Thanks guys for the advice. Sounds like the PDX10 is a pretty good bet then, esp. for outdoor shooting in widescreen.

:o)

Dennis

I have a new PDX10 and I would like to use it with and without the XLR adapter. However, since it takes so much force to get the adapter connected, I am worried that if I constantly remove/reattach the mechanism it will eventually break. Does anyone have any experience with this? Should I just leave the XLR adapter attached? Thanks!

Hi Jennifer, and welcome to DVinfo!

Well as they say, "your mileage may vary".... but I always store my PDX-10 with the XLR removed in order to fit in a small bag. I haven't hardly used the camera since I got my Z1 last summer, but before that I constantly took the XLR on and off for over 2 years with no problems whatsoever.

Once you get accustomed to the needed force and the tactile feedback when the XLR block is seated, I think you'll be fine. But if you're not comfortable with the whole process then only remove it when needed.

I haven't had my PDX10 as long as Boyd, but I constantly will remove and reattatch my xlr adapter as well and have never had a problem.

Yes i know its not as good as the vx2000/2100 and pd 150/170 but does anybody out there use it for weddings, I had one last year got a offer that i could not refuse and parted with it,

But looking back at some footage i shot of some deer, and after using the FX1 and still owning the XL2, and portability of the little cam i have realized that although it has some short cummings it holds its own in the 16:9 mode and i
plan to try some weddings this year (Ive always got the XL2 for backup) and i just wondered if anybody has and what results they have got

Thanks
Ian

Yes, I use the PDX-10 for weddings and haven't had a problem. When I considered purchasing the camera for weddings alot of people strongly urged me not to, telling me that the low light performance was awful and that weddings are too dark. However, I wanted to see for myself how terrible it really was, so I rented one and used it to shoot a wedding (i had a friend with a pd150 come along just incase). The PDX-10 performed wonderfully. True, the low light performance isn't as good as other cameras, however it is more then enough for a wedding- unless of course its an unusually dark wedding that is lit only by candle light or something like that- but even then I did a wedding with a unity candle ceremony where all the lights were turned off and the single candle was able to provide enough light to effectively light the bride and groom's faces without any noticable image grain.

So yes, the PDX10 works for weddings. Perhaps its not the best wedding camera out there, but it does the job and the images it produces are beautiful. I have no complaints using it for weddings.

I haven't really used my PDX-10 since I bought the Z1, but when I look back at old footage I'm still surprised at just how good the 16:9 looks. It is a great little camera.

The wedding topic has been a popular one here in the past:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=46152
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=39319
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=13183

Use it if there is enough light there before hand-which is time and money and not always possible! With that focus ring i nearly got burned recently. But ive been spoilt by using a big boy xdcam with full manual lens.

B.Sundry

Dennis...

I just got back from 10 days in NZ, and my PDX10 came in handy while shooting a Huka Jet Boat ride in an underwater housing.

As others have mentioned, it's a great second camera.

And I've also used it in widescreen mode -- looks great.

yes i must add to these observations having had a few cameras of late including the FX1 and now the XL2 i just recently reacquainted myself with the PDX10 again after looking at some footage i shot over a year ago, i was amazed at the quailty in 16:9, and yes the XL2 is better but for portablity and price it is very,very ,very good, and as for handling a mono pod does a fine job

But all in all i think it is well worth it, as for the HC1 or the AU1 well i don't now much about them and as for the AU1 which replaced the PDX10 will cost you around twice as much! is it worth it i don't know.

I have a problem. We have 2 Sony PDX10 camera's and we want to purchase a number of extra batteries. I have looked at the Lenmar LISQM91 which according to the Lenmar website fits on the PDX10, but according to a local shop this battery don't fit on our camera. Is there anyone who has experience with this combination?

If you never got a difinitive answer for this, I purchased 2 of these Lenmar batteries for my Sony HC1 and found that they DO NOT fit the cam. Seem that Sony added a plastic shim or PEG on the camera and the aftermarket people didn't pick up on this in time, so they have to re-tool their batteries to fit the most current Sony design.

In do know that in the past these batteries worked perfectly, I used them on my older Sony cams, but this new HC is a no go.

Hello,

My color LCD has died on my PDX10. I have tracked the problem down to the LCD module itself, Sony part # 1-804-599-21 (Ref # LCD901 in the service manual).

Does anyone know of a good source of parts (the list price I have seen ranges $300 - $500!) and/or salvage camcorders?

I know this is the same unit used on the DCR-TRV50.

Or if anyone has a broken unit they'd like to sell for parts...

Thanks,

John.

