match the HMC150.
 
David, ever since I found a way to transcode AVCHD I've been recording everything at 720 50P, I can't say I've really used the HG or HE modes enough to be able to make a valid call. However at 50P the noise levels at +12dB are much more manageable compared to the A1 shooting in 50i at +12dB.
 
Mark Von Lanken said:
Hi PaPa,

A friend of mine did an informal low light test with his XH-A1 and my HMC150. You can see it here.
http://vontraining.net/viewtopic.php?t=515
Click to expand...

I think this is Exactly what i was looking for, thank you very much for posting that mark. It looks like i can gain an extra stop with the HMC's low light capabilities and only end up losing one stop of light with the adapter plus camera. Maybe this is the route i should go until better VDSLR's come out.
 
Strobe's right. Coming from the HVX it is for sure. There were so many shoots I was on with the original HVX where I didn't have enough of an exposure to even shoot with it cause any gain on the HVX looked like crap.. but the 150 keeps on rocking and noise just doesn't seem to bother me nearly as much when gained up.


Another main factor between A1 and the HMC is tape. I friggin' hate tape and hate digitizing so that's a major deal breaker for me. I worked a couple of weeks ago on a project with Buck.. hey buck... and we shot 8 hours of footage per day x 3 cameras x 2 days so that's like 48 hours of footage. Sure you would have to load each card into the system but then you could let it transcode by itself overnight and not have to load tape after tape one at a time and wait..
 
Two reasons for the HMC advantage over the HVX. If the HVX wasn't an HVXa, the HMC had newer technology. If recording in 720p24, the HMC has much better compression. The nominal speeds are 40Mb/s vs 25Mb/s. However, one is MPEG-2, the other H.264 with CABAC coding. One is I-frame only, the other is long GOP. Together that would give the HMC a huge compression advantage, especially if the scene had limited movement.

The DVCProHD advantage of 4:2:2 chroma subsampling is much less important in low light as both have the same luminence subsampling.
 
just watched that video again. It is absoluteyl increadible how much sensitivity you can get with the hmc 150 without the added noise level. Absolutely amazing. Now the quesiton is, purchase, or wait a few months to see what's coming and save the cash for that.. Especially since i wouldn't be making much money wit hthe hmc in the first place other than shooting projects.
 
PaPa said:
just watched that video again. It is absoluteyl increadible how much sensitivity you can get with the hmc 150 without the added noise level. Absolutely amazing. Now the quesiton is, purchase, or wait a few months to see what's coming and save the cash for that.. Especially since i wouldn't be making much money wit hthe hmc in the first place other than shooting projects.
Click to expand...
I say wait until you need it; there's always bound to be something bigger and better and cheaper and faster and lighter and ... whatever else... so buy what you need only when you need it, and when you need it, get the very best that there is available to you at that time.
 
Barry_Green said:
I say wait until you need it; there's always bound to be something bigger and better and cheaper and faster and lighter and ... whatever else...
Click to expand...

I've been playing that game for far too long. Always waiting and waiting for the perfect camera. The truth is, there isn't one.
 
I didn't say wait for the perfect one, I said wait until you NEED something. When you need it, get it. Waiting for the perfect thing will of course never happen.
 
focus and iris control switch

focus and iris control switch

I got my hands on a panasonic hmc 150 today and thought most of the reviews are pretty acurate.
But i did find it hard to tell when your in focus and i couldn't figure out how to focus
when the focus/iris switch in in the iris position or how to control the iris when in the focus position.
The panasonic rep didn't know either.
Any help on this problem would be appreciated.
Thanks
Peter L
 
Peter Lelievre said:
I got my hands on a panasonic hmc 150 today and thought most of the reviews are pretty acurate.
But i did find it hard to tell when your in focus and i couldn't figure out how to focus
when the focus/iris switch in in the iris position or how to control the iris when in the focus position.
The panasonic rep didn't know either.
Any help on this problem would be appreciated.
Thanks
Peter L
Click to expand...

The point is not to control your focus when it's selected on the iris switch, for autofocus or 35mm adpters. When in the focus position you control iris with the dial on the camera body near the front.
 
When the switch is in IRIS position you cannot control focus, it's locked out (unless you use the push-auto, or autofocus modes).

When the switch is in FOCUS position, you control the iris with the big thumbwheel under the focus switch, in front of the iris button.
 
Barry_Green said:
When the switch is in IRIS position you cannot control focus, it's locked out (unless you use the push-auto, or autofocus modes).

When the switch is in FOCUS position, you control the iris with the big thumbwheel under the focus switch, in front of the iris button.
Click to expand...

I was kind of wondering about that. What kind of situation is there where you'd prefer to have the manual ring dedicated to iris, as opposed to the smaller dial? Some kind of rapidly changing live show or something? I'm not too experienced with manual irises on video cameras..

One thing I will say though - I do think they probably should have just had a third ring for the iris behind the zoom.
 
We all think that... :)

The main use for the focus-acting-as-iris ring, as far as I'm concerned, is to "lock" the focus so it can't change purposefully or accidentally. And this is most useful when using a 35mm adapter, where you have to precisely focus onto the adapter's ground glass. Once you've done that, if you flip the switch over to Iris, you won't get any nasty surprises of all your footage being out of focus because the focus ring moved a millimeter...
 
Papa:

Barrys common sense advice, to wait until you need it, allowing for some practice time, is good advice (for anything).

The bummer is that I don't see any new 1/3" sensor cameras coming down the pike for another year at least.

The HMC is essentially still new.
The Canon XH series was just updated to "s".
Sony has a slew of new stuff and is financially on the rocks to boot.
JVC took 6 years from the GR-HD1 to get out a new micro-sensor camera, forget a 1/3" camera.

Probably Canon will come up with a cool XH series replacement sometime, but that will be a major revamp of their HD camera lineup.

Maybe there will be new firmware updates & SDXC support in the near future.
 
Panasonic needs to ensure the audio on the HMC is up to par first of all, before it can consider the hmc as competition for the XH for serious work..
 
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