We shoot plenty of stuff in low light Tom. In fact when the Varicam first came out one of its big selling points over film was its low light capabilities. We did use 500 ISO stocks but they were pretty grainy, and the Varicam was a revelation.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by ""Life" probably tells a better story at lower resolutions".

Steve

Hmmm. I wonder how much thought was given to the way the cameras were lined up.......

From what people have said earlier in this thread I think that's the real lesson here. Factors like chip resolutions affect resolution, but the primary factor determining "look" is probably more line up than make, model etc.

I've found some of the images earlier on very interesting (especially Alisters) and am left with the feeling that between such as the 350 and the 700/800 I doubt I'd be able to tell them apart in isolation - split screen, maybe. Any choice between them would be far more influenced by factors such as solid state or disc? Cost? Maybe absolute build quality? Importance of power consumption ? Etc etc with "look" a secondary factor.

And bring the 2700 into it, and I think the BBCs remarks are telling. Here it's what it looks like in varispeed that is of big importance, to the extent of being more so than absolute resolution in normal speed filming. At least for wildlife etc programmes. Hence it wins out over the 700. But compare it to a 350 and it may be a different story.

From the remarks I quoted earlier, it's also clear that for the 350 to be accepted it would need a separate recorder such as a nanoFlash. The "no-go specifications" for acquisition include .... "compression at less than 100Mbps (intraframe) or 50Mbps (interframe)". Also interesting to note that whilst they consider AVC-Intra 100 acceptable for acquisition, it isn't for post - "NLE codecs operating below 160Mbps" are also considered no-go.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree David. "Look" was just as much the way it handled motion as the still frame look, that's what Mark told me, he thought the 2700 had much smoother, nicer motion.
And I think your idea of looking at split screens to tell the 350 and 700 apart tells a lot of the story, you're talking about still frames and peeking at the pixels. I think you'd tell them apart OK if you watched 2 shots of birds flying.
Could be wrong though.
Steve

If two frames taken from separate streams look the same, it follows thàt the motion will look the same if the framerate and shutter are the same.

These cams shoot in black and white. The color is added by digital processing. If the Varicam has a uniquely desirable palette and gamma, you wouldn't dare correct it in post. On the other hand, if you do correct it in post, you are applying a more desirable palette and gamma, which can be done with any of the cams. What you can't do, is add resolution where it didn't exist.

Steve no doubt the varicam 2700 looks nice. I understand your point and know the Panasonic right out of the box looks nice. What still puzzles me to this day is why the 3700 does not have over cranking?

Hard to tell a client who says I NEED 1080p that a 720p camera will do the job. We get stuck in the position that the client/producer is always right.

No you are right.
Humans ( brains ) don't see pixels we see and understand shapes, outlines, motion and how all that combines, and are extremely sensitive to details that can not be explained at the pixel level. Which is why this is difficult. With technical screenshots and not so artistic looking images cameras may look the same. Push things into something more interesting looking, do serious color-correction, shoot strong backlight, nit-pick on skin-tones, etc, differences become clearer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade#Spatial_updating
"...Humans and other animals do not look at a scene in fixed steadiness; instead, the eyes move around, locating interesting parts of the scene and building up a mental 'map' corresponding to the scene..."

"Smoother, nicer motion"? Following on from what Tom says, I'd only add that such as rolling shutter effects could also make a difference to how motion was portrayed - but in a comparison of the 2700/700 we're talking about two CCD cameras, so that can't be applicable here. So the only differences I can think of that would affect motion handling are framerate, shutter angle, and interlace/progressive.

If we assume we're talking about both cameras shooting 720p/25 (not a lot of point doing anything else if we want varispeed), that fixes everything else except shutter angle as far as I can see. Is it possible we're just talking about the way the 700 derives varispeed? If so, what's the argument? We're in agreement that the Varicam does it better than the 700 - it's why the BBC chose it for these programmes in spite of it's resolution. My question was what when the comparison is the 2700 v the 350?
No, it doesn't tell any of the story - split screen can just as well apply to split screen moving video as still images, and that's what I was thinking of. Yes, it's conceivable that the CMOS/CCD difference could theoretically make a difference to how flying birds looked - but I'd suspect it would be a small order effect, and even if there was any difference, would one look absolutely "right", the other "wrong"?

