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.