Sony EX3 VS. Panasonic HPX170

You could boil it down to 720p or 1080p.

The 170 for all intensive purposes is a 720p camera.

The Ex-1 being a 1080p camera.

Resolution being one of the largest value points for the Ex-1.

The Panasonics really do have a nice image with great color as well.

But you can fine tune the EX-1, so I tend to think the EX-1 has a bit more to offer for the price.
 
Buck Forester said:
... but if you're shooting primarily fast action sports this might not be the camera for you. ..
Click to expand...

I have started shooting Australia Rules Football with my EX1 and was worried about how bad this might be. I knew I would be on full zoom 80% of the game as the lens is a bit on the short side for the ground I am shooting at which is a decent size. As you can see from this image below of the ground, I am shooting from the red dot on the left about 4 levels up, great vantage point. Anyway, long story short, I didn't see any skew in the images. The point here being that I wasn't looking for it. Maybe if I set out to look for skew I would have noticed it, but while shooting, and later reviewing, I didn't see anything.
 

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The standard CMOS produces skew when there is fast side to side movement. Even the Red One has this artifact as demonstrated over at reduser. This is mostly produced when the CMOS reads the sensor from top to bottom and the quick sideways movement makes the lines on the sensor not line up.

The CCD cameras have a similar skew when raising and lower the camera from a tilt or crane shot. This is because the CCD sensor reads from side to side, and again the lines won't line up.

The 170 and 150 are both really 720p cameras at best, extrapolated to a bigger resolution that is viable due to the more efficient compression.

I'm going to commit complete sacralege here and state my opinion that the 150 and 170 are not any better, maybe not as good, as the XH-A1 (a 3 CCD 1440x1080i sensor camera with tape.) The A1 can be bought used for $2,000-$2,300.

My argument is that the A1 is a bigger sensor stuffed in less efficently compressed file (tape), while the 150/170 are low resolution/pixel shifted sensors then extrapolated to a higer rez image. That makes the final image very similar.

The EX1/EX3 are true 1920 sensors and images producing a sharper image with more detail than the A1 or 150/170.

Most cost effective = A1 also 1/3" sensor and has a huge preset advantage and 20x zoom.
Sharpest image = EX1/EX3 (1/2" sensor)
150/170 = tapeless, 1/3" sensor, both 13x zoom.

Due to current transcoding type issues the tapeless 150/170 currently present no real advantage in time over cameras using tape. On the other hand every NLE out there will handle a HDV data from tape without a hickup. Ask yourself if your computer has enough horsepower to use the 150/170 files efficently.

DOF control is the combination of zoom, sensor size, and aperture. If you manually control the aperture, a 1/2" sensor is a little better, but a big zoom makes a world of difference. (Note: EX3 and 300 have changable lenses, if you can afford them.)

They are all five good to great cameras. :love4:
 
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Honker said:
Thanks Buck, and cheez, but now that brings me back to the rolling shutter issue...

Is this the main issue with the EX3? I am not really technical at all with the camera, and that seemed to be a perfect explanation... but could someone explain it in terms like their talking to a child? hahaha

I am still a little confused on what that means.
Click to expand...

do you have an iphone? or access to one? if so, launch the camera app and look at the screen. now jiggle the phone around quickly and watch the image on screen turn to jello. that is rolling shutter. now don't freak out. the iphone is the worst rolling shutter i have ever seen. the jello effect on the ex1/3 is much much more subtle and really only shows up when zoomed way in and moving quickly.


regarding the hpx170 footage with the kid kicking the soccer ball, it's not a big deal to get sharp looking footage when scaled down to web size. it's when you look at it at 100% on a computer screen or on a plasma or lcd tv that the true sharpness and detail of the sony come through and the pixel shifted mess of the panasonic shows it's ugly face.

i have always thought the pana footage looks great at 50% and horrible at 100%. the sony footage just looks great. period.
 
Hi,

In the same price range as the EX3 is the HPX300. And that camera would give you even more flexibility and a stable shooting scnario as it would ride on your shoulder very comfortably.

Best,

Jan
 
cheezweezl said:
regarding the hpx170 footage with the kid kicking the soccer ball, it's not a big deal to get sharp looking footage when scaled down to web size. it's when you look at it at 100% on a computer screen or on a plasma or lcd tv that the true sharpness and detail of the sony come through and the pixel shifted mess of the panasonic shows it's ugly face.

i have always thought the pana footage looks great at 50% and horrible at 100%. the sony footage just looks great. period.
Click to expand...

The colors, motion and organic look of the footage with the kid playing soccer are just impossible to get with the EXs.
 
There seems to be a number of people who are under the mistaken impression that the XDCam doesn't have that "mojo" that the Pannies have.
I found that it's all in how you white balance the shot.
I pulled some stills from my XDCam footage shot over the past year and there are some really "mojo" images in there... so here they are, in an album I've started just to show off the great colors you can get with the EX series from Sony:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/album.php?albumid=129
 
well, EX footage with more yellow looks like .... EX footage with more yellow. EX is EX and will look EX whatever you do to the footage. same for HPX. it seems difficult to admit for some people that these are 2 different products with their plus, their minus and their own style. if you offer me 2 EX for my HPX170, i will take the EXs, sell them and buy 3 hpx170. I's just about PERSONAL TASTES, not numbers. what would be the point to affirm "that kodak C41 100 iso film is better than that 400 iso reversible fuji film.period."?



http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=164063
 
I was ready to upgrade from my DVX100b in Nov 2008 and enter the HD realm. It was really hard for me to decide between the pluses & minuses between HPX170 & EX1. I loved the "mojo" of Panny, but really wanted the sharpness of the EX & was wishing and wishing a miracle would happen, and if I waited a bit longer, some one would announce a cam that had both. I'm glad I didn't wait too long and ended up getting the EX1. I'm a film editor and for me, when it comes down to it, no matter how you like to shoot, run the camera around on a steadycam or keep it static - ultimately the thing we look at most when watching/experiencing a movie is: what is going on in the depths of an actor's eyes, especially in regards to connecting with our protagonists emotionally! So I chose the clarity/sharpness of the EX.

I really liked my DVX and maybe if I got the HPX170 I'd like that too? However, it's image is undisputedly softer. I am having a lot of fun with the EX. I have yet to take a shot that I can't use. Ergonomically I adapted to it very quickly (it was like changing bicycles) & I even use it on a Fig Rig at times and it's weight is manageable for me.

I absolutely agree with Basspig -- knowing how to manipulate the White Balance is so important if you want to get the most out of this cam, it makes and breaks the difference between good and amazing image acquisition! Along with that, setting up some cool Picture Profiles unquestionably gives the EX1 FANTASTIC "MOJO"! Also the "built in" DOF is a nice additional bonus, even listen to Stu Maschwitz's over at ProLost in regards to the importance of DOF for getting closer to that "film look". It's why he's so psyched/obsessed :) about the upcoming potential of the DSLRs... He also spoke of the importance of DOF in at NAB.

Maybe next round for me will go to Panny, Red, Canon, Sony, or who knows. But when I was pondering and sweating over my decision back in November a peer of mine said - Look at it this way, with the sharpness of the EX1 you really can't go wrong, even when the day comes when it's not one of the main contenders for under $10k it will still serve you as an amazing B cam :)

BTW, I've held the HPX300 and it is quite an amazing cam! But it is also big and very heavy and is not at all discreet. Just a heads up, depending on what your needs are.
 
Bassman2003 said:
You could boil it down to 720p or 1080p.

The 170 for all intensive purposes is a 720p camera.

The Ex-1 being a 1080p camera.

Resolution being one of the largest value points for the Ex-1.

The Panasonics really do have a nice image with great color as well.

But you can fine tune the EX-1, so I tend to think the EX-1 has a bit more to offer for the price.
Click to expand...


actually the 170 isn't even native 720. it's 3 lower res chips pixel shifted to 1080. then downrezzed to 720 if you are shooting 720.

compare the 720 on the ex1 to the 720 on the 170. ex1 still way sharper.

one thing people argue against is the codec on the ex. however, i am seeing a lot better results in wide shots with a lot of detail with the ex than i do with the pana cams. it is a known issue that wide, highly detailed shots are where the dvcpro cams show the most weakness.

this has been improved with avc intra. if panasonic comes out with a native 1080 1/2" or 2/3" cam with the sharpness of the sony and avc intra, i'm in.... and don't say hpx300. still not as sharp, 1/3" and the worst jello i have ever seen. looks like my iphone....
 
My settings evolve over time, with me tweaking things on a situational basis, but some things remained constant: the black and white limiters set to 80--I found at the start of experimentation, these eliminate the sharpening halos around highlights. I used STD4 and HiSat for most of those shots. Detail frequency was set pretty high--around 85 with only a small positive number around 15-20 for detail setting.
An interesting thing to note is that enhancing sharpening at lower spatial frequencies gives the illusion of more clarity, but less high frequency detail, more like 'video', but I prefer the look of detail at high spatial frequencies at the expense of that punchy 'video' look, for a more natural photographic look. The stills were all pulled from EX footage I shot last summer and fall.
 
I noticed, both directly and with JImage, that the a lot EX1 (and HPX300) shots have significant edge sharpening. I've long thought the default settings weighed too much too low spatial frequency sharpening. However, they still seem to fall over past 200lp/ph, which may be a compression issue. Have you recorded from the HD-SDI output directly using a Flash XDR, Blackmagic or AJA card, or maybe an MXO2?

Also, have you had the opportunity to try filters? A Tiffen Digital Diffusion or their HDTV which combines the Digital Diffusion with an Ultra Contrast?
 
All of my footage is direct to SxS cards, so longGOP MPEG all the way. Have not played with any filters thus far. Haven't felt the need for them, given the sheer amount of control I have through picture profiles.
 
Not so much long GOP...nothing wrong there...but the higher bandwidth for less compression or more sophisticated compression algorithms.

The advantage of the filters are they modify the analog signal before it is digitized. Often the sensors don't have the resolution or accuracy to do what filters can do. Although today's cameras have come a long way. Tiffen even has a filter software package.
 
My understanding is that sophisticated cameras already have optical filters that roll off the high frequency information--they're often referred to as anti-aliasing filters. I recall John Galt at Panavision gave a talk on this topic not long ago (the video is online).

I made a discovery with my HDV camera, a V1U, that if I reduce the sharpening, the compression artifacts are considerably reduced. The jury is still out on whether sharpening in camera or in post is the more advantageous at achieving 'the look' with fewer compression artifacts.
 
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