Pdw-700, pdw-800, pmw-350
 

Looking to hear from people who have shot with the CMOS vs CCD XDCAM 2/3".

How they compare in the real world shooting not testing.

I am happy with the 350 but do miss the optical disk and the CCD.

Yes I know the 700 and 800 have been compared but now that the 350 is out I would like to know the opinion of the shooters who have used both the CCD and CMOS 2/3"? Pros/Cons

Paul, let's get together this week and shoot your EX350 and my F800 side by side.

Doug

I will email you.

Hi Paul

I think I actually prefer using the 350 and the results are as good, possibly better. I have a shoot this weekend with 4 PDW700s and hoping they hire my 350 as cam 5 which will be my first direct comparison.

The solid state vs disc is the biggest difference IMO, although solid state will soon be cheaper the way things are heading!

I have seen a little skew and partial exposure from flashes, but only on whip pan repositions. To see skew, the movement needs to be so violent that the skew will be almost completely hidden. I haven't tried, but apparently the correction software helps with partial exposures and is pretty effective.

If they were the same price, I would struggle to choose between them!!!

I'm in a real quandary. I have both a 350 and a PDW-700, but I can't keep both. The picture quality from them is so close that there is no clear winner IMHO. I have always liked the pictures from the CMOS EX1/EX3's, to me they have a very organic look. The 350 is similar, there is something about the pictures (once you've dialed the detail back) that looks very natural and the way highlights are handled is really pleasing. The PDW-700 is an excellent work horse and produces great picture too. In terms of dynamic range, both camera are about the same. Given the above and the huge price difference you would think that it would be a no-brainer, sell the 700 and save some money. But it's not as simple as that. More and more broadcasters here in the UK are taking up XDCAM HD422 as the de-facto standard for HD production, the PDW-700 is slowly replacing HDCAM. The optical disc workflow is highly desirable for broadcast production companies, they don't want to have to worry about solid state backups and of course they need 50Mb/s.

As many of you know I film a lot of lightning and thunderstorms. I've done this very successfully with EX1's and EX3's for a couple of years. It's not quite as simple as with a CCD camera as you have to watch your shutter speed, but it's doable.

If I didn't already have the 700 I would be keeping the 350 and would be perfectly happy with (used with a NanoFlash). But as I have the 700, giving it up is tough as it is a great, well proven camera, should continue to be so.

What I will say is that the 350 package is excellent, I love it's light weight and low power. It was really nice taking the light package up to the arctic for the Northern Lights. The fact that you get a color VF as standard and HDMI is very nice. I guess my heart says go 350, my business brain says PDW-700.

What UK broadcasters are standardising with XDCam422?
Steve

At present, I don't think it's a case of standardising with it or any other acquisition codec. What is true is that XDCAM 422 50Mbs is seen as fully acceptable, no restrictions, (providing the front end is good enough), though other codecs also qualify.

As far as other cameras go, it seems use is being made of EX cameras by UK broadcasters when a small camera is desired, though I'm sure the 50Mbs codec would be preferred.

Mike, Alister, thanks for your comments.

Mike what scene file are you using? Would be very interested to see how it looks.

Alister you really can't see a picture difference between the 700 and 350? I just shot with a friend who has a 800 along side the 350 and each has it positives but the picture is very different. The 350 wins on low light. The 800 has a very different look with the CCD. But as I said they are both great cameras just different. Sounds like you are happy with your scene file. Any changes?

Hi Alister,

Is that with the kit lens or have you aded other lenses to the 350 - or both? If yes to other lenses, what are your observations compared to the kit lens? Also, what batteries have you been using with the 350?

Hope your decision re 700 vs 350 will be the right one for you.

Cheers

David are you looking to buy a 350 and not sure if you should buy the kit lens or not?

Alister it is interesting that you do not see much of a difference between the 700 and 350. Shooting along side the 800 I see a very big difference. I think some if not all of this is CMOS to CCD. And this is with the 350 going out 422 100Mbps on a 50Mbps timeline side by side. I am not saying the 350 is not a good camera it is. And a very nice step up from the EX1/3. But I don't think it has the picture quality of the 800 and I thought the 700 as the same picture?

