Hv20 and low light how does i t compare ????

Mark Dog

Mark Dog

Well-known member
How does the HV20 compare in low light situations to the HVX200 or the JVC HD100U and 110U or any the sony HDV cameras ???????????????????????? RING IN you experts out the in dvxuser land


peace n luv


Mark Dog
 
I have HV20, A1 and HVX200 at my disposal and I may say that HV20 is only a little bit weaker than the HVX but A1 wins over HV20 and HVX200. That said I must admit that comparing a small consumer camcorder with pro camcorders is like night and day.
I have taken HV20 to moderate low light documentary scenes lit by one 50W bulb and it has worked better than HVX200 as long as I`m considering 720p output cause downscaled noise from 1080p isn`t that bad at all and blacks are cleaner on HV20 out of the box.
HV20 is perfect for spontaneous work specially when you must lug your own equipment and so on.
I would not consider SONY as I`m a big fan of natural noise and images not sharpened to death. IMHO

If I had the funds and an assistant I would have brought JVC HD200 in an instant because of the form factor, tape based recording medium, 60p and real lens.

After all it comes down to your specific projects you will be doing with the equipment. All my considerations are basically based on image quality, weight and recording medium.

I`ll upload an original HV20 low light clip if that helps. But reading some books will do much better job than evaluating equipment on the net. Equipment will come to the good story and not vice verca. I have learnt that in first hand.

Cheers,
T
 
That be great Toenis if ou can give us some lowlight HV20 footage thanxxxxxxxxxx alot

peace n luv

Mark Dog
 
This is what in my mind is low light, lit by a single 75W domestic light.
>> Heavily color (in)corrected HV20 low light sample (Cinemode 720P 22mb)
As I used only freeware tools to do the resize, correction and encoding I might have messed up the quality as there isn`t any noise in the image that I brightened up about 1-2 stops, it seems too fluid.

>> Here you can see about the worst conditions I`ve put HV20 into (7mb resized SD)

BTW it is essential that you use custom white balane off a white surface in the light you will record as this gives much better results (color detail) than the WB presets.

Cheers,
T
 
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nice footage toenis thanxxx they look pretty good to me what setting did you shot with on the HV20 did you shoot 60i or 24p or 24p with cinemode ??????????????????

peace n luv

Mark Dog
 
As I live in Europe I used 25P and cinemode with contrast +1 and custom white balance.
As we all know by now when you cover the HV20 lens with your hand and push the joistick to lock exposure at -11 you will be at 48/50 shutter speed without gain but that was too dark for such a scene so I dialed it up a bit till I had a little bit underexposed image.

Cheers,
T
 
No, I meant HVX. Sorry about the mistake, I've gone in and corrected it.

How it ranks out is something like this:
DVX in interlaced, or PD150: 1280 ISO
DVX in progressive: 640 ISO
HVX, HD100 and XHA1: 320 ISO
HV20: 120 ISO (according to someone's report on DVInfo, which sounds about right)

So you'd need about 2.5 times as much light to get equivalent brightness (with no gain) on an HV20 as you would on an XHA1 or HVX or HD100. And 5x as much light to get an HV20 to deliver brightness equivalent to a DVX in progressive mode.
 
got you barry so basically if i got good image with a 60 watt with my dvx in proggresive i neeed a 300 watt bulb to get the same equal degree with the hv20 correct ???????

peace n luv

Mark Dog
 
Okay, just compared. HV20, f/2.8 and 1/48 shutter, looking at a white card, 220 watts of fluorescent light, I got 60 IRE out of that.

Then I tried the HVX, f/2.8 and 1/48, no gain, same scenario. I cut the light down to 55 watts before I got 60 IRE.

Same brightness, from 1/4 as much light. That puts the HV20's ISO at somewhere around 80.
 
so you basically need 4 times as much light for the HV20 as you need for the HVX200 is that correct Barry ??

peace n luv

Mark Dog
 
For equivalent brightness at the same f-stop, shutter speed and gain level, yes. 3x to 4x would be about right, depending on what gamma curve you had the HVX in. And the same would apply for an XHA1 or HD100; the HV20 is going to need at least 3x and as much as 4x as much light to deliver comparable brightness as any of them.
 
Barry_Green said:
For equivalent brightness at the same f-stop, shutter speed and gain level, yes. 3x to 4x would be about right, depending on what gamma curve you had the HVX in. And the same would apply for an XHA1 or HD100; the HV20 is going to need at least 3x and as much as 4x as much light to deliver comparable brightness as any of them.
Click to expand...
that seems about right... with no gain applied. i think you can gain up the hv20 more than the hvx200 and still maintain a deliverable image. so the difference in getting a low-light image between the two is slightly less than those test bear out. BUT from my memory the hv20 has much poorer saturation for a dim image than the hvx200. it's not a straight comparison.

thanks barry for doing those tests!
 
also could you shoot some footage barry if you gte time and post up to down load off some low light HV20 footage nad then some HV20 footage in same setting but with the 4 times rule

peace n luv

Mark Dog
 
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