HMC 40 first use

K

Kyle1001

Member
I had the pleasure of shooting with this camera yesterday. Had a two camera shoot with it for a 10 hour wedding. There are some really nice features on this camera and a few things that were a little annoying.

I really liked the handle design. I know that might sound dumb as a thing to like but it made caring it around much easier. It was a little to light at time I had to find more things to lean and support myself with.

The time lapse feature is great. Its nice to have a shot of the place you are sooting with clouds rushing by. The ND doesnt help much at all and the camera doesn't let you know when it is being used. I was shooting at 2 o'clock in FL. I had to use my shutter in places i would have liked not to. They have a feature called DRS that worked really well when shooting someone in the shade but there was bright light around them.

Its nice that they finally are using a 16x9 screen instead of the 4x3 screen. It gives you a very good picture. I would have liked to use a hood with it but was unable as you need to use the screen so much to access your menus. The eye piece is small and and not that sharp.

I am going to wait to comment on the low light until i see how it looks on a big monitor. My editor has the footage now and ill know how it looks tomorrow. I had to use gain a lot. Most indoor stuff was shot with at least a 3db gain. The reception the camera with a light was at 15db and the roaming camera was at 20db.

We hooked a sennheiser pack into the camera using a 1/8mm jack instead of the pro audio add on. It worked very well. We had one pro audio pack with the shotgun mic as well. It sounded great. It would be nice if you could still use the on camera mic when using the mic jack on the camera though.

One feature that I used quite a bit was the touch screen focus. I found i could some really nice rack focuses much smoother by just touching the screen than spinning the ring. It worked well in the low light of the reception.

Overall if i didn't use the 150 so much I think I would have liked this camera a lot more. It is a great little camera. But the lack of manual features kinda bummed me out. As a starter camera or as a C camera it would be a good addition to your inventory.

If you are going to be at weva the footage that we shoot is being shown at the panasonic booth.
 
Kyle1001 said:
One feature that I used quite a bit was the touch screen focus. I found i could some really nice rack focuses much smoother by just touching the screen than spinning the ring. It worked well in the low light of the reception.
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Could you comment on this a bit more? What framerate were you shooting? I would expect 24p to have auto focus issues in low light.

Kyle1001 said:
Overall if i didn't use the 150 so much I think I would have liked this camera a lot more. It is a great little camera. But the lack of manual features kinda bummed me out. As a starter camera or as a C camera it would be a good addition to your inventory.
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What manual features did you miss? The HMC40 seems to have all of the manual features of the HMC150 they are just not as convenient (fewer buttons) - is that what you meant?

Kyle1001 said:
If you are going to be at weva the footage that we shoot is being shown at the panasonic booth.
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Any chance some of the footage could find its way to Vimeo or Youtube? Particularly the low light stuff. :dankk2:

Rich
 
> I had to use gain a lot. Most indoor stuff was shot with at least a 3db gain.
> The reception the camera with a light was at 15db and the roaming camera was at 20db.

The attached image is the Sony HDR-HC1 at 18dB, it is not very sharp, I pulled it from my Vimeo page. Could you post a frame grab from the HMC40 at 20dB?

> It would be nice if you could still use the on camera mic
> when using the mic jack on the camera though.

This what really annoys me in consumer cams, when the jack is in, there is no way to use the internal mic.

> One feature that I used quite a bit was the touch screen focus.

Do you need to engage it? On the Sonys you need to select Spot Focus for this to work. If you could use it without explicitly engaging spot focus, but simply touching the screen when focus is in manual mode, that would be awesome.
 

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Cranky said:
>
Do you need to engage it? On the Sonys you need to select Spot Focus for this to work. If you could use it without explicitly engaging spot focus, but simply touching the screen when focus is in manual mode, that would be awesome.
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Well it does take a couple of actions to get it going. Assume you are in manual focus (1) touch the screen to bring up the Function Navi icon (2) touch the Function Navi Icon (3) Touch the button to engage touch autofocus. From there on it stays engaged until you turn it off - but it does mean you can't access any of the other Function Navi items (but it seems unlikely you would want to use any of them during recording).
 
