So after 'not wanting to bring up the CMOS vs CCD issue', you gave us a dissertation. :)

Jeff, all things you read in 'articles' are not the final word nor are they always 100% factual nor are they always written without a bias. The FACT is that CMOS imagers are used in some of the most expensive digital SLRs where cost saving is NOT an issue.

CMOS has undeniable quality advantages (color, power savings, pixel-level processing, immunity from overload etc.) that you did not mention (or was not mentioned in the article). That is the reason they are used in very expensive imaging devices where CCDs could easily be used. Also, when used in an effective 'total solution', you'll find that CMOS imagers will produce LESS noise than their CCD counterparts.

Don't believe me? Take a look at the Sony XR500/XR520. This camera incorporates several processing/imaging techniques, to produce as noise-free an image as you'll find anywhere at many times the cost.

Now, those 'interlaced type lines' you're getting on your FX1000 is a function of poor deinterlacing on part of your display. I've got two Pioneer Kuro displays and I've never seen anything remotely like 'interlaced lines' from my Z5 or XR500. Displays that don't do a good job of deinterlacing might well show the issue your describing, but it's not a function of the camera.

You might also look for some setting in your display that might give you a different form of processing in the deinterlacing process. My displays have several.

The good thing about the fx1000 is that it's pretty sharp and the grain is very light. Therefor a de-noiser such as neatvideo cleans up the noise really well, to the point of not being able to see any loss in image resolution or quality. the only thing about neatvideo is that it will slow down rendering time.. but it's a much cheaper solution than an hdmi capture device.

Here are some images from the FX1000 and the HMC150 from yesterday, a fairly dark church.

Both cameras in auto settings.

See if you can choose which image is from which camera.

BTW, the bottom left image is from the same camera as the images above it, I moved it mid-ceremony.

Its easy to see in the first two shots the ones on the left are the HMC-150 as they have much better color than the strange warm look of the FX-1000.

The bottom two are difficult to tell for some reason.

Your master pedestal was a little too high for my taste and I would have used low knee or DRS2.

I prefer the images on the left. I'd assume the images on the right were not from an FX1000 (unless settings were significantly altered) since I've never seen such low contrast images from that cam.

Ron, I don't agree about the Sony being clean and sharp, at least not when the going gets tough. Overall the image from the camera, IMO is somewhat soft and noisy in low light. I have felt that way since I got my first one in October of last year.

I've shot apporoximately 15 weddings with the 2 FX1000s and as soon as the gain goes up the noise level is noticeable, very noticeable. Since I have spent dozens of hours with the cameras in dark reception halls I submit that I can make this observation safely.

I shot my first wedding with the FX1000 next to a VX2100 in a very dark reception and the footage was nearly identical, and the VX2100 was in 16:9 stretch mode, which is not saying much for the FX1000.

In my first review of the FX1000 I mentioned it was seemed flat and of low contrast and I still hold to that.

Now in perfect light, the Sony is VERY nice. It just doesn't hold up well with increased gain. That is why I'm always running lights whereas with my old Sony's it wasn't as necessary.

My primary reason for moving to the FX1000 was for 16:9, not HD. My customers love the widescreen look, as do I.

So I've gotten plenty of nice footage from the FX1000, but generally as the bride is coming down the aisle the footage is almost without fail noisy and flat.

The images below are typical.

Jeff, 'much better color' is in the eyes of the beholder and adjustments have everything in the world to do with the final results. Please let's not get into a pissing match regarding these two cams. That's not the purpose of this site.

Jeff
I would say that images 1,3,5 are with HMC150 and 2,4,6 are with FX1000
If this is the case then the images from the HMC150 are better. I might add though that my Z5 produces images like the 1,3 and 5.

Stelios

I just can't see how you could be getting consistently 'noisy' results with the FX1000 Jeff. Are you setting a gain limit or are you letting it run wild? These cams are so noise-free relative to the competition, it's just very odd that you are getting these results.

Even in corporate work I shoot in some low lit factory environments and would never classify the results as 'noisy'. In fact they're very comparable in terms of noise to my VX2100.

Stelios, you and I agree 100% on this. I would find it very difficult to get such low contrast images out of my Z5. I'd need to really alter the settings intentionally to get that kind of image. Really really odd. But I'm glad it's not just me.

I think Jeff said they were both on auto & I would assume that means default menu settings too.

The HMC-150 kinda looks like it is on the F3 "SparK" scene file setting.

Tweaked, I guess both cameras would be very different. However, the Panasonic will always lean toward a cooler output unless the WB skew is used.

Actually Ken, I shoot under the conditions the video stills came from frequently and the results of the Sony here is quite typical. The photos on the right side of the page are from the Sony and on the left the 150.