Paul, what are you seeing that makes the 800 better to your eye?

I find the 350 just as sharp and clean and although I haven't compared the latitude directly, it seems very comparable. Obviously the settings play a big part and I believe the 800 has user programmable gamma for instance.

Mike,

What I am seeing will be defined further as we look at side by side footage in more detail this afternoon. But this is our second side by side test and we plan one more.

The 350 can be sharp but not as sharp as I am hearing people say with my experience. We have to have detail at 0 or higher to not look to soft and washed out. Also to my eye and the person I am testing with the picture is more electronic which is not a surprise since it is CMOS vs CCD.

The 800 does a better job keeping detail in the blacks and highlights at the same time. While the 350 you have to adjust the setting one way or the other. Meaning the blacks can look very nice but the highlights seem to get noise. Or the highlights can look nice and you loose the black detail.

As I said the 350 is a nice step up from the other EX cameras but the 800 is the next level of picture quality. We are using the same glass on both cameras by the way so that is not an issue.

More as we learn more.

Interesting. I discussed the PDW700 vs 350 with Alister at BVE and he thought they were pretty similar too. I'll try and test at the weekend if I get the chance.

I'm also really pleased with the stock lens so far. The worse thing in the sloooow servo zoom and also if you crash zoom, the focus has a 1 frame lag which is just noticeable. Optically it is remarkable. A little barrel distortion at full wide but I've seen worse.

Would love to do a test of the 350, 700, HDCAM and the new Varicams together. Anyone fancy it?

Mike have you been following this thread?
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdc...rofiles-6.html

Interesting that Alister is saying the same thing I am seeing with the highlights. I think the 350 sensor is limited compared to the 700/800 sensor with latitude.

It is fine for all of us to agree to disagree with picture quality because in the end it is our own preference and a happy client that counts.

I would like to see that test but not just with locked shots but very fast motion. I don't mean fast pans I mean fast motion going through the frame with a slow pan. With all my helicopter shooting that is very important. And with the best possible scene files on each camera while adding the 800 in there, since it has some custom setting options the 700 does not offer.

Nice to be on the leading edge but at times it takes up time I could be shooting/editing. I am and engineer when it comes to designing boats but a shooter when it comes to cameras.

I don't think the highlight situation is a sensor limitation but more of a processing issue. The aperture setting really is doing strange things! But as the processing is all software driven it is possible that this could be improved or changed. Turning Aperture off really cleans up the highlights.

Both cameras appear to have the same dynamic range, the way the highlights are handled is different between the two cameras and personally I like the 350 look.

Thanks for your post and thoughts Alister. But it is good to agree to disagree. I don't think the pictures are that close between the 350 and 800. But maybe the 800 is producing a better picture then the 700 but I can't see how.

Did you see the frame grabs from my camera shootout:

XDCAM-USER.com 6 Camera Shootout: Panasonic 3700, 301, 200, Sony 700, 350, EX3

Yes I did.

What I am seeing with our test, I trusting since I am seeing it on a large corrected monitor while shooting and in post.

I did, and I think the 700 and 350 match very closely in your test. The problem is, they both look equally bad. Maybe "bad" is a bit harsh, but the camera's certainly don't look as good as they can. If you want a camera that may not look so great, then either one will do the job right out of the box. As will all the other cameras in the test.

I quote from your test:
"IT IS IMPORTANT to consider that the cameras were all set to default and exposed using a 50% grey card. This may or may not be the the optimum exposure and I am sure all the cameras could have been made to perform better with some picture tweaks, however this was felt to be the fairest way to shoot the scene given the time restrictions."

Okay, now that we know that, then the rest of the testing is pointless because why does anyone care how a camera looks out of the box -- plus without the optimal expsoure. That's like testing a Steinway against a piano that cost half as much -- but neither have been tuned yet. Guess what? They would both sound equally bad.

The kind of testing that Paul and I have been doing is to try to get the best look we can on both cameras. When you do that kind of testing, the 350 seems to fall woefully short of the mark set by the F800. That's what we've seen with our own eyes on a variety of shots, with a variety of paint settings. I trust that assessment more than looking at a single freeze frame from cameras that have not been setup properly.

