xmephestox
Carbonite Member
1/3 cmos chips, gonna have rolling shutter issues. anybody do a test on it to see how bad it really is? better than the EX cameras, same? or worse?
rolling shutter hxp300?
- Thread starter xmephestox
- Start date
The 300 looks twice as bad to me. The PR people will be here in two seconds to make excuses for this... "no one would ever use a camera like this and it's up to the user to make it look good". I would love to see someone shoot some realistic scenes to see how it would hold up.
Yeah, that looks really bad, but I would like to see a "normal" pan and tilt.
For someone who isn't shooting Bourne style, the camera still may be an acceptable tool for them, but it looks like the action crowd may have to skip this one.
The next generation Red offerings are supposed to reduce the skew down to film standards, hopefully others will follow suit.
For someone who isn't shooting Bourne style, the camera still may be an acceptable tool for them, but it looks like the action crowd may have to skip this one.
The next generation Red offerings are supposed to reduce the skew down to film standards, hopefully others will follow suit.
alexdias
Well-known member
Both look pretty bad to me.
The test is, of course, exaggerated but it's fact that all CMOS cameras have this problem (RED included).
At the same time there's a lot of skilled professionals dealing well with the situation and producing excellent material.
Unfortunately I had bad experiences with it which I wasn't able to compensated in a satisfying way.
The test is, of course, exaggerated but it's fact that all CMOS cameras have this problem (RED included).
At the same time there's a lot of skilled professionals dealing well with the situation and producing excellent material.
Unfortunately I had bad experiences with it which I wasn't able to compensated in a satisfying way.
What shooting environment did you experience that was bad?
I'd certainly would be interested in any anecdotal info you have.
thanks
I'd certainly would be interested in any anecdotal info you have.
thanks
alexdias
Well-known member
Nothing out of normal or too exciting.
Once it was in a concert and when the strobe light kicked in I was done for it, this was with a EX1.
Different job, doing some simple b-roll of a business I've crossed the street to shoot from the other sidewalk for a car or a bus to naturally wipe the business sign for me. Bad! This was with a EX3.
At the same job I was asked to shoot from a moving car and that footage never made it to the cut.
It could be my lack of knowledge but every time I shot with a CMOS camera I felt limited in a bad and unnecessary way.
Once it was in a concert and when the strobe light kicked in I was done for it, this was with a EX1.
Different job, doing some simple b-roll of a business I've crossed the street to shoot from the other sidewalk for a car or a bus to naturally wipe the business sign for me. Bad! This was with a EX3.
At the same job I was asked to shoot from a moving car and that footage never made it to the cut.
It could be my lack of knowledge but every time I shot with a CMOS camera I felt limited in a bad and unnecessary way.
Carlos Corral
Well-known member
Hmmm, that was a lot worse than I originally thought it would be. Makes consider the HPX170 or JVC HM700 and sticking with CCD chips. I happen to do a lot of events and sport with a lot of motion so this wouldn't be very good to experience in the field.
13th Judas
Active member
WOW i have included this cam on my NOT TO BUY LIST .
"Funny, I've included it on my MUST BUY LIST."
Kevin, how do you plan to get around the long-lens-CMOS-rolling shutter issue?
How'd you avoid it on your recent trip?
I've shot in Africa with an old SD Sony 2/3" chip camera. Nice and crisp with no issues.
A long telephoto is a must for wildlife stuff...
I want to buy this camera, but I need your encouragement and support!
Want AVC-I 100 but must avoid(as much as possible)CMOS issues...
Thanks,
Mike Favazza
Kevin, how do you plan to get around the long-lens-CMOS-rolling shutter issue?
How'd you avoid it on your recent trip?
I've shot in Africa with an old SD Sony 2/3" chip camera. Nice and crisp with no issues.
A long telephoto is a must for wildlife stuff...
I want to buy this camera, but I need your encouragement and support!
Want AVC-I 100 but must avoid(as much as possible)CMOS issues...
