My first thoughts on the Z5
 

Here's my own views after only one days shooting with the Z5 coming from a PD170 and FX1.

In no particular order:

1. Menu button a bit fiddly to access, likewise the exposure button and the push select dial.

2. Excellent LCD screen.

3. Viewfinder looked a bit milky, in fact I still wonder if somewhere I have forgotten to remove a plastic cover that sometimes protects a screen. Will need to check against another Z5/Z7/FX1000.

4. Front hot shoe close to the LCD flipout screen, so anything that overhangs at the back of the hot shoe prevents screen opening.

5. No noticeable grain from shooting with 12db of gain.

6. Great to have onboard mic. I have in the past picked up the cam from the case to grab a first shot and forgot to fit the ext mic.

7. Seven assign buttons.

8. No attenuation for the external mics

Not had chance to view footage in detail.

Phil, I assume you adjusted the diopter adjustment on the viewfinder? Something doesn't sound right based on what Jeff has reported with his FX1000 (same viewfinder, lens etc.).

The onboard mic is a nice little extra of the Z5. Nice to have the option of a shotgun AND the onboard.

Ken, my exam of the viewfinder is not reliable. I wear glasses. But I must say that it the first viewfinder I could actually use without glasses, adjusts to where I can almost see well through it.

Regarding the shoe mount comment Phil made, he is correct. That is a very irritating aspect of this cam.

Jeff, you're not alone in your admiration of the viewfinder. I've seen Z5 owners also in awe of its resolution. The Z5 and 1000 share the same lens, LCD and viewfinder.

Ken, the focus of the viewfinder was fine, just thought that it was somehow not clear, I'll check theres no backlight setting to adjust like the LCD screen.

Hope my post has not come accross as negative as I'm sure I'll be happy with the cam and soon to add a FX1000 as 2nd cam.

My biggest concern was the rolling shutter issue but I do think that clients will not notice. May have to do some work in post for some of the slow mo scenes but this outweighs the advantage of the improved low light levels.

There's a lot of this, 'clients won't notice' talk. When my daughter gets married (please!) I'll sure notice. And a film I've just made for two members of a photographic club was (according to their gushing email this very morning) watched on a technical as well as aesthetic level. So less of this dismissal of the public's powers of observation guys.

tom.

Tom, it comes back to the old argument that each cam has its pluses and minuses. CCD has its issues and benefits and CMOS has its pluses & minuses too. For my work (mostly corporate), CMOS issues tend not to manifest itself at all. But from what I've seen posted, even if I was doing wedding work, I wouldn't be put off by CMOS either. I would find the low light pretty important.

When we (videographers, film makers and togs) are watching films we tend to notice more and take on board the technical merits of the shot and obviously would notice more, a camera flash recorded from a cmos chip than ccd chip just as we would notice out of alignment verticals and horizontals.

Agreed, if I had a choice I would prefer not to have the rolling shutter effect on a camera flash but as stated earlier would rather put up with this than losing a number of stops from the low light capability of a Z1.

I feel exactly the same. Having the FX7 that has this "rolling shutter" thing (that my clients NEVER complained anyway) I would also prefer the low light capability of the Z5 and FX1000.

Stelios

It has occured to me for some time that we film-makers get more much more critical analysis for our work from our peers, who look much more closely at the technical issues, than we ever get from ordinary (non film-making) people, who are more concerned with seeing themselves, their kids and their friends/relatives on the screen.

I'm not putting our judgement feelings down, but knowing how picky we can be, I would be very cautious about accepting an invite from a respected camera operator acquaintance to film his relative's wedding. Yep, that's how much balls I have...

Does the Z5U have an onboard mic That looks like a removable shoe in front of the LCD just like the Z7 to make more room for a matte box?

The Z5 has both onboard and an included shotgun mike.

What do you think about the low light results compared to pd170

Chris, I haven't compared the two, but in a Sony ad they mention that it's in the same ballpark as the 170. Even if it's close, for HD that's pretty amazing.

Someone has already posted some screen grabs of a PD170 and the FX1000 under the same low light conditions and there just wasn't much difference at all. I thought the FX1000 images looked better, personally.

I've seen pics comparing the VX2100 and XH-A1 in low light. The VX2100 looked as bright as any of the other cams, but the HDV cams had so much more picture in them - you saw more wall and details etc.
Now with the Z5/FX1000 we're getting really good low light performance AND more picture detail. Looks like a good deal.
If I get a moment, I might try to do a comparison of my VX2100 and Z5 (when postie brings it).

Oh Happy New Year everyone. :)

Nice new toy
 

Well, having had my nice shiny new Z5 for a week and a half, I finally had a chance to actually tape something and start playing around with tape/CF/PC transfers etc. I'm pretty impressed with the technical image quality (specially in low-light - which was one of my deciding factors on choosing this camera) - can't say much for the creative aspects yet! ;-) I just did some shots to try it out - nothing creative about it. The weather has been too crap to go outdoors shooting anything (apart from a few chickens to see what the feather detail is like).

