Trv900 & Pd150
 

I currently own a 900 and I'm considering the 150. In your opinion could these two camcorders be used together?

Experimenting with a 150 the video appears very different. The 150 seems softer. In side by side comparison at a distance of 2 ft. the focus on the 900 will work up to the maximum telephoto setting while the 150 will give up trying in both auto and manual.

As you may have already guessed I'm a newbie. Any info and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Dave

Yes they can. Except for very low light situations when the 150 will make the 900 look very bad. Except for the low light levels, they are compatible and I've used them together.

The 150's MFD is more than 2 feet at full zoom.

I'd not say the 150 is softer. In factory default setup, I don't think the sharpness is turned up as much.

Thanks Mike, sounds like I can adjust the cameras to a better match. What's the best way to accomplish this, is there a test pattern or something like that?

Dave

I don't know of a test pattern for this. I'd tend to use an old TV Studio resolution chart to set sharpness. And a SMPTE color bar chart to set color and dynamic range.

You will probably be better off changing the PD150 performance a bit. If fact, that may be the only way to do it. I don't know how adjustable the 900 is.

When I shot an outdoor wedding with a 900 and a 150, I saw very little difference between the images until we went inside at night.

There is probably is no significant difference between the cameras as far as your customers are concerned.

Camera test charts
 

There are some useful grayscale test patterns here (scroll down the page to "do your own test"): http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/respat.
Don't know about a high res color chart though. You could download 640x480 SMPTE colorbars here though and enlarge them in Photoshop I guess http://www.bobstevers.com/Articles/colorbar.html. Or if you want to spend some money these would probably be very helpful http://www.dsclabs.com/test_charts.htm. FWIW, you will find a pretty good facsimile of these on Scott Billups' website, pixelmonger.com as he uses them to compare various cameras. The example from the Panasonic HD camera might actually be useful if you printed it up http://www.pixelmonger.com/hd_assets/hdl_ajhdc20.jpg

You might also find this interesting: http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/cats/cats.html. John Beale has examples from a TRV900 and VX2000 side by side that you can compare. There are more comparative test charts here as well: http://members.tripod.com/vincent_ysc2/22DV.htm