does the dvx100 have 16:9 guidelines in the viewfinder?...so you can shoot 4:3 and then just crop in post?....i'm sure this is covered somewhere but the search I pulled up had all xl1 info

thanks in advance

It has a "letterbox" mode which puts black bars at the top and bottom, actually recorded onto the picture. There are no 16:9 "guidelines" marked on the viewfinder.

if you use the adaptor and therfore shooting in 4:3...what kind of image are you looking at thru the viewfinder...i.e. is it stretched?...
you are losing res when enering into letterbox mode correct?...

No, the 16:9 image is not "stretched" in the viewfinder (as with the GL2 or XL1s). You're shooting a 4:3 image with black bars at the top and bottom of the frame that approximate a 16:9 image. That's all there is to it.

so what's better to shoot at ...letterbox mode with the black bars recorded to tape...or shoot reg 4:3 with the viewfinder masked off with tape or something and then letterbox it in post?

or is the anamorphic adaptor a better solution all around?

With the anamorphic, you retain your full horizontal resolution of 480 lines. If you crop, you are loosing about 20% of your horizontal resolution. Anamorphic has drawbacks besides the cost that must be considered. From my experiences, these are the drawbacks:

1) Impossible to focus with full telephoto, my experience is that the more you are zoomed and the farther you are away from your subject, the harder it is to focus. Plus, the size of the LCD does not lend itself to accurate manual focusing, you really need an external monitor and preferably one that will display 16x9 images properly.

2) You must manualy focus. The auto focus does not work with the anamorphic lens. Period.

3) No image stabilization. You cannot use it with the anamorphic.

4) Camera becomes heavier and front-heavy and not as well balanced with these lenses attached. It is very hard to hand hold without some sort of steady shot device. (I've tried one that I cannot even get to balance)

5) Lenses do not lock on tight and could literally fall off under rugged conditions.

6) No filter threads.

Generally, if you are doing event video like I do, I would NOT recommend the anamorphic lenses made by panny for the dvx100. IF you are doing scripted video with a good production crew, I probably would recommend using them.

I am hoping for a DVX200 with a 16x9 chip build in and a wide-screen lens. Until this happens, I would not recommend anamorphic for the event videographer, also I am shooting about 50% of my stuff using anamorphic.

I had a client suggest this to me: This is right out of left field, but PAL cameras shoot at 625 lines, so if you buy a PAL DVX100, and run the 16:9 crop in the camera, then you'll end up with a cropped approx. 550 line image that is also widescreen. Then you can use software to edit the footage in PAL, and convert to NTSC for final output. This is sort of like shooting on Beta and then outputting on DV. That way you get to shoot in a higher res first. A little weird, but it's just crazy enough to work... : )

there seems to be much confusion regarding this issue with both the xl1s and the dvx100...i've read many a thread where people have stated that shooting in the letterbox mode losing vertical resolution and i've also read that it losing horizontal resolution.

The general consensus seems to be to shoot in 4:3 and then mask off the top and bottom in post. I've heard this applies to the xl1 since it is easy to frame using the guidelines in the viewfinder. This is because shooting in letterbox loses info because it is a digital process.

now with the dvx- it seems to be a differnt story- in letterbox we are losing the top and bottom part of the frame but are we missing any resolution in the middle?...is the cam essentially shooting 4:3 and masking off the top and bottom? It would seem that based on the xl1s theory , one would get a better quality frame by shooting 4:3 and taping the viewfinder (since ther are no guidelines) and then masking the top and bottom in post.

I understand the PAL idea but it does add another process and I'm not sure what NLE's support PAL right "out of the box"



the anamorphic lens seems to be the best quality pic but has some drawbacks...see post above


Can someone shed some light on this subject based upon an actual comparison between "4:3 shoot then crop in post" vs. "16:9 letterbox" mode? I'm not knocking the previous posters but just trying to get the whole story with regard to this issue.

thanks in advance

I can't really address how much resolution I lose using the in-camera 16:9 but I'm in the middle of shooting a short film this way and it looks fine (am I really "losing" resolution anyway since the image isn't being stretched to fill the entire TV frame.) I've done other projects where I shot 4:3 and then masked off the 16:9 in post. The results seem the same to me on a TV screen. People talk about masking off the LCD, but it just seemed easier to do it this way. And less processing time in post.

personaly, I am not a big fan of the anamorphic, but I am forced to use it when i am hired by some productions.

Personally, I prefer to shoot 4:3 without the letterbox, then crop in post. I mark my LCD with clear tape where the crop lines will be.

The advantage of this is if you find you framed bad or your talent moved up or down quickly and you cut off or gave to much headroom, you can cheat the frame up or down.

I'm with you Jarred. Comparing the DVX100's masked version of 16:9 with Canon's option of simply displaying guide lines in the viewfinder/lcd over the 4:3 frame, I prefer Canon's method. It's much friendlier in post. I wish the DVX100 offered such an option. Perhaps with the DXV200.