Jason R. Johnston
Well-known member
Well, they both kinda suck...and I say that because nowadays we have true lowlight cameras like the Sony a7s. I don't have an HPX170 available to test against my DVX200, but I never really had a complaint using it on a TV show or two. HVX200, also. Back in the day, those 3 CCD chip cameras weren't really bad at all, considering price and weight. DVX200, with it's much larger sensor, is comparable. Read: they both suck at lowlight, but if you absolutely have to shoot in the dark you can...but it's gonna be noisy. Plus, DVX200 has IR mode, if you need it. If you know you're going to have to shoot something in the dark, rent an a7-something and a fast lens. Or, some cine-camera with a fast lens.
More words, but less on-topic:
Second day I had my DVX200, a few weeks ago, I shot something at night with a guy addressing a small crowd of people, lit by just the garage light...and he was facing out into the darkness...and it looks awful...super high ISO, ultra-positive gain, even at f/2.8 it was....just awful...but the story trumps the image quality, and it didn't really matter...being that it's for a documentary. It's perfectly fine. Audio is fine. It's fine. But shooting a proper video with lighting, I would never want the camera to need to do lowlight work in the first place. Yes, DVX200 can shoot in the dark before you get to use IR mode, but it's ugly. If you do 4K and resize for HD the noise gets much less pronounced...but it's so bad up close I wouldn't want to use Neat Video or something else to clean it up because it would kill the detail that tells you it's in focus. At least it is in focus. But these are problems I saw in the HPX170. They just aren't lowlight cameras.
There was some other stuff from the same film that took place underneath a sodium-vapor street lamp so everything was ugly orange-yellow, but I could use ISO800 at f2.8 and it looked fine, exposure-wise. Noise was acceptable. And if it wasn't, then it could be cleaned up. You could see the clouds at night, as lit by city and moon, in the background, as the subject is orange from the street lamp. But, if you establish the orange street lamp early, then it makes sense and you don't mind because street lamps are orange and it's taking place under a street lamp. So, it's fine. Again, documentary. If it were a movie, I'd get a movie light on a condor and gel it orange for the same effect. So, it's ok.
But when you step out past the area of effect, it gets dark in a hurry. Now you're stretching your gain way past an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio and everything just gets near-monochomatic and ugly. You would never shoot anything but a docu this way. And even then, it's because you can't get it any other way so you need to just get the shot, no matter what...because it won't happen again and you have no control over it...so you just shoot it and do the best you can. At least everyone's mic'd and it sounds good. Good sound actually helps make a crap image look better. And you CAN see what's going on. The exposure itself is acceptable, the colors and noise are what's ugly. But, being that the story is more important in a docu, it's acceptable anyway. We understand they're in the dark. You can still see them. It's just noisy and gray. And it's only for a little while...turn on the external on-camera light and you can drop your ISO and all is good again.