New Panasonic 4K 60P Camcorder HC-X1000

Yeah, no need to freak out. This looks like it's going to be a great camera.

Hey, Barry - does it have a synco-shutter?
 
Ralph B said:
Hey, Barry - does it have a synco-shutter?
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Yes, from 1/24.0 up to 1/250.0 (depending on your recording format). But I think it's only in fixed speeds, and not in terms of angle of degrees.

It has pretty much everything that you'd be used to in a Panasonic AG series -- 7 gammas, four color matrices, six scene files, DRS, it even has flash band compensation. Really the only things that are missing are SDI output and a waveform monitor.
 
Ralph B said:
Here are links for two of the best 4K clips I've seen shot with the HC-X1000. Even with Youtube compression, they look damn good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTdXxYCeHbY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mb98It2I54
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Yes, that's much more like what I was getting. You also have to pay attention with YouTube, sometimes it keeps showing 360p even when you make it full-screen, so be sure to choose 2160p or 1440p or 1080p or whatever your display can handle, so you're seeing the footage more properly represented. And, again, as Ralph said, this has been recompressed by YouTube; the original would likely be cleaner.

I'm not saying it's a miracle camera (we are talking about 4K off of an active sensor patch that's about 1/3" in size after all) but it's genuine legit 4K and it looks vastly better than what was shown in The Camera Store's review clip. I'm sure it will have its share of limitations, like all lower-priced cameras do, but the functionality of it is excellent and the form factor is really very nice and the footage is extremely sharp, crisp, detailed, and the zoom range is tremendous (although I could stand to have a little bit wider on the wide end). The zoom range is especially fantastic if you're shooting 1080p in the first place, as you can then get an effective 40x zoom out of it, and the 1080p is really excellent as it's made from a downsize of the full 4K sensor (i.e., no pixel-skipping or binning or anything like that).
 
Barry_Green said:
The zoom range is especially fantastic if you're shooting 1080p in the first place, as you can then get an effective 40x zoom out of it, and the 1080p is really excellent as it's made from a downsize of the full 4K sensor (i.e., no pixel-skipping or binning or anything like that).
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You would not believe how often i want to do that.
 
Barry_Green said:
In a single-sensor bayer system, this is true. This affects all single-sensor bayer cameras equally -- the Red One, the Alexa, the F65, F55, FS700, and HC-X1000. It also equally affects every DSLR ever made, from the $45,000 Hasselblad on down to a compact point 'n' shoot.

In a 4K bayer sensor, luminance resolution will typically max out at about 3200 x about 1728, and chroma resolution tops out at 1920x1080.

There is an alternative sensor type, the RGB stripe system as used on the F35 and Panavision, which delivers full 4:4:4 color, but it does so by limiting the amount of horizontal resolution it can create. It uses 5,760 pixels wide, but only creates a 1920x1080 image.


Well, not entirely. At 4k res, yes, you're accurate here. 4:2:2 color sampling would give a color matrix of 1920x2160, and the sensor only has 1920x1080 color samples on it, so it would be a complete waste of bandwidth. But when considering 1080 recording, it sure would be nice to have 4:2:2 since the sensor is fully capable of filling out that recording space properly.


Absolutely!


Yes, this is something people need to be quite aware of. Shooting at f/11 on a camera like this is likely to result in quite unsatisfactory footage. You pretty much will need to limit the iris to stopping down to no more than, oh, probably f/4 given the pixel density. Once I get one I'll test for diffraction performance. Sometimes the engineers do crafty things, such as the AC90's integrated ND filter which gives you the perception that you can stop down to f/6.4 before diffraction comes into play (even though internally the iris is limited to f/2.8).

The good thing I see here is that they've integrated a proper three-stage ND filter to help deal with the situation. Six stops of ND should be enough to ensure that you can get decent exposure outside without running into the diffraction limit.
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Has anyone confirmed what the 1080P internal recording color sampling is?

thanks
JohnG
 
Hmm........seriously considering this camera. So far I like what I see but I wish the form factor was not SMALLER than the AC-90.
 
