F350 Arrived

[Michael Devlin]

Simon, There is a knee aperture setting, I have not played with it yet. I will try white clip off with cinegamma curves and see what happens.

[Michael Devlin]

Kevin, you can get a sense relative noise from the green screen clips we posted (H1 was at 0db, F350 was at -3db). The background matte was clearest on the two XLH1 shots, but there was less edge crawl on the F350 than the XLH1 HDV shot (and even less on the XLH1 HDSDI shot).

[Simon Wyndham]

Remember to turn the DCC on with the white clip off. That way it should should clip. Turning off the white clip on its own will have no effect unless the gamma curve goes over 100ire.

One curious thing I noticed is that the 3xx cameras do not allow control over the level of the 100% zebras. They stay locked at 100ire.

[Simon Wyndham]

Michael, how do you find the look of the 350 using STD gamma? I just tried inserting a shot from the SD XDCAM into the music video. Both cameras were using the same type of gamma. What was very apparent (and I thought this when I first played back the XDCAM HD footage without comparison) is that the XDCAM HD has a really nice 'warm' look to it. Very good with skin tones.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Michael Devlin

The above link to the Chroma Key test does not seem to work completely reliably. You can go to the home page (http://www.redhawk-development.com/) then browse to Features and then Chroma Key Test.

I fixed your link in the earlier post. You had an extra character in there. Link works now. Thanks for all the info on this camera. I have been keenly interested in this thing since it was announced. I have already watched the demo footage on Sony's site. Pretty nice stuff. There is supposedly a 2/3 version of the XDCAM HD forthcoming that will provide true 4:2;2 out the HDSDI port. Of course, the cost will be considerably higher.

I think this is going to be a great ENG cam the way the workflow sets up using optical disk and low res proxies that can be sent back to the station via email or ftp so that editors and script writers can get an early start. The ruggedness of the optical disk should prove to be helpful for news crews that have to put their cameras in harsh conditions to get the story.

regards,

-gb-

[Michael Devlin]

Hi Simon, I will try shooting some more stuff with STD. I have been shooting more outdoors/landscape stuff than skin tones so far.

Do you know what settings (knee pont/slope, black gamma, etc) you used with the F330 and the STD gamma curve?

[Michael Devlin]

Hi Greg, thanks for fixing the link.

This is definitely a great ENG camera, and a great documentary style camera. Sony has already announced that they will have the 2/3" camera June 2007.

[Simon Wyndham]

For the purpose of the test, other than switching the detail off I left the camera in its default form with the knee point set to 100, white clip at 108, and black gamma left as it was out of the box.

[Scott Aston]

Mike,

Interesting motion test. The capture to XDCAM disc looked just as good as the HD-SDI clip. I was pleasantly surprised how good it looked. I guess the long GOP scheme has been perfected by Sony, I saw very little blur on the slo mo clips, even on the little peices of the melon. Also let me say that I really appreciate you taking the time to do these tests and give the results and post the clips for all of us to see. I know that takes a lot of time to do, and with your upcoming outdoor fishing schedule I'm sure you are busy. So thanks again, and KEEP THE INFO AND FOOTAGE COMING!

[David Mintzer]

Originally Posted by Scott Aston

Mike,

Interesting motion test. The capture to XDCAM disc looked just as good as the HD-SDI clip. I was pleasantly surprised how good it looked. I guess the long GOP scheme has been perfected by Sony, I saw very little blur on the slo mo clips, even on the little peices of the melon. Also let me say that I really appreciate you taking the time to do these tests and give the results and post the clips for all of us to see. I know that takes a lot of time to do, and with your upcoming outdoor fishing schedule I'm sure you are busy. So thanks again, and KEEP THE INFO AND FOOTAGE COMING!

Thanks for all the interesting information----I'm about ready to pull the trigger on the camera--I primairly shoot documentary, and I was trying to get a sense of the production flow with the XDCAM HD-------If either you are Simon are editing your own work, I would like to get an idea of what your hardware set ups are and what your work flow is like.

[Michael Devlin]

We edit with Avid, we have a two of Express Pro HD Licenses which work on a laptop and two Avid Adrenaline Media Composer HD systems which required the Avid Adrenaline box. Right now we are doing HDSDI capture into the Adrenaline box.

Once Avid provides XDCAM HD support we expect to be able to just move the MXF files (firewire) to a laptop and then import into Express Pro HD, so we don't have to carry an Adrenaline with us all the time. We generally convert everything to Avid's internal form (DNxHD) for editing.

Once in Avid we can do pretty much anything we need to.

I would say the F350 is just about ideal for documentary work. If you have a good monitor for focusing it helps, although the "quick zoom" feature on the Fujinon lens works pretty well (Canon HD lenses have something similar

[Bill Pryor]

I'm considering one of the two cameras and a deck for our next purchase, which probably wouldn't be till the end of next year, after they come out with the first upgrade. I did that with the DSR500--Sony had the first minor upgrade within about a year and that's when we got it and some DVCAM decks.

I had no desire to go tapeless, however it seems to me the XDCAM format is about the same thing as shooting on tape, but it allows a better workflow. One thing I like a lot is the proxy file thing, so both editing systems could store proxy files of every original disc. This beats spending half a day scrounging through boxes trying to find the sunset over the river shot I did 4 years ago, etc.

Only problem is from the brochure pdf I downloaded, the software is not Mac-compatible. That would eliminate the whole idea of XDCAM for us. However, I've also heard a rumor about something between Sony and Apple at NAB, presumably it would involve compatibility, but who knows. If they get that worked out and its backwards compatible to our new dual 2.7 gig G5s, then we might be able to move to XDCAM HD soon.

[David Mintzer]

Thanks for the info---I'm running down to Abel Cine next week to take a look--I'm interested to look at some 2/3" lenses on the camera---They haven't set that up yet but I will report back when I see them in action.

[Michael Devlin]

At the Texas HD Shootout last night we did have time to put a 2/3" Fujinon HA18x7.6BERM lens on with adaptor. I was suprised at how good it looked. Fujinon had warned me that we might lose a bit of resolution and sensitivity with a 2/3" lens and adaptor. We did not really see any of that. It looked as good as the 1/2" Fujinon lens. Adam Wilt made some comments about the artifacts indicating that we were getting more high frequency information from the 2/3" lens, which sounded like a good thing. I am sure Adam will explain it all in his write-up.