The only source for PDX-10 parts that I know is Sony's "Parts Plus" website:

https://servicesplus.us.sony.biz

However when I try to open my bookmark it now says the site is under maintenance and not available! Maybe they needed to order some parts to fix it? ;-)

Thanks, Boyd.

I have used the Sony site before - I was hoping there may be a cheaper source for the LCD unit, even if used.

John.

Until I lost it, I used to have a cheap wide angle adapter that doubled as a macro lens. You unscrewed the front element to shoot macro. I think several companies make these, although mine came from "Digital Optics" IIRC. Caveat: I never used the macro function so I can't vouch for the quality....

Hmmm... Might need one myself. I find myself periodically trying to get to clse to small objects with no luck on the HC1000.

Hi,
I've had my PDX 10 for about 9 months now, and I'm mainly using it underwater because of its manual white balance via LANC capabilities. However, because the video quality just seems so good, I was hoping to use it to film family events and in particular my daughter's forthcoming dance show. Problem: the vertical smear of course. I've looked quite a bit on this forum and elsewhere for solutions, and basically the options seems fairly limited, especially if you can't change the camera position (like when you're sat in a dance studio with bright spotlights). My question is this: does anyone know if the ND filters available from Sony would help reduce the vertical smear?
I'd really like to get this sorted out, as otherwise I'll have to continue using my single-chip TRV 33 for situations which would create that green smear.
Finally, apologies if this post appears a bit long - it's my first one on this forum.
Thanks.

Welcome to DVinfo Matthew. ND filters will have no effect whatsoever on vertical smear - in fact there aren't any kind of filters which will help with it.

The problem is made worse by shooting at high shutter speeds, so use manual control at 1/60 or 1/50 shutter. However, I've shot many, many hours of performance footage with my PDX-10 and never had any vertical smear. So I guess it depends on the nature of your location. Unless there are bright lights shining directly into the audience's eyes (which would be pretty bad from a lighting design standpoint) then you shouldn't see any smear. Just having a stagelight in the frame has never been an issue for me.

Can you film a test during a rehearsal in the same space?

Thanks a lot Boyd. I'll try sneaking into the dress rehearsal to work out the best position.
At least I've saved the 30 euros or so I'd have spent on the filters!

Just wanted to close this one - I ended up finding a suitable camcorder (TRV50) on eBay (fully functional) that happens to use the same part as the PDX10. I got it for $250! So now I'll have some other extra parts and/or another camcorder to use for ________ (to be filled in with a justifiable excuse!)

John.

Hello,

My color LCD has died on my PDX10. I have tracked the problem down to the LCD module itself, Sony part # 1-804-599-21 (Ref # LCD901 in the service manual).

Does anyone know of a good source of parts (the list price I have seen ranges $300 - $500!) and/or salvage camcorders?

I know this is the same unit used on the DCR-TRV50.

Or if anyone has a broken unit they'd like to sell for parts...

Thanks,

John.

Boyd's spot on (but then he always is). To avoid CCD smear the shutter speed should be locked down at 1/50th (PAL) as in some of the modes it can vary all over the place, and higher speeds really smear horribly.

Also avoid filters for the very reason that the camera has tiny 1/5" chips and filters often make the lens hooding less efficient, too.

tom.

I have a Tecpro 0.5s. This is a 2 element zoom-through wide-angle converter that unscrews in the middle. Once you've done this you're left with a +10 dioptre powerful close-up lens which can be used at full telepho for some quite oustanding closeups. Bit soft round the edges though, so best to shoot at smallish apertures (difficult on the TRV900 and HC1000 as neither allow it).

The front element can also be used as a partial zoom-through wide-angle converter, and it's WIDE - something like 0.4x, but with lots of barrel distortion.

tom.

well, I just bought x0.43 fish eye from COKIN for my pdx-10... my eternal dream, to have fish eye, at last, weeiii... :)
anyhow, I am considering to buy couple of filters (ND, polarizig, etc)... so, how can I attach both my wide adapter and filters on my camera? sorry for my ignorance, heh, but what things exactly do I need in order to achieve that?
I am considering to order all that brom b&hphotovideo...
thanx ...

Does your fisheye lens vignette the corners of your image at the moment - in other words do you have 4 black corners when you use this lens?

If so, when you fit any filter between the lens and the camera's zoom this 'cut-off corners' effect will increase, so beware.

I doubt if the 0.43x Cokin has a filter thread to accept filters or hoods up front, so you'll have to improvise with square filters (also sold by Cokin).