I will work on getting some screen grabs and some video up so you guys can check it out.

I shot it in 30p. It was really nice to be able to touch the screen to change focus quick. For the entrances at the reception i had the guy making the announcements in the foreground and the door they were entering in the background and was able to quickly change my focus point without much effort. Once you engage the touch screen focus you can go out of the nav menu and still use it. If you change and want to go to manual you just need to push the focus button on the side of the camera to switch back to manual.

I really missed the zoom ring being seperate from the focus ring. I tend to use it instead of the zoom control to snap to a shot instead of slow zooming in. The audio controls are a touch screen feature if you arent using the pro audio attachment. The shutter is also a touch screen feature that you have to navigate to. I would have liked there to be a typical white balance pre a/b switch as well.

I really did like that the gain was put in at 1db intervals once you reached the bottom of the lens instead of there being a switch though.

Something i didn't touch on is there stabilizer that is built in. It seemed to work really well. At one point i was riding on the back of a golf cart shooting out the back and the little bumps were not noticeable
 
and i forgot. The time from turn off to on is super fast. And the battery life is better than on the 150 for the whole 10 hours i only went through 2 batteries for each camera. The having to power cycle for scene files is kinda weird. I just manually changed the scene file settings as i needed to. And the time lapse is always in 24p no matter what format you are shooting in the camera will change over when you go into interval record.
 
I'm wondering if the HMC40 would make a good "B" cam to an HMC150 for weddings. Any thoughts on this?
 
Kyle1001 said:
and i forgot. The time from turn off to on is super fast.
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On my HDC-SD1 -- the first solid-state AVCHD camcorder, released in 2006 -- it takes 1.7 seconds from off to on. Therefore, no need for a silly standby mode like on the Canons, which is indeed instant on, but consumes almost half of normal power in stanby! Not 2%, not 5%, but 50% of normal full-on power! Outrageous.

By the way, does it make any noise when it turns up? The SD1 does not (it bleeps, but you can turn this off), while the SD100 makes a distinct noise that many still digicams make, when they prepare the lens for shooting, electric motors, gears... "bzzzz!". It is pretty loud.

Kyle1001 said:
And the battery life is better than on the 150 for the whole 10 hours i only went through 2 batteries for each camera.
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xMOS, baby. The "small" VW-VBG130 lasts about 35-40 minutes on the SD1 with its 1/4-inch 3CCD, but lasts almost an hour and a half on the SD100 with its 1/6-inch 3MOS system.

Kyle1001 said:
And the time lapse is always in 24p no matter what format you are shooting in the camera will change over when you go into interval record.
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You mean if you are shooting in 60i, then turn timelapse on, then press Record, it will record in 24p? Looks like a firmware bug.
 
Cranky said:
You mean if you are shooting in 60i, then turn timelapse on, then press Record, it will record in 24p? Looks like a firmware bug.
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It is very clearly documented that interval recording is 1080/24p. But I am surprised that if you have 720/60p selected and do an interval recording, when you are finished you find yourself at 1080/24p. Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind if you are hurried.
 
ctb1010 said:
I'm wondering if the HMC40 would make a good "B" cam to an HMC150 for weddings. Any thoughts on this?
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I and others asked this question in other threads. The basic answer is that the HMC-40 is 3 stops slower than the HMC-150, meaning that at 18db gain on the 40 you are getting what the 150 gets at 0db gain. The tests Barry Green ran indicated you shouldn't use over 12db gain on the 40 unless absolutely necessary.

On the other hand, the 40 has more resolution in good light.

I tried a 40 over the weekend and didn't think it would be worth the savings as a B cam to the 150 for me because of the low light performance. I already have other cameras that don't do well in low light and are either a chore or impossible to match up to the 150 footage when I shoot things like a dimly lit reception. Although the 40 is really nice in other respects, I need a matching camera.

