Sony HC3

[alo100]

First of all, lux is very 1-dimensional and doesn't really give us too much info.
second of all, gain can be used to combat this, and cameras like FX1 are really clean at 6 or 9db of gain. Not sure how the HC cameras are with that.

Second, I saw a post on hdvinfo.net forums that said in order to get 2 lux, Sony dropped the shutter speed to 1/30 where all the other cams are quoted as 1/60

honestly, I dont think it matters too much.
For me, the concerns are

- HDV -- I think most modern HDV cameras will give us a plenty good image.
AVCHD -- i think can give a great image but I am not convinced the current cameras are there yet
- manual control of camera -- FX1 in L&M housing is good here
- size/weight (my FX1 fails miserably)

I went with the FX1 mainly because of manual setting, and 3CCD -- I have a single CCD DV camera and was not happy with the image quality so much.

Also, I will not use a camera which manually controls the camera buttons -- what a pain.

And so much of it is the person *behind* the camera, and what you put in front of it that matters really.

i think HC1/HC3/HC5/HC7 will all be just fine for 90+% of us.

Something related to the AVCHD, I chatted briefly with a guy working for sony-style store, the compression ( http://www.avchd-info.org/ ) may mean something better than what we saw (as in SONY SR-1), but what he mentioned was that, the encoding prior to the compression was already chosen to be "something less in quality" to fit the transfer rate in real time compression and for product differentiation.

Meaning, in the future, do not expect something following the SR-1, that would be comparable to the MiniDV tape quality. We cannot have both image quality and storage capacity.

I do not know how true it is, although he is a sony employee.

 

[limeyx]

Something related to the AVCHD, I chatted briefly with a guy working for sony-style store, the compression ( http://www.avchd-info.org/ ) may mean something better than what we saw (as in SONY SR-1), but what he mentioned was that, the encoding prior to the compression was already chosen to be "something less in quality" to fit the transfer rate in real time compression and for product differentiation.

Meaning, in the future, do not expect something following the SR-1, that would be comparable to the MiniDV tape quality. We cannot have both image quality and storage capacity.

I do not know how true it is, although he is a sony employee.

I dont doubt it. I wouldnt be surprised if big companies dont "sabotage" their "lower-end" cameras in order to distinguish them from their "big brothers." Not that I think this is a good practice, but that seems to be the way it is.

i think (think) from a theoretical viewpoint, AVCHD can probably give as good or maybe even better results than HDV if it is done right. For instance, look at the quality you get at 320x240 with H.264 encoding -- in my opinion simply amazing.

I just think that for now AVCHD has been used on lower-end cameras to support the direct to DVD and HDD consumer cams.

of course, the "future" is something like wavelet compression, but I think it might take a REDvolution to get that heated up

 

[paulpost]

I'm hoping to be wrong, but did anybody notice that under 'scene mode' camcorder mode there is a "candle" mode that the camcorder has might to be in order to achive the 2lux capability? This is regarding HC5 abd HC7 camcorders.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

I'm hoping to be wrong, but did anybody notice that under 'scene mode' camcorder mode there is a "candle" mode that the camcorder has might to be in order to achive the 2lux capability? This is regarding HC5 abd HC7 camcorders.

Nope. Says here it's supposed to be 2 lux, and 0 lux with nightshot.

 

[limeyx]

Nope. Says here it's supposed to be 2 lux, and 0 lux with nightshot.

But here

http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_r...camcorders/high_definition/release/27067.html

It says that the camera "automatically reduces shutter speeds to 1/30 sec (minimum) in order to capture brighter images. These camcorders can shoot clear, detailed video in dark environments as low as two lux"

Not sure what the implications of that are exactly.

 

[alo100]

I dont doubt it. I wouldnt be surprised if big companies dont "sabotage" their "lower-end" cameras in order to distinguish them from their "big brothers." Not that I think this is a good practice, but that seems to be the way it is.

i think (think) from a theoretical viewpoint, AVCHD can probably give as good or maybe even better results than HDV if it is done right. For instance, look at the quality you get at 320x240 with H.264 encoding -- in my opinion simply amazing.

