The HVX color test I've been promising is up.

First, a special thanks to Michael @ MotionzoneHD.com for hosting the file, it's a big one: 100MB. Don't expect it to last forever since it's a free download off his servers.

Since my first (albeit bungled) outdoor color tests were less than great I knew that the HVX would do much better once I tweaked the other settings that I had forgotten to.

The purpose of the test was twofold:

1 - Show the true color capabilities of the HVX before any post correction work.

2 - Find a color setup that (for my purposes) had more of a "chrome" look and feel to it or as close to it as possible in-camera. My background has been commercial photography first, so I'm partial to the look of Velvia/Ektachrome.

This setup is NOT one that is recommended for all types of subject material. In fact, if this were done in a studio environment or one with lots of skin tone I'd probably stick with Scene File 6 - and tweak it a bit.

This isn't a color chart test done in controlled situations; the clips are all short but the targets are real-world all with typically difficult targets for video: Blue sky, magenta/deep reds, color detail in shadow and of course, low light (low for video that is). I threw in a fun end sequence that really shows how well the HVX does at low-light/sunset.

These are same-scene comparisons are all shot at 720p24PN with 5600k preset White Balance and switch from the DEFAULT Scene File 1 setting to my custom settings which are:

- FILM CAM mode
- 200 deg shutter angle
- Detail +5
- V. Detail 0
- Detail Coring +4
- Chroma +7
- Temp 0
- Master Ped -8
- A. Iris Level 0
- News Gamma - OFF
- Gamma - HD NORM
- KNEE - MID
- Matrix - NORM
- Skin tone - OFF

If you're looking for better color from the HVX then consider the settings above as a jump-off point to start your own tests. I promise that whatever your preferred subject/target is you'll find an amazing color space for it.

Here's the link - right click download/save : http://www.motionzonehd.com/files/footage_upload/HVX_Color_Test.mov

I originally encoded this H.264 as "best" quality but the file was over 300meg, so it was re-encoded at "high" to save Michael some bandwidth; i didn't notice any major quality degredation from the original.

If you have the ability to see this on a plasma monitor in full-screen it will amaze you how good the HVX really is with color.

Enjoy.

PS - Part of the last sequence was shot in VFR, just for fun.

Robert,
While I'm waiting for my clips to download I can't help but ask if this means you've decided the HVX is sharp enough after all.

I have a few questions about the setup , but I'll wait till I've looked.

Leonard,

There's no doubt that the HVX is the least sharp of the sub-$10k HD/HDV cameras. I can tell you it's not the lens; that Leica glass has more resolving power than the chips are able to capture, which stands to reason since it does have the smallest chip array than the rest of the pack. I can't prove the theory, but all my discussions with those crazy Black Forest engineers tell me that's the case and based on my experience with using Leica to EOS adapters, I'm putting my money on that theory.

It's a simple matter of imager real-estate; you can only get so much resolution from any given amount of pixels, period.

Is the HVX "sharp enough"? You decide - for me it will cover 95% of what I shoot. The rest I'll cover with a larger chipset body.

Robert,

Nice Job on that. I liked it all, but the airplane samples were the best, especially with being able to see the heat waves and jet emissions, and the way they all moved around as the plane approached. Combined with the music, I was waiting to see Al Pacino & Robert De Niro run accross the runway.

If it's not too off-topic - what kind of external monitor are you using while adjusting your custom presets?

Thanks for posting that, great information and examples.

Glad you liked it, Derek. Who said something informational in nature can't be fun too!?

I'm always, as in 100% using my Marshall V-R70P-HDA. The built-in LCD has far too little res for focusing and the EVF is even less useful. However, I did balance my Marshall to the flip-out LCD for exposure and contrast, that way I know for sure that what the Marshall shows is correct.

To date, the best flip-out LCD I've ever used is on the Z1 and I hope that Panasonic makes a significant upgrade to their LCD when version "A" of the HVX - if ever created - is released.

In a perfect world, somebody would make a digi-video cam that has a pass-through optical viewfinder just like film cameras have.

In a perfect world, somebody would make a digi-video cam that has a pass-through optical viewfinder just like film cameras have.

I am curious why you would want that. It seams like you would want to see what you were getting laid down on the video track, rather than what it "might" look like. That's what I thought one of the benefits of video was--that assuming a decent viewfinder and/or LCD rendition, you have a better grasp at the time of the shoot as to what you've got.

I am curious why you would want that. It seams like you would want to see what you were getting laid down on the video track, rather than what it "might" look like.

Actually, my thought was an optical pass-thru in additon to an LCD flip-out for quick reference using the LCD for exposure check and the optical for focus/framing. Unless you're in an event situation where light is constantly changing, once you've set the exposure for a scene you typically don't need to worry about it.

But that's all pipe dream stuff anyway, not practical information.

Robert,
Did you try going all out on detail i.e. +7 on detail and perhaps even upping vertical detail (+7?)

Barry Green said that even with detail all the way up on the HVX he thought it never looked over-enhanced and it never looked as enhanced as the other HDV cameras with their detail levels very low or even off in some cases. Hope i'm not misrepresenting him there.

i've never made the comparisons myself.

Hey Robert, those plane shots were absolutely top notch. Really looks like the quality I'd expect in a feature.

www.philipwilliams.com

Leonard,

I didn't try any vertical detail adjustments; I found what I wanted and kept those settings.

