Image Noise

I am finding myself shooting at 1080p more and more.

Maybe my mind is playing tricks with me but I think I CAN see a small increase in sharpness with 1080 over 720 with the 150.
Not talking about the 150 vs. any other camera but just 150 720 vs. 150 1080.

I was never one to shoot charts but maybe I should.
 
Thanks for the kind word Craig and for understanding that I, like so many people here, try to help out as we have been helped by so many people on here over the years. I've found great support, inspiration, and guidance from the DVXusers and especially from Barry. I wouldn't call him a God, as he might be a bit more transcendent than that. I mean, he's tireless in his assistance and in giving us such a unbiased and insightful perspective that we can all learn from. I truly owe him countless praise and thanks for his tireless assistance on this site.... His review of the HVX and also the 150.. made me feel secure in making both of these purchases.


I'd also say KUDOS to you Craig for understanding and re-evaluating your experiences and workflow. I know that I was kind of horrified when I got my HVX.. due to it's noise and lowlight defcincines.. but I learned to deal with it, and got some really great images out of it. It's the same thing with the 150. It takes a while to get to know the sweet spot in shooting and how it handles different situations.


You guys are also pointing to something that I found by accident. When I bought the Manhattan.. LCD I tested it at 1080 and then the next day I shot something totally forgetting that it was in 1080 instead of the usual 720. I had been shooting 720 to match to the HVX B cam that I was using. Much to my great delight.. the 1080 stuff looked really really good. For so many years 720 was all i shot with the HVX due to data rates and P2 offloading, and coupled with Barry's recommendation I was following suit with the 150... BUT, I might have to give the 1080,24p another serious look. It does really really look nice.



Also as stated you can get the PAL footage to go slowmo if you shoot at 50p. I thought that there was one version that did both, am I right here or way off base? Either way, enjoy your cam and give yourself some time to get things dialed in and then you'll be very happy with the results.


One more last thing... Hook up your 150 to a really really nice LCD or Plasma and you'll be totally blown away... I encountered this with my HVX years ago as I had been looking at it on my Dell and then when I got a real monitor... it was almost like using new eyeballs to view the stuff. Panny got this camera right and it's selling like hotcakes.


I have an upcoming gig where 3 150s are being used over HVX/HPXs because of it's near identical image and long long record times. There's a real strenght here regardless of the "pro-sumer" label that so many people are putting on this cam.



Cheers and enjoy the process!
 
craigsbrain said:
one thing i must disagree with as far as general consensus is concerned, is this supposed 720 sweet spot - (barry green included - even if, he seems to be a bit of a god around here...) - IMHO 1080 blows the crap out of 720 - the difference, in fact, seems to me, to be significant, overwhelming and perhaps, a bit of a no-brainer
Click to expand...

I really want to see the proof for that claim. The HMC150 has got native 960x540 pixel resolution CCDs and the image is upscaled using pixel shifting. I highly doubt you will get much of a quality boost over 720p (especially not in terms of sharpness).
 
I said sharpness because there seems to be an increase in sharpness in 1080 over 720.

The sweet spot came about because of the lower compression of 720 vs 1080 at the same quality mode.
Short of shooting charts I doubt it can be proved because it always comes down to the subjective view.



Compared to the EX-3 at 1080 the 150 may not be as sharp but 150 for 150 1080 seems to be sharper than 720.

I believe Bob Diaz even noted this. [I could be wrong on that so sorry to Bob if I got one of your post confused with someone else].:beer:
 
Hidef1080 said:
I am finding myself shooting at 1080p more and more.

Maybe my mind is playing tricks with me but I think I CAN see a small increase in sharpness with 1080 over 720 with the 150.
Not talking about the 150 vs. any other camera but just 150 720 vs. 150 1080.

I was never one to shoot charts but maybe I should.
Click to expand...


i did an extensive test a couple days ago and found that HMC 1080 is indeed sharper than HMC 720, even when the 1080 footage is rendered as a 720 file.

when viewing the original file on a monitor, there is a noticeable different in sharpness.

when viewing it on vimeo, there is virtually no difference because of the softness and compression that vimeo adds.
 
No doubt that 1080 is sharper than 720. Just not "that much". It's not as much sharper as, say, the HPX170's 1080 is vs. its 720.

The chips can deliver about 1440 x 810 worth of resolution. The 720 mode can record 1280x720. So the 720 mode captures most of the detail the camera can deliver. The 1080 mode will have a bit more, yes, but not a dramatic difference. And because the codec has to compress twice as many pixels into the same bandwidth, it was my observation that 720/24p is the "sweet spot" for the 150 because it's the least compressed with almost all the native detail.

Others are free to disagree, of course. I'm just laying out my reasoning for making the statement I did.

I find that 1080 is the "sweet spot" on the DVCPRO-HD cameras, because it's less compressed and more detailed than 720p on DVCPRO-HD. But with AVC-HD, as implemented in the 150, the 720 is noticeably less compressed and only slightly less detailed.

But yes, if you want to extract the maximum sharpness the 150 is capable of, you of course want to use 1080 mode.
 
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