R Hudson said:
Hmm........seriously considering this camera. So far I like what I see but I wish the form factor was not SMALLER than the AC-90.
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It is a LITTLE smaller than the AC90. It isn't like the HMC40, it's not like a little palmcorder.

That may or may not make a difference, but I just didn't want to leave the wrong impression. It sems to me to be about DVX100-sized.
 
Barry_Green said:
It is a LITTLE smaller than the AC90. It isn't like the HMC40, it's not like a little palmcorder.

That may or may not make a difference, but I just didn't want to leave the wrong impression. It sems to me to be about DVX100-sized.
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Well that'd be ok. I was hoping it wasn't HMC40 small. That's just too small for me.

The funny thing to me is that, even with all of its bells and whistles I am most stoked about the built-in ND. :)
 
Going to buy this for my first camera. For the same budget - is there anything that compares? Usage for video journalism, corporate events, possibly weddings....
 
nathanjrb said:
For the same budget - is there anything that compares? Usage for video journalism, corporate events, possibly weddings....
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The closest competitor right now seems to be the Sony PXW-X70, which cannot record internal 4K yet (Sony promises the capability unlocked in a future firmware upgrade) and sells for less cost than the Panasonic. It remains to be seen how the image from these two cameras compare as the Panasonic has yet to be released. I'd recommend waiting for these inevitable video comparisons to see which looks better to you.
 
Barry_Green said:
SAMY's is hosting a free event to launch it, and I will be on hand to talk about it and show how it works. November 6th.
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/panason...ios-wbarry-green-tickets-13560986275?aff=eorg
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The big question will be what happens when you want to stop down. I can appreciate that (for the price) it may give a good 4k picture at about f2 - but what happens if the light then increases by about 2-3 stops, or a pan from shade to light?

Obvious answer may seem to be "just close the iris by two stops stupid!" but the problem with using such small chips is that such would likely give severe diffraction softening. The problem with the chip size is not that such will necessarily give poor quality - but the range of usable iris will be very small, possibly less than a stop. It is possible to overcome the problem by using a continually varying ND within the lens, and controlling the light via that rather than conventional iris - so my question to you, Barry, would be what this camera does when the scene gets brighter whilst recording? (So no chance to swing ND.)

It's worth saying this issue is a factor of chip size and high resolution, and the same question is true for the Sony model with the same size sensor - it's laws of physics. That said, the camera linked to by nathanjrd ( Sony PXW-X70//C ) has a 1" sensor which should ease the problem considerably - as well as giving far better low light performance. I don't know how they compare in other respects, but chip size would very heavily influence any choice I made in a camera of this type - way, way more important than colour sampling or bit depth.

4K and small chips just are not a good mix.
 
The ND is different on this camera. It can be switched in seamlessly (I.e., you don't see a physical filter wheel move through the frame). I don't know exactly how it does it, but it is no longer absolutely prohibited to change ND in the middle of a shot. Furthermore, the auto exposure system can seamlessly control exposure from dark shade to full sun, again seamlessly. It can combine swapping the ND with small changes in the iris and adjusting the gain to deliver practically completely undetectable exposure changes over a huge range. All while totally avoiding diffraction.

The engineers aren't dumb; they are aware of the issues and have used technology to overcome and avoid those limitations.

Furthermore, you can tell it to expose for faces, so it won't get thrown off course by a sudden bright background. And you can tell it exactly where on the screen to expose for, in three different region sizes, and you can adjust where that region is even during recording.

If you're trying to operate this camera using the constraints of a conventional broadcast camera, yes you will run into limitations. So the solution is: quit thinking of it like other cameras. Technology has developed to address all the issues shooters will run into. If you want 4K with a 20x zoom lens, incredible OIS, at 60fps, at under $3500, you can have it, but you will have to understand the changes that are necessary to make it all work.

It is new. You have to embrace the new ways to use it. You can get every shot you want, but you might be approaching it in a slightly different way. This is just how it is going to be with small-sensor 4K cameras. All I can say is: don't knock it until you've tried it. It works. But it isn't the same as operating a shoulder mount camera.
 
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