Whatever you think of the 2700, I doubt you'd deny it would be even better if had 1920x1080 chips and offered full resolution at 1080p/25 in addition to it's current abilities. There shouldn't be any doubt that it would be better still if it offered full varicam frame rates and cranking at 1080p resolutions. That's obviously what such as the BBC want, from reading that quote.

David beat me to it as I was set to argue against myself with a point about rolling shutter versus global shutters, in lieu of the psycho-optical phenomenon, which while likely, points only to a subjective judgment.

We know the rolling shutter fills the frame at least 2khz. I don't know how fast a hummingbird beats its wings, but the rolling shutter would seem likely to render that motion unfavorably in comparison, agreed.

Hi guys,

I'm watching this thread and loving the banter going on here. I have a question about the 2700, does this camera do SD or is this a HD only camera.

Thanks

HD only Simon.

We use the 2700 on commercials, edit native 720P in Final Cut Pro, export to ProRes 422 HD, then import that file to Windows Procoder and downrez to SD for H.264 transmission Master. You may have seen some Swisse Vitamin commercials featuring Rick Ponting and Sonia Kruger which we produced on Tony Brennan's 2700. A new bucnch of Swisse ads with footballer Tom Harley start next week on Seven which we also shot on the HPX2700 in 720P.

Cheers,
Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
Powerhouse Productions

I'm quoting from the RSPB head's email to me. But I think it says a lot about what we've been debating. You might point out to him what you've just said to me and his reaction is likely to be shrugging his shoulder and saying "OK, but the Varicam picture just looked nicer to me" and no matter what anyone says, that is all that matters.
I would never deny that a 1080/60P Varicam would be preferable to a 720/60P one, of course it would . BUT, here's a thought and another debating point - I'd probably rather have a 720/120P Varicam than a 1080/60P one. This follows the reasoning that 720 is probably "good enough" even on a big HD screen, and 120fps would be really useful for a lot of wildlife stuff, almost gives us our Arriflexes back! For cinema release stuff you could use the 1080 one. Presumably this will never happen though with 720/120P not being an HD fomat.
Steve

Some interesting points being raised.

The problem with the "it just looked better" test is that you don't know how the cameras were setup. Sony's tend to look quite crappy without any adjustment whereas Pany seem to dial in a much more "filmic" look as standard. Of course engineers in Japan may have a different opinion as I heard they prefer a more electronic look there and think of film as old and stuttery.

Many cameramen never use the paint menus in their cameras at all, especially on hire kit.

I've shot a fair amount of 720p for large screen including several filmouts. Filmouts loose rez anyway and help blur the line between 720 an 1080 but in general it depends on subject matter in the frame. Close ups tend to be fine in 720 but wide vistas with high detail really benefit from 1080. I'd be interested to know if the Beeb use the 3700 for such shots in order to gain the extra detail. They definitely use HDCAMs on Planet Earth for certain scenes... and a little film!

Of course, like for like, 1080p is always better that 720p as are higher frame rates. IMO 1080 is "enough" rez for virtually anything but as said below I'd like to see framerates over 100fps soon. I'm also hoping Sony will release an upgrade board for the 350 that allows all the options of the nanoflash on board. They may do so if they want to take a slice of the nano's profits for themselves. That would be harder with the 700 as the discs aren't fast enough. I'm guessing 50/50 whether such a board will be released.

That's completely missing the point Steve. It's back to what I said in post #82 - "Hmmm. I wonder how much thought was given to the way the cameras were lined up......." and I see Mike is thinking exactly the same.

You may like to ask him exactly that point - ideally invite him to join in this discussion. If you took a camera out of it's box and how it looked was the way it was, period, then "the look" would indeed be all that mattered. But that's not the case - not with the higher end cameras, anyway. The "look" can be made to vary widely on any of them. And in the case of digital cinema I believe the norm is to shoot RAW and the "look" be determined in post.

There's a lot of reason to believe that out of the box Panasonic cameras have a look more preferred by those from a "film" tendency, Sony are preferred by those influenced by TV. That's not to say either is right or wrong, but it's important to realise that if the adjustments are there, either camera can be made to look either way - at least by someone who knows what they are doing.
A good point, but isn't that the third stage in what I'm saying? A camera with 1920x1080 chips, that will overcrank in 1080 up to 60fps, AND ADDITIONALLY overcrank in 720 up to 120fps?

Mike that would be interesting if Sony put a board in the 350 to do that same as the Nano. I don't think that would happy since CD is being helped by Sony and it helps them sell cameras.

