Is the V1 a has been already?

No, I honestly don't see it when watching the moving video normally, ncje. Are you sure that blowing up an image from another camera 500% won't show any flaw?

And please note that my point was NOT to show the best possible picture from the V1; I've posted the grab in answer to somebody saying he couln't get a proper image no matter how he lit the scene - while mine was shot in semi-dark church...
 
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Of course when I blow up an A1 image to 800%, any noise in the shot gets blown up too, stuff you wouldnt normally ever see. And it looks pretty darn average. But it doesnt have those big block squares you see in the part of your shot I blew up. THats the issue.

I even imagine that this would look quite good in motion, none of that stuff noticable. It's when you come to doing your cc, compositing etc these things cause a problem.
 
ncje, can you do a similar grab test with hvx200 footage? I'm curious to see how it compares to the hdv test...

Are you using HVX or A1 more, nowadays?

We use HVX's and Z1's. The Z1 is a nice camera for interlaced/still shots. The HVX is what we use for tv spots.
 
1184551165.jpg


Take a look at this pic from a V1
 
Hello everyone, Mark Weiss here from Connecticut.

I own two V1Us and use them for a variety of shooting situations. I have mixed feelings about the picture quality. In sunlit conditions, it can produce almost breathtaking images. On cloudy days, or in the shade, it's picture quality decreases noticably. Indoors, it almost always goes into gain up and the picture quality becomes disappointing, riddled with noise and block artifacts from a CODEC that's forced to process too much high frequency information (noise).

I've noticed several things about the picture, even under ideal lighting:

Shooting a football field, the grass "shimmers" on pans, and a closer looks reveals macroblocks changing colors in those areas.

Panning over a river of still water, I noticed some large rectangular areas of differing shades of green appear and changing shape as I panned across the river valley.

Some sky scenes have block noise.

Overall, I get the sense that it is not full 24-bit color that I'm seeing. Faces show blotches of reddish and greenish areas, divided by a sharp boundary, when such faces are shaded from the sun.

To the good, the camera has a rather decent zoom lens that has impressive reach. It took great pictures in Manhattan on a sunny afternoon, as long as the buildings were not in shadow. As the day wore on, the shadows covered most of the scenery and picture quality diminished. With good lighting, the V1U can produce very sharp, photographic images.

I would have to concur with what ncje has observed about the camera's limited color palette. Although we don't normally view video with as much "push" to the quartertones as she demonstrated, her sample images do illustrate the problem.

The problem may be that the lens/imager system may be bringing in TOO much detail for the CODEC to handle properly. Other cameras, like my Canon HV20, have a softer picture and less artifacts. Hmmm...

I'll say nothing of the useless audio on the V1U. It's response is not even flat through the human vocal range. But at the moment, until the XDCam EX hits the street, it's my best option for the work I do. And I'm learning to shoot around its limitations. It IS overall a step up from my VX2000s.
 
basspig said:
until the XDCam EX hits the street, it's my best option for the work I do.
Click to expand...

After all of the negatives you listed I am unclear on what level it works for you.

What about a Canon A1 or similar camera? What about the Sony makes it useful, given all of the negatives you listed?
 
Oynk said:
After all of the negatives you listed I am unclear on what level it works for you.

What about a Canon A1 or similar camera? What about the Sony makes it useful, given all of the negatives you listed?
Click to expand...


30P, for one thing. I also like the quality of the lens better. Sharper images, less chromatic aberration. The Canon footage that I've seen just didn't look right to me. And let's face it: we're shooting a format that packs 4X as many pixels as DV, into the same bandwidth. The format on the whole is a severe compromise. But the bright side is that we have HD in our hands for $5K instead of $100K.
 
Now we are getting to the purpose of this tread. To talk about how people are using the V1.

I have two V1s also and have just started using them to record events and commercials. I am still learning how to set up this cam. I too get great outside shots and with an on camera light have been able to produce some decent inside shots.

Okay lets set up a situation and talk about how you would set up the cam . The first scenario is a church with stain glass windows moderate light some dark spots you are not allowed to use an on camera light.

What setting do you have the gain set at?
0 to 18 are the choices

What about the Exposure/Iris Dial Assign?
You have three choices Exposure 1, Exposure 2, Iris.
 
In places like churches etc (generally with deficit of light), here is what I do:

- set cinegamma OFF (to maintain mids brightness)
- set KNEE to HIGH (to maximize contrast)
- set BLACK COMPENSATION to COMPRESS (to save bandwidth, and avoid noise/blockiness in shadows)
- set COLOUR GAIN to 3 (to compensate for chroma loss)
- try not to exceed 9 dB of gain
- shoot in 25p with 1/25th shutter speed.
 
When shooting HDV, I try to avoid gain up under all circumstances, and instead, slow my shutter speed down.

