Sell me on it

I have to say that my opinion stated here comes from the perspective of ROI. These things have to pay for themselves and quickly for me. I dont have $$ sitting on my living room floor as a nice to have. This is for business.

If it were purely a hobby or a dream of creating my own masterpiece I cant see that I would go past the LEX and HVX for that. Hell, I dont see that I would personally need more than a DVX for that.

HPX hidden costs (doesnt include the typical storage costs associated with p2 or others such as nd grads / polariser for mb)

Batteries and charger $2500
Tripod upgrade $2000 to $5000
Mattebox support upgrade $800

And then if you dont have the audio equipment or budget to hire a sound guy to match the images, forget it your wasting your time.

My current Audio BOX

Protech 3 channel mixer (popular Japanese model)
Sanken cs3e
AT ATM 57
Octava MK012
Shure KSM44sl studio mic

Sony WR862 UHF Receiver (2 channels and worth its weight in gold)
2 x Sony WR822s
Sanken Cos 11 lav (looking for another as we speak)

vdB Boom
Rycote Softies
Sanken Zeppelin

Anything I need above this means sound guy. But thats not a cheap set up and took me hours of research and testing to get it operable as I need. I am not saying you cant get good audio without all this expense, I am saying what I NEED to ensure I am recording quality to give clients what they need, which comes back to my point of why buy this, whats it going to be used for??
 
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Wow. Nice toys!

Wish I could go do gigs like you're doing.

I get more of my very limited income from desktop stuff these days. Or shooting someone else's micro budget on my HVX and doing the post production on it for far too little money :)
 
Icarus2005 said:
there is no question that for gorilla type work and one mand army type gigs the HVX is more suited.
Click to expand...

Yes, the HVX is a lot more suitable for wildlife shooting, specially Gorillas :)

Jack, will take a look at your shorts and make a judgement. Really appreciated your input. As someone on the fence, and a current HVX owner, I would certainly want a camera that would prove to be significantly superior to it Picture wise. My tripod can handle the HPX 500, and the battery and charger setup I bought for the BTLH 80 monitor can also work on the HPX, so my investment would be the HPX and either the Letus extreme+2/3 relay, or the Brevis counterpart- I already own a Brevis so I find it difficult to invest more $ on a similar option...

Anyway Barry and the others, could you give us screen grabs of low light comparison?

Taormina, have you ever worked on a documentary with an ENG camera? I assure you, you will lose much of the spontaneous reactions due to the intimidating size of the camera. And everyone will ask you for permits. At least that's what happened to Us with a Beta SP, when I was working at the local TV station.
 
SPZ said:
...
Anyway Barry and the others, could you give us screen grabs of low light comparison?
....
Click to expand...

just making sure ... you saw these on the previous page right?

Jack Daniel Stanley said:
low light noisy HVX
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/HVX.mov

low light noisy HPX
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/HPX.mov
Click to expand...

...


ncje said:
Sorry I didnt mean to come across like I have XYZ check it out...
Click to expand...

I didn't take it that way ... always good to see what others setups are, good way to learn about the gear.
 
Hmmm, they do look similar indeed. I just shot my short on the HVX, and having shot it almost entirely at night, know that its a light hungry camera, but does keep detail you think lost on underexposed areas quite well.

Gain, however, is unthinkable for fiction, in my view. I would like to see how an HPX 3 gain picture compares to an HVX 3gain, in a narrative scenario, with ambient low light.

to be fair, I was looking for some significant advantages on sharpness department. If the HPX500 is indeed 1 and a half stops faster, I would presume you would get a much sharper picture when both cameras were presented with the same low light scene.
 
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I think we didn't have the best lens for the HPX either. Like I said it breathed so bad some rack focus shots were unusable. It was some kind of Canon lens - so def the not the Panasonic one that comes with it as a package at B&H for example. Still the HVX had lots of glass in front of it (stock lens, LetusExtreme proto Type, plus whatever 35mm lens).
 
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You know to some degree, footage comparison on the web is kind of useless. It gets you in the ballpark but any kind of critical comparison is useless. The act of compression for the web radically changes footage. Is the colourspace changing, how does the resolution change effect things? How does the web codec realize its efficiencies? All these things can hide or enhance different elements.

Is the original footage being compared on the preview monitors of the edit system with the bad contrast ratio, or is the original footage being previewed on a broadcast monitor. So many variables.

Another note on the HPX. A lot of people talk about the size being a problem, especially when shooting without permit or when you are trying to be inconspicuous.

For us the size is great. People take us more seriously. Right or wrong, you roll up with a pro-look shoulder mount camera with a big lens coming out the front and people make room for you.

Everyone is running around with hvx's, z1's the canons and on and on. Lots of times that says student, or low budget, or low quality and people treat you as such. We've found with the 500 people take us a lot more seriously and will move people out of the way to make room for us. I think they see the size and assume you have two things...skill and an audience.

As I said, right or wrong, it's a very real effect.
 
Most people I know want the opposite of that effect I.E. incognito. :) But that's been the general crux of this thread. Are you an indie Ninja leaping shooting permits in a single bound, or do you need to impress clients with the bazooka on your shoulder.

