Kevin Railsback shoots with the HPX250

Here is a link to download an original clip from the camera:

89MB outdoor shot from a tripod.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10322369/HPX..._422_10bit.MXF

Scene file 1: Synchro scan: 1/60, Detail: 0, V Detail: 0, Detail Coring: +5, Chroma level: +1, Chroma phase: 0, Master ped: -7, A. iris level: -3, DRS: Off, Gamma: Cinelike D, Knee: :Low, Martix: Norm2, Skin tone detail: Off, V detail frequency: Thin. Overall P.A.P. Type 2 (which is the default setting), Shot at 1080, 422 10 bit, 100 mb/sec

Also - cameras are in stock as of tomorrow, Wed. Oct 5. Here is the shop site listing with a free Lenmar LIP540 battery. This link is not available anywhere else besides this forum.

http://shop.texasmediasystems.com/P...ndheld-Camera-w-Battery-Promotion_p_4535.html
 
wgzn said:
geez gang - SENSITIVE MUCH?

didnt i say right up front that it was really nice footage? and it is. i do apologize sincerely to everyone if my reply was taken more negatively than it was intended. and apologize to directly to kevin for any offense or perceived hostility. or at very least that i was the poster child representing his hesitation : )

kevin's footage was all gorgeous. and the camera clearly has superb range. and due to this footage i'm a good bit more excited about seeing one in person. where before i was more or less uninterested...

but we all have to admit that there is a marked trend of video devices that dont really handle camera motion or moving detail as well as many of us are used to. i know there are a lot of variables to that situation. and i also know that there are a lot of you here in the indie / feature biz. but there are as many, or id gamble to say more who come from a more ENG / event / news perspective who are used to our video cameras being video cameras. and not having to start treating our video cameras like motion picture film cameras.

im personally very hesitant with the CMOS thing and im sorry if my less than stellar experience with and perception of the current crop of gear, too often falls on the ears of a niche with a different set of expectations.
Click to expand...

First of all, let me apologize ahead of time if what I say comes off as preachy. However, we've had a lot of longterm posters here turned off by the lack of respect when their work is posted. From looking at your original post despite the fact that you liked the footage overall your post came off as negative and judgmental. I know you are curious as to how this camera performs with motion, a lot of us are. However, you might have actually gotten Kevin's feedback and experience from shooting with it if you'd simply asked him how it performed rather than post such a strong judgment condemning all CMOS cameras. Here's the sentence I'm talking about.

but i think showing locked off footage is a pretty lousy way of demonstrating the performance of a VIDEO camera. especially since aliasing, rolling shutter and jitter are such big niggling points about cmos cameras these days.
Click to expand...

You could have easily respectfully asked Kevin how the camera performs when it comes to aliasing and rolling shutter, but by using the words "lousy" you've taken this thread and your post in a negative direction. This kind of negativity is the reason why a lot of people are hesitant to post their work. So even though you said you enjoyed the footage it comes off as a backhanded compliment. And then you went further with your judgment of all CMOS cameras with this sentence:

that said. these days ive become suspicious of any test clips that dont show footage with the camera itself moving : (
Click to expand...

Yes, we are all aware of the limitations of CMOS, but as Kevin mentioned, he was testing the camera based on how he shoots. He isn't filming action films, he is filming exactly how he wants and has no obligation to wave the camera around like a madman. If you'd like him to, ask nicely.

geez gang - SENSITIVE MUCH?
Click to expand...

Again, just pointing out where message gets lost in translation. I think your apology is sincere, but to begin your post with "sensitive much" is not going to help your cause. It sounds like you're the one being sensitive, and at the worst it sounds patronizing. There is a lot lost in translation, and it helps to err on the side of being respectful rather than coming down with a rant on all CMOS cameras. It is fine to pixel peep and find out as much as you can about a camera's performances, but it's not ok to bring negativity and disrespect into every thread involving a CMOS camera.

Anyway, back on topic and please keep things respectful. If you want to discuss this further, PM me and we can discuss it.
 
A lot of us look to this board for a first look at Pany cameras...sometimes our only look before we buy. I don't live near a showroom. Many of us don't. Panasonic uses this space as a soft sell arena. Is that a bad thing? No.
Some of the principle members have a strong connection to Panasonic products. Is that a bad thing? No. To call out someone who uses strong terms in questioning what he sees is problematic. This is not a fine arts museum. It is not a Victorian Tea Room. One has to acknowledge the showroom atmosphere and say, yes...people will want to kick the tires and open and close the doors. The video in question was not posted by the shooter because he understood the nature (sorry) of the membership here. As an example, I looked hard at the EX1 and was surprised when people reported the codec breaking down the first time they panned the camera. I don't like getting fooled. Nobody does. Was the video in question an attempt to fool anyone? No. Should anyone be shocked at the "rough" treatment by one poster? No.
 