Thanks,
Mike Favazza
Kenn Christenson
Well-known member
Anybody know if the camera, used in the rolling shutter test, was actually a production model? Could explain some things, if it wasn't.
Barry_Green
Moderator
There's no such thing as a production model yet; they won't start shipping for another month. So it is, by definition, a preproduction unit. I don't know whether that will change anything or not.
A simple scientific test should answer all these questions; if I had access to a 300 and an EX1 I could probably sort this out in 10 minutes flat. I hope someone who has access to both can do a scientific comparison, like what Jim Arthurs did between the Red One and EX1, as obviously this is a point of curiosity for an awful lot of people.
A simple scientific test should answer all these questions; if I had access to a 300 and an EX1 I could probably sort this out in 10 minutes flat. I hope someone who has access to both can do a scientific comparison, like what Jim Arthurs did between the Red One and EX1, as obviously this is a point of curiosity for an awful lot of people.
I have to agree on the not to buy list. I own the HVX-200 and I was looking forward to an affordable (under 10k/w lens) shoulder mount p2 HD camera but I can not believe that Panasonic would release this full featured camera with such a flaw. I am advising someone right now on what camera to get and could not honestly recommend the 300 or the Ex1 or Ex3 after seeing this. I will also keep waiting before I upgrade from the HVX.
Funny, I've included it on my MUST BUY LIST.
I think I've read everything that is printed and viewed every video currently available about this cam, and the jellovision/rolling shutter issue.
The vimeo example was startling to say the least.
I respect Barry Green's view and experience here, and I see this observation by Kevin.
I've looked at Phil Bloom's video review and the Zacuto interview with the Panny representative. Interestly, shot with a HVX200. Didn't care much for the "saddle for every ass" comment, but anyway.
But there are serious questions here, so any trite responses ain't gonna to cut it. This isn't directed towards anyone on either side of this issue.
But Kevin and Barry:
1. If this cam is on your list, then is it because your video environment doesn't engender shooting situations that produce this anomaly?
2. What are the shooting environments to absolutely avoid? What can be done to attenuate the effect in those environments?
We shoot talking heads and action sports including collegiate and professional skating, basketball, football where people are running, jumping, and moving. (not the talking heads).
Are we going to face issues with rolling shutter? If we are, can someone who has actually shot with a preproduction cam or with an EX3 or Red give us some objective observations and assistance?
thanks
Barry_Green
Moderator
As for me, I'm on the fence about it. I don't like any rolling shutter artifacts, at all. But, on the other hand, it's noticeably cleaner, smoother, and sharper than anything else; it's got EX1 sharpness with Panasonic color & gamma. It is a very tempting little minx!
My normal shooting style nowadays is dramatic narrative and training DVDs. So yes, I could probably use it with the least amount of rolling shutter worries. We do a lot of greenscreen stuff, and the 10-bit full-raster 4:2:2 is utterly delicious for greenscreen. In that case, I expect that the 300 will do nothing but make our footage more fantastic, both through its cleaner imagery, and through its sharper imaging, and (thirdly) through the better post codec which offers 4x as many shades of colors and is also full-raster with a full 960x1080 of chroma information. So for my normal uses a 300 seems like it'd be an excellent upgrade with no real downside.
If my primary shooting circumstances were telephoto tracking shots, matchmoving 3-D effects, music video work with strobelights, stunt work with car shots/helicopters, or red carpet or press conference coverage, then no, I wouldn't have the 300 or EX1 or EX3 on my list.
So I'm in-between. I originally thought that this wasn't the camera for me, and then I looked at the footage on an HD monitor and thought "good heavens, this is awesome! Maybe, could I live with the rubbery footage if it were to happen?" I've always been completely anti-rolling-shutter whenever possible. I had a Red, and sold it. I never wanted an EX1/EX3. The HPX300 tempts me with its AVC-Intra and instantaneous workflow. I will say this: if I did go for a 300, there's no way I'd get rid of my 170. In Africa when we wanted to do tracking shots I strapped the 170 down on the cinesaddle and got perfect beautiful tracking shots. Yes it's a little softer - so what? No rubber, no jello, no artifacts of any type, just excellent beautiful footage.
