Low Light Footage from HMC40
- Thread starter Barry_Green
- Start date
I agree that that footage looks pretty good.
However, when you shoot the 40 and 150 together in low light, it's a night and day difference. That's why I sent my 40 back.
Barry, you would do everyone a great service by doing a similar shoot with the 150 & 40. That will put the questions to rest quickly on the differences.
However, when you shoot the 40 and 150 together in low light, it's a night and day difference. That's why I sent my 40 back.
Barry, you would do everyone a great service by doing a similar shoot with the 150 & 40. That will put the questions to rest quickly on the differences.
Barry_Green
Moderator
The difference between the two really is night and day. The 40 needs 8x as much light to deliver the same brightness as the 150 can do. Or, put the opposite way, the 150 needs only 1/8 as much light to deliver the same brightness as what the 40 requires.
BobDiaz
The Professor
One interesting thing I noticed is that on my iMAC, the image noise jumps out, but on my 37" HDTV, it isn't too bad. At first I thought it was because I was sitting 8 feet back from my HDTV, but I tried sitting about 4 - 5 feet from the HDTV and the image noise seems softer than my iMAC.
Those who can, try looking at the video on your monitor and look at it again on an HDTV and see if it looks different.
Bob Diaz
Those who can, try looking at the video on your monitor and look at it again on an HDTV and see if it looks different.
Bob Diaz
matt s.
Veteran
Others have stated that their iMac LCD's display tons of noise also. I know my Dell LCD is nothing but noise when it comes to video.
Cheap TN-Film panels -- which constitute the bulk of monitors sold -- have 6 gradations per color. These monitors are unusable for photo and video editing. IPS, MVA and PVA are usually 8 gradations per color.
Barry,
I like your "automatic" footage very much.
I wonder how you managed not to shake the nice closeup of a little girl on her fathers arm at 0:24 to 0:28? Did you use your head as a stabilizer looking through the EVF?
I am afraid the EVF with 113.000 Px @ 0.26" chip prevents any manual adjustments in manual mode. Compare to the SD100 with 183.000 Px @ 0.44" chip, which even is hardly usable for manual focussing. Also, the 300.000 Px Display @2.7" of the SD100 - without touchscreen functionality - is superior to the 230.000 Px @ 2.7" of the 300 series and the HMC41. What do you think?
Erich
on SD100 - still looking out for better
I like your "automatic" footage very much.
I wonder how you managed not to shake the nice closeup of a little girl on her fathers arm at 0:24 to 0:28? Did you use your head as a stabilizer looking through the EVF?
I am afraid the EVF with 113.000 Px @ 0.26" chip prevents any manual adjustments in manual mode. Compare to the SD100 with 183.000 Px @ 0.44" chip, which even is hardly usable for manual focussing. Also, the 300.000 Px Display @2.7" of the SD100 - without touchscreen functionality - is superior to the 230.000 Px @ 2.7" of the 300 series and the HMC41. What do you think?
Erich
on SD100 - still looking out for better
Barry_Green
Moderator
No, that was 100% zoom, just handheld looking at the flip-out LCD, with the optical image stabilizer on. Pretty impressive stabilization...
I don't like touchscreen at all; the HMC40's appears to work okay but I'd rather have proper manual controls and buttons and switches. For sharpness, I find the screen adequate when the EVF DTL function is used; the combination of EVF DTL and the magnified focus assist is very usable. Without EVF DTL, I'm not thrilled with it, but with the EVF DTL I don't have any complaints.
Many thanks Barry,
it took me some time to find out what EVF-DTL means: Contrast enhancement in the center to help focusing. -DTL seems to stand for DETAILED, right? The SD100 does not have it.
How do you estimate the focus bar?
thanks again
Erich
on HD100 - still looking out for better
it took me some time to find out what EVF-DTL means: Contrast enhancement in the center to help focusing. -DTL seems to stand for DETAILED, right? The SD100 does not have it.
How do you estimate the focus bar?
thanks again
Erich
on HD100 - still looking out for better
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Bob:
The significant variation in apparent image quality between computer and LCD and Plasma tvs drives me nuts. The only redeeming factor is that I know the image on a recent production HDTV will most always be better than the computer monitor.
In my case I think the computer monitor (NEC2490WUXi 12bit LUT-8bit H-IPS) shows the real image and the HDTVs are showing a processed image even when all the auto stuff is turned to off on the HDTV.
So, just sit back and enjoy that HDTV magic.
I think that focus bar works well for a shallow DOF image, where you can have clearly defined focal planes for your subjects. In this case you would know which subject the bar corresponds to. I think it is useless for a long-DOF image where it hard to separate focal planes and pretty much everything in focus. How about shooting through a tree or a fence?
