New Sony 320 Vs. JVC GY-HM790

[Mike James]

Guys/Gals,

I was wondering if you can help me out. We had one of our managers go to NAB. He is sold on the JVC GY-HM790 for our news department. I have no problem with JVC, but i am trying to persuade him to lean towards purchasing the new Sony 320 camera with stock lens. I just think the 1/2" compared to 1/3" chips will be a huge factor for us in low light situations. Plus Sony is rumored to be coming out with a 2x digital extender upgrade in fall.

I guess I am looking for suggestions to persuade him to look seriously into the new Sony shoulder mount cameras for news gathering.

Thanks!

[Steve Phillipps]

Not sure what is meant by digital extender? If that means it magnifies the image digitally it's a waste of time -just do it in post (and accept that it'll look horrible either way - this is home video handycam territory).

Yes you'll get a little more low light performance from the Sony, and more resolution as it has twice as many pixels on the chip. Only big plus for the JVC is that it's CCD vs CMOS.

Steve

[Doug Jensen]

Don't be so quick to damn the digital extender until you have seen it. A few months ago I would have said the same thing. But the PDW-F800 has a digital extender and I like it so much that I spent a couple of minutes during my 1/2 hour NAB F800 presentation at the Sony booth showing just how good the digital extender looked. It's not perfect, but it looks pretty good -- and much better than magnifying the image in post. In fact, I'd even go so far to say that it looks very close to the same quality as the optical extender on my Fujinon 22x7.6 lens -- with the added benefit that there is no loss of light. If I can find the time, I'll post the sample video I played at NAB. I'm not saying the digital extender of the 320 will be as good, I'm just suggesting that you might want to keep an open mind until you have a chance to see it.

Getting back to the original question, the 1/2" chips of the 320 are all the reason you need to skip the JVC. Any other benefits are just icing on the cake.

[Steve Phillipps]

Nonsense!
If it's what I know as a digital extender all it can do is double up the pixels - how else can it do it? And in that case it's exactly the same as doing it in post. They've been around for years on cheapo camcorders - 10x optical zoom and 40x digital zoom etc.
The evidence is in your post - close to the same as the optical extender but no light loss, exactly - there's no such thing as a free lunch.
If I'm mistaken and they are doing something entirely different than I apologise - just can't see how else it could be done.
Steve

[Marc Myers]

There's software that does a remarkable job of up-rezing still photos using fractals. Starting with less information you can't get more but it's amazing what holding down the jaggies and smooth shading can do. I've not idea how much power that would take to fix video in real time however. Seems formidable.

[Steve Phillipps]

Yes Marc, exactly what you'd do in post. But it still won't come close to doing it optically. That's why we pay £30,000 for an HJ40x14 rather than £10,000 for an HJ18x7.6 and zooming it in in post.
Steve

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Steve Phillipps

Nonsense!

Steve, I guess you are correct. Even though I've seen it with my own eyes, I suppose you're right. Thank you for correcting me. That's what's great about the internet, people can correct other people on something they've never even seen or tried for themselves. Are there any other settings on my F800 that you haven't tired that I should ask you about? I'm doubting my own judgement on everything now. Thanks.

[Steve Phillipps]

As I said, I apologise if I'm completely mistaken about how it's being done, but it's common sense that if it's being digitally zoomed then all that can be done is doubling up of the pixels and then some interpolation. It'll NEVER be anywhere close to doing it optically.
And if you're going to post footage on the web to illustrate the difference then that tells its own story - you can never see any meaningful difference on web content.
In fact, there's another even bigger benefit to this miracle that you've missed out - not only do you not get any light less, but you don't get any extra haze to soften the image either!!! The extra haze comes with the extra magnification through the lens, so at 200mm you'll get twice as much as you would at 100mm, and it can soften things a lot. Now you can just shoot at 100mm and dobule it up without doubling the haze.
You've sold me, I'll sell the HJ40 and buy an 800.
Steve

[Steve Phillipps]

ps Not sure I deserved quite that level of sarcasm?

Steve

[Doug Jensen]

Nonsense! (just to use your own words and tone)

One thing's for sure, I'll think twice before offering any comments again. Why waste my valuable time? You know, not everything has to be a debate -- especially when one person's opinion are purely based on speculation rather than actual observation.

