CAMCORDERS: New Sony Camcorder Z200

Overall I'd say the footage looks pretty good. The one caveat is this was S-Cinetone: in the past, noise has been more of an issue with Sony cameras when shooting in slog2/3 (at least in my experience). The Z90/NX80 was remarkably noisy when shooting in slog unless you were consistently overexposing compared to "recommended" levels (as was the case with the FS5 and FS7).
 
drboffa said:
Overall I'd say the footage looks pretty good. The one caveat is this was S-Cinetone: in the past, noise has been more of an issue with Sony cameras when shooting in slog2/3 (at least in my experience). The Z90/NX80 was remarkably noisy when shooting in slog unless you were consistently overexposing compared to "recommended" levels (as was the case with the FS5 and FS7).
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Yeah, this one doesn’t sound like it’s going to change in the slog department. In the Pro AV testing the person said that he shot a handful of scenes in slog 3. He was shooting in very harsh sunlight. He said that it was nice because it helped him to avoid clipping in post, but he also said it was very noisy.

In the example you can see him in da Vinci applying noise reduction to all of the shots. Black shirts in the sun had dancing noise and it didn’t look great. It also has a base iso of 1600 in slog 3.
 
I got the impression that the inclusion of S-Log was for matching to the FX series if needed. Which is a nice inclusion. I do not imagine that the Log modes would be a normal shooting mode one would use on a daily basis. The base ISO of 1600 kind of makes the decision before the camera is turned on :)
 
Bassman2003 said:
I got the impression that the inclusion of S-Log was for matching to the FX series if needed. Which is a nice inclusion. I do not imagine that the Log modes would be a normal shooting mode one would use on a daily basis. The base ISO of 1600 kind of makes the decision before the camera is turned on :)
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I agree. I would imagine that the person shooting on a camcorder needing log is a niche of a niche user. If the idea is one cam for fast movement and fast turnaround, log usually isn’t a consideration in the first place.
 
That said, a base ISO of 1600 is really more like 800 (or 640) if you're exposing it in such a way that you get a clean image (at least if it's comparable to earlier FS cameras and camcorders). The original base ISO for the FS5 was 3200 (eventually lowered to 2000 in firmware). But I don't think anybody who was getting clean images out of the FS5 was actually treating the camera like it was shooting at ISO 3200 (or 2000).
 
Newsguy said:
I was reading a user impression from someone who was testing one out in the UK where they’re available now. It was a store demo, but he claims the image was soft. It makes me nervous because I owned a Panasonic HC-X2 for 2 days. 1 day to test it and recognize how soft the images were and the other day to return it. I really hope the 5k downsample means the image is sharper on this camera. Because the majority of what I do is direct to air or short turnaround, sharpening in post isn’t t an option.
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My assumption is this will have similar look to the current generation of 1” camcorders since all of these type of camcorders use the same sensor and lens. IQ will not compare favorably to a mirror less or cinema camera like the FX6. But this is for people who need the features of a camcorder.
 
Peter C. said:
My assumption is this will have similar look to the current generation of 1” camcorders since all of these type of camcorders use the same sensor and lens.
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Which cameras do you think use the same sensor, image processor, and lens as the Z200 and NX800?
 
Doug Jensen said:
Which cameras do you think use the same sensor, image processor, and lens as the Z200 and NX800?
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I was wondering about the sensor in this Z200 myself. So started to look around. I'm not sure but looking at the Sony websites this seems to be the general information I can find. Very close on paper but obviously with a whole new generation of processing, post-processing, capacity, speed and capability between the two cameras.

Chris Young

Here are the printed specs I've found for the PXW-Z90 and the PXW-200, Very, very similar.

Z90 - Stacked 1.0-type (13.2mm x 8.8mm) back-illuminated Exmor RS CMOS sensor
Sensor Resolution. Actual: 20.9 Megapixel
Effective Picture Elements - Approx.14.2M pixels (16:9)/Approx.12.0M pixels(3:2)

PXW-Z200 - Stacked 1.0-type (13.2 mm x 8.8 mm) back-illuminated Exmor RS CMOS sensor
Number of Pixels (Total) Approx. 20.9 megapixels
Number of Pixels (Effective) Approx. 14.0 megapixels max.
 
Sony and the other manufactures often reuse older sensors in new cameras unless they say it's new it's most likely not. These cameras have been using the same variable aperture lens forever 2.8-f4.5, 8-154mm (24- 480mm 35mm eq). All my Panasonics have that same lens. It's soft, it's slow, it has that annoying aperture ramping. You either have to shoot at 4.5 or deal with the exposure changing when you zoom.

My point being just because this is in a FX styled body won't make it perform any different. It's using similar older tech. Don't expect better IQ, low light or DR. Again its a fine camcorder just like other 1" camcorders and it has additional features like the hot shoe and Variable eND. It's ok but nothing ground braking.
 
