Cool thats good info Pasty. 3db equates to half-a-stop and 6db equates to one stop so somewhere between those two sounds pretty good to me.

thanks for the extra detail on that - it's appreciated !

Ok, so here are a couple of grabs for all to check out.

The first is a shot of some brickwork on a church - grabbed at 1280x720, but obviously still shows the crisp details and nice color of the image. Some minor color correction has been applied.

The second (fx7_flat.jpg) is another shot of the same church - it's a smaller grab, but it is just for the purpose of showing the dynamic range of the image. As you can see, detail is held nicely in both the shadows and the highlights of the image... makes things much easier to work with!

And just so nobody is confused, these are pulls straight from the video.

-Pasty

I got my hands on the FX-7 today @ my local Fry's Electronics Store. I purchased a Dv tape and shot some footage with auto settings. I persuaded the sales to un-hook the security device and I preceded to the home theater section and shot some low light footage.


http://www.dvdaction.net/index_004.htm

There's A LOT of grain going on on some of those videos :(

Well...you have someone grabbing a camera in a store, and is unfamiliar with the camera running around shooting at whatever.
do you really expect to see much?
Without knowing exactly what the cam settings are, without knowing if the poster has a particular bent for or against the camcorder, without knowing a lot of variables...it's hard to know much or use the footage as any platform by which to make any comparison.
I've very little experience with the FX7, but have easily 50 hours of footage from its big brother, the V1. If you set the cam to fully auto, it's quite possible to get noisy footage. Shooting the same scene in manual, with some knowledge of the cam provides completely different results.

Sorry Pasty - dumb question - what camera was the *first* picture taken with?? Right one is FX7 i know - just not sure what you used to take the first?

thanks

Stu, I believe that both are the FX7.
One is showing the the quailty of the image and how the details hold up, and the other is to show the dynamic range that the cameras CMOS sensors have maintaining the church top and the color of the blue sky.

That's correct, both are with the FX7 - the first just has some minor color correction.

Are there general guidelines on what to set in manual mode for low light situations?

Am feeling the need to verify the V1's low light capacities myself before committing to a purchase.

Set everything to manual, including iris so it's not adding gain nor adjusting shutter. Set shutter to desired setting of 1/24, 1/30, 1/48, 1/60 etc.
Set aperture to largest point avail for specific zoom setting. Wide is obviously better.
Use gain adjustment to set level. Expect visible noise after +9 to +12dB gain, depending on the shooting environment.
All are pretty standard for any HDV/small sensor HD camcorder.
The V1 isn't bad at all in low light compared to any other small sensor/3 chipper, and although you can induce noise due to low light just as any other cam can, it's a "smooth" noise if you're gonna see it at all. Some manufacturers call this the "film look." ;-)
You'll never see great low light capability out of *any* small sensor HD camera, IMO, simply because of the small sensor size with the number of pixels crammed onto the chip. The HVX looks considerably worse in low light, and they tried improving the low light value by using complex algorithms. JVC and Canon aren't any better. It's not the format, it's not the media, it's the number of pixels crammed on to the sensor. If shooting in very low light is important for your workflow, then budget HD isn't for you. Move up to a 1/2" or a 2/3" sensor. But then your cost significantly goes up, as does the size of the unit.
Bottom line is: None of the single CMOS cams are significantly better worse than the other, and none of the small 3 chippers whether CMOS or CCD are *significantly* better/worse than the others when it comes to light sensitivity. They're all within 1/2 a stop, more or less. Using the low light values of the V1 vs the H1, Z1, A1, or any other small HD camcorder shouldn't be a primary point of consideration, IMO. I'd be looking more at form factor, accessory costs/availability, feature sets, size, and your specific needs first, because those are a lot more important, again IMO.