HDR-FX1 1080i>480i Conversion Footage If you are interested.
 

HDR-FX1 1080i>480i Conversion Footage If you are interested.

Shot in 1080i 2.0f 1/60th by hand in low light.
then converted on the fly to 480i DV 16x9 in premiere pro.

this footage was shot on the set of a low budget christian telecast that i shoot with 2 Canon GL2's. and there is no comparision between the two.

considering the lighting was not set for the camera to be mobile, I thought the HDR-FX1 did well in the low light.

uploading footage now and the file is almost 400 megs.
i wanted to leave the footage @ DV codec so people can get the feel of what it looks like. if people want me to make smaller file segments i will and if you all want me to make it a wmv i will as well.

feedback welcome please.

should be up in 4 hours.

download@

www.breathofthespirit.org/HDRFX1/

Downloaded it. It looks fantastic. I'm messing around with the footage right now with After Effects and Magic Bullet. Thanks for the file.

alright nice

When you say "no comparison" do you mean that the HDR-FX1 did better in 480i than the GL2?

All of the down-convert footage (in camera) I've gotten so far looks great to me - though when compared to the HDV MPEG-2 the DV compression and resolution decrease are extremely noticable.

-Steve

"No comparison" - (i did not Shoot In 480i[The Footage was in 1080i] but i think the results would be the same)

Yes it preformed way better than the GL2 in many ways.

1. Low light -

-there was no noticeable grain or artifacts and the image held color saturation well under the conditions of low light, where my GL2 would suffer under low light and lose color saturation.

2. Resolution -

-When ever I use a wide shot with my GL2 the picture suffered in sharpness and looked fuzzy & unclear. (However in close range shooting the GL2 is amazing.) With The HDR-FX1, on wide shots (zoom outs) every detailed seems to be well preserved, it’s truly amazing. I think when down converted its up there with the Best of "DSR" Series by Sony.

3. Zoom Ring!!!!

-I Love the Zoom Ring on the HDR-FX1 it feels so natural when using it, its like butter baby! Nice Smooth Manual Zooms. :) The GL2 Doesn't Have a Zoom Ring.

Actually, I have a beef with the HDR-FX1 zoom.

Let's face it, control with the ring is infinitely better to those dumb rocker switches... I can't even imagine trying to integrate a zoom into a shot without a "manual" zoom ring.

However, I would prefer it if they just did away with the rocker switches entirely, and gave me a full-on physically manual zoom ring. I've never seen a Panasonic DVX100a, but I've heard it's full manual, and I assume it still has a rocker/automatic controller? I really don't see why Sony wouldn't implement this feature.

(can you tell I want to shoot Kung Fu movie homages?)

Truth be told - I haven't mastered the shot transition features of the camera as yet, and dont know how fast the zoom can be pushed - but I do know it feels significantly damped compared to my hand-motions.

-Steve

With the shot transition feature, you can get the zoom speed up to about 2 seconds to traverse the full range, from full wide to full tele. It's not bad, but it's no snap-zoom.

The shot transition zoom can run as fast as the zoom runs when you yank the manual ring all the way around -- i.e., nowhere near as fast as you can move the ring, but faster than the normal servo zoom speed.

Your DVX speculation is correct, it has a full manual zoom plus a rocker switch for power zooms. The FX1 looks like it's the same, but it's not, as the zoom ring is not a direct linkage, moving it just tells the zoom motor the point you'd like it to get to, but it's not directly linked and you can get way ahead of it. It does make for smoother zooms than the original DVX100 was capable of, but the DVX100A adds the silky smooth feel and better control. The FX1's zoom ring does feel very nice.