As for shooting environments to absolutely avoid: zooming in full and trying to do "Cops" would be a huge no-no. On wide-angle, sure, that's probably going to be fine, but at full tele there's no way. Zoomed in car shots, or mounting it to a mountain bike and juddering/jarring down a mountain, those are probably big no-nos. Shooting under strobelights would be an exercise in frustration, I'd recommend against even trying it. Using a rolling-shutter camera as a helmet-mounted parachute jumping cam would probably be pretty bad too.
To counter the rolling shutter effects of skew & wobble, the only things you can do are to slow down the relative motion of the subject. Zoom out. Pan slower. Don't put yourself in a position where you're following a race car around a track at full telephoto, or the background is going to be seriously angled and that's just the way that is. Sorry but it really is a case of "Doctor, it hurts when I do this" followed by "Well, then stop doing that."
To counter the rolling/scrolling waves/lines caused by HMI or fluos, you can pretty much get rid of them by sync'ing the shutter speed to the line frequency. That means 1/60 for 60i/60p, and you can use 1/40 for 24p or 30p. You can't use 180 degrees or you'll get fluttering lines and scrolling orange bands in the footage. This is the same on every CMOS camcorder, whether HPX300 or EX1 or EX3 or Red or Infinity or V7U or V1U or what have you.
You can't do a thing about the partial flash exposure. That's just gonna happen. You can either try to fix it in post by putting a white overlay over the partial flash frame, or, if there's a lot of flash frames, you can just ignore it. People seem to be doing that on "E!" and such, and the audiences seem willing to accept it. I'd *hate* to have my source footage compromised like that, but some people obviously don't care and if the audiences don't care, well, that becomes your choice.
As for talking heads, the HPX300 will be exquisitely brilliant for that.
As for action sports - it depends on the camera movement, not the subject movement. It's very, very unlikely that someone's going to run through the frame fast enough to cause skew! Instead, it's going to be how you pan with or follow the shot that might cause the skew. If it's wide angle you shouldn't have any issues. If you're fully zoomed in, well... that's where I'd start to get concerned.
Where rolling shutter really starts to make itself flat-out objectionable is when the camera motion reverses itself; that's when things go rubbery and where the skew becomes impossible to miss. Pan back and forth like that Zacuto video and yeah, people are going to have a problem with it. So if you're doing smooth sweeping following shots (like Kevin did of the zebras in Africa) then you shouldn't have any problem (and we didn't). But if you're trying to do a "24"-style handheld show, and you're bouncing the camera around, and you've zoomed in... I think that's a perfect storm for rolling shutter to ruin a shot.
Keep in mind that the HPX300 has a lot more telephoto than the HPX170. How zoomed-in do you normally shoot on the 170? Because that maxxes out at 51mm, but the HPX300 goes to 77mm, so it's like having a 1.5x teleconverter on your 170. If you're normally shooting the 170 at 5 to 20mm, I don't expect you'll have any trouble with the 300. But if you want to zoom the 300 in to 60-77mm, you'd better have a great tripod with some good fluid dampening in it, or you can expect some rubbery jello in your footage. Same with an EX3 or EX1 or Red; match the field of view and you should have comparable jello in the shots.
My normal shooting style nowadays is dramatic narrative and training DVDs. So yes, I could probably use it with the least amount of rolling shutter worries. We do a lot of greenscreen stuff, and the 10-bit full-raster 4:2:2 is utterly delicious for greenscreen. In that case, I expect that the 300 will do nothing but make our footage more fantastic, both through its cleaner imagery, and through its sharper imaging, and (thirdly) through the better post codec which offers 4x as many shades of colors and is also full-raster with a full 960x1080 of chroma information. So for my normal uses a 300 seems like it'd be an excellent upgrade with no real downside.
If my primary shooting circumstances were telephoto tracking shots, matchmoving 3-D effects, music video work with strobelights, stunt work with car shots/helicopters, or red carpet or press conference coverage, then no, I wouldn't have the 300 or EX1 or EX3 on my list.
