Some hpx-301E test shots on vimeo

[Gary Nattrass]

First test shots from Saturday:Windmills at Cornsay Durham UK on Vimeo

Opening shot is my pub from a mile away and final shot is slomo in final cut.

Second test shots from Sunday:Derwent Resevoir UK on Vimeo

Both sequences were shot at 1920x1080i 50i avcintra 100.
Imported to pro res 422 and edited in final cut pro export was done at 1920x1080i 25p and then dropped to apple tv mp4 at 5mbs for upload to vimeo.

Next sequence will be at 1920x1080i 25np and I will load into final cut at pro res 422 HQ

All the clips I have loaded to web for streaming from the HDV cameras always go darker and look more black but the 301 clips are balanced and pretty close to what I am seeing on the full res files albeit at very low bit rates so the detail has gone.
It will be interesting to see what happens when I shoot native 25p as I now appreciate that I have been losing resoloution by doing 25p in software.

A further video here:Messing about on the water on Vimeo
Shot on a canon HV-20

[Tom Klein]

Hi gary,

Very Nice work indeed, what set of sticks are you using.. that's about all I could fault from your clips, "unsteady" on the odd long shot.
Love to have some green like your backyard downunder here....our average annual rainfall locally is 10inches.

Cheers

[Gary Nattrass]

I only have a manfrotto 503 at the moment so not ideal, it was also quite windy so it was probably more down to me than the sticks.

Looking to get a vinten or sachler tripod in time.

[Tom Klein]

I reckon you only ever buy a tripod every ten plus years, I have a Vinten Vision 11, I love it, I've had manfrottos, they were big n heavy and clunky, still use it in the sudio for static shots, it's useless in the field.
Millers fall to bits as you use them and the service is pitiful and expensive. The Vinten has carbon fibre legs and has served me very well in this dry part of the world, its now 3yo and going strong.

Cheers

[Simon Denny]

Hi Gary,
Looks good.

Why do you convert to ProRes 422 25p? and is this done as a Quicktime file.

Regards

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by Simon Ash

Hi Gary,
Looks good.

Why do you convert to ProRes 422 25p? and is this done as a Quicktime file.

Regards

I know I know this is the old workflow that I had with my Z7 and S270 as they do not do native progressive properly.

I am now shooting everything in native progressive at avc intra 100 1920x1080i 25np and keeping this as the output format from final cut.

I have had my arse kicked by the tech people in he know and I am now seeing the benefits of not using software to do my progressive files.

The workflow is also a lot quicker as there is not as much number crunching at output from FCP I am also now using pro res 422 HQ.
It all seems very smooth and even on an i-mac with firewire 800 drives, a mac pro is on its way though as I think I may run into problems with multiple streams at these data rates.

[Mike Tapa]

Nice images Gary.

Have you tried a Nikon lens on it yet?

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by Mike Tapa

Nice images Gary.

Have you tried a Nikon lens on it yet?

Not yet Mike I wanted to get familiar with the camera first, I will do some long lens and macro shooting this weekend.

[Gary Nattrass]

A further sequence shot in avc-intra 100 1920x1080i 25np
Panasonic AG-HPX301E Test 4 on Vimeo
This shows shallow DOF with the stock fujinon but I am still getting to grips with this manual lens so my focus pulling is not hugely accurate.

[Eric Marin]

Hi everybody and forgive my poor english. As you are a HPX301 owner, Gary, I'd like to ask you only one question. Here in France, the pre-release of the 301 has shown some limitations in low light or in dark areas even in good illumination. This, even after they correct the Master Pedesteal's bad setting. The fact is there are 'dancing black dots' on some scenes. When I watch your excellents vimeo clips, I don't see anything like this. Do you see this problem on the original clips, do they disappear because of the mp4 compression? Or, you don't see anything like this?
Thanks for your feed back!

[Gary Nattrass]

Hi Eric I havent seen any bad black dots so far and the pictures look very clean.

I do have the 301 set up to a modified specification on the scene files and the low light performance seems to be very good.

I have just shot some low light sunset baloon shots so will try to post a clip later for you to see.

[Eric Marin]

Thanks for your very quick answer. So that will confirm some pre-release 301 are not like the production ones et for us it's a good news, because that was the big point. I'd like to ask you two more questions.
First, what are the modified settings in scene file?
Second, as I work on CS4 (wich does not support AVC-Intra yet), could you tell me how "ergonomic" is the editing on FCP (with or without Proress conversion)? Does AVC-Intra is as fast to edit than DVC-Pro HD? Does it need a "super calculator"?
Really thanks from french user because we don't have here a lot of feed-back, but we have a lot of expectations!

[Gary Nattrass]

Eric I have sent you an e-mail but briefly the modifications to the scene file 6 are:
Detail -4
Chroma level -4
Master ped +3
Gamma Cine like D
Skin tone detail off
V detail freq Thin
low gain -3
mid gain +3
High gain +6

Here is a quick shot from last night:http://www.vimeo.com/5270140

Import into FCP is superb and I transcode to pro res as the files go in, it is then very easy to edit in FCP even on my i-mac and macbook pro. The master pro res output is very quick as well.