PXW-Z150 4K night ENG examples

[Paul Anderegg]

Here are a couple of 4K clips shot at night in 4K 100mbps mode at high gain. I am using a new PP based on the STANDARD color mode with REC709 gamma, using color correction (for color 1 only, color 2 off) settings from my old X70 PP color correction post, and blacks at +2.

The roll-over was shot at 0 level detail, the footage with the white van I set detail to +2. Let me know if you think the colors look more accurate than the old stuff I posted using REC709 color mode.

YouTube (Short URL)

YouTube (Short URL)

[Paul Anderegg]

Here is another 4K clip story.........at 1:00 in, there is a sideways police car at 33db gain, not bad, the RAW looked very clean considering.

YouTube (Short URL)

[Antony Tsioukas]

33db... in my dream... yeap it looks very clean from noise. Only in few shots I detect a small noise. I know that YouTube encoding lose something, but very impressive.

Paul, just a small question, did you use remote control device, if someone use it from the back of camera, is it works? The only think I believe for this camera is the top menu. You can’t use it on tripods. Even if you use a “blind” system to detect buttons (this is the easy part) you need to have your hand on top for a lot of time and this is comfortless.

P.S. If someone need cleaner images for that price, just buy an infrared cam ;) (or just enable this feature in z150)

[Paul Anderegg]

I don't hate the top menu buttons as much as some people seem to........I had an X180 and X200, and ALWAYS preferred to use the same top style menu controls rather than the side ones, which I could never get sued to. I never raise the camera higher than is necessary to put my eye to the EVF.......so the buttons are normally accessible to me.

They really should have put the X70 little hand grip thumb joystick toggle thing on the Z150, it really was nice to be able to record zoom shoot and make menu selections all with only one hand.....at the same time!

Paul

[Antony Tsioukas]

Top menu is useful if you want to have the camera in your hand to control all settings. Yes, you can set the tripod in lower level for initial settings on your event, but if you need to change something during the recording isn’t useful.

Usually I set my cameras on highest level of my tripods (to avoid audience), and that means that the top menu position is over 2 meters (about 79 inches).

I am tall so I don’t have much problem to reach my hand up there and I don’t need to see the buttons to use it (there isn’t a lot on z150). But I think that an extra small joystick (as you said) on the side for quick settings, is useful. (For example to format SD cards on relay recording.)

But top menu isn’t something that avoid me to buy this camera, it’s all about “ok they made a very good camera, but why they don’t think that, it’s a pity”

[Paul Anderegg]

Here is a 4K still from some footage I shot last night at reasonably high gain level......click it open for full screen. :-)

[Dan Gunn]

Awesome.

Paul, I wish you would post a final recap of your X70 profiles!!! I lost track.

[John Nantz]

Hey Paul!

It looks like you might have some up-and-coming competition back east!

"9-year-old reporter breaks crime news, posts videos, fires back at critics”

Really neat. They’re starting ‘em young now.
(didn’t want to post the URL in here but a search brings up numerous hits)

-= John =-

P.S. Oh, and by the way, that’s a good looking photo.

[Paul Anderegg]

John, we ran a story on her a couple of months ago, she's pretty mouthy! :-D

Dan, for the most part, all of these 4K examples were shot using my STANDARD color mode settings. I am actually going back to my REC709 color mode settings, because I am just feeling standard was a bit too undersaturated for the XDCAM 420 codec I have been using for speedier processing. For processing, the most I want to have to do is adjust black levels. I have this annoying need to have absolute black along side 500 shades of 0-20% IRE black. :-D

See the X70 picture profiles post for the basic color correction menu settings for the various color modes. I should note, that you should definitely play around with master PHASE to get the picture to look right. My REC709 color corrections put yellow firefighter jackets and police tape right on the yellow vector box in my NLE, but they look absolutely greenish in the viewfinder and in the preview panel...............

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

Dan, here is something I shot in REC709 this morning, using indoor preset white balance.....in 4K of course.

