True North
Well-known member
My search for a new camera begins here, experienced NEX-FS700 & PMW-200 users welcome
Hi Everyone
Happy New Year!! This is my first day posting on DVX. Thanks to everyone who has shared their experience thus far! It has been helpful and greatly appreciated. To get up to speed quickly, I'm going to go over a little bit about myself and my situation. I have been shooting for the past 4 years. Started out shooting my kids hockey games on consumer gear and then caught the gear bug. I have been offered to do a couple of money making things with my equipment but have so far resisted. Recently I have been inspired to do a video project/documentary on competitive minor league hockey, so my personal interest and goals with this hobby have steadily grown into something bigger.
I am now on my fourth camcorder. I am currently shooting on a Canon HF-G10 which is about as good as you are going to get in the consumer realm. By consumer standards, my Canon does allow for lots of manual control but many important manual controls are menu driven and it's just not laid out as well the pro camera's. I am also hoping to get better overall image quality from my new purchase. I should also note that I shoot almost entirely on sticks, so having a hand held or shoulder mount option is not big for me.
My primary focus with this new camera search is on covering my core needs first and right now I am shooting lots of minor league hockey footage, which by studio standards means, always shooting in very diverse lighting situations ranging from hideous to worse. Needless to say excellent low light performance is very important for my purposes. I also need a camera with excellent auto focus, which I need when shooting game footage. I know auto-focus is not considered a very pro feature, but it is important in my case.
With game footage I am dealing with very high contrast shooting scenarios. I am most often shooting bright white ice with fast moving players in strong dark contrast colored uniforms. I can often shoot from an elevated vantage point at or near centre ice in most cases. More challenging vantage points are when I am shooting at one end of the ice tight along the boards through the protective glass. I want a camera that can handle the aforementioned scenarios with very high degrees of sharpness and clarity.
So this has all lead me to look into getting a pro camera/camcorder and my hope in posting here is to get some honest feedback from users on some of the cameras I am looking at. My current list of potential cameras is as follows.
1) Panasonic AG-HPX250P -&- Panasonic AG-AC 160
I now these are different cameras but from what I understand they have the same sensors and lens. I think I understand the technical differences between the two. I was pretty set on trying these out but then came across a YouTube comparison between a 250 and a HVX200a. The video hi lighted poor low light performance from the 250. While sharpness from the 250 was better than the HVX200a, the large 22x lens seemed to be doing it best impersonation of a black hole, sucking away all of the available light. I was pretty disappointed with the posted results to say the least. It's still in the running but I am a little gun shy. I would love to hear some feedback;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOW-T_sg5EI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
2) Sony PMW-200 XD Cam
After witnessing the some of the weaknesses on the Pannys I started to take a closer look at the Sony PMW-200 XD Cam. I figured that the larger sensors and smaller zoom lens (still plenty for my purposes) would on paper yield better low light performance. The only downside at this point is that the camera is new and their isn't much real world experience to draw on. This might be a good rental option to test out. I would appreciate any feedback on this camera
3) Sony NEX- FS700
This was an easy option to be wowed with early on, but while most of my shooting isn't 'run & gun' in the strictest sense, it is closer to that method of shooting than anything I can think of. I drooled over the slo-mo options on the NEX- FS700, but I figured I could over crank or shoot 60p on the other cameras I was looking at. It's not as nice as 120 or 240 fps but I realize their is no perfect camera for me. Other bonuses for this cam was good low light performance and the best depth of field on paper out of all the cameras I was looking at. I had pretty much written this camera off as it seemed too complicated for my purposes and experience level. That being said I don't need to be up and running out of the gate with this camera, I have time to learn it. I also came across a posted video showing off the auto focus capabilities of the Sony Alpha lenses....and just like that, this camera was back on the list.
3) JVC GY-HM650 ProHD
This camera is even newer than the PMW-200, I think it gets officially released today (Dec 31). Given that the release date is today, their is little to no real world experience or feedback to draw from. I am not in a huge rush to make a decision on this camera, so I will wait if this option shows promise.
Finishing Points
If anyone has any feedback or suggestion I am all ears. If you need any further information please feel free to ask.