I was told by someone from Sony that the F800 disk can handle over 200Mbps. That might be cutting the size in half and using a 50GB disk as a 25Gb disk.

It's you that's missing the point David, the guy preferred the look of the motion which is not something that'll be altered by Paint settings. Both cameras would have been same shutter etc.,Mark is very experienced and knows his stuff well enough to knot that out of the bix settings are not what you'd use.
As for 120P, what I was saying is if it was a question of which one you had to choose, which would it be - 702/120 or 1080/60? Obviously it'd better to be able to choose.
Steve

Hi Peter,

Couple of questions. What lens were you using with the 2700 and also the delivery to SD for H.264 transmission Master.

I was asked to delivery to H.264 the other day and was confused with this format. Can you shed some light on the compression settings. I did some comparisons with prores and found H.264 came out looking softer than prores, maybe my compression settings were wrong.

Thanks

No, but it could be altered by such settings as shutter, and it was implied that his preference was down not solely to "the look of the motion" anyway - I was responding to "....his reaction is likely to be shrugging his shoulder and saying "OK, but the Varicam picture just looked nicer to me". That implies much more than just motion to me.
It shouldn't boil down to a choice, that's the daft thing about the higher end of the Panasonic range at the moment. There's no doubt the 3700 is good as far as it goes as a 1080p/25 camera - but why doesn't it do 720p, and able to do 50/60fps in that? It's expensive enough, and other cameras don't seem to have a problem.

Mike earlier raised the question "I'd be interested to know if the Beeb use the 3700 for such shots in order to gain the extra detail. They definitely use HDCAMs on Planet Earth for certain scenes... and a little film!" If the answer is yes, it seems very unsatisfactory to have to take a 3700 and a 2700 along on a shoot, then select one camera or the other on a shot by shot basis?

Mark's such an experienced guy he's not going to swayed by simple things like the setup, believe me. I've thought the same thing, looking at the Varicam there is just something nice and high quality feeling to it, hard to say exactly what it is, but I had my 700 and 2700 setup with BBC settings, and they were good settings, and there is just something about the Varicam that's really appealing.
You're right about Panasonic being an odd bunch, you could say they're protecting sales of both 2700 and 3700 by each having something the other does not, but why not just make one in the first place, I agree with you a 3700 with 720 option. I get the feeling they may pull out a quality argument, backed up by people like Alan Roberts at the Beeb, which is that for the optimum 720 picture you need a 720 chip and that converting from a 1080 chip like the Sonys do is sub-optimal. How much truth there is in this I don't know, certainly I thought the 720 from the PDW700 looked pretty good, slightly less so from the EXs.
What's Panny's next move going to be I wonder, as with the Varicams (plus the 3000 don't forget being in a real no-man's land), and the mixed feelings HPX301 they do seem to be losing the plot a bit.
Steve

We've seen comparisons between the 350 and 700 from Alister that are roughly equivalent, and of the 350 and 800 from Doug and Paul that are hugely disparative.

More curious to me is how the PDW700 compares to the 800.

I tried to locate one here in Denver for a test, all I can find for rent is the F900 w/lens for $1,300/day and the HPX2000 for $1,100/day, with lens.

If the 700 is not identical to the 800 then there is something very odd going on as they have all the same gear inside AFAIK (ie chips, processing). The 800 is just a 700 with all the optional extras as standard and a few extras like overcranking.
Steve

Steve is correct there should be no reason why the 700 and F800 should look different. The differences seen in Doug and Paul's tests are down to camera setups and exposure differences. It is actually good illustration of how a few simple tweeks or even different exposure can greatly change the "look" of a camera.

When I compared the 3700 and PDW-700 side by side, I did prefer the out of the box look of the 3700. But the primary difference is in the way the matrix is set up, the Pana's handle reds and greens differently to the Sony's. While I preferred the out of the box Pana look, I did feel IMHO that the Sony look was more accurate and true to life. I decided that for me a half way house between the two would be nice. So I created some new Matrix settings for the 700 and 350 that achieves that.

In short, any of the latest 2/3" cameras can produce great images and be set up so that very few professionals, let alone audience could tell them apart.

The choice should really come down to what workflow and features you require.

I think that argument would be more of an excuse. I suspect the main issue with the downconversion is filtering out the finest detail BEFORE the downscaling - otherwise it just becomes aliases. But that's no different to the situation in the optical domain when using 1280x720 chips - there you need good optical low-pass filtering to avoid the aliasing. My hunch would be it's easier to do it via electronics than optics, especially straight from the chips, but unquestionably some downconvertors are better than others.

