Which affordable camera will match EX3's resolution?

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lifepo4

Well-known member
I want to buy a second camera as a backup in addition to my HMC150. I heard that HMC40 is very sharp with full HD resolution, but a little over my budget. Are there any AVCHD camera around $1000 with very sharp image? I can sacrifice low-light performance, how about Canon AVCHD camcorder such as Vixia HF20, HF S100 or HF S11? (too many models, really confusing)?
Thanks!
 
I thought those Canon AVCHD cameras have 1920x1080 resolution on the chip and AVCHD supports full resolution at 24 Mbps, though the low-light performance not so good, am I right?
 
The EX3 is playing in the same ballpark as $30k cameras as far as sharpness and resolution go. You aren't going to play in that game for $1k. No way, no how.

I've shot next to a Canon HFS10. It's not even close.
 
If it's a single chip camera, you've already lost 3/4 of the pixels to Bayer filtering. It's not even close, when shooting a red sports car, or a lady with 'hot lips', so fuggetaboutit.
 
The HMC40 will deliver EX3-caliber sharpness, in bright light. In low light, nothing in that price bracket is going to come close.
 
basspig and Barry:

thanks, after reading "Bayer Filter" on wikipedia, I understand it now. I will buy a HMC40 when appropriate, yet I fully understand its limitation in low light, when I would use my HMC150 because resolution is lost to low luminescence anyway. So the key here is 3CCD/3MOS with 1920x1080 sensor resolution (not pixel shifting)
 
Just one more question:

If single CCD/CMOS does not produce sharp image due to Bayer filtering, does that imply that still camera should also use 3CCD/3MOS to capture beautiful image? My knowledge is many SLR just use single CMOS/CCD and their image is fantastic? Do they use different filter in digital SLR?
Also regarding the video, I am always buffled by the so called "measured resolution" of many HD camcorder with resolution close to 550 line (horizontal) and 440 lines (vertical), is the Bayer filtering responsible for that much lower number of lines?

Thanks in advance for lots of educational posts here!
 
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lifepo4 said:
If single CCD/CMOS does not produce sharp image due to Bayer filtering
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Don't know where you got that idea; a single CCD or single CMOS with a Bayer pattern can capture beautifully detailed, beautifully sharp images.

What a single chip cannot do, is capture images with equal color fidelity and resolution as three chips with a prism. You would need a substantially larger single-chip to match the color fidelity and resolution possible from three chips and a prism. And that's the method that all DSLRs and most digi-cine cameras have taken, because a single chip allows them to use existing lenses. A three-chip system would probably require engineering new lenses.

Also regarding the video, I am always buffled by the so called "measured resolution" of many HD camcorder with resolution close to 550 line (horizontal) and 440 lines (vertical), is the Bayer filtering responsible for that much lower number of lines?
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A Bayer filter costs you, on average, about 30% of your total stated resolution. So if you have a 3-megapixel chip, it's capable of delivering about 2 megapixels of actual detailed image data. That has nothing necessarily to do with HD camcorder resolution figures, other than the obvious -- if the chip is fairly low res to begin with, then the measured resolution is of course going to be low.
 
Tom Roper said:
Camcorderinfo has not reviewed for resolution testing the EX1/EX3.
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It reviewed the HF20/200 and found it capable of about 900 lines in good light, this is the highest resolution for a consumer camcorder so far. The EX is capable of about 1000 lines, according to tests performed by other users. The HF-S has noticeably lower resolution than the HF20/200, about 650 lines vertically if I am not mistaken (too lazy to verify right now). The TM300/HS300/HMC40 is somewhere in the middle with about 800 lines.
 
The Canon single chip cameras may have 900 lines of resolution but it does not have 60p temporal resolution. The Sanyo HD2000 has 60p temporal resolution but the spatial resolution is limited to 650 vertical lines of resolution. The Sony EX-1 may have 700 vertical lines of resolution in the 60p mode.
 
Cranky said:
Link, please. Not to the pros/cons, but to the test results and chart images.
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Seems you may be onto something. From the Camcorderinfo reviews of each model...

The Canon HF20 has the best video resolution we've ever recorded on a consumer camcorder and its scores are comparable to some of the professional models we've tested (like the Sony HDR-FX1000 and Canon XL H1A). The camcorder measured an approximate video resolution of 800 line widths per picture height (lw/ph) horizontal and 900 lw/ph vertical. This is a huge bump up from the 675 lw/ph horizontal and 600 lw/ph vertical recorded by last year's Canon HF11.
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http://www.camcorderinfo.com/conten...w-36314/Motion-amp-Resolution-Performance.htm

The Canon HF S100 records a crisp video image. We measured its video sharpness at 800 lw/ph (line widths per picture height) horizontal and 650 lw/ph vertical. Interestingly, this vertical resolution is slightly lower than what we measured on the Canon HF20, even though that camcorder has a lower effective pixel count. There must be an issue with the HF S100 lens or processing that makes it produce a worse vertical sharpness than its little brother. Nevertheless, the HF S100 still recorded moving video with splendid clarity.
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http://www.camcorderinfo.com/conten...ew-36389/Motion-amp-Sharpness-Performance.htm

Then, of course, their comparison seems to favor the HF S100...

In our tests, the Canon HF S100 definitely had a better video performance than the Canon HF20, especially in low light. Plus, it has more manual controls and a smooth control dial for making adjustments.
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http://www.camcorderinfo.com/conten...der-Review-36314/Canon-HF-S100-Comparison.htm

... so who knows?
 
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The thing you have to consider with the single-chip cameras is that they can look very sharp with monochromatic scenes, such as snow and grey-ish cloudy days with no brightly colored objects in frame.
The real differences appear when a bright, intense red or blue object is in the scene. The single chip cams can't handle it well. A scene, shot in red or blue light really sets them apart. The colors smear and pixellate with single chip cams. Even some multichip cams like the Z1U/V1U don't fare well, and I figured it's because of HDV's interlacing losing resolution of color sampling in both X & Y directions.
Shooting laser light really shows up the differences. The EX1 even outperforms an 8MP DSLR camera at shooting laser light. More accurate color and better detail. The DSLR smeared the color somewhat and shifted it to orange. The EX1 is the first camera I have used to shoot laser light that actually reproduces a reasonable facscimile of the original light, complete with it's gritty, corpuscular granular look.

Bayer filtered images must use super sampling to achieve decent color resolution. This involves more processing, smaller receptorsites and greatly reduced light sensitivity.

Other artifacts of Bayer filtering include rainbows appearing on fine edge details. Yuck. Overal color rendition seems pale and a bit color cast to me, at least in my experience with Red and SI IIK images looking that way.
 
The Maximum resolution of the Sony EX1 is 720p at 60 frames per second. However the Sony is a 3 chip camcorder. However the Sanyo HD2000 can resolve 1080p at 60 frames per second but it is only a single chip camcorder. Of course the optics of the Sony smoke the Sanyo however both the Sanyo and the Sony should have a theoretical identical color , luma, and temporal resolution.
 
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