As a further note, I live in Toronto so I will have good access to these items through rental. I don't know what the site protocol here is but I would like to post this question in various parts of this forum as they relate to my different camera choices. Not sure if this breaks some forum conduct rules but I think my question is relevant to various parts of this site as some users who may be able to give feedback will not come to threads related to other gear they don't use. I have already started a thread in the Panasonic portion of this forum, here is the link if you are interested in following the progress of that discussion;
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...users-appreciated&p=1986257003#post1986257003
Hi Everyone
Happy New Year!! This is my first day posting on DVX. Thanks to everyone who has shared their experience thus far! It has been helpful and greatly appreciated. To get up to speed quickly, I'm going to go over a little bit about myself and my situation. I have been shooting for the past 4 years. Started out shooting my kids hockey games on consumer gear and then caught the gear bug. I have been offered to do a couple of money making things with my equipment but have so far resisted. Recently I have been inspired to do a video project/documentary on competitive minor league hockey, so my personal interest and goals with this hobby have steadily grown into something bigger.
I am now on my fourth camcorder. I am currently shooting on a Canon HF-G10 which is about as good as you are going to get in the consumer realm. By consumer standards, my Canon does allow for lots of manual control but many important manual controls are menu driven and it's just not laid out as well the pro camera's. I am also hoping to get better overall image quality from my new purchase. I should also note that I shoot almost entirely on sticks, so having a hand held or shoulder mount option is not big for me.
My primary focus with this new camera search is on covering my core needs first and right now I am shooting lots of minor league hockey footage, which by studio standards means, always shooting in very diverse lighting situations ranging from hideous to worse. Needless to say excellent low light performance is very important for my purposes. I also need a camera with excellent auto focus, which I need when shooting game footage. I know auto-focus is not considered a very pro feature, but it is important in my case.
With game footage I am dealing with very high contrast shooting scenarios. I am most often shooting bright white ice with fast moving players in strong dark contrast colored uniforms. I can often shoot from an elevated vantage point at or near centre ice in most cases. More challenging vantage points are when I am shooting at one end of the ice tight along the boards through the protective glass. I want a camera that can handle the aforementioned scenarios with very high degrees of sharpness and clarity.
So this has all lead me to look into getting a pro camera/camcorder and my hope in posting here is to get some honest feedback from users on some of the cameras I am looking at. My current list of potential cameras is as follows.
1) Panasonic AG-HPX250P -&- Panasonic AG-AC 160
I now these are different cameras but from what I understand they have the same sensors and lens. I think I understand the technical differences between the two. I was pretty set on trying these out but then came across a YouTube comparison between a 250 and a HVX200a. The video hi lighted poor low light performance from the 250. While sharpness from the 250 was better than the HVX200a, the large 22x lens seemed to be doing it best impersonation of a black hole, sucking away all of the available light. I was pretty disappointed with the posted results to say the least. It's still in the running but I am a little gun shy. I would love to hear some feedback;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOW-T_sg5EI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
2) Sony PMW-200 XD Cam
After witnessing the some of the weaknesses on the Pannys I started to take a closer look at the Sony PMW-200 XD Cam. I figured that the larger sensors and smaller zoom lens (still plenty for my purposes) would on paper yield better low light performance. The only downside at this point is that the camera is new and their isn't much real world experience to draw on. This might be a good rental option to test out. I would appreciate any feedback on this camera
3) Sony NEX- FS700
This was an easy option to be wowed with early on, but while most of my shooting isn't 'run & gun' in the strictest sense, it is closer to that method of shooting than anything I can think of. I drooled over the slo-mo options on the NEX- FS700, but I figured I could over crank or shoot 60p on the other cameras I was looking at. It's not as nice as 120 or 240 fps but I realize their is no perfect camera for me. Other bonuses for this cam was good low light performance and the best depth of field on paper out of all the cameras I was looking at. I had pretty much written this camera off as it seemed too complicated for my purposes and experience level. That being said I don't need to be up and running out of the gate with this camera, I have time to learn it. I also came across a posted video showing off the auto focus capabilities of the Sony Alpha lenses....and just like that, this camera was back on the list.
3) JVC GY-HM650 ProHD
This camera is even newer than the PMW-200, I think it gets officially released today (Dec 31). Given that the release date is today, their is little to no real world experience or feedback to draw from. I am not in a huge rush to make a decision on this camera, so I will wait if this option shows promise.
Finishing Points
If anyone has any feedback or suggestion I am all ears. If you need any further information please feel free to ask.
As a further note, I live in Toronto so I will have good access to these items through rental. I don't know what the site protocol here is but I would like to post this question in various parts of this forum as they relate to my different camera choices. Not sure if this breaks some forum conduct rules but I think my question is relevant to various parts of this site as some users who may be able to give feedback will not come to threads related to other gear they don't use. I have already started a thread in the Panasonic portion of this forum, here is the link if you are interested in following the progress of that discussion;
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...users-appreciated&p=1986257003#post1986257003