I shot a major wedding event last Saturday, which included a choir, organ and piano performance. The church had natural light plus artificial lighting. There was also bright light coming in from various windows that created some backlighting challenges with the choir shots.

I chose 1/60 shutter initially, and shot in 30P for the beginning, but I was finding my whites for non backlit scenes were only about 30IRE, so I lowered the shutter speed to 1/30 and got better illumination in the frame.

Shooting the backlit choir with noonday sun streaming in from a window directly behind the soloist was something that worried me, based on my experience shooting such a scene with my older Sony VX2000, however, due to the CMOS advances, I found I was able to push the iris open to expose the faces properly without backlight bleed making the silhouettes craggy and ragged with all manner of artifacts.

The only time I was able to shoot +9dB with little visible noise was when I shot a book author speech at a library in DV mode. Since the picture was being downsampled, the noise was effectively minimized. But in HDV, even at 0dB gain, I see noise in the quartertones or when shooting in a poorly lit room.

I did discover that in interlaced mode, this camera can tolerate an additional 3dB of gain with the same visible noise levels. Progressive seems slightly noisier.
 
Thanks for the feed back. I shot a wedding tonight haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I had it set on 7. Guess I will find out tomorrow.
 
Ronbo said:
Okay lets set up a situation and talk about how you would set up the cam . The first scenario is a church with stain glass windows moderate light some dark spots you are not allowed to use an on camera light.

What setting do you have the gain set at?
0 to 18 are the choices

What about the Exposure/Iris Dial Assign?
You have three choices Exposure 1, Exposure 2, Iris.
Click to expand...

I use Exposure 1 (the default) and I try to avoid gain up if my destination is HD, as there's no integration (downsampling/smoothing) effect to cover up the noise with a 1:1 transfer. I'd rather go slow shutter, use a tripod and accept a little blur, than to see the picture quality break down severely with noise. HDV is heavily-compressed longGOP MPEG, so it's already overworked trying to squeeze 4X as many pixels into the same 25mb/s bandwidth. Noise is to be avoided at all costs when using HDV.

One little trick I discovered in the studio last night, which may gain an extra 1/4 f-stop of mid-tone illumination is to turn on the backlight function. I stumbled across it while pushing buttons on my Manfrotto 523 controller and noted that it appears to bump up the midrange of the gamma curve without boosting the black levels (hence, noise). This may help to further brighten images in low illumination settings where gain up is not a good option.
 
It's interesting what you're saying about the backlight function. Would they implement some extra gamma modification that's only available to rather - well, point and shoot users - and not via picture profile setting?

Anyway it's a pity this function is not available in progressive mode...
 
Basspig, you have a good point about the gain. I used too much and in some shots it is very noticeable.

Moldcad, as far as I can tell the back light feature is available in Progressive scan but only in auto lock mode.

So here is what I have decided to try next time.
Progressive Scan -30,
Shutter- 30, open iris and adjust until the zebra lines go away.
If no lines gain up no more that 6.

In my church picture profile;
Color level +3,
Color Phase 0,
Sharpness 7
Skin DTL OFF,
Skin tone LVL 4,
WB SHIFT 0,
Knee Point HIGH,
Blk Compnstn Compress
Cinematone Gama Off,
Cinematone Color off,
Profile Name Church

Use Peaking to help with focus.

What do you guys think? These discussions are really helping me understand how to use this camera. In just one shoot with your help I feel I am starting to get it. Thanks guys.
 
You should be fine with these settings, Ronbo (unless there are spotlights in the church, in which case the KNEE and BLK Compensation setting might be wrong). Also, don't be tempted by autofocus - in low light, it can hunt a lot and catch on something quite else than you intend...
 
moldcad, I was using the backlight function in Progressive mode. It should not matter what scan mode the camera is in for using this function.

The one function I know is not available in Progressive is the Still Photo function. Why this would require interlaced instead of progressive seems counterintuitive, since a photo is generally taken in progressive mode.


Ronbo, just curious why you set Skin Dtl to Off? I know it softens sharpness on skin colored objects, but one would think it desireable to make the B&G look their best by not emphasizing complexion irregularities.

Personally, I have been using the Portrait profile for weddings and it has both the skin detail and a warm tone to the colors which makes ceremony scenes look luscious and rich.

Here's a couple of video clips I shot of a wedding last weekend (edit in progress). The side and back of the church shots are V1Us, while the low angle facing the B&G is Canon HV20.

www.basspig.com/WindowsMedia/James&TeresiaVows(excerpt).wmv


www.basspig.com/WindowsMedia/James&Teresia(AveMaria).wmv



 
You guys should move all this great info to a new thread and let this "is the V1 a has been already" die. Its completely removed from the original subject. Keep it positive for V1 users. Just a thought.
 
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