first impressions
 

Good evening,


Well, I have my fx 1000 in hand and have made some shots with it and did a little expirementing.

1. It does take beautiful footage with very little adjustment.

2. I was surprised at how well the slow motion works, I expected worse!! It is not real easy to use however.

3. I find the select and exacute wheel not very easy to use and i often push exacute when I am trying to turn it.

4. It is a little bulkier in size than I had imagined, I am good with that.

5. buttons remind me of my old canon gl2, tad small and fidely.

6. I love the 6 user assignable buttons!!! Canon should do the same instead of 2.

7. I have trouble with white light peaking, making it red makes it jump out for me and it is a great asset!!!!!

8. the view finder resolution is good enough to focus on its own as is the lcd (again Canon take note)

9. I wasn't sure about the LCD location, but now I think I like it better than the usual side mount!!!

10. I love the left side carriage.

In general I think this is a terrific semi/pro camera. I got it for run and gun and to be used on the indiecam.

coming from the xlh1 with all the control one has with it I was going to go with the xha1 as I already know how to use it.

However, I think this is a terrific camera and just the higher quality focusing makes it a better camera!!! At least for what I do!


Perhaps someone can give me a little more information on this xv color thing!!!

Love the FX1000
 

I have only been testing it for a few days, but it appears to be a great improvement over my old PD150. Right now I am making test recordings in HD & SD to determine the best quality for upcoming projects on DVD. There has been many threads about the best way to do this & I hope to come to a conclusion soon.

Things I like best:

1. Nice viewfinder image and I like the new position.
2. Feels & looks bigger, but in the video world, sometimes looking bigger makes the clients happy.
3. Ability to record in HD and downconvert later or start with DV without post downconversion.
4. The audio controls (man & auto)
5. Great Pictures!

I had a period of adjustment with mine, but grew to like it a lot.

As a wedding videographer, I found the most important setting change for me was to lower my auto video gain to 12, what a huge improvement that gave me. Images were SO much cleaner in low light, with much less grain. I think some owners use a max gain of 9dB, which I've used also.

Be advised the LCD cannot be trusted! In some cases, particularly outdoors or in dark enviroments the images on the LCD screen often seem to me to be somewhat different than the captured image turned out to be.

The images in darker venues often looked perfect in the LCD screen, but found after viewing the tape I should have used more light, and outdoors highlights sometimes seemed to be a bit blown out, only to find they were perfect in the end. This is why I particularly liked the the auto settings outdoors, because when I adjusted the iris manually I found I was worse off much of the time.

Much of this might be avoided if I used the viewfinder, but with my glasses it just doesn't work for me that well.

posted to wrong group - opps...

I agree about the LCD "until" I changed the LCD and viewfinder to BRIGHT. That made a huge difference. Now I can trust it a lot more. It also took a while for me to adjust, but not that long. Love it now.

Mark G

Jeff,

I shoot weddings, have two coming up, so that info about the -12 gain is helpful.

any other suggestions? this is my B camera for now.

I wear glasses too, I hooked the cameras up to my plasma focus on an object so it is perfect on the hd TV, then I plce my eye with glases on to the viewfinder and adjust it so it is focused to my eye. Now when I have the hd monitor attached the problem is I have to take my glasses off to use it and then put them back on to use the view finder. Perhaps I should just get my eyes lazered!!

Mark
After reading the lcd issue I set the camera up at a lit area recorded a bit, watched it, then moved the brightness up until the lcd looked similar, seemed about three clicks higher in brightness!!


thanks both of you for a couple useful clues!!!


Do you use XV color? or is that just a gimic?

other useful clues?



thanks again,

Dale

I wouldn't raise the brightness. When you're shooting it will look good, but as Jeff said, many times when you get home and view the footage, you'll probably realize you should have used more light.

One suggestion, if you have peaking on the FX1000, use it. It is definitely a life saver.

I actually use 'Pro Color 1" in the Picture Profiles. It's a little warmer.