Hey guys, just ordered an X70. Main purpose is travel videos with an eye on possible broadcast. I plan on shooting at the highest 1080 bitrate, probably either 30p or 60p (any suggestions which would be better with THIS camera?). I read through a bunch of threads about this camera, a couple questions linger:

1) Has it been determined or shown that the 1080p 4:2:2 10-bit is INDEED 10-bit? (that's the factor that tipped the scale towards the X70, plus the larger sensor)

2) How does the footage hold up after editing?

3) Any suggestions on camera settings for shooting in low light?


I was considering a used PMW 200, but needed something more compact in the x70-ish size range.

Thanks

1) Has it been determined or shown that the 1080p 4:2:2 10-bit is INDEED 10-bit? (that's the factor that tipped the scale towards the X70, plus the larger sensor)

Yes, it is indeed 10-bit 4:2:2. Yes, I know there are some wacko consipracy theories out there, but it is. You can see this by analysing the output, e.g. with ffmpeg:

Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High 4:2:2), yuv422p10le(tv, bt709/bt709/iec61966-2-4),
1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 29.97 tbn, 59.94 tbc

but more to the point you can see it in the quality of the video. I'm coming from an FS700, and to my eye the image from the X70 is clearly deeper and richer.

2) How does the footage hold up after editing?

I haven't done a ton of grading, but I'd say well (again coming from the FS700).

3) Any suggestions on camera settings for shooting in low light?

Nothing special I can think of... mabe others will chime in here. Don't forget to turn off the ND filters.. ;-) (Seriously, Ive made that mistake... couldn't understand why it was so dark). Using gain at +15db produces some noise, but really quite minor, and if you can use neat video or the like to treat it, it might not be a problem at all.

I've got some tests, if you haven't seen them, including low-light, here:

https://vimeo.com/channels/832674

Cheers

2) Assuming you are shooting XAVC, and have low noise in the source then it will do very well. I've shot a bunch of greenscreen and have been able to adjust skin tone and levels in After Effects and Premiere Pro with great results. Also keep in mind that with this 10-bit footage you can now work in 16-bit color mode with your effects instead of 8-bit (if they support it), which opens up a significantly finer level of control.

Thanks for the replies, guys. That helps out. Hopefully it'll arrive today and I can start playing with it.

Thanks,

Make sure you set the BLACK GAMMA for low light. The recommended setting is HIGH +7, but I recently (upon switching to XAVC) switched to LOW +7, which brought up the black stretch in the darker areas of my picture. I shoot 100% at night, at 1/60-60p, so I run out of gain frequently, and the black gamma (black stretch) brings out picture that would be buried otherwise. With the 10 bit 4:2:2 codec, I can then push the blacks down in post comfortably without problem.

Paul

Paul,

Thank you for the great suggestion. Those are the kind of tips I need. I will try that. Would you run those settings in daylight too?

Any other settings suggestions?

Thanks,

I don't have enough experience shooting in daylight to give advice on that. I tend to like higher contrast in daytime footage though, makes it pop to my eye. At night, higher contrast with the X70's blow out issue is problematic.

The great thing about the X70 menu settings are that you can toggle through them very fast while observing the results. The selections are in the 1-10 range, unlike the 1-100 range of the higher end cameras, so little adjustments show visibly in the VF immediately.

Paul