The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread

[Steve Struthers]

Originally Posted by Al Bergstein

So my wife and I went out for a little day sail yesterday with friends, on board the 100 year old Adventuress. She is used as an environmental awareness ship, run by the non profit, Sound Experience. I brought along my TM900, not thinking I'd do much filming, but then I remembered my friend John Sparrow's sea chanty, and decided to marry it all up and help them raise money for the 100 year anniversary celebration. Not much forethought here, but enjoy non the less. I think it highlights the little camera quite good. No color correction done on the footage. Rendered out in SD for quick playing on cell phones, etc.

Adventuress - A day on the water on Vimeo

Nicely shot. To me, the sharpness and colour of the images shot with the TM900 look as good as a pro camera could produce. Unless they were told that your video was shot on a consumer-grade camcorder, most people would not think it was shot on anything other than a pro camera. I've just bought a X900, and since it's descended from the TM900, I expect some pretty good results from it. In my estimation, the X900 is basically the same as an AG-AC90 minus all of the physical manual controls, extra viewfinder, XLR mic connections and focus, iris, and zoom rings on the lens.

[Al Bergstein]

Thanks Steve. Yes, other than being able to get that bokeh out of it, I agree. For interviews I prefer the look of the Canon 5D at 85mm. I have to remind myself when I watch the tm900 films that it actually was shot with a TM900 and not my xf305!

[Peter Rush]

I've just bought 2 TM900 cameras as b cams for weddings but can't work out how to have automatic exposure (iris/shutter) but manual white balance - the manual is vague - is there a difference between 'camera function' and iA/Manual ?

I got it to perform like this once but cannot re-create it!

Also i can't find how to switch to 25p recording rather than 50p - this will help me with low light situations

Cheers

Pete

[Colin Rowe]

To have floating iris all you need to do is to set the shutter speed last, ie.
set focus mode
Set white balance
Set shutter (on whatever speed you want)
This will give you a floating iris that will adjust automatically. whilst shutter speed remains locked.
Just select shutter speed last

[Andy Wilkinson]

Peter, works fine on mine. EDIT, I see Colin got the info across far more succinctly than me whilst I was typing all this!

Make sure the camera is in Manual. Get the Menu Icon screen - the one with the 4 Icons on the left hand side of the LCD (Focus at top, then White Balance, then Shutter and then Iris at the bottom). I normally leave my Shutter fixed at 1/50th for poorer lighting scenarios, or at 1/100th for most outdoor stuff. I now only shoot 1080p50 AVCHD2 at 28Mbps with this cam, by the way. The 25p AVCHD footage is very much inferior in quality - only ever used it once (in Mauritius) where I needed about 4-5 hours shooting time to cover an event with limited media available.

Anyway, back to the topic. Just tap the WB (White Balance) icon and set it as desired. If you next tap the Shutter icon and set that to 1/50 (or 1/100 for outdoor) you will see that the cam automatically adjust Iris to cope with varying light conditions (just wave it around to see the effect). I always have the Histogram and Zebras displaying on the screen too, by the way.

What you must be careful NOT to do is tap the Iris icon AFTER you've "set" the shutter speed. Once you've selected the shutter speed the cam will just adjust Iris as required with no further input needed.

This works well for me most of the time as the cam is pretty good at setting exposure automatically with both the shutter speed and white balance "nailed". Often in run-n-gun the auto focus works like a dream too - but is easily switched to manual if needed without upsetting the other items - and the Peaking is great too! [By the way, in bright light situations you'll want to use the Picture Adjust (Page 8 of the Record SetUp Menu when in Manual camera mode) to cut back the the Exposure a bit to stop highlights blowing out too much on the TM900].

I used my TM900 only last night - first time for a few weeks (one of my daughters was in a school play - the EX3 or C100 would attract too much "attention"). Superb hand-held footage with the excellent image stabilisation!

Hope this helps a bit.

[Peter Rush]

Cheers guys - it helps a lot - I've only just started using them as static cameras (I'm a solo wedding shooter) to back up my Sony EA50 - the footage from them edits in nicely!

I've read that it can shoot 25p which would be a great help in low light situations but again the manual is vague with details regarding the recording modes

Cheers

Pete

[Peter Rush]

Guys I'm currently using a GoPro for wide angle but it's really bad in low light - I'm looking for a wide angle adapter for the TM900 and came accross this one

Panasonic DMW-LW46E 46mm Wide Conversion Lens (DMW-LW46E) - Wex Photographic

Does anyone have any experience of it?

Cheers

Pete

[Mike Prendergast]

Peter, I don't have info on the adapter but which GoPro camera are you using? The Hero3 is very good in low light and much improved from the Hero HD (which I've used for several years). I have both the TM900 and Hero3 and the H3 is better in low light especially if you want a wide angle shot.

[Peter Rush]

Hi Mike - For weddings the Hero 3 (silver edition) is fine for the ceremony etc but really poor for the evening reception/first dance where there is little light (disco lights and my on-camera light) - The TM900 beats it hands down but is just not wide enough

[Peter Riding]

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Guys I'm currently using a GoPro for wide angle but it's really bad in low light - I'm looking for a wide angle adapter for the TM900 and came accross this one

Panasonic DMW-LW46E 46mm Wide Conversion Lens (DMW-LW46E) - Wex Photographic

Does anyone have any experience of it?

Cheers

Pete

Search Ebay UK using this string:
"46mm 0.45x wide angle"
and you'll find a selection of wide angle addons that fit the TM900. I bought one 2 years ago and its surprisingly good. And dirt cheap.

Pete

[Andy Wilkinson]

Hi Pete Rush,

There is some info about wide angle adapters way back on Pages 8 and 9 of this huge TM900 Users thread. Hope this helps!

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Guys I'm currently using a GoPro for wide angle but it's really bad in low light - I'm looking for a wide angle adapter for the TM900 and came accross this one

Panasonic DMW-LW46E 46mm Wide Conversion Lens (DMW-LW46E) - Wex Photographic

Does anyone have any experience of it?

Cheers

Pete

[Peter Rush]

Does anyone know how to turn off Dolby 5.1 on the TM900? Premier Pro does not like it - it won't visualise the waveform - not a big thing but helps when quickly syncing audio.

Pete

[Andy Wilkinson]

I have mine set up with just stereo sound - trouble is I am out looking through my telescope at Jupiter in a freezing cold field right now with my elder daughter and some friends. There is definitely a menu option for it accessible perhaps when you disable the iAuto function - In case you made that mistake - only ever use that by accident! Wish I could disable that button permanently.

Have a dig around in the setup menus. Someone on the warm with their TM900 can help if not!

[Tom Hardwick]

Yes. Turn off iA.

[Mike Prendergast]

You can change the Mic setting by:

Set to Manual
Menu - Record Setup - MIC SETUP - [select option]

Pg 74 of the manual describes all the options but Stereo is one choice.