YouTube (Short URL)

[Dan Gunn]

Paul, that is amazing....in more than one respect! Are you working from a tripod? As a private investigator,
I have shot stills alongside of network journalists using very high end cameras. Later, I saw some of their footage. I honestly can say your stuff looks better or at least as good.

[John Nantz]

Originally Posted by Paul Anderegg

John, we ran a story on her a couple of months ago, she's pretty mouthy! :-D

That’s too bad about her, what?, attitude? Good to hear your station was ahead of the other media though.

Question: after watching and listning to the clip I got to wondering (Uh oh!). Where the cam is at a distance so one can keep out of the way of the responders, what about the idea of using some kind of smallish parabolic reflector with a mic to pick up the vocal audio better? Just did a quick search on eBay for “parabolic mic” and there are some el-cheapo ones that might be able to improve on the audio from a distance.

While the cheap ones listed are handheld and not a Sony/AT/Sennheiser model, if something like that could work then maybe something better could be rigged up to work with a better mic and a bracket mount. Just putting one’s hand up to the ear really improves the audio db so one would think that even a really small reflector should give some good improvement. Is this something that a solo ENG shooter would use?

There doesn’t seem to be anything on the market for someone doing the kind of work like you’re doing. The other extreme is the larger dishes for sports and wildlife audio.

[Paul Anderegg]

I actually own a Sanken CS3e shotgun mic, $1500 list at B&H. I used to run with it, but they have me doing these things called "look lives" at my station, that require me to walk around talking to the camera narrating a clip that will then go onto Facebook and on air. This means I have to flip my SHORT shotgun around and shove it under my handle to point at my mouth, not as easy to do with the longer Sanken.

Here is a clip though of what is possible with an off the shelf high end shotgun microphone at a distance. Please note that the mans voice ss till legible above the drone of idling police cruisers. Not the cleanest audio in the world, but the fact you can understand him is pretty amazing.

YouTube (Short URL)

[John Nantz]

After writing post #12 I got to thinking (again) that probably the station would be doing a voice over of what was going on and any other aural stuff would be close-up interviews, so that’s interesting about the push to “look lives.” That’ll be something I’ll look for now when watching the news. It seems to me that will be a lot more work for the one-man-band shoots; a lot more workload. The good part, but not for the ENG, is the studio people sitting at the desk will be able to look over their next report while your work is being aired.

Hopefully you don’t trip on something while handling the cam, mic, figuring out what to say, and doing everything at once. Yesterday I watched a gal walking across the intersection (no crosswalk) while fixated on her cell phone, I think texting, and with cars whizzing by. So long shal ye live.

The short shotgun shot was impressive with what it was picking up. When I first got the Sennheiser ME66 I tested it across the back yard and it amazed me how well it did, too, so the shotguns are suprisingly good that way, but like you said, not the cleanest but there is a time and a place for them.

Looked like the guy holding his hand up didn’t want his face in the picture but finally gave up.

On the previous video, how in the world do these people do stuff like drive through brick walls? Drugs, drunk? And the front end of the car didn’t even look very damaged in spite of it. There were concrete blocks everywhere! Do I feel safe riding my bike along the road shoulder “protected" only by a 4-inch fog line? No way!

[Paul Anderegg]

Yeah, the "look lives" I do are me basically walking through a scene narrating the story as i am shooting it. If at all possibly, I am actually recording these reports before emergency crews arrive, while flames are still shooting from houses etc. This is where a good light handheld camera with ACTIVE SteadyShot comes in handy, you need to be able to point in the general direction of what you are talking about while looking in the opposite direction to walk around the scene. I have only taken a spill once. It was on an active crash scene in a construction zone, and I tripped over the dark lips of a forklift (at ankle level in the dark) and went to the ground, lots of scrapes and blood. The Z150 was spared even the slightest damage.........as many of you can attest, you have a tendency to throw your body and flesh under the camera to protect your investment.....heh.

So it is very rare for me to take the time to tripod some 4K video, and using the live streaming built into the X70 and Z150, the news desk actually watches me shooting my b-roll as I shoot it. The Z150 will live stream 720p while recording 4K if i am not mistaken?

Paul