Sony PMW-200 Brings HD 4:2:2 Workflow to XDCAM Camcorder Line

[Rajiv Attingal]

One simple question.

Do you get the full iris of 1.9 at full tele mode or will it shrink to 3.x ?

Curious to know

Thanks

[Sara Jourhmane]

Rajiv:

LCD shows F1.9 at full tele zoom setting. Actual Fstop (T-Stop) may be different.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Rajiv Attingal

One simple question.
Do you get the full iris of 1.9 at full tele mode or will it shrink to 3.x ?
Curious to know
Thanks

As with almost any zoom lens, you're going to lose a little light at the telephone end. Even the $25K Fujinon lens on my F800 loses about a stop at the very end of the zoom. But on the PMW-200 the loss is barely noticeable, and certainly not enough of a difference that you'd have to compensate for the change in exposure. If you watch the Brightness Display at the center of the screen (kind of like a spot meter) you'll see that the level only drops 2-3% as you zoom in -- and that little difference is very hard to see with the naked eye.

[Bill Ward]

Originally Posted by Sara Jourhmane

Rajiv:

LCD shows F1.9 at full tele zoom setting. Actual Fstop (T-Stop) may be different.

Sara:

I'm no shutter-ologist, but I'd get rid of that auto-shutter setting. In fact, pretty much go manual with all your settings.

[Jack Zhang]

It's the same lens as the EX1, so even though it says F1.9 in the display, in actuality it's F2.8

Also, have to agree with Bill. If you have the shutter on, only use it in progressive scan modes (30p and 24p) in a shutter angle of 180 degrees. In 60i, shutter off is your best bet. (locked in at 1/60)

[Sara Jourhmane]

Bill W:

I turned the auto shutter off using direct menu and keeping the shutter on via switch on the side, as recommended by Alister Chapman. Thanks for noticing.

[Rajiv Attingal]

Hi all
Thanks for all the clarifications. I am about to buy this camera.
I expected it to maintain the full aperture at full tele mode. I am disappointed
a little to hear this fact though it is small. So I assume it will effect the low light ability
of this camera in full tele mode. isn't it?

[Doug Jensen]

Rajiv, you can relax. A 2% to 3% drop still makes it one of the best performing lenses you can buy. What camera in this price range do you think would do better? I will be surprised if you can name one.
A 3% difference won't affect the low-light shooting capabilities of the PMW-200 at all. I think you are worried about something that doesn't matter at all.

BTW, here's some test shots I did comparing the PMW-200 to the EX1.

PMW-200 and PMW-EX1 comparison of noise levels and sensitivity on Vimeo

[Rajiv Attingal]

Doug Jensen, Thanks again for the information.
One more doubt after watching your video is:

Does the UDF mode vs FAT Mode make any difference in picture elements
other than file format like .mxf vs .mp4 and in DVCAM 4 channel vs 2 channel audio.

Thanks

[Doug Jensen]

Rajiv, I'm not sure I fully understand your question. Perhaps you could rephrase it if my answer does not cover it.

The camera has 52 different video format choices and you can shoot many different flavors of 1920x1080 or 1280x720 codecs in both UDF and FAT. However, the biggest difference with UDF is that you can record 50Mpbs 4:2:2 with 4 channels of 24bit audio. The best settings you can do with FAT is 35Mbps 4:2:0 with 2 channels of 16bit audio.

Whether the files are saved on the SxS card as .mxf or .mov file won't really matter to most people because the worfklow with XDCAM Browser is exactly the same for both. In other words, you can view/manage/organize both types of footage the same way and the difference is invisibile to the user.

Also, as an FCP7 editor, I import and rewrap footage exactly the same way for FAT or UDF.

[Sara Jourhmane]

Doug:

Loved your very nice presentation on XDCAM Essentials Episode 1..

XDCAM Essentials Episode 1 on Vimeo

[Rajiv Attingal]

[QUOTE=Doug Jensen;1757588]Rajiv, I'm not sure I fully understand your question. Perhaps you could rephrase it if my answer does not cover it.

Doug Jensen, Exactly, your answer covered what I mean.

Thanks again.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Sara Jourhmane

Doug:
Loved your very nice presentation on XDCAM Essentials Episode 1..

Sara, thank you very much.

[James Kuhn]

Mr. Jensen...excellent presentation, you must have been 'listening in class'. : )

Thanks for the overview of features, I look forward to seeing more.

Best regards,

J.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

However, the biggest difference with UDF is that you can record 50Mpbs 4:2:2 with 4 channels of 24bit audio. The best settings you can do with FAT is 35Mbps 4:2:0 with 2 channels of 16bit audio.

Doug - I've got a PMW320 and even though it's the 35Mbs codec, it will still record 4 channels of audio....... That makes me pretty sure the 4 channel ability isn't unique to the XDCAM422 codec. I suspect it's just that Sony made a choice to only implement 2 channels on the handheld range, EX1 and EX3?