Sell my HVX200 to buy a 7D? Would it suit my needs?

K

KennonF

Active member
I'm just considering it, I don't know how necessary this is... I mainly shoot music videos for signed bands and rarely use audio, but if I do I'm sure I could find a viable solution for the 7D.

Music videos (www.decembersedge.com) are my main focus, but I also use my camera fo some commercial work. The other thing I shoot is Volkswagen / Audi films (www.WaterflixHD.com) and occasionally some other types of things like weddings, etc.

So basically, I'm wondering if I should get a 7D and some of my leftover money from selling the HVX and extra goodies, I could get a matte box and some other toys to make the rig look a little more professional...

I know it's NOT a video camera, but for what I do, is this a good upgrade? I hear that 35mm adapters are fading out, I just finished building a home made one and I find it a hassle to use. I just need a little advice for my situation.
 
Have you considered what the limitations vs. advantages of the 7D really are and how it pertains to you? Here's the way I interpret the 7D, your mileage may vary.

pluses:
-Great low light
-Great picture
-Super35-esque DOF
-Interchangeable lenses (gives you flexibility)
-Small, you can be more covert with it depending on your rig
-Oh yeah, and it's an awesome still cam

minuses:
-Rolling shutter!
-Small, Need good stabilization (part of rolling shutter problem, really)
-Moire on certain textures.
-Interchangeable lenses (more crap to spend money on)
-4Gig file size limit or 12 minutes-ish per clip.
-Audio no good for pro work, has AGC and no monitoring (though you can use double system)
-Need either a monitor or hoodman type device for critical focus.

What you ultimately need to know is whether the pain and agony of dealing with the minuses is worth the pluses it will give you over the HVX200. If you can live with the minuses and really want the pluses, I think you're golden.
 
Great information. I really like the level of detail it provides and the 35mm look to it, in my opinion it provides a much less soft-looking image than the HVX200 does.

I really like my HVX, I'm just a little leery to stay with it and get a 35 adapter, especially since I hear its really on its way out.

When you say it has a rolling shutter issue, do you mean that it tends to blur frames together much like shooting interlaced footage on a low shutter speed? I can't deal with something like that too much... especially if it starts giving me harsh whites and blacks blurring everywhere causing my eyes to scramble at the fact that I can't tell what I'm looking at... I'd probably end up punching myself in the balls along with saying "where the hell is my DVX I'd rather shoot solid SD"

So yes, that would be agonizing right there - however I do feel like the HVX is starting to become a bit old (4, almost 5 years now) and I want something new that provides me with 35mm DoF and a good sharp image. I like the fact that it's good in low light, that makes me very happy.

I will have about $3500 to work with, so I would buy the 7D as well as some sort of Redrock rig (mattebox, shoulder stabilization, eye cup of some sort like you mentioned) and eventually a microphone for it to get at least decent ambient audio. Does this cameras audio work okay if I were to use Lav Microphones?

One more question is, does it have live video preview while recording? Good battery life?

12 minute bursts kinda sucks, but quite honestly I rarely ever shoot anything that lasts more than about 5 minutes at a time; minus weddings.
 
One other question I'm wondering is how well does this camera respond to FCP's Smoothcam plugin or motion stabilization in After Effects?

For a rough shaky look like I go for in a lot of my music videos I think it wouldn't be necessary, but for smooth classy looking shots like I do on VW / Audi films, I think it would be a necessity to have smooth footage.
 
KennonF said:
For a rough shaky look like I go for in a lot of my music videos I think it wouldn't be necessary...
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You wouldn't want to shoot for a "rought shaky look" with the 7D. The jello caused by the CMOS sensor would look awful. I shot an interview with the 7D yesterday, most of it was static but we also had some moving shots on a dolly. That's where I found out how important it is to get the smoothest movement possible. Even little bumps in the track caused jello looking footage...
 
thanks for that info; I'm not sure what to do here. The DoF is so tempting from the 7D... smoothcam would be working overtime in Final Cut to help smooth out those jitters I guess, and it does a realllly good job... I also have magic bullet steady cam so that is another option
 
the foundry makes a plugin that removes jello that looks promising. helps with a lot of rolling shutter issues, not sure about the flash frames though, that u'll have to pick out individually if u want it gone. audio u can get around, beachtek or separate sound with h4n. there will hopefully be cases you'll have speaking narrative even in music videos. keep in mind ur still gonna be losing a lot in the gains you get from selling hvx and going to 7d. more manipulation in over and under cranking, articulating LCD, better and more manual controls. and in the end, h.264 is not that great of a codec. it's wonderful for what it is, long GOP, looks good. but rather lossy and falls apart on the grade if you start stacking on it, even if u pro res it.

