See my edited post above...

Not bad at all the 2 photos from Piotr, just take more adjustment up and down you have a good shots. thanks

Thanks for sending that. Camera settings, please, on scene presented in "kiss" photo. It also appears to be a camera light on the scene. Are you using a light and what wattage?
Again, thanks, that's an image I haven't seen yet.

Thanks John. My tested recipe for low-light is: blacks compressed, knee high, cinegamma off (very important) but colour gain up at 3. Also, shooting progressive 25p allows to use 1/25th shutter speed without too much smear (it's still one full exposition per frame). Something the FX7 can't do unfortunately!

As to the lamp: yes, in places like this I always have it on (what it is for, after all?) It' the Sony HVL-LBP LED lamp; with diffuser on it gives some 300 lux at 1 m (it's capable of 600 lux, but with concentrator on - never use it in front of people). On the "Kiss" shot, you can see the pair at the first plan nicely brightened - but the other people at the back, the walls, the bar were all untouched by my light, and yet no noise there either (gain was at 6 - 9 dB max). And it was a dimly lit scene, believe me!

Oh, and if you want to see my results in an even darker environment, and without any lamp - take a look here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....74&postcount=3

This was my first low-light shooting with V1E; didn't use the settings mentioned above (blacks were stretched instead of compressed, if I remember). This gave a somwhat low-contrast output with plenty of details in shadows; yet, still acceptable noise-wise, even though the gain was up to 15dB!

Thanks for the pics. It renews my faith in Sony and the V1. Of course, now I understand Sony will be coming out with a professional shoulder mount HDV camcorder (not the 1000u) in '08. I think I will wait for that as I have been using shoulder mount cameras for over 20 years, and I'm having a hard time getting use to these small handycams. Anyway, if the shoulder mount camera ends up being too beefy for my budget, it's nice to know that I can rely on the V1 as a viable second option.

Not clear if it's the same or different from the NAB 2007 Prototype.

I think the big question is CMOS or CCD. They could go with the Z1 chipset -- updated; or a 1/3-inch version of the V1 chipset.

The other issue is how will 24p be handled: None. 2-3 pulldown -- still not supported by FCP!!! Or, Canon's style 24p.