[Steve Phillipps]

Your tone is way way over the top Doug.
It's not purely speculation, I've seen digital extenders on other cameras. If you'll actually read my posts you'll see that I say that I'm only assuming the 800 is doing it in the same way as others as I can't see how else it could be done. And I pre-apologised if I was mistaken, and was happy to be corrected and shown how it could be done.
After that I was merely following common sense - look at what your saying and tell me it does not seem like a miracle. How is this not earth-shaking news, and why have the wildlife producers all over the world not sold their cameras and big lenses and all bought 800s?

It's the same thing as saying that the overcranking on the 800 looks as good as the 25P and 30P stuff even though we know they only have half the vertical resolution. You're not saying that as well are you?

And finally, I have used the 800, and the 700 as well as Varicams, F900, HDW750, Phantom HD and all manner of high end cams (and owned many of them).

Steve

ps I apologise for the word "Nonsense!" I didn't mean you were talking it, just that it's the thought that came into my mind when I heard what had been said, I was thinking "surely that must be nonsense"

[Doug Jensen]

Steve, apology accepted. No harm done.

As I pointed out 7 times a day in my NAB presentation, digital extender is probably not good enough for use in a high-end Discovery Channel, BBC, or NatGeo production. But that's not what we all shoot everyday. For some purposes, especially for breaking news, the digital extender can look better than you think it would. I have no idea what Sony is doing "under the hood" to make it work, nor do I care, but it is worth keeping an open mind about. That's all I'm saying. Do you really think Sony would put a feature like this on a $40,000 camera if it didn't have more going for it than just maginifying the image? Something else is going on within the camera.

Also, if you want the full truth, I think the digital extender sometimes looks better than the optical extender of my $21,000 Fujinon 22x7.6. That is especially apparent if I can't get the expsoure smaller than about f/5.6. The optical extender just doens't look that great when the lens is wide open.

The bottom line is that both the optical and digital extenders provide sub-standard images in even the best situations and I use them very rarely in the type of shooting I do. The only reason I'm so familiar with the difference between the two is because I spent a lot of time testing them while writing my F800/700 field guide. If it wasn't for that, I'd probably just written it off as crap like you did. But now that I know better, all I'm saying is keep an open mind. And if digital extender is imporant to the OP, then it might be worth considering when making a purchase decision. Maybe he doesn't want to spend $10K - $20K for another lens just to get an extender that might not be any better than the digital extender the camera offers for free.

[Steve Phillipps]

I'm especially critical because I DO shoot for BBC etc. every day.
That's more like the results I would expect, hence the confusion. My initial thoughts were exactly what you've said - that it'd be good enough for news when you could sacrifice quality for the shot content and didn't have time to do it in post. Saying it was good as the optical extender is what threw me.
I'm not in agreement with you regarding the optical extenders on lenses. It's just not true to say that "optical and digital extenders provide sub-standard images in even the best situations", unless your lens is broken. It's true to say that optical extenders degrade the image, yes, but with good lenses and at reasonable apertures they should give more than acceptable results even for high end work. We use lenses with the 2x extenders on more than off in wildlife work, and series like Planet Earth are full of shots like this. In almost all the lenses I've used (most notably Canon HJ40 and HJ18x28m but also standard lenses like HJ22) the image with the 2x extender wide open is poor. Stop it down to between about f4 and f8 and it's much much more than acceptable.
I also stand by the idea that there is nothing that the extender can possibly, by the laws of physics, be doing in camera that can't be done just as well, or better, in post. Again, unless I'm much mistaken, it's only software after all. Does anyone know anything different?
Steve

[Paul Cronin]

I was also very surprised when I tried the digital extender and the optical extender on my F800 the same day about 15 times each. It was just a day of testing and late in the day when the light was getting low I was surprised to see the digital extender seemed to give better results. The optical was loosing too much light and I would have been wide open and even needing gain. When using both I was 90-100% zoomed.

Now to have a 40x or a 25x16.5 yea sign me up but it is not in the budget yet. I am renting a HA25 x 16.5 and their optical stabilizer for some upcoming long work. Will be interesting to see how both optical and digital work on that lens. Can't hurt to try.

Either way Mike back to your question the digital extender will help in a pinch for news. And before my F800 I owned the 350 and it is a great low light camera which will also help on your job.

[Steve Phillipps]

What lens Paul, and how were you evaluating the results?
Steve