First impressions, after one day
 

Chris, this is a copy of something that was posted in another thread, but I felt it moved beyond the borders of that conversation, please feel free to scrub this if it's considered cross posting.......



As far as noise is concerned, I know you some of guys have been scared by the stills that have been published and the reports that have been coming back, even I'd been starting to gravitate towards the Xl-H1 ( yes Shannon, even me) after some of the stuff I've seen...but after these tests, I'm more than happy. I'd say its extremely film-like in nature...it definitely has more of a 'grain' feel, than a 'video noise' feel. And this is from 25 years of shooting anything from super-8 to 3/4" to 35mm to genesis.
I'd put it at better than super16 but worse than 35......as sort of 23mm, if you will.
As far as Latitiude is concerned, it's definitely better than any chip based solution I've used before, bar the Viper or Genesis. The Genesis has about 12-13 stops of latitude..this is around 8.
I know this is expanding beyond the realm of this paricular thread, but I'm just gonna keep typing for informations sake.
The equivalent ASA for the HVX is about 350 at 0 gain, (Barry, would you concur?)I haven't gone above 0 gain, If you have, why did you bother buying this camera.... :)
I wouldnt be happy shooting interiors without a couple of CTB'd 2Ks or a 1.5K HMI.
It's probably fairly well suited to the sorta modern style of 'high-key, no fill' stuff, as long as you keep your kickers down to a only 2-3 stops above the key.
The glass is good, really good, the finder and the LCD however, don't do it justice, you'll want a decent sized monitor on set...AND/OR A FOCUS PULLER. It's amazing how in focus something can look on a 3.5" lcd and still be competely out of focus on a 20" monitor
Resist the temptation to go with 'long shutter' stuff to keep you light levels up. This camera really does benefit from some proper lighting.

Major Impression....this isn't for corporate, event, or reality stuff...its for shorts, local spots, low-budget features...In short it's a tool for fiction work. This is the system ( if you can't stretch to 35mm) to shoot that movie that you wanna send to sundance, or that spec spot that you're gonna send to Smugger or Anonymous.

and lastly.....

I'm dying to see this thing with a cinemek G35 in front of it.



John

John, it's amazing that your description of "who its for" matches exactly the same list as for the JVC HD100. That's very good for potential customers because it offers them two very good choices.

But I wonder about your "who its not for list." I think 720p60 is perfect for all those on your "not" list and wonder if you or others who are NOT interested in filmmaking will test the camera with gain.

How much is needed? How much can be added without the S/N ratio becoming too bad for VIDEO use?

Sounds great John.
The only thing I'd take exception to was the above.I can't see why you'd specify "local" spots or "spec" regarding broadcast commercial work.
We do major network commercial work with an XL2 in the studio and it looks great in SD broadcast.

I'd certainly expect this camera to go well beyond local and spec in the commercial field.