But we aren't a Panasonic showroom, and never have been. We are a group of users. Not everyone posts things for people to dissect, or to demonstrate the camera. Heck, Kevin didn't even post here. And his intent in posting was never to demonstrate anything to people who might want the camera. It was about what he does and his reactions based on that, nothing else.

Even if we were (a showroom), even if people did post for dissection, there's a good way and a bad way to respond. Isaac covered that quite well.

The point is, treat other users with respect and have some sense of why they do what they do. You'll note that the comments were about Kevin's work as a shooter, and not about the camera, before wgzn made it about the camera. Why not just appreciate Kevin's work and leave the pixel-peeping to footage which is actually supposed to be for that purpose? This was supposed to be about the his work, not the thing it was shot on.

This board used to be about discussing what people do with a/the camera, not the limitations of the machine. And it still should be. It's very sad that it's so hard to remind people of that.
 
Al MacLeod said:
A lot of us look to this board for a first look at Pany cameras...sometimes our only look before we buy. I don't live near a showroom. Many of us don't.
Click to expand...

This is even more reason to be respectful to people posting footage. Without these informal tests you would be very limited in what you could see before making purchase decisions. And the more people driven away because of the "rough" treatment the less information you will have to make an informed decision.
 
Additionally, if the intent is to get information for your personal buying decisions, why does that require the "rough" treatment of anyone? That's a bizarre sentiment -- that it's to be expected?

If you were to go into an actual showroom and treat someone "roughly," how long would you expect to be allowed to stay?
 
Ok, group hug!
Let's wipe the slate clean and star over.

So let me tell you what I really like about this camera. I currently shoot with a HPX170 so that's where I'm coming from.

I love the peaking. I was filming a closeup of a whitetail deer and you could see the peaking going on and off just from the bucks breathing. The buck would breath in, peaking would go off. The buck would exhale and peaking would be back letting me know it was as sharp as it was ever going to get at that moment.

With the combination of the new LCD and peaking it was easy to tell when I had a pair of geese in focus as I panned with them flying down the river.

Love the 22X lens. A vast majority of the footage I posted was at full zoom. The 250 can't focus as close as the 170 can so I had to back up a bit and then zoom in. So all the prairie flower stuff is at 22X. When the sun first pops up over the horizon that was about as wide as it goes.. The next shot of the sun rising is as zoomed in as it goes. There's a ton of room in between to get your framing right.

I love how when I switch to VFR the the camera says No Audio or something like that. Out in the woods it can be very quiet before sunrise and depending on a peak meters to let me know I didn't leave the camera in 60fps on my 170 doesn't always work. So seeing that it tells me it's not recording audio in words is awesome for me.

I though the camera drained the battery faster than my 170. But I have a ton of baTteries I bought from here so that was never a problem.

Love having the zoom,focus and iris all on the lens. Now breaking the mood when I have to search for the iris wheel etc. It was really easy to adapt to this new setup and I wish I had it on my 170.
I didn't like the placement of the focus assist button. Many times I shoot low to the ground and being 6'6" I tend to flip the LCD so the face is pointing straight up as I look down on it. By turning the LCD this much it stops my finger from reaching up to hit the button. No problems when shooting hand help but flipping the LCD 90 degrees blocks the focus assist button for me.
The latch for the P2 cards was kind of tough for me to open.

I'm sure I have some impressions about some of the other features but I'm typing this on my iPad so not the best way to write a lengthy post.
 
wow. i guess my original post does make me sound kinda douchey ; )

it was never intended to be a critique of what kevin shot. he used the camera as he uses a camera. and thats super. i guess my point was more a "cautionary tale" because weve all seen people do backflips over various locked off 5D and such footage. only to get one and find out its totally ill suited for their specific needs.

i hate to further sully up the thread here. just trying to wipe away any remaining perceived snottiness from my original comment.
 
n8ture said:
I love the peaking. I was filming a closeup of a whitetail deer and you could see the peaking going on and off just from the bucks breathing. The buck would breath in, peaking would go off. The buck would exhale and peaking would be back letting me know it was as sharp as it was ever going to get at that moment.

With the combination of the new LCD and peaking it was easy to tell when I had a pair of geese in focus as I panned with them flying down the river.

Love the 22X lens. A vast majority of the footage I posted was at full zoom. The 250 can't focus as close as the 170 can so I had to back up a bit and then zoom in. So all the prairie flower stuff is at 22X. When the sun first pops up over the horizon that was about as wide as it goes.. The next shot of the sun rising is as zoomed in as it goes. There's a ton of room in between to get your framing right.