Philip,

Glad you liked the sequence; as I mentioned in the post my goal was to find a color space that looked more "chrome-like" from the HVX. I think I got close.

Enclosed are some examples of stills shot with my beloved film cameras from that same vantage point. During the winter months when the sun is in a "better" position we get some very dramatic sunset colors which make for pretty stunning images. These are from my stock library, all shot on E100VS with either the 1V-HS or F5.

Nice work. I've just recently purchased this camera and from all the footage I've seen people shooting on this forum, I'm more and more glad I did buy this camera.

I have a question though, if you don't mind. The knee didn't allow me to change the setting, it remained blue. I've been renting the P2 cards to do my test and don't have one on me right now. So my question is, do I need a P2 card in the slot to be able to change the settings that are in blue?

Again, nice work. Thanks for the sample.

Barry Green said that even with detail all the way up on the HVX he thought it never looked over-enhanced and it never looked as enhanced as the other HDV cameras with their detail levels very low or even off in some cases. Hope i'm not misrepresenting him there.

It's not that it never looks over-enhanced, because there are times that it will. But in general, for general subjects, I find +3 easily acceptable, +5 is usually fine, and +7 can even work but it can get edgy.

In comparison to the other cameras, +7 on the HVX equates to about -6 on the JVC, and +15 on the Sony. The Sony defaults to +11, which equates to about +3 on the HVX. The Canon at minimum was about equivalent to the HVX at -3, but I haven't had a chance to compare further, all I know is that we couldn't get the Canon's edge enhancement down any lower and we had to crank the other cameras up some to match.

Barry,
Thanks for that info. I am curious about a few enhancement issues.

- How do you measure and compare edge enhancement and separate that from inherent sharpness?

- When would you change the vertical detail setting. This one has always been a mystery to me.

- We just got an M2 35mm adapter and have started to experiment with higher detail levels to offset the enherent loss of sharpness from the adapter.
Has anyone played with this?
Any thoughts about whether it will look enhanced?

Just looking at a resolution chart with the M2 and a 50mm Nikkor if I go to +7 on both overall detail and vertical detail, the chart looks considerably sharper without showing any obvious enhancment artifacts. So far I'm just looking on a 17" Panasonic though and still just looking at a chart. So far we're still trying to get an optimum set-up with the M2 ( which is more trouble than I expected.)






Also I'm not that familiar with the Sony. If it defaults at +11, what is the full range of numbers - does it have negative settings?

Mike,
If a setting is in blue, that means it cannot be changed due to some other setting. For example, I believe that the knees cannot be adjusted in the Cine Gamma settings, if you change your gamma, the knee will switch out of blue to a changeable setting.
The P2 card will not affect your ability to change settings.

How do you measure and compare edge enhancement and separate that from inherent sharpness?
Edge enchancement shows up as exaggerated contrast, you can see it on gray to white or black to white transitions. In fact, heavy edge enhancement is easiest to see on a black to white transition, because it'll actually make a white line in the black box and a black line in the white box.

As for judging inherent sharpness, the first thing to do is turn the detail off. It's only truly possible on the JVC, the others don't go to "off" but you can get it extremely low on the Sony and Panasonic; you can't get it that low on the Canon.

Then you shoot the same scene and gauge which is actually resolving more, vs. which is using exaggerated contrast. If you could get both cameras "off" that's how you would judge inherent sharpness. You have to do the best you can by turning them both off or down as low as they'll go, and then if one is appearing edgy (like the Canon would because its minimum edge enhancement is stronger than the others) then you have to dial the other one up a bit until you get it to match.

- When would you change the vertical detail setting. This one has always been a mystery to me.
vertical detail is a finer adjustment than overall detail, and it only affects detail between vertical lines. If you have a situation where you can easily see horizontal edge enhancement (like a white picket fence in front of green hedges) then you may not want to use the overall detail level, but may want to dial up the vertical. You can use both in combination; we're usually more sensitive to resolution increases (and thus contrast increases) in the vertical direction so v-detail gives you an option to fine-tune the image there. Note the original dvx100 didn't even have a v-detail option, it only allowed changing the overall detail level.

Just looking at a resolution chart with the M2 and a 50mm Nikkor if I go to +7 on both overall detail and vertical detail, the chart looks considerably sharper without showing any obvious enhancment artifacts.
Look at the transitions from the black diagonal lines to the (presumably gray-ish) paper; when testing the three cameras at high detail levels I tried to equalize the "white halo" they all exhibited. Ideally you'd want there to be no halo at all if you're aiming to test pure raw resolution, but cranking up the detail lets you discern fine detail easier.

Also I'm not that familiar with the Sony. If it defaults at +11, what is the full range of numbers - does it have negative settings?
No, it goes from 0 to 15. 15 seems about equivalent to HVX +7, and "8" appears about equivalent to HVX +0, so 11 ~= +3 on the HVX. But the Sony gets extremely exorbitantly soft at the bottom end of the scale, artificially so. When Adam Wilt first demonstrated it we spent a while puzzling over exactly what in the world it was doing. I definitely recommend going no lower than 5 on the Sony.

Thanks Barry,
I'll let you know what we discover with the HVX.
I used to look at enhancement on a waveform by looking for little "flags" on the stairs of a chip chart, maybe i'll check that out as well.