sharpness exptectations - ??

[Forrest Jerome]

i had to replace my sony vx1000 because sony stopped writing drivers of any kind, including for my mac.

i decided to go HD and based on some reviews got the VIXIA HV30.

i need some help setting expectations. the video image is not a sharp as i would expect, even when played directly to an HDTV via HDMI. there seems to be a certain "softness" that doesn't seem right.

this is the case even when i use manual focus with focus assist on a tripod with an object about 2 meters away.

when i shoot a person, zoomed into the face, the features (eyes, for instance) are soft, not sharp.

now i realize that i am used to still images produced by my EOS-1D MkII post processed with Aperture, but still...

[Forrest Jerome]

surely SOMEONE can give me some feedback on this? how sharp is your HV30 video image?

[Roger Van Duyn]

Hi, this is my first post to the forums. I have two HV30s. Generally autofocus is pretty good, and focus assist with manual focus is even better, but the tiny LCD on the camera doesn't always give a good enough image to judge focus. It just doesn't have enough pixels in its display. For that reason, my last two shoots I've used a 22 inch widescreen LCD monitor with each of the HV30s while shooting. One monitor has HDMI input, the other monitor doesn't, so I use a HDMI to DVI adapter.

Whenever I use these big monitors, it's easy to tell if I have sharp focus. It's more to carry to the shoot, but it does give better results. By the way, people at the shoot are impressed when they see the setup. Tripods, headphones, shotgun microphones, lens hoods, and big monitors with the HV30s. The HV30s are great cameras, but they look like a toy by themselves. They give a great image, but only if focused properly. A big monitor helps when focusing.

Hope this helps.

[Tripp Woelfel]

Originally Posted by Forrest Jerome

the video image is not a sharp as i would expect, even when played directly to an HDTV via HDMI. there seems to be a certain "softness" that doesn't seem right.

Doesn't sound right to me either. I have an HV30, HV10 and XH A1. The CMOS units come pretty darn close to the A1. I can think of a couple of things. First, try adjusting the shutter speed to close up the iris a bit. Keeping the iris setting around 4 will result in a sharper image than a wide open iris. Since you cannot easily directly adjust both iris and shutter you have to fiddle around a bit.

The second thought is that your cam might be a bit off and a check by Canon whilst still under warranty might be worthwhile. I think this quite unlikely though. Canon make excellent product and their QC is quite high.

[Tom Hardwick]

I think I'd go with Tripp's diagnosis and say that something must surely be up with your Canon. It's not been dropped? When you look deep into the lens no visible imperfections strike you?

The HV30 has a well-deserved following, and a lot of that is based arond the thoughts that picture quality like this should cost twice as much.

tom.

[Forrest Jerome]

camera undropped. lens is pristine.

here is a clip. tell me if you think it is as sharp as it should be. manual focus is on the position when the engine is is center camera. this was not a well lit shot. this is a big file and will play faster than it will stream.

http://homepage.mac.com/fjerome/flix/Nasa640360mp4.mov

[Buba Kastorski]

to my eye it's not as sharp as hv30 CAN be, first of the shot was against the day light which does make it look softer, also it looks a bit overexposed, one more thing could be a compession that changes sharpness of the footage, you might look into that too,
have you tried to hook it straight to TV, preferably via hdmi cable , try that and see if it looks better,
let us know