The polarisor is a goodie but I wouldn't bother with extra ND. There's three of them built into the PDX10 already, and if it's incredibly bright I'd simply up the shutter speed a notch to soak an extra stop. Beware of going too far though as CCD smear quickly takes hold.

tom.

well, this is image captured from camera... no zoom. vignette is out of safe frame, only can be seen on computer.
http://www.15minutespictures.com/beat/prdavaac.jpg
weird, there is black vignette only on the right side...

and, I took a photo of my camera, with cokin fisheye attached so you can see...
http://www.15minutespictures.com/beat/kameraw.jpg

so, u think there's no need for ND? okay...
do you think some "sky" filters will be a goodie too? you know, sometimes, when adjusting exposure on subjects, to avoid overexposing sky, etc... or, what other filter do you recommend?

All four corners are vignetted, but you're right in that the RHS is worse. Your lens is off axis with the centre of the chip - no big deal.

A graduated filter can be useful to control the over-exposure of the sky, but you have to be oh-so-careful when you use filters with a camera with such tiny 1/5" chips. If they're not spotless and well hooded you can get nasty flare and spots when you're using very short focal lengths.

My recommendation? Don't use any filters unless you absolutely must. For dusty, sandy conditions and sticky-fingered children's parties, yes. But otherwise no.

tom.

Would I be crazy to replace my VX-2000 with a PDX10? My primary reason for considering the switch is size and weight. I'm getting to where I can't stand watching my hand held camera work with the VX-2000 anymore...not steady enough. The camera is so front-heavy, actually just heavy period for it's size. At work I use a DSR 300 and that heavier shoulder-mounted camera is easier to use hand held than the VX-2000.

I'd really like to get a glidecam to help with the stability issue, but I can't imagine how hard it would be to use for average to longth periods of time with a VX-2000. I assume a PDX10 would be more manageable.

What will the trade off be between these two cameras as far as video degradation? How about low light sensitivity? Lense differences? If it matters, I acquired my VX-2000 in March '02. Any info you fine folks can share would be wonderful, I really enjoy this board.

I've got a problem with my PDX10 camera. Today i wanted to capture some video, so i connected the camera with a firewire cable. Then this happends: on the LCD display of the camera appears "dv in" and that's it. In the capture window of Premiere, the only thing i see is: "Capture device offline".

Is this a known problem or is my camera broken?

An old question I know, but have you tried changing the firewire cable?

Hi

Firstly, great to see forum for the PDX10. I've had mine for a couple of years and love it, however, on the last shoot the picture started jumping slightly to the left, then back to normal centre position and then left again etc etc

I did find that if I turned it off and left it for a while, when I used it again, I could get about 10 mins before the same thing happened.

I thought that I'd be able to fix it in the edit by adjusting the frames accordingly and then cropping but actually it seems that when it jumps left it also expands the vertical picture very slightly. This meant that although I could get the jump-left images centred, it still didn't sit correctly.

Has anyone had eny experience of this and tell me what is wrong before I trudge off to the local repairshop?

Thanks for any pointers.


Dave

Welcome to the group Dave. I've never seen anything like this on my PDX-10. I wonder if it might be related to the image stabilization system? Have you tried turning steadyshot off? Hard to tell from your description, but it might just be a drop-out problem of some kind on the tape also.

Hi Boyd - thanks for the reply.

I was using it as a front-end for a stop-frame animation video so there was no film in the camera - I was literally grabbing stills via firewire to a Mac. (actually, the jumping effect didn't ruin the shoot and possibly added to the lo-fi flavour ;))

I first noticed the computer monitor jumping and re-booted, but then I noticed it was happening on the camera display so I changed the firewire cables etc but still the same thing occured. That's when I powered-down the PDX and noticed that I got the 10mins of normal use upon powering it up.

I will, as you suggest, turn off the steadyshot and see if that helps.

Thank you again


Dave

Damn - sadly that didn't do the trick :(

On closer inspection though, it seems to be a kind of picture stretching, as opposed to jumping, and the right of the picture isn't affected at all. Very odd indeed.

I think it's time for the menders :-/



Dave

Hi Dave,

there is a web site here by sony europe in 2005 about faulty LCD screen problems on some pdx10p and pd170p . it gives all people a free repair on the stated serial number. I hope it helps

this is the site:

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowArticle.action?section=en_GB_Support_Sub2&articlesection=5&article=1128075116465&site=odw_en_GB

david

Thanks very much for that David - for a moment there was a glimmer of hope :)

Sadly though, my serial number is higher than those.

I might call the number on there though. You never know.

Thanks again


Dave

David: see my other post here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=577133&posted=1#post577133

The recall is not for LCD problems, but for CCD problems.

