I just acquired an HMC150P from one of our arctic offices.

James Carpenter

James Carpenter

Well-known member
To cut a long story short, I just acquired an HMC150P from one of our arctic offices.

I usually use an HPX170P, and whilst the camera (HMC150) seems very similar except for the format I just wondered if there were any pro's and con's to using the HMC over the HPX.

Thanks for any tips!
 
Do some searching on this forum as I've seen a lot of pros and cons to this thought over the last year. The 170 has got better (more professional) features, I would have loved to have afforded to get one. My 150 is great, very lightweight, love the SD cards (Cheap!), the lens has been wonderful, and the quality for me is fine. Out of curiosity I've wondered about the ability of the 150 to handle sub freezing (below 32 not 0) weather. ( I rarely shoot in sub 0). Did your arctic folks find that the 150 worked fine up there? When did they start seeing problems with the cold, if they did at all? Did they find they needed the 170 to do that work? Or something else?
 
In all honesty, the reason I acquired the camera in the first place was because no one used the camera. I've read that the focus ring sometimes becomes sluggish in cold weather (for both the 150 and 170) but had my 170 up there in earlier this month and it was fine.

So essentially I'm getting the idea that the 150 has slightly less features from the 170 and a far cheaper storage system.

Thanks all for your help.
 
I've got both cameras sitting around -- and the 150 has been used relentlessly over the past two years not because of cheap media -- but because of vast recording capacity.

Two 32 gig P2 cards gives me about an hour of recording time. Two 32 gig SD cards gives me about six hours at full raster HD "PH" recording. Furthermore, archiving (disc space) 150 footage is a dream compared to archiving DVCPROHD.

In terms of image quality, I've been saying for two years that it's indistinguishable from DVCPROHD. Two years ago I was crazy, now (because of the AF-100) I'm a visionary. Heck, one article came out a month ago claiming Panasonic's professional implementation of AVCHD ("AVCCAM") couldn't be distinguished by their reviewers from AVC-INTRA.
 
Also, the variable frame rates of the 170 are essentially irrelevant with the 150. If you want to mess with playback speed -- just shoot everything in 60p and select your frame rate in post. It works flawlessly, and actually expands your options from over/under cranking on the 170. Meaning, I can tweak things in post, as opposed to getting stuck with whatever I filmed.
 
I believe that AGmedia said it perfectly. It is indistinguishable in almost all cases. The only advantage I've ever found is that the DVCPROHD is a bit more forgiving and tollerant when doing greenscreen. Other than that, it's about the same. I also think the 150 is a better all around camera for the media solution. I recently shot a shoot and the other guys were on 170's and had to stop all the time to offload and I could shoot for days without offloading. I believe that's why the AF100 is going to SD as well. The success of the 150 over the 170. I saw tons of 200s, and seen a lot of 150s, but seldom do I come across a 170.
 
Flambe, since you have a real world example of the 150 under sub zero conditions, if you could ask your team if they actually experienced problems or if they just preferred a camera that they were used to, that would be interesting to me, at any rate. I do have occasion to head into snowy frozen backcountry, and if there was experience that said, "don't do it with a 150!" I'd switch to shooting with my 7D and just be happy with short run times.

Thanks in advance...
 
I used my HMC 150 and my DVX 100B in Cambridge Bay in January of last year and never had an issue with the focus ring....my hands yes...
flambe said:
In all honesty, the reason I acquired the camera in the first place was because no one used the camera. I've read that the focus ring sometimes becomes sluggish in cold weather (for both the 150 and 170) but had my 170 up there in earlier this month and it was fine.

So essentially I'm getting the idea that the 150 has slightly less features from the 170 and a far cheaper storage system.

Thanks all for your help.
Click to expand...
 
Montreal was about as cold as I've been in a while, when I was there a few years ago...have no intention of going back unless I can live underground at the center of the city!
 
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