HMC40 as first HD or....

[George Van Noy]

I've been shooting SD with satisfactory results for a long time, dvx100a rented, and my trusty Sony 350 which has proven better than you'd think.

My uses are stage performances, improv philosophy, i.e. no jumping around, and exterior daylight walking towards camera with wireless mikes.

I'm ready for HD.

I'm very excited by the HMC40, but bear with me. I'm also excited, like many others, by the GH1.

GH1, better WA, more inconspicuous, interhangeable lenses. HMC40 better quality? faster lens, must have WA attachment.

I realize the two cameras are very different. Yet I'd like some advice as to what pros and cons are relative to the two.

I know over in the GH1 people are using it for making a commercial look. Any advice from here would be terrific.

By the way, I use Avid Media Composer, and expect to transcode to DNXHD, and I am totally ok with double system sound if necessary, so these issues are non existent for me. I also have Vegas 8.

Also, I simply don't care about 24p at all. I come from a feature film background, so if I want film look, I'll shoot it. Video is fine for me. Lighting is where I'll put my creative mark, along with composition and content.

Thanks for your help
George Van Noy

[Tom Hardwick]

The HMC40 may have a faster lens than anything you'd put on the GH1, but even so it's tiny ¼" chips make it very so-so in low light. It also has a feeble (41 mm equiv) wide-angle coverage, so everyone has to buy a wide converter on day one. Panasonic - what were you thinking?

I suspect the HMC will be the better movie-making tool (you can plug XLR mics straight in, for instance) but the very short focal lengths and the fact that you have no control over the internal and auto ND filtration makes differential focus very difficult to achieve.

You shooting sounds fairly straight - good light, controlled conditions. I'd think the GH might be your best bet - then you can use it to take decent stills as well.

tom.

[George Van Noy]

To Tom
Thanks for your comments.

I am always concerned with the usual poor WA out of the box on video cameras. That's why the GH1 begins to look so good.

Also, the small chips, 1/4". My question is the GH1 micro 4/3 system chip, what is the correct way to think about its size compared to the 3 x 1/4" of the HMC40?

Also, why is it that manufacturers seem to be able to utilize bigger chips for DSLR than video cameras? Is this just inertia and salesmanship?

The GH1 looks a little like a Scarlet teaser device. (I hope, since it's looking more like I'll get it rather than the HMC40).

Thanks
George Van Noy

[Tom Hardwick]

¼" chips are minuscule George. 3.3 mm x 2.47 mm - far smaller than a Super-8 frame for instance. So when you cram these chips with megapixels (to give HD output) you have to accept that each rgb pixel is so tiny it can't gather much light.

I don't have the chip dimensions for the GH1 but I'm thinking it's APS-c, something like that? Whatever it is, it'll be huge in comparison to the HMC40's.

Bigger chips could be used in video cameras, but big chips mean big, heavy, expensive lenses, and especially so if you want 20x zooms that are fast, sharp, and start out at a decent wide-angle.

Panasonic are now using 1"/8 th chips (!) in some of their camcorders. Such very tiny chips allow them to have 70x optical zooms, but Panasonic keep pretty quiet about the max aperture at full tele. As you would.

tom.

[Robin Miller]

I've dealt with some of the "but my still camera does great vdeo" folks, but for hard-core, on-tripod, follow-the-stage-movement video, with sound, I'd choose the HMC150. I have mine on a Manfrotto 701 "yes I know it's not a true fluid" head controlled by an extra-long (30") pan handle I made from a piece of 13mm aluminum tubing with a Libec zoom controller next to the handgrip. Great, low-fatigue shooting for up to 3 hours, even when I have my legs set to their full 7'+ height so I can shoot over an audience, and I'm either on the ground or standing on a short stool.

You can do the same thing with the HMC40, but you will *not* get as good performance in low light.

HMC "challenging light conditions" test:
YouTube - Sex On Wheels ~ The Boneshakers Live at the Gator Club, Sarasota Florida

This would have been WAY worse with an HM40.

And filming a whole 2-hour set on a DSLR form-factor camera, with people bumping into the tripod, on a tall tripod with no remote? I don't even want to think about it.

I work a lot in bars and boxing gyms, and often record l-o-n-g shows. This colors my thinking -- and often washes out my color when the band doesn't want me to use additional light... :)

[Tom Hardwick]

Your CCDs handled the strobe lighting well too, Robin. I wonder what a CMOS camera would have made of that?

[Bob Diaz]

Rapid strobe flashes would likely appear as bright horizontal bars across the screen. However, the longer the exposure, the less the appearance of the horizontal bars.

Bob Diaz