HVX200 + SGpro r2 + Zeiss/Nikon
 

Hello people,

my hvx is very happy the last few days :) I have purchased an Sgpro r2 and it's one of the best things i've done! I have made a quick film to test the Sgpro with my equipment. I want to share this film with you to tell me your thoughts. I used Macro Extension Tubes in some shots of this film to get the close up photography. This give very shallow DOF. Yet i was suprised at how sharp the results were. One other thing that i want to tell is that i add some vignetting in post, something that Sgpro doesn't produce. To see this thing, i'll post some uncce'd full frame grabs too.


Well, film was done with:

- hvx200e
- sgpro r2
- lenses: Carl Zeiss : Planar T* 50mm f1.4 / 85mm f1.4
Nikon: 35mm f1.4 / 85mm f1.4
- some extension tubes for macro

As for lighting, unfortunately, i have only room light, a desk light and the light that comes from a TV :D

the clip is here:

http://www.sgpro.co.uk/blue-theodoroschliapas.mov

the full frame uncce'd grabs:
http://www.sgpro.co.uk/bluegrab1.jpg
http://www.sgpro.co.uk/bluegrab2.jpg
http://www.sgpro.co.uk/bluegrab3.jpg
http://www.sgpro.co.uk/bluegrab4.jpg

I would love your thoughts.

Thank you,
theodoros

The stills look amazing. Great idea to shoot something that has alot of detail.

really very nice.

Did you really only use ambient light? Any gain? I didn't think the HVX was that good in low light, and with the SGPro added with Lens...

How much colouring was done in post?

phil

Wow, what can I say.
I think I`ll sell my F1.2 and F1.4 normal primes to get that Zess now.
I`ve always wondered how 250lpm of resolving power would affect the dof adaptor video as even real motion picture lenses are rated at somewhere 60-100lpm.

Cheers,
T

Thanks a lot guys for your replies.

I've taken two photos of my lighting setup in this video:

http://www.stickypod.com/videos/data/560/light1.jpg
http://www.stickypod.com/videos/data/560/light2.jpg

Spot lights are 50w each and the other light is 40w.

My hvx gain is always at 0. It was difficult to believe even for me that i've made this film with only these lights and i've had these results.

As for colouring, i cce'd a lot. You can see the uncce'd grabs to see the real colour.

I have an m2 and there is no way I can shoot what you did on my z1 with no gain. Even though I understand the z1 is slightly better in low light. Is the SGpro better in low light than the m2?

I have nikon 50mm f1.2

how do you compare the zeiss to the nikon. What benifits do you have?

I have never used an m2, so i can't tell, but i think sgpro does the job great at this point.

Next days i'll plan to make a lense test. Same shots with same settings and different lenses. We'll see the diferences :)

The clip looks awesome T. Your editing skills are not too shabby either :-)

Dennis, thank you very much!

Very professionally looking clip, great shots and very good idea to post the original jpgs. They rock (in terms of sharpness and looks).

Congrats for building such a well working setup.

All the best,

Tom

Thanks a lot Tom for your kind words. Much appreciated.

What Zeiss is 250lp/mm?

Apparently the Planar T* 1,4/50 ZF resolves 320 lp/mm in the aperture range from f/5.6 to f/2.8, and 250 lp/mm at f/2 as stated in Zeiss`s official documentation.

T

What export settings did you use to get such a sharp picture on the quicktime file?

I have put a little short that I knocked together this afternoon on my webpage but it isn't anywhere near as crisp as yours, but on the HD monitor in HDV it is very very sharp

thanks

phil

I have just used H264, 25fps, High quality compressor (not best), multipass encoding, automatic data rate.

Just for the record, you also need to consider differences in camera (are you using the same camera as his?), lenses (these Zeiss seem to be pretty sharp) and 35mm DOF adapter (You said you are using the M2 and the SGPro seems to produce much sharper images from what I have seen) and in a lesser degree, subject matter (does what you filmed has as much detail to be shown? Is it an extreme macro close up?). Post codec won't be the only thing to impact the sharpness here.

Is sharpness turned up on the monitor? Is it a consumer or pro monitor? Most consumer monitors have built-in sharpness enhancers.
You say very, very sharp, but would you say it's as sharp as his images? Again the other things will play a role.