However, I have my first project (so far) with this camera looming in a couple of weeks time in France, so I really need to start playing round with it in earnest (as long as he doesn't mind) :-))

I mislaid my manual for the MRC-1K and couldn't figure out why the record button didn't seem to be working when trying to copy from tape to CF! Eventually, I decided to download the manual and print it out; whereupon I discovered that you have to press the record button and the un-labelled button next to it simultaneously. Duh! These are the sort of things I really need to get ironed out before I need to actually use it for something real!

It's a bit/lot bulkier than my old camera (not in the same league) but there is absolutely no comparison - it knocks spots off the old decrepid thing which is now retired due to excessive motor noise - which I discovered on the last job post-shoot (forgot the headphones!).

The only thing missing (in relation to the old one) is the IR night vision (one of my main requirements was for low-light work) but the low-light capabilities of this camera really impress to the point I don't think I'll need it.

My main criteria when spending weeks pondering over the various offerings were:

Wide-angle capability
20x Zoom
HD(V) and DV
Tape & Solid-State
Low-light capabilities
Solid-State medium not prohibitively expensive

The Panasonic option I was looking at ticked most of the boxes apart from 13x zoom and P2 medium being prohibitively priced (for me on an amateur budget).

Once I've had a chance to actually produce something properly (through to distribution), I'll have a better idea of how the work-flow is going to work out. This imminent job in France should be a pretty good test of it's low-light capability with live-action, as it's a panto. The final distro will be DVD (not many people are Blu-Ray ready yet) so it will be SD rather than HD but I'll be shooting in HDV too, so that I can do comparisons.

Hi Steve
Apart from not having my Z5 and media recorder delivered yet from Prestons, I could have written your piece. The 13x zoom was the thing that stopped me properly considering the Panny HC151.

I'm looking at how I'm going to both distribute and show my movies around. For the latter, a friend showed me this media player from Western Digital. It connects to a HDMI equipped TV or projector and shows movies that you've downloaded to a typical external USB hard disk.

WD TV HD Media Player ( WDAVN00 )

I'm going to get one asap. I know that Makro have them for £59.99 + vat.

Good luck with your cam.

When I've demonstrated to people the difference between a 13x zoom and a 20x zoom I've often met with surprise at how little different that extra '7x' makes. It sounds a lot, but a fairly mild 1.5x telephoto converter on the 13x zoom will give you the same reach but not lose you the extra 2/3 of a stop that comes free with having a 20x zoom as standard.

The Panasonic 151 is hugely cheaper than the Z5, but of course can't record to tape and is somewhat more plasticy in construction I thought. But the money saved will but a whole lot of SD cards as well as that 1.5x telephoto converter.

tom.

Hi Billy,

The zoom range wasn't the greatest priority (for the reasons that Tom mentioned). The main things were the tape/solid-state and low-light capabilities (especially the low-light - my old cam [an old Sony Digital-8] served me well for many years at SD - albeit a bit grainy at low-light - but when the motor noise started becoming noticable on the sound-track, I new it was time to replace it) and HD(V) not to mention cost of media.

The next thing I need to get is the pan-handle attached LANC remote (not quite sure why the Manfrotto one is twice the price of the Sony one - anyone?) Still not sure about another mic on boom pole or whether to just stick with the cam-mounted gun-mic. I'm not sure what the stage layout/distance is going to be but I think it's only a small venue, so the cam-mounted should be OK!?! I'll be tripod mounted but will be shooting 3 performances [each from a different postion to increase editing options] over 3 evenings (Fri, Sat, Sun) but I hope to be able to get some dress-rehearsal shots to use as cut-aways/out-takes ;-) too.

The short answer is 'unlikely'. The semi-shotgun supplied with any camcorder may well have a restricted pick-up pattern, but it's still designed to be used close up to the sound. Unless your microphone comes fitted inside a parabolic reflector you can be sure it's designed to be used up close and personal.

A cheap mic up close (feeding a Minidisc recorder, say) will give you much better sound. A really really cheap tie-clip mic pinned to the actors will give you even better sound. That's just the way it is; the best place for a mic is hardly ever the best place for a lens.

tom.

They talk about the 6 blade iris diaphram giving you beautiful background blur, do you guys know if it has less dof than other 1/3 inch chips camera?

No, the dof is the same, camera for camera, if they use the same surface area of chip. Note I don't say 'if they use 1"/3 chips' as you could be shooting in the 4:3 mode and therefore get greater dof because you're using a masked down area of the 16:9 chip.

The six blade diaphragm is pretty standard now, after the nasty highlights seen on a two-bladed one such as in the PDX10.

tom.

Hi Tom,

I think you're probably correct (in ideal cirumstances) but it's not practical (or economically/logistically possible - for me) to radio mic all the actors up individually and, being a small venue, I don't think I'll be that far away. Still, a seperate audio capture may be an option. I'll have a better idea when I run through a dress-rehearsal with them.

That would be awesome.

The Z5 looks tempting to buy and replace my vx2100.

Sony remote issue
 

The next thing I need to get is the pan-handle attached LANC remote


Just a tip - The Sony Lanc remote (not sure which model) has a very slight lag in the zoom control.

