OK, forgive me: one more -- possibly last -- pre-purchase decision.

Can users of the XF100/XF105 comment on the cleanliness of the picture? I've only had access to the H.264'ed Vimeo files, and from what I've seen at least, the pictures from the XF100 show stray hints of mosquito noise even in bright light with gain set to 0.

Am I seeing something that's not there? Or, put more generally, can owners of this camera comment on how clean or noisy the image is? I'm weighing a purchase decision between this and the HPX170 -- and possibly even an XHA1, although that is probably a long shot. I like the 3CCD cameras (particularly due to lack of rolling shutter, which is relevant to my subject), but would prefer to stay tapeless and with the cheaper and faster workflow of CF cards.

Thanks everyone.

A still image from today. Noisy?

I only see the tiny tiny dotted noise when gain begins at 6db, it gets pretty bad at 12db, but Red Giant's Denoiser works like a charm against that.

I don't see any noise at 0 gain either, are you sure your gain was at 0?

I was seeing noise even at -3 db in daylight when I had sharpness at +2 while shooting landscapes with lots of detail and some motion. I now shoot with sharpness at -8 and I'm not seeing the spidery noise anymore. Image resolution has not suffered at all. In fact, without the sharpening artifacts and occasional noise, the image appears to have more resolution and is much more natural looking. Very smooth...

Pat

Thanks for the replies. It indeed looks clean...

I was seeing noise even at -3 db in daylight when I had sharpness at +2 while shooting landscapes with lots of detail and some motion. I now shoot with sharpness at -8 and I'm not seeing the spidery noise anymore. Image resolution has not suffered at all. In fact, without the sharpening artifacts and occasional noise, the image appears to have more resolution and is much more natural looking. Very smooth...

Pat

Thanks for the tip, I will give that a try!

You got it, number 1 rule for all HD cameras, turn the sharpness way down