GS400 vs. PDX10 ?

[Boyd Ostroff]

These frame grabs show the full range of sharpness adjustment on the PDX-10: http://greenmist.com/dv/pdxsharp. Personally I find the default setting (at the center of the "slider") excessively sharp. This is really a matter of personal preference I suppose, but I dislike the over-enhanced edge effect and prefer a softer image with a more pleasing tone. But that's why they give you the adjustment.

The GS-400 sounds nice though, and if it had been available a year and a half ago when I got my PDX-10 I certainly would have considered it. However I have no regrets with the PDX-10. Right now I'm in the process of editing about 25 hours of performance video and continue to be be completely satisfied with this little camera. Sure, there are things that I would like to see improved, but realistically I know that I'd have to spend much more money to get up to the next quality level. The XL-2 looks really interesting along these lines, but of course it costs $5,000...

[Kaku Ito]

I didn't realize there was a question for me here, Allan.

I can't really say about sharpness comparison between HC1000 and GS400.
If you compare the sharpness between GS400 and PDX10 on my comparison file (60i), PDX10 seems to have edge enhancement and GS400 does not. When you watch them on my projector with 120 inch size, the edge enhancement look really annoying, but when you watch it on say 32 inch TV monitor, there are not much difference.

The smearing of PDX10 was not acceptable to me. It really wasted my opportunities multiple times in shooting moutainbike racing in the mountain (direct sunlight coming in, somewhat dark in the woods, riders are so fast).


Maybe I should post a couple of files from my shooting from last year (PDX10) and this year (GS100). To tell you the result under the similar shooting condition, PDX10's smearing looks like thick straight line and GS100's looked acceptable.

I will have little more time to catch up with editing for you folks here (sorry, mark, I'll do the shooting in front of my house soon). I had to do XL2 stuff and my business got busy. I also have to ride my bike sometimes otherwise I would look like a poser having those nice bikes(lol). I have four days off this weekend so please wait.

[Kurth Bousman]

hello Kaku- Are you saying the gs400 does not have the smearing problem in contrasty situations that was on the PDX10 ? and doesn't the PDX10 have sharpness adjustment like Boyd was saying so you can turn that edge enhancement down ? thanks -Kurth

[Kaku Ito]

Kurth, I will look through my PDX10 and let you know.

[Boyd Ostroff]

The PDX-10 lets you adjust the following things in custom preset:

Color Level
Sharpness
White Balance Shift
Auto Exposure Shift
Auto Gain Control Limit

We projected PDX-10 images on a 44 foot wide screen (that would be 51 foot diagonal!) and everyone felt it looked good (including the reviewer. :-) But I had sharpness turned all the way down. I further softened some sequences with a mist filter plug-in in FCP. We were going for sort of a dreamy effect though. I agree, the default sharpening on the PDX-10 is too much. See my link in the previous post for examples

One of the biggest factors in smear on the PDX-10 is the shutter speed. If you have the camera set on auto under bright conditions it may increase shutter speed which can greatly aggravate this problem. Sometimes it's necessary to use an external ND filter so you can shoot at 1/60 (or 1/50 PAL) in full sunlight. Keep the shutter locked at 1/60 (it should show in the viewfinder) and it can help a lot. The only time I've gotten smear is from shooting directly into the sun, and that can cause the solid stripe you're describing.

[Kaku Ito]

Lately, I'm looking into DCR-HC1000 to compare with GS400 and PDX10.
Since PDX10 provides slower shutter speed, but GS400 doesn't, HC1000 offers manual zoom ring (like GS400) and slower shutter speed down to 1/4 at the same time. Sony development team claims that HC1000 has more dynamic range. I'm planning of borrowing it from sony to check out how well it works.

[Carlos E. Martinez]

<<<-- Originally posted by Kaku Ito : Lately, I'm looking into DCR-HC1000 to compare with GS400 and PDX10.
Since PDX10 provides slower shutter speed, but GS400 doesn't, HC1000 offers manual zoom ring (like GS400) and slower shutter speed down to 1/4 at the same time. Sony development team claims that HC1000 has more dynamic range. I'm planning of borrowing it from sony to check out how well it works. -->>>


Those comments are something I am certainly waiting for.


Carlos

[Kaku Ito]

Carlos,

I have not received the loaner for HC1000, but when I went to check it out at Sakuraya Camera, the zoom ring and the balance of the camera felt better than my GS400. They have the comparison between HC1000 and VX2100 on the catalog, HC1000 seems to have all of the key features of VX2100. The big difference is the 1/3 & 1/4.7 CCD, but HC1000 can do high-res 16:9. Since PDX10 does not have switchable zoom ring feature, then I purchased GS400s, but since progressive thing was not big deal to me (I shoot donwhill mountainbikes and need interlaced or 60p), HC1000 could have been better choice to me.

I will find out when I get the loaner from Sony.

[Kurth Bousman]

Boyd - rereading this thread , I was wondering what you used to project the 40 foot image? - I also love projectors ( nec vt 540 , 3 x lightware vp800 and an old sony crt 1031q ) and that's the other half of the equation , after all. thanks - Kurth

[Kaku Ito]

HC1000 was not anything to be excited about. GS400 is way better camera.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Kurth, we had some serious iron... a pair of Barco SLM-R10's (10,000 lumens, 1280x1024): http://www.barco.com/Presentation/en...p?element=1283