I love how when I switch to VFR the the camera says No Audio or something like that. Out in the woods it can be very quiet before sunrise and depending on a peak meters to let me know I didn't leave the camera in 60fps on my 170 doesn't always work. So seeing that it tells me it's not recording audio in words is awesome for me.

I though the camera drained the battery faster than my 170. But I have a ton of baTteries I bought from here so that was never a problem.

Love having the zoom,focus and iris all on the lens. Now breaking the mood when I have to search for the iris wheel etc. It was really easy to adapt to this new setup and I wish I had it on my 170. I didn't like the placement of the focus assist button. Many times I shoot low to the ground and being 6'6" I tend to flip the LCD so the face is pointing straight up as I look down on it. By turning the LCD this much it stops my finger from reaching up to hit the button. No problems when shooting hand help but flipping the LCD 90 degrees blocks the focus assist button for me. The latch for the P2 cards was kind of tough for me to open.

I'm sure I have some impressions about some of the other features but I'm typing this on my iPad so not the best way to write a lengthy post.
Click to expand...

Great notes and fantastic footage! Very excited about the lens in particular. I was always at the end of the leash on the HVX200, but didn't necessarily always want that HPX370 form factor. This camera sounds like a solid doc camera - no compromises.
 
Wow, much appreciated, wgzn. Thanks for understanding. We really do want a friendlier environment here. And thanks to Kevin for explaining more about what he liked and/or didn't like.

For those with specific requests about how the camera performs in a specific way, just go ahead and post a thread for that. Now that 160's are showing up in people's hands, and 250's are surely out there too, there should be plenty of people able to supply such. I'm on a job through the end of this week but will be able to answer more when I get back.

For a quick answer on jello, it performs basically the same as the EX1/Red One/AF100. All perform comparably. Of course, the amount of skewing you're going to see is dependent on the relative motion in the frame, so the more telephoto you go, the more relative magnification there is, and therefore more skew will be seen... but that would happen with any of these cameras. Just like you'll see more handheld shake at full telephoto, you'll see more jiggle at full telephoto. Although the OIS does seem to be pretty good and helps dampen that.

Oh, one last thing -- one of the first tests I did was freeze the cameras to see if they'd addressed the "sticky focus ring" that could affect the 170 and 150 in sub-freezing weather, and I'm happy to report that yes, they solved that issue.
 
i have a question /request !!


i was looking for many times to a 10bit small camcorder and i think i found it.
but last day, i'm asking about some "raw" footage to a dvxuser(user) and i found a difference
between his images (hpx250 pre-serie) and an other P2 footage (the way they are compressed ) both 422 10 Bit AVC-I.
I have seen that "macroblock" of compression are more visible on 250 footage, so i want to know if there is some difference betweenn the way that AVC-I are coding the image.
So , 250 was a pre-serie, maybe the new version is better... i wanna be sure.

I do a lot of green screen and post-production, and i want to check more about this cam ( even if it's the only one i can afford for this 10bit quality ).

PS : I was on the way to check it myself today but my local seller has already give all of it to a local-TV's channel yesterday. D'oh !
 
Barry_Green said:
Now that 160's are showing up in people's hands, and 250's are surely out there too, there should be plenty of people able to supply such.
Click to expand...

This is really what I'm looking forward to seeing. I know there is another post, probably more actually, comparing the 160 to 250. Although tempted several times to upgrade, I stuck with my HVX200 since 2006, so now I'm anxious to compare these two. With P2, it seems obvious to go with the 250. To all who post their comments, questions, footage, feedback and findings, thanks in advance.
 
Kevin, on your blog you mentioned that you are back to using your 170 and already missing the 250. I realize there's the longer lens advantage, but was there anything else about the image quality that stood out to you (in comparison to the 170)? Thanks very much for you beautiful montage.
 
The famous Panasonic mojo is the same but the image is bigger and sharper. I mean noticeably sharper. After I sent the 250 on I was looking for some footage I had shot with the 170. I t almost made me depressed.
I think you will really see the 250 shine when it comes to more distant objects. I think if you're shooting a talking head, the 170 is going to look awesome. But I think when you start backing up like say I was shooting a field of flowers. I can easily see much more detail in the flowers at a distance with the 250. With the 170 they start kind of mushing together. Does that make sense? I think for fine detailed subjects at a distance the 170 can't compete with the 250. I'm sure shooting AVC-Intra doesn't hurt either.
So as far as image quality goes I would say the amount of detail I can see on distant subjects is something I'll really miss in the 250 over the 170.

All the other stuff with the peaking, LCD/EVF 22X lens is just icing on the HPX250 cupcake.

Does that make sense? If not I'll try to explain it a little better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top