low light test?

N

nickmicros

Well-known member
I am doing a night ext with a HPX on a low budget and have never used a HPX. I'm wondering how much light I will need to light a wide shot at night and avoid noise. It seems impossible but I wanted to ask about the low light capabilities of the camera. Anyone have any test w/ the low key wattage?
 
not sure whether this will be helpful, but... here is the direct comparison...
Camera is really sensitive in low low compared to HDV... if the lens i have was 1.7
instead of 2.0, it would heaven...
 

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Dam thats great, I always said the XH A1 was fantastic in low light conditions but the HPX blows it out of the water.

Thanks man
 
Hi,

the sensitivity of the HPX500 is great but the camera is a noise generator in low light situations. I would love to lose some sensitivity and get some more s/n ratio. On my SDX900 there is a gain setting with -3dB on the HPX you can only set it to 0dB.

Maybe Panasonic wanted to have a very light sensitive camcorder but I think the adaption of the single components http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=thMx..&search=components isn't really great. Because you need at last ND3 to shoot outside day. Less sensitivity and more s/n ration - then the HPX would be a fantastic camera.
 
you can adjust pedestal for the scene so that there is less noise, anyway, there is nothing to say about hpx 500... it is a superb camera and 20x better than any HDV ...
 
once you set pedestal +8, there is muuuuch less noise, though i find that noise pretty attractive, it's not the same kind of noise you get on cheap cameras... i don't have anything against it, so no problem for me. I would NEVER EVER trade my HPX to anything else, except for varicam or better hpx... forget ex1 or any other hdv camera...

i was reading forums and people talked that tapeless solutions and p2 is amazing and you will never go back once you try it... i couldn't imagine this feeling is sooooo strong. HDV = crap, p2 is amazing, you can't go wrong with panny...
 
I'm gonna have to try the +8 pedestal thing. I haven't had a lot of luck shooting low light stuff with my 500.

We did a some night shots next to a an HPX2000 a while back and the 500 was really noisy in comparison.
 
you can't compare cameras from such different price levels.... find something better for the same amount of money and then put for side to side comparison instead of comparing mercedes for 20k and 60k... that's nonsense. i couldn't afford hpx2000 and for 10k there is no better camera out there....
 
Tomas,
nick asked about the low light capabilities of the 500 as it relates to night shots. Your comparison was that of indoor office light. My comments were not meant as a direct comparison to the 2000, but rather to point out that the 500 requires more light than some of the higher-end models in spite of the 500's 2/3 chip set.

"you can't compare cameras from such different price levels"
Canon XH A1: $3300
HPX500 with lens: $20,000

You call that a fair comparison?
 
Wasn't the HPX used on Jack's UNAWAKENING short ?

I believe there was a long wide at night ?

Anyone ? Bueller ?

PM Jack and ask him !
 
i shot some footage the other night just for fun. it was outside on my street. i'm in an average neighborhood with sodium streetlamps. other than the horrible orange cast from the lights, the image was quite pleasing. i was at 0db and shutter off (1/24). an hmi or two and i would have been golden.
 
I do agree with Tomas, P2 is amazing.

But Brad is right, I really need to know about the low light capabilities of these cameras in comparison because these are what I have access too.

HVX200 w/ 35mm mount
EX1 w/ 35mm mount
HPX500

I will not be using any other camera and like I said I a limited budget, so there will be no lighting stronger that 2k.

As far as low light conditions and noise. I want it to be clean as possible and no noise.


Cheeze Wheel could you host a freeze frame? And was it 1080 or 720?
 
i was shooting 720. i trashed it but i am planning to shoot some more nighttime available light stuff tonight. will post...
 
I will be shooting a movie next week with my hpx, so i will see , how it works in the dark, though there is no sense in comparing HDV camera with 35mm adapter and hpx... 35mm adapter eats ALOT of light and sensivity of the camera falls down to around iso 100 or even lower, shooting indoors without additional lights is impossible....
 
true dat. before i got the hpx i was shooting with an hvx and a redrock. probably the least sensitive setup possible. rediculous amount of light needed.

now with the 500 i just shot some house interiors at night using only the house lights. mostly recessed overheads and some small lamps. looks beautiful and didn't even have to shoot wide open.
 
nickmicros said:
I do agree with Tomas, P2 is amazing.
As far as low light conditions and noise. I want it to be clean as possible and no noise.
Click to expand...


I think you should go with the ex1 and the 35mm adapter. The ex1 has more resolution and combined with the 35mm adapter you will get the "filmlook" with the right amount of dof. If you don't need to do a lot of grading in post and heavy cgi then the ex1 should be the right camera for a low light situation.

I have both - the ex1 and the hpx - but the hpx can't compare when it comes to s/n ratio.
 
i guess everyone has their own needs... as i told before, i don't that much noise on hpx and it's not disturbing, i love my 500 and would never trade for ex1, though i did want to buy it , i'm happy i went for hpx.

as for sharpness, i'm glad that hpx does not tack sharp images, this makes image look more cinematic, instead of video... and dof which you get with 2/3 is really enough to shoot without any adapters..
 
Personally I think the whole you need $60k for a great camera is marketing bs.

I was putting a reel together, mix of HPX,EX, XDCam and... something that was shot on an HDX and I was given a crappy web version of (from Japan). I upressed that crappy webversion straight in FCP, did nothing spectacular to it, just threw it in the mixed timeline. And the image came out great - even when viewed on my bravia.

EDIT and ill add this - if you have a hv20 and a big enough budget to get a good script, hire arts dept. grip, support, makeup, set design, script supervisor etc and Im talking quality people, youll make a better narrative than 2 guys and a red.
 
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