So I'm in-between. I originally thought that this wasn't the camera for me, and then I looked at the footage on an HD monitor and thought "good heavens, this is awesome! Maybe, could I live with the rubbery footage if it were to happen?" I've always been completely anti-rolling-shutter whenever possible. I had a Red, and sold it. I never wanted an EX1/EX3. The HPX300 tempts me with its AVC-Intra and instantaneous workflow. I will say this: if I did go for a 300, there's no way I'd get rid of my 170. In Africa when we wanted to do tracking shots I strapped the 170 down on the cinesaddle and got perfect beautiful tracking shots. Yes it's a little softer - so what? No rubber, no jello, no artifacts of any type, just excellent beautiful footage.
As for shooting environments to absolutely avoid: zooming in full and trying to do "Cops" would be a huge no-no. On wide-angle, sure, that's probably going to be fine, but at full tele there's no way. Zoomed in car shots, or mounting it to a mountain bike and juddering/jarring down a mountain, those are probably big no-nos. Shooting under strobelights would be an exercise in frustration, I'd recommend against even trying it. Using a rolling-shutter camera as a helmet-mounted parachute jumping cam would probably be pretty bad too.
To counter the rolling shutter effects of skew & wobble, the only things you can do are to slow down the relative motion of the subject. Zoom out. Pan slower. Don't put yourself in a position where you're following a race car around a track at full telephoto, or the background is going to be seriously angled and that's just the way that is. Sorry but it really is a case of "Doctor, it hurts when I do this" followed by "Well, then stop doing that."
To counter the rolling/scrolling waves/lines caused by HMI or fluos, you can pretty much get rid of them by sync'ing the shutter speed to the line frequency. That means 1/60 for 60i/60p, and you can use 1/40 for 24p or 30p. You can't use 180 degrees or you'll get fluttering lines and scrolling orange bands in the footage. This is the same on every CMOS camcorder, whether HPX300 or EX1 or EX3 or Red or Infinity or V7U or V1U or what have you.
You can't do a thing about the partial flash exposure. That's just gonna happen. You can either try to fix it in post by putting a white overlay over the partial flash frame, or, if there's a lot of flash frames, you can just ignore it. People seem to be doing that on "E!" and such, and the audiences seem willing to accept it. I'd *hate* to have my source footage compromised like that, but some people obviously don't care and if the audiences don't care, well, that becomes your choice.
As for talking heads, the HPX300 will be exquisitely brilliant for that.
As for action sports - it depends on the camera movement, not the subject movement. It's very, very unlikely that someone's going to run through the frame fast enough to cause skew! Instead, it's going to be how you pan with or follow the shot that might cause the skew. If it's wide angle you shouldn't have any issues. If you're fully zoomed in, well... that's where I'd start to get concerned.
Where rolling shutter really starts to make itself flat-out objectionable is when the camera motion reverses itself; that's when things go rubbery and where the skew becomes impossible to miss. Pan back and forth like that Zacuto video and yeah, people are going to have a problem with it. So if you're doing smooth sweeping following shots (like Kevin did of the zebras in Africa) then you shouldn't have any problem (and we didn't). But if you're trying to do a "24"-style handheld show, and you're bouncing the camera around, and you've zoomed in... I think that's a perfect storm for rolling shutter to ruin a shot.
Keep in mind that the HPX300 has a lot more telephoto than the HPX170. How zoomed-in do you normally shoot on the 170? Because that maxxes out at 51mm, but the HPX300 goes to 77mm, so it's like having a 1.5x teleconverter on your 170. If you're normally shooting the 170 at 5 to 20mm, I don't expect you'll have any trouble with the 300. But if you want to zoom the 300 in to 60-77mm, you'd better have a great tripod with some good fluid dampening in it, or you can expect some rubbery jello in your footage. Same with an EX3 or EX1 or Red; match the field of view and you should have comparable jello in the shots.
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