best advice is sell the adapter, keep the hvx. u never really know when u want to do really good slow mo, or under cranking ur footage and a lot of other things. yes u'll lose the DOF, but it's a music video, ur cuts are going to be seconds if that, it's gonna look good either way.
 
xmephestox said:
the foundry makes a plugin that removes jello that looks promising. helps with a lot of rolling shutter issues, not sure about the flash frames though, that u'll have to pick out individually if u want it gone. audio u can get around, beachtek or separate sound with h4n. there will hopefully be cases you'll have speaking narrative even in music videos. keep in mind ur still gonna be losing a lot in the gains you get from selling hvx and going to 7d. more manipulation in over and under cranking, articulating LCD, better and more manual controls. and in the end, h.264 is not that great of a codec. it's wonderful for what it is, long GOP, looks good. but rather lossy and falls apart on the grade if you start stacking on it, even if u pro res it.

best advice is sell the adapter, keep the hvx. u never really know when u want to do really good slow mo, or under cranking ur footage and a lot of other things. yes u'll lose the DOF, but it's a music video, ur cuts are going to be seconds if that, it's gonna look good either way.
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Good point; I really want DoF though is the problem and the HVX lacks sharpness that I want. It is probably a better camera, maybe I should just stick to it for now and get a GOOD 35mm adapter, except for the fact that I heard a lot about using a 35mm adapter on an HVX really taking the quality down to the equivalent of like 480p...

What do you think?
 
Easy answer to your original question: If you're obsessed with getting the "35mm DOF" look, and you're not concerned about good in-camera audio, and you don't use the HVX200 for all of its camcorder-specific features, and you won't be moving the camera very much, and you're not gung-ho about the advantages of the DVCProHD codec, and you're not too concerned about occasional artifacts like moire and aliasing, then the 7D is your best choice.
 
hahaha yeah im not going to go with the 7D anymore, I've found way too many disadvantages and the HVX still fairs very well even against most cameras that are just coming out
 
I really like the level of detail it provides and the 35mm look to it, in my opinion it provides a much less soft-looking image than the HVX200 does.
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Adam Wilt found that the horizontal and vertical resolutions of a naked HVX200 are both about 540 lines. That's barely better than standard definition. The 7D, and other DSLRs, have been found to resolve well over 600 lines.

When you say it has a rolling shutter issue, do you mean that it tends to blur frames together much like shooting interlaced footage on a low shutter speed?
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No. Rolling shutter causes "jello" or image skew, not blur. Please read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter

I like the fact that it's good in low light, that makes me very happy.
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The HVX200 is known to be among the noisier prosumer HD camcorders in low light. If you use a 35mm DOF adapter, you'll lose far more light. The best adapters lose half a stop by themselves, then more is lost with any lens that you attach to them, and even more is lost when you zoom into the ground glass (since most camcorders have variable maximum apertures across their zoom ranges). If you try a DSLR in low light after you've been used to the HVX200, I guarantee that your jaw will just drop.

Does this cameras audio work okay if I were to use Lav Microphones?
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I'm betting no, since the camera does not have XLR inputs. If you want decent in-camera audio, your best bet is to buy the Beachtek DXA-5D.

One more question is, does it have live video preview while recording?
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Yes. The built-in LCD shows you what you are recording, and you can also connect an external monitor via HDMI. The HDMI output signal is HD.

Good battery life?
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The 7D has been found to give about an hour and a half of live view and/or recording, total, on a single charge. If you don't have live view mode on all of the time, you can easily make one battery last for a few hours on a shooting day.

12 minute bursts kinda sucks, but quite honestly I rarely ever shoot anything that lasts more than about 5 minutes at a time; minus weddings.
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12 minutes is the same amount of recording time that you get on an 8 GB P2 card.
 
ydgmdlu said:
Adam Wilt found that the horizontal and vertical resolutions of a naked HVX200 are both about 540 lines. That's barely better than standard definition. The 7D, and other DSLRs, have been found to resolve well over 600 lines.


No. Rolling shutter causes "jello" or image skew, not blur. Please read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter


The HVX200 is known to be among the noisier prosumer HD camcorders in low light. If you use a 35mm DOF adapter, you'll lose far more light. The best adapters lose half a stop by themselves, then more is lost with any lens that you attach to them, and even more is lost when you zoom into the ground glass (since most camcorders have variable maximum apertures across their zoom ranges). If you try a DSLR in low light after you've been used to the HVX200, I guarantee that your jaw will just drop.


I'm betting no, since the camera does not have XLR inputs. If you want decent in-camera audio, your best bet is to buy the Beachtek DXA-5D.


