Hvr-v1 opinions

[John Huebbe]

I'm interested in knowing how the autofocus is on the camera compared to the PD170. I'm looking to upgrade my gear. I do a lot of run-n-gun type work and use autofocus for a lot of my shots (quick pans, zoom out while tracking an object, etc...). Will the V1 be ok for this?

As a side note, I currently have an HC1 camera and the autofocus doesn't seem to be that great with fast movements.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by John Huebbe

I'm interested in knowing how the autofocus is on the camera compared to the PD170. I'm looking to upgrade my gear. I do a lot of run-n-gun type work and use autofocus for a lot of my shots (quick pans, zoom out while tracking an object, etc...). Will the V1 be ok for this?

As a side note, I currently have an HC1 camera and the autofocus doesn't seem to be that great with fast movements.

Keep zoom below Z60 (a 12X zoom range) which is about a 450mm tele -- AF works perfectly.

[John Huebbe]

So, it will hold focus pretty well when I'm zoomed in at a 12x zoom and then pan & zoom out while tracking an object as it comes closer?

Since the title of this thread is "V1 Opinons" Can the V1 be used out of the box for interviews without the use of a wide angle lens? I'm acustomed to using the sony wide angle lens on my PD170 but can sometimes make due without it if I'm in a rush. Or, is it suggested to widen the field of view?

Also, I plan on mixing about 1/2 of my shots with video from 2 HC1 cameras. Would it be best to shoot in 60i for all of the cameras, or shoot in 30p with the V1 and shoot 60i with the HC1 and deinterlace in post? I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'd like to start thinking about my workflow.

Thanks!

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

John, your question is difficult to answer, depending on the movement of the subject and whatever is in the background.
As a general rule, yes...pulling back and tracking the subject should stay in autofocus. If there is highlighted motion in the background, it can fool the autofocus, there is no guarantee with autofocus, ever.
As far as out of the box interviews, absolutely. Wide is nice, but not necessary. I do wish the V1 had greater width, but it's not a dealbreaker for shooting interviews by any stretch.
I'll post some pix when I get home. We shot a bunch of interviews in very tight area a couple weeks ago with just stock lens, no wide adaptor.
I'd recommend shooting 60i all the way through, depending on the NLE you're using. Some tools deinterlace better than others.

[Stephen Armour]

Another big plus with the V1 for those of us doing production, are the presets. They work very nicely and you can preset zoom, focus, color, etc, for certain situations you find repeating often.

That is a HUGE plus for anyone using Steadicams, cranes, or just tracking pans! If you can program it, you don't have to worry about anything except composition/framing. We love these type features. Plus, if you have 2 V1's, you can save the current setting on one cam to the flash chip and copy it to both cams. That is very nice.

Now, if that lens was just a tad bit wider, there were a few more presets and the HDMI uncompressed output went to the DR-60 HDD as Cineform files...we'd die happy...

[Stephen Armour]

Douglas, this is a off thread, so forgive me. Stick it somewhere else if it's too far off...

We're setting up to pump the V1U's HDMI uncompressed output through a Intensity card to HDD, using the Cineform codec. Since the reasoning is to preserve the output for future "bluray/HD type productions" as well as downrez for SD DVD's today, I can't for the life of me see why we'd want to save as anything other than 1440x1080i. It's not as nice for up-downrezing, but in your opinion would it be worth the price dif for the upgrade to Prospect to uprez to 1920x1080i instead of Aspect's 1440x1080i?

Somehow, I just can't seem to get my brain wrapped around a reason why 1920 vs 1440 would be better. Am I missing something? Is it better for up/down rezing?

[Anton Galimzyanov]

The main advantage of Prospect is 10bit accuracy, it's so important for any post-production needs (CC etc). I think it's the main reason for you to upgrade. Besides, it's far more easy to manipulate with a square pixels..

[Stephen Armour]

BUt I believe maybe the new upgrade to Aspect is going to be 10 bit...? So, if that is true, are there any other benefits with our workflow?

[Mikko Lopponen]

Originally Posted by John Bosco Jr.

PS - In the past CMOS chips were noiser than CCDs. That is no longer true. With the new technology, CMOS sensors are less noisy than CCDs in high definition.

They are still noisier. It's just masked by noise reduction algorithms.

[John Cash]

I have had mine for 5 weeks. I am an amateur who has big dreams so I bought my first real camera (to me at least) . I took some shots at home on the beach in San Diego and it looks great. I shot into the sun as it was setting with a pier and people in the foreground. No washout..it looked great.
However I plan to make a snowboard dvd of Backcountry snowboarding and I have filmed 3 days on snow and I dont have anything I like. This has to do with white balance , AS , and zebra but Im working on it. IF my snow shot would have looked like my beach shots I would be in love, but as I said it is me and not know much about filming, but I will get there.
I wrestled between the Cannon A-1 and this one. After a lot of reading I chose this camera because most of my uses will be fast motion and I concluded the cmos would be better than ccd.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

"This has to do with white balance , AS , and zebra"

White balance is so easy to control on the V1 it's silly. You can just put it on daylight mode then dial the temperature up or down to your liking.