And if they use that quality argument, then why does the 2700 have 720 and 1080 outputs, the latter an upconvert from the 1280x720 chips?

I'm waiting to see what NAB brings. It's time for a 1080 Varicam, and Panasonic seriously need to update the lower part of their range. Sony (IMO) should build the 50Mbs codec into the 350, and who knows what Canon are going to do.
Is this not a case (within one manufacturer) of how a "look" can differ widely according to the way the camera is set up? That Alister specifically tried to match his cameras to a common look, which wasn't the case with Doug and Paul?

Which is why I feel it's so hard to define any "look" to any camera. It's 10% down to science and the hardware, 90% down to setup.

[EDIT - I see I've been beaten to it. Yes Mike, couldn't agree more - "The choice should really come down to what workflow and features you require. ]

I disagree, no way it's only 10% down to the hardware. If I had to put a figure on it out thin air I'd go 80% hardware 20% setup. The setup can only work with what's there to begin with.
As for the 2700 having a 1080 up-convert, it's a good point, why is it there?
Steve

I've a series coming out on BBC2 in the summer on wildlife in Wales, which I shot with a Sony 750, PDW700 and Varicam 2700, it'll be interesting to see how they mix and compare. Not sure if it'll go out on the HD channel, presumably on SD it won't tell us much.
Steve

Thank you.

Better to have some tests than no tests. However, "making cameras look their best" even with calibrated monitors to me doesn't mean much. ASC DP or not, the eye is subjective. And image reproduction varies between even the best monitors. They are not standardized. Test instruments are.

Unless you're using a good chart, a scope and I would add a meter, and in a controlled environment, the entertainment value of such test results is always greater than the value of the conclusions. But I still like to see them.

You can download PDW-700 and F800 scene files from the Sony website. They include a scene file that was created to give accurate color reproduction, set up using a Choma-du-monde chart.
http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/view/ShowC...=1166605189820

Thanks for the link. The UK site always seems to have better goodies than the US site.

Hi Simon,

I've only switched to Final Cut after years of Premiere, so I'm still finding my way. I export a ProRes 422 HD master (recompress all frames option), then import this file into Windows Procoder for transcoding to QuickTime H264. I choose "lossless" in the compression settings. A 30sec commercial comes in around 23meg in size. I used to send 15mbs MPEG2 to Dubsat. I'm not really what is the "best" setting.

Peter

advice to take an important decision
 

I am about to buy my first hd cam,and i need some advice before i make my move.
I am a freelance and i do many kind of works,for industrial video's and spot for company and work for tv. I have to decide between Panasonic AG-HPX500E or Sony PMW-350K.
I'd like to buy pmw350 but the only thing am worred about is the cmos rolling shutter thing.
Wil it be a limition (a defect).I will be able to do any kind of work with that cam,(I know it's impossible to have a perfect cam that is good for every kind of work)...but i can afford one only.
thanks, everybody.
great forum
Samer

I always ask the question, if CMOS gives such a high specification for such little cost and no downside then why does any manufacturer still make CCD cameras?
Consider that the PMW350 is about 1/3 the price of a PDW800 (with a standard lens) and yet in terms of specification they are virtually identical (1920x1080, 2/3", over-undercranking 1-60fps). Panasonic HPX300 1920x1080 vs HPX2700 1280x720 and yet the 300 is a fraction of the cost.
There are drawbacks to CMOS, it's a compromise measure to lower costs and bring new customers to the market. For a lot of people it's not an issue - whether it is for you is hard to say.
Steve

Samer I suggest you start a new thread so more people can see and be part of your question.

As for CMOS vs CCD Steve is right there is a big difference. But for some people this might not be a problem.

Until a couple of years ago CMOS sensors were definitely the underdog, they tended to be very noisy due to electrical noise generated the on chip by the readout circuits and A/D converters. In addition they lacked sensitivity due to the electronics on the face of the chip leaving less room for the light sensitive parts. Today, on chip noise reduction has made it possible to produce CMOS sensors with very low noise and micro lenses and better design has mitigated most of the sensitivity problems.

In terms of a static image there is very little difference between a CMOS sensor and a CCD sensor. Dynamic range is remarkably similar (both types of sensor use essentially the same light gathering methods), in some respects CMOS has the edge as they are less prone to overload issues.

