Sony PMW-EX1 vs Panasonic HVX200 shootout footage online
 

Hey Everyone,
Just wanted to give a heads up that we've posted a bunch of footage and stills from a shootout we did over the weekend between these two cameras. It's not all encompassing or completely scientific, we just put both cameras next to each other and pointed them at the same scene, with out of the box presets on both cameras. I think what we got is pretty interesting, so check it out!

Here's the link:

http://www.pairofhands.net/Ex1%20vs%...0Shootout.html

The Sony EX1 seems to be the same as the Fuji F31fd was for photo.

- superior sharpness
- incredible lowlight
- low noise
- cold colours

:D

regards Dennis

Matt, I am downloading now. I read the opening paragraph at you link, and I would like to know exactly what "cinema gamma presets" for the EX1 (Cine 1, 2, 3 or 4) and the HVX (Cine D or V) were applied?

Thanks for posting the shoot out files.

Matt, I too did a side by side several weeks ago between the 2 cameras and the results were the same as your test. A very amazing camera.

I downloaded the videos, I was wondering why the motion tests were done with shutter speed 1/48 on both cameras. Is that the default? The HDR FX1 has a 1/60 default... When I am shooting motion if possible I like to shoot at 1/500 to 1/1000 unless I am after a little motion blur or there is not enough light. The reason I bring this up is I shoot a lot of action sports and am actually looking for a fast motion shootout between these two cameras but this did not make the comparison I was looking for.

1/48th is the equivalent to 1/60th when shooting in 24p

My bad, I forgot it was 24p even with the large text telling me so :) Still I would love to see some fast motion between the two cameras at 1/500 and 1/1000 as this is where Long GOP HDV shows some pretty bad artifacts at times. The main thing I would like to see is if the 35MB HQ holds up.

When viewing the motion test, I'm seeing a lot of stuttering or strobing (or whatever it's called) during the EX1 zoom out (next to last shot?). I guess choppy describes it best. The HVX200 version exhibit it, nor any other shot. Is this a playback issue on my end or does anyone else see it, too?

Yes, but forunately there's a little something known as "white balance". LOL!

it's a shame the white balances were not matched up as warmer images are generally more pleasing to the eye naturally.

Agreed. For giggles, I warmed up (adjusted white balance) the EX1 and HVX200 in two examples. I down-sized for comparison.
No other adjustments were made, just white balance. Possibly to warm, but I tend to do this for the reasons Phil just mentioned.

Interesting thread.
I'd say the Sony wins hands down here. The Lens is wider and i prefer the colours and details in the images. When you consider the fact that P2 storage already seems out of date and that EX's cards are likely to drop in price due to being widely manufactured, it's hard to see why anyone would buy the Panasonic. And that's before considering the 1/2 chip in the Sony.

Personally i'm still happy with my Canon XHA1 and am prepared to wait another year before going over to solid state cards, by which time all the other manufacturers will have something out to challenge the Sony and the cards will be half the price.

Dom, good thinking on your part.
I've said many time before tha Canon XH A1 is one heck of a camera.
Times are going to get interesting in the next year or so.

Matt,

In the future DO NOT crosspost between forums. I see that you are new to the site. We have a no cross posting policy as we want all responses to a topic in one thread.

Thanks in advance,

-gb-

Actually, I'm pretty impressed with the HVX. The Sony is clearly sharper and better in low light, but HVX holds its own in terms of overall image. And its colors seem richer, I don't think that's just because of the white balancing.

The Sony definitely wins, but the HVX looks damn good.

The EX1 has Cine 1, 2, 3 and 4, and we do not know what Matt used, nor do we know what HVX settings were used?

Another important setting to test is Matrix. We don't know if Matt used Standard, High SAT, FL Light and Cinema?

There is so much more to be explored and combinations to be mixed. Matt Jeppsen will soon post some DSC Lab charts exploring the Cine Gamma Curves and different Matrix settings.

Maybe so, but when someone puts up examples where whites are blue, this is white balancing.

I believe i've shown this before. It's not a blown up frame, but a cropped section of a 1080P
comparison between the EX1 and HVX200.

Imagine seeing this on a big screen.

http://members.cox.net/vx2000/HVX200_EX1.bmp

Sorry about the cross post
 

Sorry about the cross post, it won't happen again. Is there a way to post in one forum and link to two forums? i.e. here it makes sense that people who frequent the Sony forum and the Panasonic forum would want to see this, but I wasn't sure how to keep it in the same thread, is that possible? Thanks.


Also as far as gammas go I think the EX1 was on Cine 1, and the HVX was cine-d. I operated the EX1 for the most part, and it was my first time using it, while the owner of the HVX operated that camera, so I'm not 100% positive of his settings but I think that was it.

Matt, thanks for confirming (you think) Cine 1.

Anyone have a view why the sky is almost solarised looking at 20 seconds on this clip: EX1vsHVX_720pMotionBig.mov ?

The sky anomaly does not appear present in the 1080 clips.

It seems like a Knee effect, say on the highest Knee setting, coupled with 8 bit encoding. I read in the manual that some Cine Gamma Curves do not have Knee enabled (not sure if this is the case with Cine 1, 2, 3 and/or 4), however, the nature of some of these Cine Gamma Curves are like a Knee filter, compressing the Dynamic Range of certain parts of the curve.

Come on, a cropped section IS a blown up frame. That little portion of the frame filling the big screen would repesent a ridiculous blow up.

Yes the EX1 looks better. Yes of course there was a white balancing problem. But I still leave impressed with the HVX, esp. considering its age. And I think it has very nice color. This has always been the rep of the HVX, good color out of the box. That's why so many XH-A1 users use some type of "panalook" preset to mimick the DVX/HVX color rendition.

You're joking, right?

A cropped section out of a frame is NOT blown up unless one increases the size. Those SECTIONS were CUT from each 1920x1080 frame. They are the original size. The size was never increased.

Steven,
have you shot the comparison clips with your own cameras?
The HVX example looks a little too bad in my opinion. I'm not a sharpness fanatic but I think I can have much more detailed pictures from my HVX, expecially in 1080 mode.

No, this was from the EX1, G1, Z1, HVX200 framegrab comparison review posted a while back. BTW, both of those images were from the 1080 30P comparison.

Hey, I'm not saying the HVX can not produce pretty footage. We all know it can. Look at all the decent stuff that has came off of this camera over the last two years.
A couple years ago, over one month, we did a lot of tests comparisons between the JVC HD100 and the HVX200. Even though the HD100 had shortcomings such as GOP and CA, we liked the HD100 better.

This is the kind of thread that was bound to get the HVX crowd on the back foot. I find it quite gratifying because over on the final cut pro forums i'm forever being told how HDV is rubbish and how i should have gone the DVCPRO HD route instead (I'm an XHA1 owner). One of the best things about DVinfo is most people are open minded about different cameras/codecs, and recognise the strengths as well as the weaknesses of HDV.

The Panasonic is a fantastic camcorder, and still does things that the Sony won't do, and i nearly bought one, but as i said earlier on this thread, if i was buying now i'd get the sony, assuming that the camera improves the motion issues that lets down the current crop of HDV cameras for certain kinds of work.
Looking at the shots of the guy on the skateboard there doesn't seem to be much difference, and i agree the HVX stands up well.

I don't want to concentrate on something that really isn't important. But they can't be original size. Each crop is 9.5 inches by 3.5 inches on my lowly 19" screen.

LOL...
Each image is a cropped image approx. 660x240 out of the 1920x1080 originals.
What is your screen resolution 800x600? ;)

The combined example is approx. 660x480.
Pull it into any editor or paint program and look.