Basically you press zoom and its not an instant zoom. Its only very minute but enough for me to not want to use it.

Any other reports on this boys?

I don't know about awesome, but my Z5 arrived at 18.00h and I posted this quickley done test about 1am the following morning -
Note - I found it hard to get both cams to use the same f/stop, as the Z5 zoomed in further to get the sameish framed shots. And I couldn't work out how to control the shutter speed, f/stop, gain and apeture all at the same time with either cameras.

Here is my little test YouTube - HVR-Z5e v VX2100 Lowlight Standard def Shootout

cheers Billy

Loved the soundtrack!

Destined to be a classic Jeff!

Thanks for your work. At first glance i am not impressed at all by Z5. But as you said quick, rough etc. I will wait for further tests.

Soundtrack. :)

I have ordered Adobe CS4, but haven't got it yet, so the test was confined to SD. The lighting was just domestic light, energy saving bulbs.
The sound came from the spinning silver thing - a wedding present as I remember.

After shooting for several years on the VX2100 and now having just shot my third wedding with the FX1000, I have come to the following conclusion:

The FX1000 doesn't hold up to the VX2100 in low light.

When you get into decent lighting, the images are nice. After all, it is high-def.

The lens ramping is an issue if you are not used to it and greatly affects you if you are accustomed to doing extreme closeups as I am.

You have to learn a new shooting style with this camera. You will go through an adjustment. Initially I was very disappointed with the camera. I have come to accept it's limitations.

It is a great camera, but if you are considering a new cam you might consider holding off until pricing on the new JVC 700 is available. It shoots 60p, has 1/3" sensors and is supposed to be available in the near future.

Jeff
What JVC 700 are you talking about?

Stelios

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/jvc-pro-h...camcorder.html

Mind you I'm not endorsing or saying it will be better, but it is another option.

I have to say that after I learn better to shoot with my FX1000 it will give me great images and I'm sure I will get a couple of years of good video with it.

Chris, what specifically are you not impressed with regarding the Z5?

Yeah, tipping the scales at nearly 9 pounds and still retaining the same 1/3" chips, that puppy would be scratched off my list very quickly! :)

I don't know what Chris is going to say as far as why he is not as impressed as he expected, but I know initially I was put off by the lower contrast of the images. I remember saying they didn't "pop", and I still maintain that. I expected, hoped for, a VX2100 level of brightness and sharpness. It is not there with the FX1000. The images are soft IMO. But I am starting to understand that a Hi-Def cam with an equivalent brightness of image to the VX2100 is going to have to be, at least for now, found only in a 1/2" sensor or greater.

I still maintain the FX1000 is a fine camera, but it was a let down. I'm editing a wedding this morning shot with my 2100 and I swear it looks broadcast quality. The images shot in similar lighting with my FX1000 are not even close in sharpness, but they have a beautiful look all of their own.

For my personal shooting style I now am using lights where I didn't need lights before. It takes time too get used to it, that is for sure.

Jeff, I have found that we agree on most things and are alike in many ways, but I always thought the VX's were to sharp, had that video look that I hated. I would almost always turn the sharpness all the way down on the VX's. I would also deinterlace in post to try and get away from that news cast look.

The 1000 has that look I always wanted from with the VX, without all the post work to get there, especially in 30p, haven't figured out 24p yet, but hope to.

Jeff, I'm very familiar with HD and have had an HDTV since its inception in the U.S. One of the things with HD is that there is no need for 'hyped' sharpness as there is in SD. HD has so much detail to begin with, there is simply no need to hype the detail with artificial sharpening and hyped contrast.

If you read reviews on Blu Ray movies, you'll find reviewers VERY critical of studios that add edge enhancement to Blu Ray since it's simply not needed. EE used to be very common with normal SD DVD movies since the studios wanted the DVDs to 'pop' and to compensate for the lack of detail, EE was often used (though it's not liked by videophiles even in SD).

With that said, I think the VX2100 (which I own and use in my own work) does add that artificial pop. In fact, I bet my VX2100 has more of that 'pop' than my VX2000 which I still have. I would be disappointed if my HD cam did the same thing. So it just may be something you need to grow accustomed to and appreciate the far greater detail that's present in the FX1000 that just isn't there in the VX2100. In fact hyped contrast is very often a giveaway of a 'consumery' look that's not well appreciated in the professional realm. Sometimes real detail gets masked in that hyped contrast. I'm sure the average Joe would be very surprised by the look of very pricey broadcast studio monitors. Most would say they look 'drab' and lacking pop. That's because contrast is very tamed in professional broadcast studios so that all the detail can be seen.

Remember too that the 'broadcast quality' you see in the VX2100 is, in reality, far from broadcast quality these days since HD has become the norm.

Just my thoughts.

On a side note, have you tried adjusting the picture profile to up the contrast, color & sharpness to better suit your taste?

Your eyes are use to the noisy dv looks, it is noisier and so you think it is sharper but it is not, on the other hand if you want to get rid of it, I will be glad to buy it from you cheap. (-: