Panasonic HDX900 - Cinematic Setup?

Zack Birlew

Zack Birlew

Veteran
Hi, I recently picked up an HDX900 for some nice old school 2/3" digital cinema action for a project, yes, in 2022! I'm still checking out the manual online but I wondered if there were any tips or advice about best cinematic settings for the camera? I'm still fiddling with the menus, definitely different from the normal camcorder, so I can make sure everything is set to either 1080i/24P mode or 720P/24P mode if necessary as I was having some flickering going on with my Atomos Shogun by SDI. I believe from past reading I have to have system and record options set to the same mode to get rid of the flickering? Well, in any case, it's fun learning with such a camera and I'm glad I happened to own a couple of AB batteries to power it, definitely dusty and well used!
 
In that era I tended to use a paintbox vs diddling in the menus to dial in the look for a given scene (gamma control was a favorite) but I wouldn't be able to say for sure how much difference it would make now that grading tools like Resolve are so readily available. While I'm proud of some of the looks I was able to achieve with the F900 or the HDX900 in their day, looking at it from today's perspective that footage looks very much of its era and far less cinematic than it once did (same with the many projects shot on the 5D a few years after that). I more recently used an HDX900 recording in SD for a deliberately "vintage" broadcast look (I would have gone with my tube cameras but the powers that be felt that was TOO vintage!), and that is where I think they are more useful. In other words: the best that camera can look is less likely to be perceived as cinematic today, while leaning into its limitations is an easier sell.

On that last job we recorded out to Shoguns as well, and I tested a vast array of output and shutter settings, but I don't recall flickering as a by-product. It is important to make sure that you have a completely clean output to the Shogun though, we made some mistakes with framelines sneaking in at times.
 
CharlesPapert Can you share any work on either the HDX900 or the tube (!) cameras?

I might've mentioned it here before but Computer Chess was shot on tube cameras and I thought it was a brilliant use of the format for that project.

This is definitely a particular taste of mine, but I really love the look of those early HD cameras on certain projects. Films like The World and Me and You and Everyone We Know, both shot on the F900, look fantastic to me. I would say it's nostalgia but those cameras long predate my time in the industry.
 
HDX900: the recent project I mentioned was this sketch (the cafeteria material). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIVV3lWXQnc
SDX900 (standard def precursor to the HDX): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-jv7doUI8o
JVC KY1900 (tube camera):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g-s-pghtYQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZMWLBNnaf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HhCajvimEw

As I mentioned in previous post, all of these projects lean into the defects of look and/or type of source material, so there's a lot of intentionally bad camera moves, zooms etc. In the case of Tackle and Grapple I recreated the first lighting setup I did when I was still in high school and had no clue what I was doing!

On the better-looking side of the coin, I shot a film noir feature in mid 2000's on the F900:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/det...d-616ef4635f74?autoplay=0&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb
 
These are great, Charles. Thanks for sharing! I love that you all went with original equipment rather than faking the look in post.
 
drboffa said:
These are great, Charles. Thanks for sharing! I love that you all went with original equipment rather than faking the look in post.
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I've yet to see a truly effective simulation of a tube camera as a post effect. It would be really be difficult to simulate smearing and comet-tailing (where highlights leave a trail) because software can't discern what in the frame should be affected once the image is captured, i.e. someone's white shirt and a bare bulb may both approach clip, but you only want the bulb to leave a trail.

I'm currently renting a variety of tube cameras, from the 3-tube JVC's I used here to consumer single tube cameras. Here's a comparative video I shot recently:
 
Very cool, Charles. Is this testing for a project or for your own interests?

Also, what does the rig look like that's holding all three?!
 
drboffa said:
Very cool, Charles. Is this testing for a project or for your own interests?

Also, what does the rig look like that's holding all three?!
Click to expand...

I am renting them out via my rental site: zgrents.com. Still configuring the little cameras with the bits and pieces to hold the SDI converter/battery/recorder mounting so they aren't on the site yet.

Here's the rig I put together to do that test.
 

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Pretty cool setup! Also nice to see they'll be available for rent. If I ever need a tube camera I guess I know where to look.
 
Peter C. said:
Why buy an old ENG camera if you want a cinematic look?
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The HDX was the HD successor of the SDX-900(which in its day was a highly regarded SD 24p capable camera) and basically the little brother of the VarICam. Both the HDX and Vari were kind of “Swiss army knives” of cameras(F900, too), that many, used successfully for many, many years to float back and forth between 24p feature work and the full-on broadcast world. The form factor has nothing to do with the image. Just look at the Arri Mini and Arri Amira. The mini is a little Cine box camera and the Amira is more or less an ENG style camera, but they both produce the same “Arri Look”. And this is still when 2/3” CCD’s and ENG bodies reigned supreme. If you took a Sony F-900 and Panasonic VariCam, both used to shoot theatrical release movies and many TV shows and sat them on the ground next to an HDX or any other 2/3” cameras of the same era that were being used to shoot news on a daily basis, physically they would look the same. Because they are.
 
I had another question come to me, does anybody know of any adapters for B4 mount? I was thinking an adapter for C mount would be easy to find but I'm not seeing anything and I already have a Letus Pro 2/3" 35mm adapter but I thought there surely would have been some sort of adapters like there were for EF lenses with the old Canon XL series. It seems getting a nice 2/3" lens is still a pretty expensive endeavor and I don't have the "just for kicks" money to throw down $10,000 for a Zeiss Digiprime set on eBay right now lol!
 
I've done some research into this. The B4 mount has a flange distance of 48mm, meaning that there isn't much that you can physically adapt to it. Maybe some of the medium format mounts, but they're just not a good fit for these 2/3" sensors. Also, I believe that 3CCD vs CCD requires a slightly different optical configuration (possibly with a prism?) to achieve sharpness so that even if you could stick an older PL or c-mount zoom on one of these cameras, you might not like the results much.

So that's where the Digiprimes really shine. They are the only commonly available, fast-aperture B4 primes that I know of.

This being said, I'm very curious to see what you've been able to achieve with your HDX900. I'd like to see what it's capable of with modern lighting and editing tools. Do you have any test footage?
 
QuickHitRecord said:
This being said, I'm very curious to see what you've been able to achieve with your HDX900. I'd like to see what it's capable of with modern lighting and editing tools. Do you have any test footage?
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I'm wanting to find out! I'm still finishing up post on my first feature and I have something in mind for the old HDX900 after I'm done so stay tuned! :)
 
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