I generally agree with you about evaluating small highly compressed footage online, but the footage I put up is 720p, and barely compressed, and I cannot tell the difference from the original. Mostly its just H.264 swapped from DVCpro50. That's why they're only 7 seconds long. Not like I put up a 5 min, 50mb, 480 file, lol.

Edit: I meant DVCproHD not DVCpro50. And while we're at it. The originals were 1080, which I meant to put up but accidentally clicked 720 when during the switchover.
 
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Good to clarify too. Since members experience range from "what's that clunk" to some one like me (mid tech level), to David and Barry level.

Newbs may take typos as gospel.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I think we didn't have the best lens for the HPX either. Like I said it breathed so bad some rack focus shots were unusable. It was some kind of Canon lens - so def the not the Panasonic one that comes with it as a package at B&H for example. Still the HVX had lots of glass in front of it (stock lens, LetusExtreme proto Type, plus whatever 35mm lens).
Click to expand...

The thing that worries me in making this jump is the results I get with the camera vs investment.

If the HPX500 with the fujinon, or directly with the letus/Brevis and a 35mm lens, doesn't look significantly sharper and better than the HVX with stock lens or similar 35mm adapter, than I fail to see the advantage of going HPX.

As much as the HPX looks attractive on paper, I really would like to be convinced of the advantages of the 2/3 CCD's for filmmaking- Mainly using a 35mm adapter. Basically the exact same question as Taormina.

Jack, you said the Letus prototype was connected trough a SD Canon 2/3 lens and then added a 35mm lens, correct? Is there no way you can do an adaptor that connects without the use of a 2/3 lens?
 
no no, sorry. let me clarify.

HVX200 :Drogar-Mark-04(DBG) LetusE proto :Drogar-Mark-04(DBG) various 35mm lenses.

HPX500 :Drogar-Mark-04(DBG) Canon Zoom Only

so I was saying on one hand, the lens on the HPX500 was not that great ...

but on the other hand there was a lot of glass in front of the HVX, meaning the adaptor and 35mm lens.

or while the lens on the HPX500 was not that great, there was a lot of glass in front of the HVX ...

Maybe the HPX lens was not that bad, it was only problematic in how much it breathed.

We were going to use the LetusE with the HPX 500 and had a prototype ring that would mount the Letus right to the HPX without the zoom lens attached, but the prototype ring (something they rushed together for us at the last minute) had some weird vignetting. So we opted to not use a 35mm adapter on the HPX project.

So, you'd think that even with an okish zoom that it would be even that much sharper than the HVX since the HPX has 4 or 5 pieces of glass plus a prism in front of it.
 
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SPX, I am currently shooting a feature length documentary in 720p with both the HPX and the HVX -

I've accumulated nearly 100 hours of footage in 5 months, and I can say without any question that the HPX with the Fujinon lens (w/o extender) is a terrific deal. I am intercutting footage daily, and the HPX is noticeably better than the HVX in most situations, and is never worse. It is also a much more intuitive and pleasant camera to use quickly - although it is really heavy - and it has four P2 slots...

A word about the Fujinon lens. I was apprehensive about it at first, but the package price was good from Able's and the Canons weren't available when I needed the HPX, so I bit the bullet.

I am pleased to say it is a very solid, well built lens, with a nice zoom motor and (w/ CAC) a very sharp picture.. Okay, it does breath rather badly.. people here have gone on and on about that - although all zooms breath to some extent - try an old Angenieux 25-250 on a 35mm Arriflex - that was a workhorse lens for over 20 years.

One thing that I haven't seen commented on is the Fuji's weird and unique deeply concaved front element - when I first saw it I thought "I don't think that can be right".

But I shoot into sources a lot (I like windows and lights in my frame, I always have) and that quirky front element virtually eleminates flare from sources.. that is WAY more important to me for my style of shooting than breathing on a follow focus shot...
 
Well you are certainly the best person so far to speak about the quality jump. I don't have near that much footage or experience with it.

But I will say this. If it breathes as bad as the canon lens we had I would feel like I'd thrown 12K or whatever right in the toilet.

I've been using 35mm adpaters for two years now and I have never seen noticeable breathing in any nikon or canon still camera lens. There were several shots that were storyboarded to have rack focus, and none of them were usable in post. My jaw hit the ground the first time we tried a shot as story boarded. I mean it completely changed the entire framing. The frame of a mirror that wasn't even visible before the rack was entirely in frame after the rack.

I mean what good is a few stops of light, and some more sharpness, if an entire tool (rack focus) is taken completely out of the tool box? I mean how's that supposed to work for me? If your video lens breaths more than still camera lenses isn't that a very very big problem?

If you're saying this is the good lens and it breathes horribly too ... then I would ONLY purchase HPX if I was planning on attaching the letusE directly to the camera.
 
Yeah, primes don't breath much - that's why feature DPs mostly use primes (plus they're smaller and lighter)... Zooms are generally used for B camera and specific scenes where a zoom may be needed in the shot...

Actually, I'm surprised that some adventurous manufacturer hasn't introduced an affordable set of primes for 2/3" cameras. From all I read in these forums it seems that there would be a decent market for something that didn't require an adapter that puts more optics in the image path...

They might not be Zeiss.. but a nice set of five or six off-brand lenses would be a nice thing to have... I'd love a nice WA equivelent to a 10mm in super16...
 
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