Is the SGpro MUCH sharper? Be interested to see it. I find the M2 a very impressive piece of kit, coupled with my fast nikon lenses the image sharpness is not far off the clean z1 footage, although seeing theodoras' short has convinced me to order the Zeiss lenses!! Sure there are lots of differences in what we shot, and what we used (z1 actually has better low light performance than the hvx), i was shooting a frisky cat, and Theo was shooting a macrod mic but the main questin I was acutally asking was bascially just what is best codec for the web!!!

Phil,

Have you managed to shoot a res chart with your M2? Would be interested to see.

The Fx1 and SGpro gave me this:

http://www.sgpro.co.uk/FX1e_SGpro_r2_res%20chart.tif

Wayne,

How big is your resolution chart? I can download one and print it onto a4. Is that good enough?

Phil

They should be bigger but this one was A4. If using A4, use high res photo paper at your printers highest setting.

cool. will do it tomorrow. we should definately do that shootout. will be really useful for all the people on here who want to know how they directly compare. i havent got my brevis from dennis yet, hopefully early next week. Nice to see your sgpro getting cheaper, not more expensive!!

Very impressive! Can u share some of ure CCing tips with us? also I'm guessing u did extensive AE work right? can u let something slip about ure Post Production work? Is that wiggler which shakes the mic stick all around the place? (00:01:05:00)

Thanks a lot Daniel for your kind words.
CCing and editing done in FCP. No AE. I have used Magic Bullet filters for this.

As for the mic, it was on a stand. The only shaking part of this film was my hvx (and my hand :))

Theodoros, your shots are very impressive indeed. Congratulations for the job well done and the creative editing.
But I'm failing to believe it's because the Zeiss lenses as some seem to be thinking. Whatever you are filming with a 100lp/mm or 250mmlp/mm in the end of the day what counts is what your HVX lens can capture and what your HVX format can record. Even if more resolution and detail is projected onto the GG, if your lens and format cant record that it doesn't really make much of a difference. Since we all know the HVX lens is not nearly capable of 250lp/mm I would say it really makes no difference whatever it's a 100 lp/mm lens or a 250 lpmm one in front of the GG. I think what we are seeing is mainly color resolution from the 4:2:2 format. It's sure sharp, but I have seen stuff that looked as sharp done with a Z1. But the extra color resolution is what is bumping it up and giving the impression of more sharpness IMO. That plus the fact it’s nicely shot and put together makes up to the whole effect.
It would be nice to see some faces and landscape shots done with the Zeiss to see if they really make a difference. If done with both, your Zeiss and your Nikon, that would the ultimate proof.

I think there is a similar sort of logarythmic thing goes on with groundglass relay imaging as seems to happen with passive IR tube based night-vision into the same cameras. Tube based night-vision is also a non-coherent image relay process.

Let's say a pinpoint of light on a chrome fitting on a car in an image projected by the most perfect lens in the universe has a notional rating of 1 in terms of image area it covers and that direct-to-camera imaging yields a perfect 1 which it actually would not.

Let's say then that a pinpoint of light falling on a groundglass screen becomes diffused across an circular area say three pinpoints of light wide by the time the diffusion has had its way with it.

So along comes a less than perfect lens which wide-open projects an image of this pinpoint of light across an image area of 3 in diameter. Now the diffusion pushes the area out one more radius point and it becomes 5 in diameter.

The operator of this softer lens has sweat in his eye or is using the camcorder LCD screen to focus and gets it slightly wrong. The pinpoint falling on the groundglass becomes 5 wide and the diffused pinpoint is now 7 wide.

The groundglass in effect becomes an initial magnifier of any lens softness not in proportion to the deficiencies of the lens.

Therefore, the sharper the image onto the groundglass, the disproportionately sharper it is going to look. Contrast is also going to be affected in the same manner.

I'm not too sure if I really understand myself what I am talking about. It is something that can be readily observed if not so easily described.

He did list other lenses: Nikon: 35mm f1.4 / 85mm f1.4 .

Great detail and animation of what is essentially a blue tube. I enjoyed the tour. For those of us that don't have the latest Zeiss lenses, which parts used the Nikons ?

Thanks a lot Gints.

Hard to remember...00:00:36 as far as i can remember and similar shots were with the 35mm. I think that the last shot was with the Nikon 85mm. Not 100% sure sorry...

Hi theodor... 8^)))
I don't speack english very welll so i'm trying to explain myself...
i would like to understand if the Zeiss Planar for Nikon Lens's iris diaphragm knob is a "step working" knob...
Could you help me?

Nice job wayne.