What is AS? Auto-shutter? Turn that off. I have and never will use auto-shutter. Auto-iris is fine as the depth of field doesn't change radically on these cameras. Gain during a daylight shoot should be on manual and probably set to 0db unless you are trying to introduce noise as an effect.

Zebra bars are your friend. Try setting them to 100ire during your snow shots and let a fair amount of the snow go to zebra bars. Check to make sure there is still a bit of detail in your shadows. Exposure should probably be set on manual whenever shooting in snow or your subject will become underexposed as the camera tries to compensate for the snow. The best place to start would be to point the camera out at your scene and make sure there is still a bit of blue in the sky but let the snow and clouds get some zebras. There is actually still a bit of detail just above the zebras, so you aren't totally killing the detail on the snow if it is slightly overexposed. At that point, you should still be able to see details and color on your subject. Once you have set exposure properly, you can just leave it unless your daylight changes or you move into an area with more shadows.

It is possible to use auto-exposure during a scene like this if you adjust the AE SHIFT in the menu. You will probably want it to shift upwards a few notches so it will expose your subject properly and let the snow overexpose somewhat. The V1 is probably great in snow as the overexposed snow won't bleed into your subject so much.

[John Bosco Jr.]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lopponen

They are still noisier. It's just masked by noise reduction algorithms.

Not true. Mikko you are getting caught up in old CMOS technology. Actually it is the CCDs that are masked by noise reduction algorithms. Of course, I'm pertaining to high definition where it has been reported that there is a 3 dB increase in CCD noise per octave in video frequency.[1] In other words, as the resolution increases the S/N ratio suffers for CCD imagers. CMOS-based imagers, on the other hand, use pixel-based amplifiers in their imaging system-on-chip architecture. The pixel-based amplification can appropriately set the signal bandwidth so that there is no longer need for external 30 to 33 MHz filtering for HD cameras.

This factor reduces the relevant noise bandwidth from tens of MHz for CCDs to tens of kHz for CMOS imaging SoCs. This significant advantage holds even for HDTV and UHDTV cameras, so that the dominant noise can instead be set by the reset noise of the specific pixel design. Conversely, the read noise of a large format CCD is often dominated by the output amplifier’s thermal noise. This is especially true after CCD video bandwidth is best doubled to perform correlated double sampling without compromising CCD MTF. Instead, however, the analog video bandwidth is usually constrained to minimize the noise at the expense of resolution.

Designers of CMOS-based sensors reduce noise while eliminating the classic noise vs. resolution trade because the pixel-based amplifier’s bandwidth better matches the imager sampling frequency. The CMOS output buffer’s noise is usually negligible.

In practice, therefore, CMOS can circumvent the “3 dB per octave” increase in noise that is experienced with CCD sensors and the associated degradation in camera S/N. Several CMOS manufacturers have now shown this basic trait.



1. K. Mitani, M. Sugawara and F. Okano, “Experimental Ultrahigh-Definition Color Camera System with Three 8M pixel CCDs,” SMPTE Journal, April 2002.

[Ryan Lester]

ok, here's a question.................

I have a PD170 that i'm gonna upgrade and i had planned to choose a z1 but the V1 is starting to interest me (dunno why yet, it just is!).

But, my main concern is the low light condition. I do alot of Weddings but do not use a light at the reception.
Before you ask.............NO - this has never been a problem. I'm a very candid videographer and offer a more fly-on-the-wall type approach to filming which most of my clients love and that's kind of why i don't use a light. Yes, at times it does create a fair bit of noise but none of my clients have ever been fussed by this.

So would a V1 be in any way suitable for use at a reception with no light? It's really only the dancing scenes that i'm worried about as most reception centres seem to dim the lights quite by quite a bit.

[John Cash]

Thank You for the input Marcus. As I say Im just learning. In fact with the zebra I was doing the exact oppisite. Setting it to 100 and trying to remove all the bars by using AS which is AE shift (sorry for the confusion) I set it to -3 to keep from wshing out the snow(wanted to leave some detail) it makes the scene darker than I like so I will put that back at zero., the white balance I set to daylight and a plus 2 to keep it from looking blue. Got home and watched it on an HD tv and it just looked like another dv camcorder ( big dissapointment) .
I didnt feel it was right to ask questions here but I really do thank you. This will take some time for me as I have only had consumer camcorders up till now. Also my shoot islike this: climb 6-8 hours with big pack. Shoot 5 minutes on the run as my friends (subjects ) continue to climb at their pace , cacth up , shoot again , drive home 7 hours put it on the TV and check settings. Very slow process. Im thinking I should spend a day shooting at a ski resort just so I dont have to climb so fast and I can shoot several hours instead of several minutes.

[Lee Berger]

Please disregard this post. I thought the original post was new and this topic has already been well addressed. Sorry about the inconvenience.