Said goodbye to my 500

I have had my 2-500's for just over 3 years and have no plans of dumping them anytime soon. They have been workhorses for me and continue to perform well today. I could never have justified the cost of the more expensive alternatives, so to have the 2/3 chips and the option to use killer glass has made for a good fit with us. We use ours in the studio quite a bit, so rental for everyday use doesn't make since for me.

-Brad
 
I've had my 502 for nearly 3 years now. Most of the stuff I shoot are news stories and Sunrise crosses which are SD. It is still great to be able to go HD when ever I want. But don't forget that it is an SD chip. HD is uprezed and that if anything is dating the camera in my opinion. As for the Codec, there are arguments for and against. I personally think there is nothing wrong with DVCpro HD. As long as the pics look good, who cares what codec was used.
As for the future, it will be interesting to see how Panasonic react to the PMW-500. A 2/3 inch CCD for half the price. It might only shoot 50mbs but hook it up to a Flash XDR and it could do alright. I'm not a big fan of the sony feel. Panasonics cameras rock in that area. If they bring out a CCD camera to combat it I'll be all over it. If they keep everything in that range Cmos I'm afraid I'm finished with them.
 
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MikeD said:
As for the future, it will be interesting to see how Panasonic react to the PMW-500. A 2/3 inch CCD for half the price. It might only shoot 50mbs but hook it up to a Flash XDR and it could do alright. I'm not a big fan of the sony feel. Panasonics cameras rock in that area. If they bring out a CCD camera to combat it I'll be all over it. If they keep everything in that range Cmos I'm afraid I'm finished with them.
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Panasonic recently launched the Hpx3100, the only downside is it not being able to do 720p while PMW500 can. I do quite a lot of shooting where 720p50 is a must, the ultimate camera would then be a Panasonic which did 1080p50....
 
MikeD said:
I've had my 502 for nearly 3 years now. Most of the stuff I shoot are news stories and Sunrise crosses which are SD. It is still great to be able to go HD when ever I want. But don't forget that it is an SD chip. HD is uprezed and that if anything is dating the camera in my opinion. As for the Codec, there are arguments for and against. I personally think there is nothing wrong with DVCpro HD. As long as the pics look good, who cares what codec was used.
As for the future, it will be interesting to see how Panasonic react to the PMW-500. A 2/3 inch CCD for half the price. It might only shoot 50mbs but hook it up to a Flash XDR and it could do alright. I'm not a big fan of the sony feel. Panasonics cameras rock in that area. If they bring out a CCD camera to combat it I'll be all over it. If they keep everything in that range Cmos I'm afraid I'm finished with them.
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Hi MikeD,
Yes it's interesting how when watching here in OZ, an ABC SD Digital channel and ABC HD Digital Channel, how much better the same SD vision looks on the two different channels... and most ABC news is still shot on the old SPX900 in SD,
even our ONE HD channel is a mish mash of varied sourced formats, the vast bulk of programs appear to be not true HD...

Cheers
Tom K
olinevideo.com.au
 
Must admit I didn't know of the Hpx3100. Looks good. Hopefully they don't price it out of the market.
 
MikeD said:
Must admit I didn't know of the Hpx3100. Looks good. Hopefully they don't price it out of the market.
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It depends on what you mean by "market." I had a local equipment dealer tell me the price - no lens or viewfinder - would be in the $25,000 - 30,000 range. That sounds about right for a 2/3" CCD full raster HD, AVC-intra 100 broadcast camera. This will be a higher end camera. So, for its market, I guess you can call the price reasonable.
Myself, I'd love to have one. I'd definitely sell my 500 for one, but that wouldn't come close to paying for a 3100.

Has anyone considered dropping down to a smaller, cheaper camera with higher resolution? The Sony EX cams and the Canon XF cams should have higher resolution and sharper images than the 500, even though their imagers are smaller. Plus, they weigh a lot less. I've shot with the EX3 and I really like the camera. I like the full raster 1920x1080 imagers. I believe I'd be willing to give up some dynamic range and low light performance for sharper images.
 