Peter C. said:
Sony and the other manufactures often reuse older sensors in new cameras unless they say it's new it's most likely not. These cameras have been using the same variable aperture lens forever 2.8-f4.5, 8-154mm (24- 480mm 35mm eq). All my Panasonics have that same lens. It's soft, it's slow, it has that annoying aperture ramping. You either have to shoot at 4.5 or deal with the exposure changing when you zoom.

My point being just because this is in a FX styled body won't make it perform any different. It's using similar older tech. Don't expect better IQ, low light or DR. Again its a fine camcorder just like other 1" camcorders and it has additional features like the hot shoe and Variable eND. It's ok but nothing ground braking.
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I may be wrong, but 24mm (FF equivalent) is wider than all of these other camcorders. Also, I had read that the sensor was different because of the AF coverage. I’m not an engineer so I don’t know how this affects image quality, but I know I read that they were using a new sensor because the AF is on par with the FX line of cine cams.
 
Newsguy said:
I may be wrong, but 24mm (FF equivalent) is wider than all of these other camcorders. Also, I had read that the sensor was different because of the AF coverage. I’m not an engineer so I don’t know how this affects image quality, but I know I read that they were using a new sensor because the AF is on par with the FX line of cine cams.
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Ok, so the specs show it’s a little bit wider than the Panasonics. I don’t see anything about the sensor being the same. I owned the HC-X2 for a minute and it didn’t do Sony AF.
 
Newsguy said:
Ok, so the specs show it’s a little bit wider than the Panasonics. I don’t see anything about the sensor being the same. I owned the HC-X2 for a minute and it didn’t do Sony AF.
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I was addressing your point that no other camcorders had as wide as 24mm lens. The XF605 has a 25mm lens. I could go on but my point is there is nothing special or ground breaking about Z200 lens.

There is no benefit for the manufacture to telling you they're reusing an older sensor from previous cameras. For example it has all but been confirmed that the older Panasonic CX350 (5+ years) and the most recent release X2 (2 years) use the same sensor.
 
Peter C. said:
All my Panasonics have that same lens. It's soft, it's slow, it has that annoying aperture ramping. You either have to shoot at 4.5 or deal with the exposure changing when you zoom.
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Yes, aperture ramping is not ideal, but beyond that, don't make the mistake of confusing Panasonic's lens with the Sony lens. They are not the same at all. Nor is the image processing and a ton of other aspects of the two cameras.
 
Peter C. said:
I was addressing your point that no other camcorders had as wide as 24mm lens. The XF605 has a 25mm lens. I could go on but my point is there is nothing special or ground breaking about Z200 lens.

There is no benefit for the manufacture to telling you they're reusing an older sensor from previous cameras. For example it has all but been confirmed that the older Panasonic CX350 (5+ years) and the most recent release X2 (2 years) use the same sensor.
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I think you’re making some leaps without the cam being in people’s hands yet. The previewers all claim new sensor etc.
 
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Peter C. said:
I was addressing your point that no other camcorders had as wide as 24mm lens. The XF605 has a 25mm lens. I could go on but my point is there is nothing special or ground breaking about Z200 lens.

There is no benefit for the manufacture to telling you they're reusing an older sensor from previous cameras. For example it has all but been confirmed that the older Panasonic CX350 (5+ years) and the most recent release X2 (2 years) use the same sensor.
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24mm is a big deal - the 605 with 25 was a big deal.

These handy cams are pretty rare to see this wide.

28-32 of other models kept the 4.3mm 2/3 zooms at the top of the hill for “rng” work.
 
morgan_moore said:
24mm is a big deal - the 605 with 25 was a big deal.

These handy cams are pretty rare to see this wide.

28-32 of other models kept the 4.3mm 2/3 zooms at the top of the hill for “rng” work.
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I agree 24mm is important. When you least expect you need to film in a small venue or small schools use the wings on the side of the stage.
My Panasonic says 8.8mm = 24.5mm and yet the 605 8.3mm = 25mm, Canon use a proprietary metric system? The 605 isn't as long which could be a issue with big venues but I don't film that type of mega concert. My older UX90 was odd 24mm HD but cropped in 35.5mm in 4k. That's part of the reason I moved on form it. But that lens is still a 24.5mm.

Back to my point 24mm for 1" camcorders has been around long time.
 
Received the camera today. I just got off of a flight and the cam arrived around 6pm, so I ran to get some shots before it got too dark. From what I could see in the little time I had, 12-16db gain was the max I would go where the images are still relatively clean. I know noise is very subjective, so that's just my opinion. Here are the clips I shot. The first 2 shots are about 6db gain and I didn't touch them in post. The rest of the shots vary from 18-22db gain. I did run them thru neat video because they were noisy for my taste. Once I have an actual free day, I will shoot more stuff in the daylight.

 
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