CCD's are very expensive to manufacture as the way they are read out requires near lossless transfer of minute charges through a thousand or more (for HD) memory cells. The first pixel to be read passes down through over 1000 memory cells, if it was to loose 5% of it's charge in each cell, the signal would be seriously reduced by the time it left the chip. The last pixel to be read out only passes through one memory cell, so it would be less degraded, this variation could ruin an image making it uneven. Although there is more electronics on a CMOS sensor, as each pixel is read directly a small amount of loss in the transfer is acceptable as each pixel would have a similar amount of loss. So the chips are easier to make as although the design is more complex, it is less demanding and most semiconductor plants can make CMOS sensors while CCD needs much more specialised production methods.

Yes, CMOS sensors are more prone to motion artifacts as the sensor is scanned from top to bottom, one pixel at a time (A CCD is read in it's entirety just about instantaneously). This means that as you pan, at the start of the pan the top of the sensor is being read and as the pan progresses the scan moves down the chip. This can make things appear to lean over and it's known as skew. The severity of the skew is dependent on the readout speed of the chip. Stills cameras and mobile phone cameras suffer from terrible skew as they typically have very slow readout speeds, the sensors used in an EX have a much higher readout speed and in most real world situations skew is not an issue. However there may be some circumstances where skew can cause problems but my experience is that these are few and far between.

The other issue is Flash Banding. Again this is caused by the CMOS scan system. As a flash gun or strobe light is of very short duration compared to the CMOS scan it can appear that only part of the frame is illuminated by the flash of light. You can reduce the impact of Flash Banding by shooting at the slowest possible shutter speed (for example shooting 25P or 24P with no shutter) but it is impossible to completely eliminate. When I shoot lightning and thunderstorms I often use a 2 frame shutter, shooting this way I get very few partial bolts of lightning, maybe 1 in 50. If you shoot interlace then you can use the Flash Band removal tool in Sony's Clip Browser software to eliminate flash gun problems.

CMOS sensors are becoming much more common in high end cameras. Arri's new Alexa film replacement camera uses a CMOS sensor rated at 800asa with 13 stops of latitude. Red uses CMOS as does SI2K. Slumdog Millionaire (SI2K) was the first electronically shot film to get an Oscar for cinematography, so certainly CMOS has come a long way in recent years.

CMOS is here to stay, it will almost certainly make bigger and bigger inroads at higher levels. Read speeds will increase and skew etc will become less of an issue. IMHO skew is not an issue to loose sleep over with the EX's anyway. I shoot all sorts from hurricanes and tornadoes to fast jets and race cars. I have yet to come across a shot spoilt by skew, generally motion blur tends to mask any skew long before it gets noticeable. If you shoot press conferences or red carpet events where flash guns will be going off, then you may prefer a CCD camera as this is harder to deal with, but the EXs are such good value for the money and bring many other advantages such as lower power and less weight that you have to look at the bigger picture and ask what you expect from your budget.

Quote: "the EXs are such good value for the money and bring many other advantages such as lower power and less weight that you have to look at the bigger picture and ask what you expect from your budget"

I think that's spot on. The EX cams and PMW350 as well as HPX300, and even the RED to a large extent, are budget options. Those with more budget will by choice still mostly use Varicams, HDCam and film - that's my experience anyway.
Steve

Afte weeks of procrastination I finally chose a new HD camera..... a Varicam HDC27H H-series Varicam. I guess it's sort of one step foward, two steps back, but I was concerned about the CMOS a bit, and wasn't sure about spending over US$22K at the moment. So I've got a mint-condition low-mileage Varicam H for little more than the price of an EX1. I do plan to buy a EX1R as a B-camera as I use them on commercials with DOF adaptors and they look very nice.

Peter

Interesting choice Peter.
Presumably when you say a little more than the price of an EX1 you mean without a lens? Also what about a tape deck - or do your clients have them? That's the one main downside with tape I think, it's difficult to get the shots into the edit suite.
Steve

Hi Steve,

I've already got a HJ21x7.5B Canon HD lens, Vocas MB-450, Sachtlet 18P, etc etc: the body is all I needed. I may just run it direct into the FCP/AJA board until I get either a used 1200 or 1400 VTR, or more likely a NanoFlash or Ki Pro. I really do like the Panasonic mojo, and for the natural history/wildlife work I do from time to time, the tape-based Varicam can be an advantage. Commercials in Australia are broadcast and uprezzed from SD, and I've found 720 25P 50P to be more than suitable for SD/HD production quality.