Hi

Always i read about the 2 channels of sound, and the capture of these 2, that in PC does not work, personally I am working with Adobe Premiere pro 1.5, independent that one can set the software so that it recognizes this camera model, not recognize the 2 channels. Something that it just happen is that I was capturing from of a VHS, through the pdx10, didn’t captures well, leaving a track outside, but in the loudspeaker of the camera you can listen the 2 tracks, is that are a problem or of reproduction of the camera towards the PC or directly the card of capture/PC /software, somebody has some idea of how can be captured in stereo? I will have some settings bad? Or I must change to Mac and use Final Cut?

The pdx does have some issues regarding capture of stereo. Some use scenelyzer capture utility which captures stereo perfectly. I thought
it was just a sony vegas capture issue though. I get stereo through my
pdx when I use the external xlr mic but not when using the in camera mic.
I'm quite sure you won't need to use final cut for stereo. If you have another camera the tapes recorded on the pdx will capture in stereo off of that.

( will now wait for Boyd's answer :)

Well you're testing my memory here ;-) IIRC, the stereo problem on the PDX-10 was related to the Windows operating system and its firewire drivers. I don't think it is a Vegas issue specifically.

Here are a couple old threads. You will probably find more if you dig through the forum...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=26190
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=17454

It is true however that there are no PDX-10 audio issues if you use FCP, which is what I have.

We're a group of people working on a no-budget movie with a borrowed PDX10P and a modified Letus35A 35mm adapter and being the cinematographer (new at this) I'm trying to get the best possible image out of this thing.

I noticed that we lose a lot of light with the adapter so I'd be inclined to open up the camera's exposure all the way but... I do notice that if I keep the camera's exposure one or two notches away from maximum exp, I get a more pleasant and more colorful image. This is probably normal and I should never go for max exposure, right?

Another issue: sometimes images are a bit grainy, often due to slight grain getting picked up from the adapter. Just wondering if anyone knows any camera tricks I can use to make the image smoother.

And in general: any advice from PDX10P veterans on doing a feature film with this cam would be greatly appreciated, we can use all the help we can get :) .

Hi Reese and welcome to DVinfo! I used my PDX-10 (NTSC version) to shoot a lot of footage which was projected on a 45 foot wide screen as part of a live opera performance of Il Trovatore. I was really happy with the overall quality, and the review singled out the video as being very professional. We used a 10,000 lumen Barco DLP projector in the theatre.

So the PDX-10 is quite a nice camera for its price, and capable of delivering some pretty impressive footage. I don't have any experience with 35mm adaptors, but if I were you I'd give some serious thought as to whether the advantages of using one outweight the disadvantages (like the ones you mention).

Also realize that the PDX-10 has an undocumented internal ND filter wheel which comes is activated whenever the camera thinks it's needed. There is no way to override this feature or control it manually. The idea is that the camera forces you to stay within the "sweet spot" of the lens and not use small apertures. So when you're working in manual mode, as you close the iris at a certain point the ND filters start dropping in although the camera doesn't tell you. IIRC, it's impossible to shoot at an aperture less than f4.8.

Spend a little while browsing back through our PDX-10 forum, which is pretty inactive these days so you'll need to go way back. There's a lot of good information here. BTW, you actually posted this thread to the wrong forum, the PDX-10 is covered in a sub-forum here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=43

I'm moving your thread there and maybe others will have some ideas.

Aah great, thanks a lot :)

This is good info.

I just got my PDX10 back from Sony repair. The remote does not work, which is why it was sent off. (RMT-811). The technicians note says this is not the right remote for the camera....yet B & H photo lists this as the replacement. Can the technician be wrong? Or indeed is a RMT-811 not the right remote. And does anyone know where I can get a functioning remote?
Thanks,
Davyne
Asheville, NC

I have a Panasonic DVX100 with the Panasonic anamorphic adaptor lens. I am looking to get a slightly cheaper 2nd cam. Is the footage shot by a Sony PDX10 true anamorphic or do I have to buy a Century Precision Optics lens to make it "true anamorphic?"

If I shot some in footage in a Sony PDX10 in its 16x9 mode, will Final Cut Pro see it as anamorphic footage? If the footage from Sony PDX10 can match that of the DVX100, then I will buy one as a backup cam.

Can any PCX10 users enlighten me on this subject? Thanks.

Hi Jason. Yes, the PDX-10 shoots high quality 16:9. It has 4:3 shaped CCD's, however the resolution is 1152x864 (IIRC). That allows the camera to sample a 16:9 area at full resolution and gives surprisingly good results.