I just think that for now AVCHD has been used on lower-end cameras to support the direct to DVD and HDD consumer cams.

of course, the "future" is something like wavelet compression, but I think it might take a REDvolution to get that heated up

Yes, I agree that the compression issue.
I just read something interesting, they did it (compression with HD) for the professional sony camera too, the result was good enough to show on silver screen.

Here's the SONY camera, notice that the spec mentioned about the compression:
http://www.expandore.com/product/sony/Proav/model/HD/HDWF900R.htm

and here's the part where they talked about compression being used for the HD camera in making the movie "The Cave":

"..... At the beginning of the shoot, the filmmakers considered recording uncompressed footage onto a hard drive, but they found the difference between compressed and uncompressed footage almost impossible to discern with the naked eye... "

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/aug05/cave/page2.html


Enjoy!

 

[ScubaBob92651]

But here

http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_r...camcorders/high_definition/release/27067.html

It says that the camera "automatically reduces shutter speeds to 1/30 sec (minimum) in order to capture brighter images. These camcorders can shoot clear, detailed video in dark environments as low as two lux"

Not sure what the implications of that are exactly.

Sorry, I was confusing this automatic ability to lower the shutter speed with the sony nightshot stuff. Nightshot aside, is it safe to assume then that 2 lux is only achievable with the 1/30 shutter speed? If so, what then is the lux in the auto mode, and at what minimum shutter speed. I guess full manual is out of the question? I've shot video all the way down to 1/15 second in really low lit u/w conditions (wrecks etc). Works ok with minimal movement (fish and panning), but is a little to slow for regular filming.

 

[limeyx]

Sorry, I was confusing this automatic ability to lower the shutter speed with the sony nightshot stuff. Nightshot aside, is it safe to assume then that 2 lux is only achievable with the 1/30 shutter speed? If so, what then is the lux in the auto mode, and at what minimum shutter speed. I guess full manual is out of the question? I've shot video all the way down to 1/15 second in really low lit u/w conditions (wrecks etc). Works ok with minimal movement (fish and panning), but is a little to slow for regular filming.

From my limited understanding (and since no one can actually get these cams yet), it seemed like as the available light decreased, the cams would automatically slow down the shutter speed to "get more lux"

No idea what the implications are for diving, but if that's really the way it works, I'd definitely think I would want a way to disable it!

Brings up an interesting point tho -- does it just go from 1/60 to 1/30 or is it a more gradual (and insidious) transition?

 

[limeyx]

Yes, I agree that the compression issue.
I just read something interesting, they did it (compression with HD) for the professional sony camera too, the result was good enough to show on silver screen.

Here's the SONY camera, notice that the spec mentioned about the compression:
http://www.expandore.com/product/sony/Proav/model/HD/HDWF900R.htm

and here's the part where they talked about compression being used for the HD camera in making the movie "The Cave":

"..... At the beginning of the shoot, the filmmakers considered recording uncompressed footage onto a hard drive, but they found the difference between compressed and uncompressed footage almost impossible to discern with the naked eye... "

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/aug05/cave/page2.html


Enjoy!

My biggest issues are:

- With cams like HC* -- sometimes you dont get full manual control. This is problematic because you want to drive the camera, not the other way

- I dont really think the comparison of uncompressed to compressed necessarily holds up to different kinds of compression. I think it also depends on who is comparing -- average viewers (like me) or someone who is a director of photography by day. Also, from what I understand, it's not just bitrate but things are drastically affected by the sensor size/lens (take the Sony F-350? which only has 25Mbps or 35Mbps MPEG-2 I think but uses variable rate MPEG not fixed and has a 2/3" sensor -- by all accounts way better than our little HDV cams.

Also regarding compression, it really affects how much you can play with the footage in your post-processing phase. I have a project with some SD and some HDV footage.
When you play it back at DVD resolution, they look reasonably close. But try to fix the colors etc. on the DV and you dont have much lattitude. By contrast, you can really play with the HDV stuff.

it's definitely all tradeoffs, but a nice HC-7 for my "B" camera setup would be awesome!

 

[paulpost]

For more info's and what other think about this two new camcorders check this website
www.sonyhdinfo.com/showthread.php?t=8390.
Looks that the 2lux is achieved by lowering the shutter speed to 1/30.
For the HC1 and HC3 users, don't put your camcorder on e-bay yet.