If you don't need the low light capability, the 40 would be super nice to have in your video arsenal and you would probably use it a lot due to the small size.

Looking at the big picture, the 150 is the current king of low light in the 1/3" sensor cameras, so it only makes sense that a 1/4" camera, even if really good, wont come close to 1/3" sensor performance.
 
@jeff9329 Thanks for the awesome answer! That's kind of what I figured the answer would be. It'd be great to save the money but it sounds like the 150 is the best B cam for a 150.
 
There are no turn on noises. I used the 5800 batteries and got over 4 hours of use out of them. I only needed two for the 10 hour shoot.
 
Kyle1001 said:
Here are some screen shots that i got from my editor.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33124543@N05/sets/72157622214352879/
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Not bad. Would be nice to see one of these... like this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/33124543@N05/3910147776/in/set-72157622214352879/ in full size, because downsizing hides noise. I know it, the stuff I shot with the HC1 is very noisy in HD, but looks decent when downsized to DVD.

Overall it is comparable to the HC1, but is it any better? Still, looks very usable to me. The HC1 does not have progressive mode, but it can shoot at 1/30 shutter.
 
David S. said:
What cams do you own and use regularly Cranky?
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Consumer stuff: HC1, HV30, HF100, SD1, SD100. I sold the HV30 and the HF100. I am selling the HC1 now. I haven't sold the SD100 only because it has native 24p.

I have been looking at the 150 for a year already, I wanted it from the moment it was announced. I am looking at the 40 now, but I am not sure this would be a wise choice for me. Maybe the 7D? But then I will have to get all these different lenses.

The tiny SD100 is not that bad, but its tiny 1/6-inch sensors makes you forget about shallow DOF.

Maybe I should drop the idea of making videos altogether. I guess I am more a tinkerer, than a shooter. And I just hate editing, this really makes me nauseous.
 
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Cranky said:
I have been looking at the 150 for a year already, I wanted it from the moment it was announced. I am looking at the 40 now, but I am not sure this would be a wise choice for me. Maybe the 7D? But then I will have to get all these different lenses.
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Cranky, the only downside whatsoever to the 150 is the slightly compromised resolution you get from the 1.5 pixel offset sensors.

If it were not for this, you would be crazy to not get the 150. I would still recommend getting the 150 as the top 1/3" camera or just waiting it out until the next iteration. I believe sensor technology is at a bit of a plateau, so every camera is some type of a compromise currently.

The 40 is a different class of camera, but seems to be at the top of that class with what we know. It WOULD be a good C camera for the 150 IMO as the low light the 150 thrives in is only about 20-30% of my shooting.

FYI, I formerly used the Canon XH-A1 cameras and upgraded to the 150s. I still have and use a JVC GR HD-1 (the first ever consumer HD cam) for B/C camera, but it is miserable in low light.

I want a 7D to replace my reliable 350D. However, 12 min shooting time does not make it as a video camera. It would be good for getting glamour shots of the venue and some DOF glamor shots. I always need some good stills for the DVD and box artwork.
 
> you would be crazy to not get the 150

I know, but as I am not a pro, spending $3,5K on a hobby does not bode well with the wife. Since there is no burning need to buy a camera right now, I am willing to wait some more to see what Canon is going to offer. It must replace the GL-2 with an HD cam, just like Panasonic has replaced the DVC30 with the HMC40.

As to the 40, it is inferior to the 150 while being only $1000 cheaper (if you count the XLR adapter, which is built into the 150). On the other hand, the TM300 is being sold for about $1,200-1,300. Is paying extra $800 for the same lens/sensor with added pro features too much?

For its price the 40 is not bad at all, the whole other question whether one is willing to accept its performance regardless of the price. Lots of people shoot with the FX7/V1 and many of them are happy with these cams. The 40 should not be much less sensitive than these Sony cams. I wish someone tested them in a shootout.
 
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