The terminology can be a little ambiguous here "true anamorphic" isn't really meaningful in and of itself. That just means the image has been squashed so it can be stretched to 16:9 on playback. A lot of cameras do this (PD-170 for example) however their CCD's aren't high res enough to give you a full quality 16:9 image. Anamorphic is just the image format, and doesn't tell you anything about the quality. I think "true 16:9" would be a little more accurate way of describing what you want.

Now there are plenty of differences between the PDX-10 and DVX-100 though. The chips are small (about 1/5") so the more light the better, and of course there are no progressive modes. But it's really a great little camera, especially considering the price.

BTW, this was posted to the wrong forum. The PDX-10 forum is a sub group (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=43), so I'm moving your thread there. You might want to browse back through this forum to learn more about the PDX-10.

Yes, the PDX10 is a sweet little camera. It won't offer you the same manual control flexability of the DVX, but then again it's a lot more compact.

You talk about the Sony 'matching' the Panasonic, but as always there will be colour differences to contend with and control and menu layouts that will differ. There are small Panasonics that also have 1"/5 chips and they too give high quality 16:9 footage. Have you dismissed these?

tom.

The Pdx10 is a good camera, it gives better 16:9 images, better than more expensive camera around. My ex pdx10 beats my dvx100b in 16:9 hands down... I miss my Pdx10

I've read several times on this forum that it's best to dial sharpness all the way down as well as color a bit because then you get the raw data from the ccd.

What most of the experienced ones are saying here is that these sharpness/color boosts you can get out of it are simply in-camera post-production filters. This sounds logical but I've done some testing and all is not as it seems...

Dialing sharpness all the way down causes an actual loss of detail, so what you see then is LESS detail than what you could normally get out of the ccd. And what's really interesting is that when you dial it all the way up, you get a very sharp image that seems very hard to replicate by adding sharpness filters on a medium sharp image from the camera in post. So even if this is just a post-filter at work, it's a very powerful one.

Same goes for the color, dialing up the color setting does not simply increase saturation, it actually brings out more of the actual colors.


I'm not saying these settings are magical and you should always dial them up, but they're certainly not always evil image-destroying gimmicks.

I'm conducting more tests today.

I guess it depends on your personal taste and also your subject matter. Personally I always disliked the oversharpened default on the PDX-10 that left hard outlines around objects. I don't use mine anymore (it's on "vacation" with a friend in Greece now :-)

But several years ago I shot this series of tests using a scene with lots of fine detail. I think my favorite would be sharpness set at -2. But like I said, it depends on your personal taste.

I guess it depends on your personal taste and also your subject matter. Personally I always disliked the oversharpened default on the PDX-10 that left hard outlines around objects. I don't use mine anymore (it's on "vacation" with a friend in Greece now :-)

But several years ago I shot this series of tests using a scene with lots of fine detail. I think my favorite would be sharpness set at -2. But like I said, it depends on your personal taste.

Excellent comparison material there, thanks for the info. I agree with what you're saying but these shots do confirm even more that this is not a simple sharpening filter.

I think what would probably be the case here is that there is a slight sharpening filter applied to the raw ccd data before it is then downscaled to the normal video resolution (because I believe the camera downscales it from a resolution that's quite a bit higher).

As for the colors... No clue what exactly happens there but I love the look of a slight color boost, it's definitely not the same as just increasing saturation. I guess it may also be applied to raw ccd data that of course contains more color info than the final image.

Thing is, we're shooting with a modified Letus35A lens adapter which causes for some loss in color vibrance and sharpness and the tests I'm doing now are really yielding beautiful results with sharpness maxed out and color 2 dials higher than medium.


Thx for the insightful reply, the pictures were quite helpful.

I believe the camera downscales it from a resolution that's quite a bit higher

Yes, the CCD's are 1152x864. I did the following test by framing a shot to fill the frame in photo mode, then switched to 4:3 and 16:9 video in order to learn how it crops the image (note: I was using the NTSC version, so yours will be a little different).

The PDX-10 is a really nice little camera, and a lot of bang for the buck. But the tiny (1/5") chips have their limitations. Even though they are relatively high resolution, the small size seems to give a rather coarse quality to the full res stills.

Recently I was playing around shooting photos of the full moon using a 500mm mirror telephoto on my D80 (35mm equiv of 750mm). Then I remembered that the PDX-10 lens has an equivalent of 500mm, and I could bump that to 1000mm with my telextender. So I shot a series of memory stick stills with the PDX-10. They looked terrible! Granted, I was comparing them to 10 megapixel Nikon stills, but nevertheless I thought they had a very harsh, oversharpened look.

Good luck with your project, let us know what you learn in your tests.