Panasonic PV-GS400 Picture Adjustment Tests
 

http://www.matterofchance.com/gs400/

Ever play around with the Picture Adjustment settings on your GS400? You should! Check out these tests I did.

Josh

Josh - that was very helpful - thanks for making that available to us. Now I'm off to adjust my contrast setting!

Excellent job, Joshua -- much appreciated!

Josh, that had to really take some time. This is something I will reference again and again. The page loads really quick. I'm guessing you down rezzed the stills or did you set the still resolution to 640x480 in-camera?

Tommy,

No, these are the actual 640x480 photo mode frames. The picture adjustments apply the same in photo mode and video mode. It was easier to take stills in photo mode than try to capture the frames from video mode. Must just be a fast server.

I'm open to suggestions on how to display the images to make it easier to compare...

Josh

Hi Josh,

Great work :-)

May I ask how to judge the quality of the frame grab to decide which settings are good? Is that just subjective?

Regards
Leigh

Leigh,

Sure, it's definitely subjective. I did this for two reasons. One, so people could check things out side by side and make up their own minds, but, two, because I've been *preaching* for a while that default settings were partly to blame for the "video look" and I hoped to show that was the case.

Josh

Hi Josh,

I can easily see the difference from your section "Extreme Comparison", but I can not see the quality difference between two pictures if they are just one notche different in setting.

Regards
Leigh

Hi Josh,

Thanks for these tests, I was not aware what the contrast could do to the video. I will definitely try this.
What I would have liked to see is a comparison between the standard settings and your final settings (what you think is the best setting in the conclusion). Wouldn't it show the difference better ?

Regards,

Benjamin.

Leigh, hopefully by scrolling back and forth you can see the progression of how the settings effect the image. I'll try to do a side-by-side for each setting with -5/default/+5

Benjamin, yeh, I'll do that.

Hi Joshua,

I tried your suggestion settings in your article and shot indoors with two 40w lights indoors at night and projected the captured result DV AVI file in a epson projector. The result is really good to my eyes. I can clearly see the shading difference on the light. Usually I only see completely white color.

May I ask if most manufacture use sharpening algorithm you described in your article in their minidv camera? Do you have any link to reference sharpening algorithm on the net? The reason I am asking is because I own another big camera which is JVC GY-DV5000. I want to see if same thing apply. I do turn down some settings in my JVC GY-DV5000 i.e. detail, black color level to lowest. The picture seems really soft and the depth of field is shorter than normal setting. I like the depth of field shorter, but I don't like softer image. I really prefer sharp image. Can I put more lights on to get sharp image if I want to keep my turn down settins in both of my camera?

TIA

Regards
Leigh

Hi Joshua,

Since you experience the gs400 a lot and expert in this area. What do you think the color setting I adjusted for my big JVC GY-DV5000 camera. The lense is fujinon s20x6.4brm-sd.

I shot this video this morning.

Full screen size around 9mbytes encoded with wmv format

Click here

Small size around 2mbytes encoded with wmv format

Click here

I set focal length to be 6.4mm and focus distance to be 0.9m

If you look at the green chair in distance, the chair is out of focus.

Regards
Leigh

Leigh,

I don't know enough about the JVC camera to help you.

Thanks,
Josh

Hi Joshua,

I finally shot with the contrast and sharpness at minimum.
It was so much better, no more flashy video ! I will keep the contrast like that but I think the picture is a little too soft. It kinda looked blurry on the camera lcd and seen bigger it's better but I think I will slightly raise the sharpness, maybe -3 or -2.
Anyway, thanks so much for the tests you made. I will have a good-looking video from now :)

Benjamin.

That looks great. I wish the GL2 had the same contrast controls.