Yes. The built-in LCD shows you what you are recording, and you can also connect an external monitor via HDMI. The HDMI output signal is HD.


The 7D has been found to give about an hour and a half of live view and/or recording, total, on a single charge. If you don't have live view mode on all of the time, you can easily make one battery last for a few hours on a shooting day.


12 minutes is the same amount of recording time that you get on an 8 GB P2 card.
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That information was really helpful.

If you had a choice, given my circumstances; would you stay with the HVX200?
 
KennonF said:
It is probably a better camera, maybe I should just stick to it for now and get a GOOD 35mm adapter, except for the fact that I heard a lot about using a 35mm adapter on an HVX really taking the quality down to the equivalent of like 480p...
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Take a look at this test and decide for yourself regarding the resolution loss: http://blog.s106.com/wp-content/gallery/hpx300-and-ps-technik-mini35c/chart.jpg

It was shot with an HPX300 and the P+S Technik Mini35 (a high-end adapter).
 
and remember, if music videos are your main business, delivery is probably gonna only be 720p max. televised or web. it's gonna look sharp and great anywhere if u know how to use the camera, and have great lighting. u might just wanna pick up a 7d down the line when u've made ur money back on the adapter and use it for certain situations where ur hvx isn't cutting it. like when u just don't have enough light to even get picture through the adapter. or ud on't wanna use 12 db gain just to get a proper exposure. doubles as a camera B. i don't think the 7d is versatile enough as a primary camera but a great complimentary camera. and you can go canon route for all your lens options so it doubles up on each other.

plus you'll end up with a great still camera too.
 
ydgmdlu said:
I don't know exactly what your needs are, so I can't say. I'm just trying to provide you the best information so that you can decide for yourself.
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thank you I appreciate it.

PROS: The HVX is a rock solid HD camera with great perks like 4:2:2 color space, DVC Pro HD codec, a great / easy work flow that handles color correction very well... I can get away with creating a 35mm LOOK by just shooting on the stock HVX lens and adding some blur / vignette in post with Magic Bullet Looks Suite, but it's never really got that same authentic look it gets from 35mm glass. I want a sharp image, the HVX provides great color and clearly it is HD but I always thought it wasn't much better looking than what it would look like if you upscaled the DVX100 footage to HD.

CONS to the HVX for me are that it will be hard to get a good sharp image with a 35mm adapter, I don't like the low light shooting capabilities, just some things like that...

7D Thoughts: I think the fact that the 7D has really good DoF straight out of the box at such a good price is very attractive, interchangeable lenses are an attractive feature, along with the fact that if I sold my HVX I could also afford a whole redrock DSLR rig for it that would really help keep it a little more stable / make it easier to use and give it a little more of a film camera feel to it (even though its still a DSLR)... The image is quite a bit sharper for sure from what I have seen, but I've heard that when you fair it up to HD video camera footage on an HD monitor side by side, the picture isn't quite as nice from the 7D. Jello-vision is something I would expect from shooting a photo on my cell phone while moving fast in a car, not from something like a DSLR that costs $1,699; however I hear it has pretty bad jello-vision, artifacts and also aliasing on small lines much like when you play a video game and see jaggy lines out in the distance.

To many people, those things are a lot less noticeable than to someone like yourself or myself who stares at this stuff all the time.



Here is what I want:

I want to shoot professional looking music videos with a good 35mm DoF look to them, good color correction to them, and I want to be able to record audio if I need to.
 
xmephestox said:
and remember, if music videos are your main business, delivery is probably gonna only be 720p max. televised or web. it's gonna look sharp and great anywhere if u know how to use the camera, and have great lighting. u might just wanna pick up a 7d down the line when u've made ur money back on the adapter and use it for certain situations where ur hvx isn't cutting it. like when u just don't have enough light to even get picture through the adapter. or ud on't wanna use 12 db gain just to get a proper exposure. doubles as a camera B. i don't think the 7d is versatile enough as a primary camera but a great complimentary camera. and you can go canon route for all your lens options so it doubles up on each other.

plus you'll end up with a great still camera too.
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Excellent point; my DoF adapter has a Canon FD adapter ring as well as EOS adapter ring and Canon EE-S ground glass in it... so yeah, that would actually work out nicely.

I think the main thing I should focus on for a better image then, is lighting. That is a good point.



I know this is dvxuser.com so people are probably slightly partial to choosing the HVX over everything else, but I've seen some other things shot on other cameras that are very very sharp. If panasonic could come out with a camera that shot 2k and retained the functionality of the HVX / flexibility of the HVX... they would make a landslide of money. But thats another discussion for another post some other time.
 
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