I have to say I was shocked at the vibrancy of the colors and the blackness of the blacks of the 150, I never in a million years would've expected these results. I figured the Panasonic would have appeared much softer from what I have seen and read about it.

But this is in line with what Mark has said, under increased gain the 150 is cleaner.

I had been scheduled to sell the Panasonic today, and the buyer has put it off till Sunday, but I gotta tell you these results make me question things a bit. If the prices on the damned Pansonics had not gone up $400 each I would seriously consider jumping, but economics dicates otherwise.

For those that shoot in studio or under great lighting conditions, there is really not much to compare, but these results from a dimly lit church are interesting to say the least.

Ken I get noisy results because these are dimly lit envioronments. Do you shoot in dark/dim environments? If so you would know this, and I don't say that to be smart, but it is just the situation in dark enviroments. This is what happens in low light my friend. From what I gather Ken this is not the kind of shooting you do, so I can understand your confusion. Weddings are tough to shoot and they stretch a camera to the limit from overhead sun to dim reception halls.

Actually Jeff, I'm not sure what the spark setting is....I took the images directly off of the Vegas timeline untouched...

That is a good point and I agree. In another thread I compared my HMC-150 recital stage performance footage to the same footage on an XH-A1. The HMC-150 was quite a bit better in that low light shooting scenario.

As the light goes down, the HMC-150s good reputation for low light handling is well deserved IMO.

Jeff: The HMC-150 scene file setting dial goes from F1 to F6. F3 is the factory spark scene file setting.

Neither was correct. The left side shots were too cool and the right too warm. This is why it's not wise to use automatic on any camera. MWB is your friend.

Well, as I said, I've never ever gotten such warm, low-contrast images out of my Z5...even in full auto. So that's why I'd never think it was the FX1000. It's hard to believe the Z5 & FX1000 are set up so differently.

But I'll tell you Jeff, $400 is a small price to pay to get rid of a camera that you are finding so annoying. Again, I'm trying to just give you some advice. If I felt the way you do about my Z5 (and I surely don't since I seem to have such different experiences), I'd sell it in a heatbeat and the extra $400 would be a tiny price to pay for less aggrevation...but that's me.

Ken, if you are a corporate videographer you have much control over your environment. You can take the time to change settings as needed. This is often not possible when shooting on the run.

You likely get great results in your relatively controlled envioroment, I wish I could take the time to tweak my cameras for every wedding but I can't.

Does anyone know of some general place to begin to tweak the FX1000 to get more vibrant color reproduction and blacker blacks such as with the images from the Panasonic?

Actually Jeff, I seldom work with lights. I try to be as non-obtrusive in corporate/industrial settings as I can.

I find that both my Z5 & VX2100 allow me to shoot in virtually any kind of dim lighting that I encounter. On occasion I'll go into dimly lit rooms that might be housing 55 gallon drums of hazardous materials.

I'll see gain go up to +18db, but noise is commendably low. If I'm shooting a CEO, that's a different story and lights might be prudent.

Jeff, black compensation, knee point and gamma can all impact on the kind of picture you may be looking for. It shouldn't be too difficult to get a high contrast image like the ones you showed.

Getting a cooler image (which also can fool the eye into thinking there's more detail & contrast) is also relatively easy to adjust. Try your WB shift control that I believe is also on the FX1000.

The Z5 gives you more of these types of adjustments.

I'll play with those settings Ken, thanks.

To clarify, when I talk about noise I talk about the base noise with no gain added. The native camera noise that exists when the scene is properly lit. From what I've observed so far from raw files on the net, the hmc has horrid compression noise, and the fx1000 has more noise than I would have hoped for... but the fx1000 noise isn't destructive to the footage as the hmc noise..

Thanks for clarifying Ron. I own both cameras and I've shot three events with the HMC150, and the compression noise you mention, I don't see it. I'm not saying it is not there, but I haven't seen it.

When a scene is properly lit both cameras are so close to identical in image quality (differences is characteristics of course exist) I don't even see an issue with either one.

As a wedding videographer, virtually no scene I shoot in a 10 hour day is properly lit, so I am much more keen on low light characteristics of the cams then you might be, and less interested in how they look in perfect light, though of course I am interested, just not as much as maybe you are.

Jeff, you need to give shooting in HD, editing in HD and rendering to SD a try again. I'm not sure if that has anyting to do with grain or not. I can see grain when viewing the timeline on my HD monitor, but none when playing back the final dvd on the big screen. I have the 1000 set to 6db max for ceremony and 12db for receptions.

jeff,

yeah I don't do weddings and honestly I think I would prefer the hmc or jvc-hm100 for weddings over the fx1000 because of cdd, avchd, and color and contrast right out of the box.. I light my scenes and am all about resolution and the fx1000 puts out over 900 lines so I'm really happy with that compared to what I"ve used before(canon xha1, hv20, hf-s100). I just have to deal with the native noise in post.

