stuck with a tough descision; trading dvx

One Way PhotoVideo

One Way PhotoVideo

Carbonite Member
So most of my film making is in the skate industry, I do a lot of work filming and shooting photography of skateboarding and I love it. I used to own a Sony DCR-VX1000 and loved it. I fell in love with the way the DVX looks and wanted one badly. So I traded my camera and got a DVX100 and 16x9 inc. Super Fisheye. I've used my dvx for a bit now and realized, it's a lot harder to use then I thought it would be. With the sony, it was just white balance, shutter speed, exposure and you're ready to go, but with the dvx it's all messing with scene files and I just don't know what I'm doing. I realize that with practice makes perfect but it just seems like a lot. I've been talking to my friend and he said that using the dvx will be bringing in a lot more business outside of skating, because i love making short films and whatnot, but the vx1000 was just so easy to use and what I needed. So my friend cory was trying to convince me to stick with the DVX while I kind of want to downgrade to a VX1000 and a Century Optics Mark1 death lens. I want to know what you guys think, is it worth it to learn everything about the DVX and get it perfect or to go back to the VX1000 and keep doin what I'm good at?
 
I think it's a very user friendly camera. There's really not that much to learn. Scene files are just for tweaking image control and not essential at all, although not a bad thing to learn anyways. The ease of setting up your Sony is no different from the ease of setting up your Panasonic.
 
well like, I've been having trouble getting good colors, it's hard exposing it right it's either over exposed or under exposed and colors are just bland and i can't seem to get crisp vivid colors. Any tips? I also like how you can lock settings with the vx1000. I unfortunately couldn't keep a clip shot the other day because while the skater was in the trick, my finger grazed the iris scroll, but with the vx1000, a switch will lock all the buttons which i like.
 
Stick DVX.

If you don't have the DVX book yet, purchase it. It will make your life so much easier when it comes to the DVX. As it is, its not a terribly difficult camera to manage.
 
If you do this trade, which I don't recommend, I would trade for a vx2100, a much better more recent camcorder then the vx1000.
 
i've used all of the VX series, vx1000 is the best IMO. It has the best daytime colors out of all of the, isn't great in low light, but just get an on camera light and i'm fine, I think i'm going with the vx1000 mk1 setup.
 
In the scene file, set your Matrix to Cinelike. Cinelike gives richer color saturation, especially for reds and greens. Normal has the lowest color saturation of all the settings. Also, in the scene file, the Chroma Level controls color saturation. The "+" side increases the color level and the "-" side decreases it. I also like to keep my Gamma set to Cinelike (Cinelike D and Cinelike V have more video noise but allow for knee protection), but this is a personal choice. As for exposure, set the iris to manual and use your zebras. I use "Zebra1" , which is set at 80%. "Zebra2" is set at 100%. The Zebras prevent over exposure. Just open or close the iris until the point where the Zebra stripes disappear and your exposure is set.
 
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I use the DVX for skating - I prefer my footage to the VX camera stuff that my friends use - I've tweaked the scene file to give richer saturation and also warmed up the colour a bit too.

With the DVX in 24p mode, you can also shoot all of those arty-farty cutaway shots (ala transworld vids) that look like super 8 film

It's way more versatile than you realize - you just need to know what the functions do :)

If you'd like I can post my "skate" scene file settings a bit later on as an example, tweak them to suit :)
 
MasterP said:
I use the DVX for skating - I prefer my footage to the VX camera stuff that my friends use - I've tweaked the scene file to give richer saturation and also warmed up the colour a bit too.

With the DVX in 24p mode, you can also shoot all of those arty-farty cutaway shots (ala transworld vids) that look like super 8 film

It's way more versatile than you realize - you just need to know what the functions do :)

If you'd like I can post my "skate" scene file settings a bit later on as an example, tweak them to suit :)
Click to expand...
that would be awesome if you can show me an example, because everything i read on this site makes me want to keep the dvx, and everything on skateperception makes me want to get a vx1000 again.
 
Mr. Andrew Cohen, fancy seeing you on dvxuser, undoubtedly, if i were you id stick to rocking the dvx, but who am i to say, im in shoes other than yours-
check out this thread, it was one of my fav threads starting out with my dvx, it gives some quality scene file settings that you can play off of and tweak
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=101419&highlight=DVX100B+settings
best of luck with the D, take your time, some deep breathes so you can see your inner reflection, lolz emo.
 
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