Tom 4 said:
Hi MikeD,
Yes it's interesting how when watching here in OZ, an ABC SD Digital channel and ABC HD Digital Channel, how much better the same SD vision looks on the two different channels... and most ABC news is still shot on the old SPX900 in SD,
even our ONE HD channel is a mish mash of varied sourced formats, the vast bulk of programs appear to be not true HD...
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The same story here in Norway with NRK. NRK1 broadcasts in 720p50, regardless of SD/HD production and adds a HD to its logo when broadcast are HD originated. They use a Snell Alchemist Ph.C – HD which is kind of better at scaling than the avarage tv....the downside would be the hefty pricetag the box carry...

vanvideo said:
Has anyone considered dropping down to a smaller, cheaper camera with higher resolution? The Sony EX cams and the Canon XF cams should have higher resolution and sharper images than the 500, even though their imagers are smaller. Plus, they weigh a lot less. I've shot with the EX3 and I really like the camera. I like the full raster 1920x1080 imagers. I believe I'd be willing to give up some dynamic range and low light performance for sharper images.
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They weigh a lot less, but still I would prefer a 2/3", the formfactor on Ex1/3 is a disaster. Also a 2/3" camera has more flexibility on lens choice and for some users 4 channels of audio are a nice feature.

I do miss a sharper image sometimes, I`ve used EX1/3 on occasions, but the 2/3" dof and dynamic range fits my work better than the 1/2" and 1/3" camera alternatives.
 
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That price sounds good to me Vanvideo. I'd be happy just to have Hypergain back. Spent last night chasing a bad guy through the streets of Carrara and couldn't use the light so 18db just didn't cut it.
 
Noel Evans said:
Hey Mike, yeah will be shooting with a ki pro mini, around 170mbps 4:2:2.
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hi noel evans can you detail me about the procedure and equipment needed to get 170mbps 4:2:2 OUT of 24 mbps AF 100 or 101 camera. is that outputted codec is 8 bit or 10 bit avc- intra format. what is the costs of those equipments at all. can i buy or rent it out?
thank you Noel Evans.
 
nageswara rao s said:
hi noel evans can you detail me about the procedure and equipment needed to get 170mbps 4:2:2 OUT of 24 mbps AF 100 or 101 camera. is that outputted codec is 8 bit or 10 bit avc- intra format. what is the costs of those equipments at all. can i buy or rent it out?
thank you Noel Evans.
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The Ki Pro mini is an external recorder much like the Nano flash, you simply plug it into the HD/SDI port on the AF and can record in various flavours of Pro-res. You can also dual record to the SD cards on the native codec in the AF at the same time as a redundancy record. You could probably rent one somewhere, but the cost is around $2000, so depending on how long you rent it might just be easier to buy it.
 
thank you matthew B. i wish you advance happy new year and all of our other friends too. is the external recorder data of pro-res is 10 bit depth or 8 bit only?. in India KI PRO MINI may not be available for rent at our nearest places, so i have to buy one for myself. which vendor is better for that.
thank you
 
Well, add me to the list of those who've sold their 500. It was a great camera and a good income generator.
But, I wanted to upgrade to an affordable full raster 1920x1080 camera, so I chose the Canon XF305. It mght seem odd upgrading from a 2/3" cam to a 1/3" cam, but the video from the 305 is incredible. Between the two, there's no comparison - the 305 blows the 500 away in image resolution.
Plus, its full acceptance by the BBC doesn't hurt its street cred.

I did keep all my P2 cards, lens and batteries. Someday I'd like to get the 3100, but that day is not now.
 
Vanvideo, I have read really great things about the new Canon. I just can't go back to a LANC servo control though. The interchangeable version might be an option for me but we will see. I knew when I went this the HPX-500 that I would want to move up from it at some time...
 
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