First, clearly I'm blind and not saavy b/c for the life of me I can't figre out how to start a forum thread. If I knew how, I would have asked this question in my own thread. Question is bout low light and I figure Barry and others in this thread could help.
I'm having issues with low light on my HMC150. Just got the HMC 150. Love it thus far, but have some issues. Low light shots are a problem. I shoot events at night clubs. Prior to my HMC 150, I was using a small Sony Handcam I got from Best Buy. At night clubs I use a small Sima light. The Sony and Sima combo was great in terms of lighting an area, but footage was grainy due to overall quality of camera. See example:
vimeo.com/6860920
Fast forward to the HMC 150. I have used the HMC in a few clubs with the same light and the result are very different. In the same club while shooting on the HMC and sima light my footage is even darker than with my old set up. That small Sima light with the SONY casted a decent area of light, but the HMC and light doesn't seem to pick up the same area of light.
I'm thinking I have the HMC set to the wrong setting. I will post example soon. But clearly the HMC has better low light than my old Sony. PLEASE HELP!!!!
I'm having issues with low light on my HMC150. Just got the HMC 150. Love it thus far, but have some issues. Low light shots are a problem. I shoot events at night clubs. Prior to my HMC 150, I was using a small Sony Handcam I got from Best Buy. At night clubs I use a small Sima light. The Sony and Sima combo was great in terms of lighting an area, but footage was grainy due to overall quality of camera. See example:
vimeo.com/6860920
Fast forward to the HMC 150. I have used the HMC in a few clubs with the same light and the result are very different. In the same club while shooting on the HMC and sima light my footage is even darker than with my old set up. That small Sima light with the SONY casted a decent area of light, but the HMC and light doesn't seem to pick up the same area of light.
I'm thinking I have the HMC set to the wrong setting. I will post example soon. But clearly the HMC has better low light than my old Sony. PLEASE HELP!!!!
Allen Ellis
Well-known member
Have you set:
That's all that that should darken your picture.
By the way, the new topic button is on the forum view area in the top-left. Looks like this:
- Shutter: 1/60 or 1/30 or 1/24
- Gain: 12db or 18db
- Iris to 'open'
- ND filters off
- Not using a crazy custom dark scene file?
That's all that that should darken your picture.
By the way, the new topic button is on the forum view area in the top-left. Looks like this:
Bo Sundvall
Active member
Hi
Comparing the specs for HMC40 and Panasonics TM300 seems to be about the same result for the image sensor size and the number of pixels on the CMOS chips. There seems to be a different lens system though as the HMC40 is wider. The TM300 have scored good light sensitivity numbers on camcorderinfo. Is it likely that the HMC40 and TM300 are comparable in low light performance with regard to the imager? If the HMC40 is worse in low light than TM300, what factors will that depend on?
I hope camcorderinfo soon will have a review of the HMC40 so it will be easier to compare the jungle of different models showing up now....
Regards,
/Bo
Comparing the specs for HMC40 and Panasonics TM300 seems to be about the same result for the image sensor size and the number of pixels on the CMOS chips. There seems to be a different lens system though as the HMC40 is wider. The TM300 have scored good light sensitivity numbers on camcorderinfo. Is it likely that the HMC40 and TM300 are comparable in low light performance with regard to the imager? If the HMC40 is worse in low light than TM300, what factors will that depend on?
I hope camcorderinfo soon will have a review of the HMC40 so it will be easier to compare the jungle of different models showing up now....
Regards,
/Bo
I'm posting a lot of little test videos here on the HMC40: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=180937&page=8
There's a lot more to come, but the whether is helping me to get the low light, raining, fog footage done all upfront.
Mainly, zooming, panning, tripod, handheld, different resolutions, shutter speed testing so far. Right now I'm uploading some daylight raining footage of more cars and will be uploading regular speed, 75%, 50% and 25% slow motion all shot in PH720-60p.
Chris
There's a lot more to come, but the whether is helping me to get the low light, raining, fog footage done all upfront.
Mainly, zooming, panning, tripod, handheld, different resolutions, shutter speed testing so far. Right now I'm uploading some daylight raining footage of more cars and will be uploading regular speed, 75%, 50% and 25% slow motion all shot in PH720-60p. Chris
ATL Media Group
Veteran
Thanks man!
Footage always looks better on an HDTV - it's made for moving images and it' circuitry is made to smooth, deinterlace, noise reduce all kinds of image enhancing goodness. Your LCD screen is going for a more straightforward representation. Noise, artifacting, aliasing, interlacing remnants will all look worse on an LCD computer monitor than a HDTV screen.