I agree Tim. With gain limit set properly, there should be almost no visible noise. I've allowed the Z5 to go up to 18db and the noise is really minimal.

No Tim, it doesn't make any significant difference as far as low-light noise is concerned, as best as I can tell.

I did all my initial shoots in HD and converted to SD and the benefit was zero IMO.

Certainly not worth having a 90GB file baloon into 250GB with proxies.

I rendered them to HD and SD and watched them and the noise issue just didn't improve. Well lit scenes benefit from HD, but dimly lit scenes not so much.

Thats what happened with the wedding I shot the other day, it was about 90GB in m2t files and then I did the proxie thing and my 300GB scratch drive couldn't hold it all.

I don't know about you but I have ten weddings or more right now waiting to be edited, and more on the way. The benefit IMO is not worth the time and HD space. In fact I'm not sure there is any signifcant benefit to shooting in HD and converting at all.

And it doesn't matter really in the scheme of things in the sense that we are dealing with 1/3" sensors, so what can we expect from any cam in this price range?

But I could be wrong. If there is a benefit it is so small I cannot justify the extra drive space and conversion time.

These images are from an april wedding shot in HD right off of the timeline. BTW, my exposure was not set correctly for the outdoor portion, and I am aware of that. I was in auto, but should have been running at ae-6 or so. Even if I had turned on the Zebra I could have set things to be more pleasing and not so overexposed. I was running two cameras by myself though so it was a bit hectic.

I've allowed the gain up to 18db on two different FX1000s and its noisy. Not that I expect much better at 18DB gain.

Ken, can you post stills of video at 18db gain?

Do you have a website displaying your Z5 footage?

Tim, can you do the same?

Jeff, I'm really surprised by the amount of noise and softness in some of those shots. I'll ask a really dumb question and don't be insulted by it. Are you sure you had the ND filter off? I ask that because with the Z5, there have been a couple of times I left it in the #1 postiion as opposed to off. It's not that hard to make that mistake.

But I don't think my HD footage has ever looked that 'mushy'.

I don't have a site, but I'll try to post some stills in the next day or two.

I'm running 2 FX1000s and the HMC150 (and an HV30 for wireless) twice this weekend for weddings, once Friday and again on Saturday.

The first wedding is in a VERY dark catholic church, at least that is how I remember it. Typical Cincinnati type church. It was built in the 1800s and is also cavernous with a very long aisle. This will be a great test of the cameras. I've been there but not shot there.

The second wedding is in another catholic church and I have no idea of what the situation is there, I am praying it is not another cave.

I am currently playing with the settings of the FX1000s but so far being in the house I'm not finding good settings; not a good venue for camera settings. I'm going to set the white balance on the HMC 150 at the church but leave everything else on default.

No Ken, no insult taken, you ask a legitimate question, and remember I had two cameras running and both were the same result. I'm sure ND filters were off, but that is a good question. It was very dark in there.

Now those posts are really not meant to disparage the camera, that's just what I've been getting in dark rooms. But you see here in Cincinnati when I say dark I'm talking DARK. Even at these cheap weddings when they have no light show of any kind the house always wants to turn the lights way down low or off completely.

Now keep in mind there were virtually NO lights in the vicinity of the dance floor, and our cameras had tiny 40 watt lights and we were really far from the dancers.

NO camera would have produced great results under these cirucumstances. Let me dig up some footage from another reception where we were closer to the action, and you'll see a vast improvement.

First scene no light

Second scene, about the same shot with light just turned on.

3 and 4 misc shots with lights

i;m curious, why turn the gain up? i would think if the weddng was darkly lit for mood, then you would want to capture that type of atmoshpere on film, rather than everyone exposed...

nevermind, I was just doing some gain test and you pretty much need to crank gain to get what you see in lowlight..

SD v HD
 

Jeff

I am on your side re the whole SD/HD thing.

If its going to DVD then shoot and edit in SD and be done with it.

Considering how many weddings you do then it only makes sense.


Martin.

What scene file are you using on yours Stelios or what settings are you using. Out of the box with scenefile 1 his photos look dead on.

Steve

I just shot these in the house. Two high hats off to the left and dimmed. Gain ran between 15db & 18db. I usually limit it to 12-15db.

One thing I should add, the grain on a still grab usually looks worse than the moving video from which it came.

your room is pretty light in color.. the grain will really show against dark areas.

I do not get as much noise with my Z5 as in the wedding examples shown here. I quickly made a few shots in my radio shack. Number one is 6 db gain and a very poorly lit scene, number two is 0 db gain with more light. I find the noise very acceptable.