When the ASC does their HD camera shootouts they assign an operator to each camera who's job it is to get the best possible look the camera is capable of . . . because no one's going to use it out of the box on the default settings. That's the way to test cameras.

Take the cameras out in the real world and compare them. If I've learned anything from attending NAB over 20 times it's that almost any camera can look pretty good on a little studio set.

Just me 2 cents.

If you've done your homework, show the work!

Tom,

Email me your best scene file. The actual data file, please, do not just send a list of the settings. I'm not going to program them by hand.

If Paul and I can find the time to get together again, we'll use your best file in the EX350 up against my favorite settings for the F800. Then you can decide for youself. Perhaps Paul and I have gotten it all wrong. I'll even test it up against my EX1, because in our previous tests the EX1 was also better than the EX350. I'll actually post real 1080P video, shot on-location, at Vimeo instead of a couple of freeze frames.

I am a bit puzzled by the "DWV" Gamma curve on the PMW-350. I kind of like it, It yields nice blacks and is well saturated but the latitude seems very low, too contrasty.

Anyone using it?

T.

Really? In what ways?

Very interested in your results as I use all of these cameras.

Setting up each camera individually using one persons preferred settings is equally flawed as what looks right or best to one person may not please the next person. Camera setup is very subjective. Most of what you changing is only affecting the look of the image and not the actual performance of the camera.

I agree that Sony's cameras don't look good out of the box, but I could have tweaked and tuned them to a detail level I like (after all there is no standard for detail settings) and chosen a gamma curve or knee that I like or think is best. But define "best", what is best? We know the hypergammas give good dynamic range, but not everyone likes the flat pictures produced due to the compressed highlights and the Sony gammas are different to the Panasonic gammas. What might be suitable for one production may not be suitable for the next. I spent the day on Wednesday at the London Film School setting up cameras for a lighting workshop. As we were working in a controlled lighting setup we used a standard gamma with no knee as this gave the best pictures in the 8 stop lighting range of the set. In this scenario this was decided as the optimum setup and the cameras produced gorgeous pictures that would grade extremely well, but it's not a setup I would use for exteriors.

Yes we could have spent a day setting up each camera, but then we would still have to include the caveat that the cameras were set up according to one persons individual taste.
However you do these kinds of tests there will be compromises. Our shootout was done primarily to generate media sets for testing the various workflows, but it did also highlight some strengths and weaknesses in the cameras tested. As many people won't ever delve into a cameras setup, for many it is very relevant to see the out of the box image.

I'd rather use frame grabs to judge image quality than video clips on Vimeo. At least 1:1 uncompressed frame grabs don't add extra compression artifacts, change the colour space, resolution, quantization etc. How can you compare a 4:2:2 image with a 4:2:0 image using only a 4:2:0 codec?

Not so fast. You've done all the testing already. What did you test? Let's see the data points you have now.

Alister, I can understand your point of view, I just happen to disagree with that approach. Yeah, I may not agree with the settings somebody else has chosen, but at least I'm not listening to an untuned piano that I already know doesn't sound good. As for comparing moving video or freeze frames, well we'll have to disagree on that. Neiter is ideal, but I'm not judging compression issues. Paint settings hold up pretty good on Vimeo. If they didn't, why are we even wasting our time worrying about them?

Tom, is there some reason why you think I owe you something? You're lucky I'm willing to do what I have offered to do. I don't own the EX350, I'm not thinking about buying an EX350, and I have no financial interest in which camera other people choose. I have merely been helping Paul evaluate his camera. If you have a problem with me voicing my evaluation without showing examples, too bad. Hey, I have an idea, why don't you spend half your day shooting, editing, and uploading something just for me?

As Alister pointed out, you can't trust someone else's scene files. So it's a waste of time for me to test the EX350 without having YOUR settings. No matter what the results are, you'd just say that I didn't have the right settings. For all I know, your settings may unlock the secrets of the camera and have it looking like an F35.

I've made my offer, and if you don't send the file this morning, then I'll assume you're not interested in a true comparison today.

FYI, the shooting conidtions are likely to be overcast, so choose your file accordiingly.

Alister, Tom,

We are doing this test to choose what WE think is the best setting for the 350. And to really understand the test you need to be standing in front of the corrected monitor when we are shooting. Not view it on the web, Doug is offering that to be helpful and give you an idea of what we are doing. As Doug said if you don’t like that you will say we are using the wrong setting and doing it wrong. We are not doing this for your setting we are doing this for our settings!

I would never judge a cameras performance by a still only. I need to see motion I am shooting video with motion and at times fast motion. Also what really matters is what our clients think and from what I have seen with the 350 clients need better, and we are working on how we can give them a better picture.

As for std factory setting I would never shoot that and give it to a client. You are right Alister it is all personal taste but that is what brings out the creative part of shooting. I would rather give a client a Natural looking picture from an experienced shooter I don’t know then a std setting from the factory. So why would I test with anything but what I would send out. The other is a waste of my time.

We are trying to help 350 users here not stir it up. And let me tell you Doug knows what he is doing and I feel lucky to have him helping me. So as I said in an earlier post agree to disagree but lets do it where we all move forward like WE are trying to do with this test!

Doug,

You said that with factory settings the PDW700 and PMW350 were equally bad, and from there with careful tuning they get farther apart as the F800 morphs into a Steinway and the EX350 turns into a sub-EX1. I don't mind opinions like this at all except when ad-hoc field use like this is characterized as "testing" to argue against reasoned baselines, which Alister put forth to level the field in his 6 cam test. In lieu of factory settings, you got challenged to share some of those observations you based your testing on, what gamma, what exposure, what settings, and instead you countered with an insincere offer of unsolicited help.

For what it's worth Doug, I for one have never said a word (until now) about the PDW700 or F800. I am not at all surprised that for the extra premium the 700 and 800 command, there would be tangible image quality benefits.

Hey, where's all the hostility come from :( We're all just trying to help each other, let's keep it friendly.

Just been toying with various settings and shots on my 350 including a few torture tests. I don't own an EX1/3 but I use them a lot and think the 350 has it beat in every way. The EX1/3 is noisier and just seems to make a more "mucky" picture for want of a better word. Having said that, I have often intercut EX3 and PDW700 material and later been unable to spot which is which. The stock EX lens is normally the giveaway.

I've found the 350 to produce a very clean image by comparison. Maybe it lacks a certain organic tone, it's all very subjective.

What I'd like to do is shoot a few test scenes simultaneously with a few cameras at once. One exterior, a controlled set, mixed WB etc. Anyone fancy it? Not sure when I'll have the time mind!

If there was one thing a learnt when I did the 6 camera shoot-out, it is that anything like that takes a lot more time than you would expect. Even using stock camera settings you have to be sure that you are using a lighting range that is fair to all the cameras, for example you can easily come up with a scene that favors one camera or another. Then you need to ensure the light level is one that is neutral to all the cameras involved. Too bright and one camera may need ND, which might skew your results as the aperture on the lens will be different, too dark and one camera may need gain, which is clearly unfair. In my tests I had to come up with a light range that was bright enough for the HVX201 yet not so bright that the HPX301's iris was stopped down into diffraction limiting. Arguably you should test with charts as these will reveal the true colorimetry, dynamic range and resolution of a camera, but these don't really reveal the real world picture "look" which is far more subjective, but as I said earlier different scenes may favor different cameras.

Following a recent experience when testing a Canon DSLR against an EX I would still at least like to see bitmap frame grabs from each camera to compliment any highly compressed video clips. With the Canon/EX test the difference in resolution and aliasing between the cameras stood out like a sore thumb in the original footage and frame grabs, but when compressed for Vimeo the Canon barely looked any different to the EX and anyone judging the two by the video clip alone would have gained the impression that they are similar in performance when they are not. This would I guess be fine if your end product was clips for Vimeo, but I suspect most of us are aiming a little higher than that!

You see these same discussions every time someone or some organisation does a side by side camera shootout as everyone has their own view as to how it should be done, the people that take the time to do the tests are criticised for doing them, because in some way the test is viewed as flawed. We have to keep reminding ourselves that as well as a technical exercise, this is also an art form and what works for one person may not work for the next. As has been said the best way to see if a camera is right for you is to try it for yourself. All that those of us that do compare cameras can do is to try and provide an un biased opinion based on our own experiences.

Here are a couple of frame grabs from my PDW-700 and PMW-350. These were done a little while ago, but shows how close these two cameras are (or can be).

Alister,
Out of those two screen grabs, I prefer the 350. If that's the way your two cameras look, then I can understand the quandry you face in deciding which one to keep. Our experience has been very different.

Tom,
I can assure you that there was nothing "insincere" about my offer to test your scene files for you side-by-side with an F800. You challenged my opinion about what I have observed with my own eyes, so I offered to re-do the tests with your settings so there would be no questions. Sorry I wasted my time even making the offer. If the situation was reversed, I'd jump at the chance to have you run some tests with my settings. Do happen to have an F800 available?

What lenses? It appears to be the lens making the biggest difference, in favour of the 350.

The 700 had a Canon KJ20 and the 350 had it's kit lens. The KJ20 is not the best of HD lenses.

There are more reasons why the PDW-700/F800 and PMW-350 should look the same than there are reasons for them to be different. After all they both have 2/3" sensors of the same resolution with similar pixel size, very similar noise, sensitivity and dynamic range. That is then processed by 14 bit DSP's (so dynamic range should be the same) in both cameras, using the same gamma curves and color matrix and what should be the same detail levels (as we have discovered there are definitely differences here). CMOS and CCD sensors both use very similar MOS capacitor devices to capture the light, it is the read out methods that are different. With CMOS this used to mean more noise due to heat and the high frequency clock signals needed for readout and on chip analog to digital conversion. Sony have however now managed to tame this noise with on chip analog and digital noise sampling/reduction circuits so other than the read out method the difference in the signals produced by CCD and CMOS sensors should be minimal.

So other than motion, these cameras should look similar. Oh one more thing, the grabs were taken from the camera recordings, so the 350 is 4:2:0 35Mb/s and the 700 4:2:2, 50Mb/s. Both set to progressive, both cameras using the same gamma and matrix settings but different detail settings.

I did not challenge your opinion. I asked to see the results of the tests, whereupon I saw they were not really tests but ad hoc observations, but you were using them to counter what really were formal tests with rules (rightly or wrongly), put forth by Alister in his 6 cam test.

That said, I apologize for characterizing the offer to review my scene files as insincere, I meant that in the context that it was offered with a hurried deadline and in lieu of just laying out the information I was really trying to get at, that you used a particular gamma on camera A, a particular scene setting on camera B, and in a particular situation you had a particular observation about it. Instead, you went straight to the conclusions that I never would have said were wrong anyway because I don't know, with the minor exception of concluding even the EX1 was better, which since I do own that cam as well, made it hard to take much of anything seriously. That and I don't have any complaints or problems with my scene files to lose sleep over.


I also was not, am not holding out a particular scene file of my own as nirvana. To me, they are starting points, I freely adjust them as I feel the need, and I don't subscribe that by dialing in just one size fits all situations for everybody. There are other variables to take control of as well, particularly exposure.

My reasons for purchasing the EX350 were affordable 2/3 inch performance in a light weight package, long battery life, a kit lens with autofocus, color viewfinder and good sensitivity. I can understand how one takes umbrage at claims that such is equal or better than a 700/800 if you can understand I have not been making such claims. Accordingly, although I am financially equipped to rent or buy a 700/800, doing so while the result would be interesting does not change fundamentally why the 350 was the right choice for me. I have not had problems achieving the desired look (in my hands), and I'm sure I would be equally pleased or more so with the image of the 700/800/F23/F35/Red et al.

No Hostility here Mike just trying to make the camera scene setting better with great help from Doug now on three test.

Tom I still stand by our testing method. I have been involved in testing multi million dollar boats against each other for 25 years, and all the lab or standardize testing in the world does not compare to real world field testing. That is where they spend the real money. We are doing real world easy on the camera field-testing. No fast motion (YET although I have shot the 350 for 42 hrs in the helicopter), and with the most natural color we can find that is easy to reach for both of us with our very busy businesses/lives. We use STD as a start on each test then multi scene files we think are the best for the cameras as we learn. Yes they change daily, and that is why we have not posted results because we are not happy with the results yet. If you do not like how we are testing fine no problem but don’t tell us it is wrong. This is how we shoot our jobs and that is what we deliver to our clients. So PLEASE lets just move on and talk about settings between the cameras. That is why I started this thread!

“You see these same discussions every time someone or some organization does a side by side camera shootout as everyone has their own view as to how it should be done, the people that take the time to do the tests are criticized for doing them, because in some way the test is viewed as flawed. We have to keep reminding ourselves that as well as a technical exercise, this is also an art form and what works for one person may not work for the next. As has been said the best way to see if a camera is right for you is to try it for yourself. All that those of us that do compare cameras can do is to try and provide an un biased opinion based on our own experiences” Very well said Alister.

Alister I do like your 350.bmp over the 700.bmp for the buildings but not the sky. That is similar to what I have been seeing the latitude in the 350 seems limited compared to the 800 but better then the EX1/3.

Tom agree the 350 is a great deal on a 2/3” HD camera. It is a nice step up from the other EX series and right in line. I guess I have just been spoiled by looking at Doug’s 800 which is why I started this thread.

I need a great outdoor setting for bright light and one for low light then another for 3.2K lighting range. And as we have discussed it needs to please me and I am not there yet. Tweaking Alister’s Natural is getting close to my liking but a little more color punch is what I am working on. All while keeping nice detail while holding that detail at 100kts in the helicopter with normal motion blur. Now that is a challenge for any camera. My scene on the ground on the tripod is a whole lot easier for the camera and I tend to make that sharper. So moving forward learning and more soon.

Thank you to Doug for his hard work in moving my 350 scene files forward.

Okay, for anyone who is interested, here's the results of the testing Paul and I did this afternoon. I will not make any comments or analysis. You can come to your own conclusions and take into account that our testing methods may not be the same as what you would do in the same situation.

We tried to adjust the exposre for each scene file to make it look it's best. If we had left the iris on auto, or locked it at the same f-stop for all of them, the results would be meaningless. Once again, we are trying to make each camera looks as good as we can.
All I can say is that it was damn cold, windy, and not everything is as perfectly exposed as I'd lilke it. But we did the best we could. It is what it is.
It's be nice to have some sun, but we can't control the weather and we were lucky it wasn't raining.

The scene files called "standard" and "no PP" are the camera's default settings out of the box. The two paint settings for the EX350 are listed below, but I do not care to post my F800 settings at this time. This is a 720P version of a 1080P video. I may decide to post a full-resolution version later.


-----------------------------
Alister's Natural (new version)
Black Gamma On, Level -30, Range High)
Master Black -3
Gamma On
Gamma select 4 4609
Gamma Category HG
Detail On
Level -12
H/V Ratio +15
Crispening 0
Frequency +30
White Limit +30
Black Limit +40
Aperture On
Level -20
Matrix On
Preset Matrix On
Preset select 2
User Matrix On, R-G 0, R-B +5, G-R -6, G-B +8, B-R -15, B-G -9

-----------------------------

Tom's Best:
Gamma ON
Gamma Step .45
Gamma Select 5 R709 Std
Black Gamma Off
Knee On
Knee point 84%
Knee slope +15
Knee sat On
Knee sat level 0
White Clip ON
Level 109%
Detail +1
H/V Ratio +35
Crisping +3
Level Depend ON
LD Level 0
Frequency +65
Knee Aperture Off
Limit 0
White Limit +75
Black Limit +75
V-BLK limit 0
V Detail Creation R+G
Aperture ON
Level -20
Multi Matrix ON
Saturation +5

-----------------------------

A couple of points I will make to help answer a few questions.

For the 350 all shots were with my ZA 17 x 7.6 BERM M58H which is sharper then the kit lens. As we said were are trying to make the cameras look their best with the gear we own.

Tom's best looks nice at times but I have never had such a hard time exposing a shot. This setting has positives but I would never use it due to how touchy it is to get proper exposure.

Have at it.