The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread

[Andy Wilkinson]

Hi Greg.

After well over 110,000 views in the last 18 months you would have trouble killing this thread! It still seems pretty popular!

Anyway, to the point. Good to know. If, when you feel ready, you can share any specific insights into what aspects the new one might do better (or worse) than the old TM900 then I'm sure there will be a lot on interest in your findings.

[Adrian Lepki]

Originally Posted by Greg Mlotkowski

Did I kill this thread or something?
Anyway, the new has some differences in operation, but performs very well.

Pls tell us more - some of us are thinking of a second camera for 2-camera shooting.

[Al Bergstein]

Gregg, some of us get feeds on email and choose to ignore the thread if it's not relevant. Don't worry, as mentioned, this is probably one of the most active threads on DVINFO. Chris ought to be paying for this input! He gets more eyeballs on this than Yahoo is probably getting these days.

[Greg Mlotkowski]

Alright, first of all, I haven't had all that much time using it, but knowing it's there when I need it is a big plus. My main purpose of shooting video is to capture and share students of the performing arts. I've gotten involved with high/middle schools, recording bands, strings, choirs, choregraphy. Recently the high school performed Phantom of the Opera, and what a challange that was. Dark and smokey sets forced me to understand manual settings pretty quickly. I learned alot about the TM900 with that. I've also recorded a jazz workshop as they performed in a local club, and again I learned to tolerate the conditions. Off color lights, no soundboard, I've mounted both cameras on Manfrotto fluid heads, with robust tripods, and then discovered a camera was located too close to a subwoofer. Slight vibes can be seen during those bass guitar notes. Those subs were built in to the establishment, and did not even look like a speaker, they were huge. Never suspected it.

Now for the controls between the two cameras. The X900 internals have been laid out differently. The SD card is now located on the bottom, concealed by a door, which is very difficult to open with the Manfrotto sliding shoe in place. The on/off button behind the lcd has been relocated, and very difficult to get to, the lcd must be positioned correctly to touch that switch. Hard to find in a dark jazz club. The zoom lever on top of the camera changed shape, making it flush to the top of the camera, not pronounced like the TM900. Often I find myself touching the photoshot button instead. I wish they kept the similar shape. The iA & OIS buttons are located in the same place so that is good. Batteries are the same, big plus.

Video between the two are very good. In manual mode, with identical settings I cannot tell the difference between the two cameras. What I like most is the wider lens, not having to step back to get more into the picture. It also shoots better in low light.

Here is an example of the TM900, edited with Avid, including some special effects.

"The Making of the Phantom", GPS High School Performance on Vimeo

I did this last weekend, first time with the X900. Lighting was difficult, and no soundboard inputs.

Hanna A performing at Cliff Bells 2012 on Vimeo

Not as professional as many others I've seen, but your comments are welcome.
I still have much to learn.

[Colin Rowe]

Gregg.
Thanks for that. It would be very interesting to see a comparison of the 2 cams in low light conditions, if ever you get the time.

[Adrian Lepki]

Originally Posted by Greg Mlotkowski

Video between the two are very good. In manual mode, with identical settings I cannot tell the difference between the two cameras. What I like most is the wider lens, not having to step back to get more into the picture. It also shoots better in low light.

Interesting stuff Gregg,

How do you coordinate shooting between the 2 cameras?

Have ever had a chance to use TM900 with a wide adapter lens? How wide is the lens of X900 in comparison?

Another question I have is about the sound handling.
In a club/stage setting - if you don't have access to the soundboard, do you use external mics, pre-amps, etc.?

Thx

[Adrian Lepki]

TM900/X900 and footage from GoPRO HD.

I am curious if anybody intercut footage from those cameras? Is the image quality comparable?

Thx

[Greg Mlotkowski]

Amazing, this link is alive!!
Colin
The video named Hanna A was shot with both cameras, it does have nice detail in the shadows. If I remember correctly the iris was +6db.
I’ll try and put the cameras side by side to demonstrate the wider lens and low light conditions.

Adrian
I usually set up one camera stationery, keep it recording and use it as a control & for audio syncing, then pan/zoom and roam with the other.

I don’t have an adapter lens for these, my earlier experiences with digital stills showed me poor results, so I’ll just stay away from that.
I have yet to invest in external mikes, pre-amps. I often sit center stage behind the sound board, and line inputs are available there. But I like the 5.1 sound from the camera, must better effects with surround sound systems. I hate giving that up. I may look into a digital sound recorder before external mikes to the camera, I feel they may single out an instrument, then you lose other instruments. I feel that might have happened with Hanna A vid, to me her voice sounds like its coming out a megaphone. I should maybe shut off the zoom mike feature.

Also, the vid “Making of the Phantom” does have Go Pro data in it, at the end, Richard Wolf the accompanist was recorded with it.

Many other examples of my vids can be viewed here
https://vimeo.com/search?q=Gregory+Mlotkowski

[Colin Rowe]

Greg.
Thanks for the info, a side by side low light comparison would be wonderful. Apologies for mis spelling your name on my post above

[Fariz Abasov]

I want to post some videos i've made. I think youtube make quality worse than normal. I also use Sony Vegas and i render as mp4, is it bad? I also want to know which is the best cheap wireless mic to use with TM 900

???? - ???????? 23 ???? 2012 - Niton Eryc Prydz - YouTube

????? ?????/Dumanl? Bak?/Thig Fog Video Baku - YouTube

Mystery spiral over Baku(HQ)/????????????? ??? ??? ???? - YouTube

[Peter Riding]

Does anyone have experience of what happens when a battery runs out whilst recording? In tests it appears that the default action is for the file to be saved before the cam shuts down. However I appear to have lost a batch of files. Fortunately they are not important ones. I recorded on both the internal drive and on an SD card and have checked each thoroughly, including running Sandisk Rescue Pro on the card.

Pete

[Peter Riding]

Wow, I seem to have killed off this monster thread with that last question :- ) No answer direct from Panasonic either.

But just in case it rises from the dead:

Recently I had to attach a cam upside down hanging by a bracket as that was the only way to get the composition required within the constraints of the location architecture.

Obviously I need to flip the image both horizontally and vertically to bring it back to normal. I can do that in post but I seem to remember a way of doing it either in the cam itself or using Panasonic's HD Writer AE 3.0

Folks may have been shooting upside down having attached a cam to a monopod and filmed very close to the ground whilst holding the monopod. Can't see for looking now. I can find a reference to flipping still images but not movies. Any ideas?

I like to use HD Writer for the initial tidying up as it enables me to chop off the start and end of the file without any degradation or rerendering - frequently I have to start one or more unmanned cams 15-20 minutes before the action starts and stop them a similar time afterwards and the ability to chop out parts of the files makes a big difference to the backup size. It would be great to be able to flip as well.

Flipping is going to be very important for me because I make a lot of use of multicam editing in Sony Vegas Pro and unfortunately that mode doesn't retain flips previosly applied or recognise them if applied whilst in MC editing. I'll probably have to render out a flipped track from the one cam in a lossless format then use that :- (

Pete

[Fariz Abasov]

How to connect several microphones to the camera? I need cheap and quality kits.

[Colin Rowe]

Fariz.
You can have cheap or quality, unlikely you will get both!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What you need is a field mixer, a reasonable 3 input model will cost you about $500
Check out models from Juicedlink and Azden or just Google Audio field mixers, its all out there.

[Fariz Abasov]

Thank you for info, and what kind of microphone is better to use for indoor recording, like having round table, interview and things like that?