FX1000 has arrived - first impressions

[Khoi Pham]

Yeah thanks for the still, I would go with the Pany if it has 20X zoom and as low light but I shoot in alot of big church and 13X will not be enough, and I'm sure AVCHD even at 17Mbps is better than HDV at 25Mbps because it is twice as effecient, can't never get a perfect camera. )-:, We need something like Canon 3CCD 20X, with same low light as Sony FX1000, but shoot with AVCHD on the SD card.

[Norman Gaddis]

I understand, Khoi. There will be situations where I'll opt for the FX1000 as my main camera as opposed to the HMC, especially when the longer lens is needed.

I think Sony made a huge mistake by not configuring the FX1000 for the CF recorder to mount on the back just like the Z5. I realize they did this to increase sales of the Z5. However, just think about the thousands of CF recorders they could sell if it were dockable to the FX1000 without having to use a firewire cable.

[Jeff Harper]

Norman, thank you very much for taking the time to post stills.

Very nice performance from the Panny. I am definitely jealous of the XLR, but not of the tapeless (that is just preference on my part).

The Panasonic is most definitely a ton of camera for the money.

I have a wedding Sunday and have not used my FX1000 hardly at all, and have played with it almost none.

Can you clue me in on usage of the black stretch feature?

When do you have it on and which setting do you use? (I seem to recall there were a couple of settings for it on the menu but I forgot what they are).

Do you turn it on a and just leave it? Or do you use it only in darker environments?

Thanks in advance for any input.

[Norman Gaddis]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Norman, thank you very much for taking the time to post stills.

Very nice performance from the Panny. I am definitely jealous of the XLR, but not of the tapeless (that is just preference on my part).

The Panasonic is most definitely a ton of camera for the money.

I have a wedding Sunday and have not used my FX1000 hardly at all, and have played with it almost none.

Can you clue me in on usage of the black stretch feature?

When do you have it on and which setting do you use? (I seem to recall there were a couple of settings for it on the menu but I forgot what they are).

Do you turn it on a and just leave it? Or do you use it only in darker environments?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Bear in mind that I got my camera a week after you got your's, so I'm by no means an expert. I haven't shot any events with it yet, just played with it. The black stretch feature brightens dark areas of the image (reduces contrast). I'll only use it when shooting in low light. You'll find it in the "picture profile" menu. It also has a "compress" setting that crushes black (darkens black areas, increases contrast).

I plan to set up at least 3 picture profiles on both of my cameras:

1) for shooting in low light

2) shooting indoors with good light

3) for shooting outdoors in daylight

[Greg Laves]

Norman, the brightness of the two images is closer than I would have expected. The FX1000 is slightly better with lower light, it seems, but I expected to see more difference.

But I noticed one other thing and it might not be that way on your video. It seemed like there was some sort of noise on the HMC150 frame grab where there is black lettering on a white back ground. I zoomed into the small Antacid printing on the Rolaids bottle and it looks like there is something abnormal there. Maybe it is a result of the codec. Or just the screen grab. I don't know. Is it my feeble eyeballs or is there really something there? It looks like what used to be called "black clip" back in the old NTSC 4 x 3 days where the equipment was reluctant to switch rapidly from black to white and back again and you would wind up with a funny pattern on the edges.

[Ron Evans]

I believe the chips on the FX1000 would lead to a higher resolution image than the Panasonic. Blowing up the image might just reveal this difference. I agree that the FX1000 image seems to be higher resolution with less edge artifacts. The Panasonic is great value though since it really has to be compared to the Z5 so may be $1000 cheaper!!
I just wish Sony had an AVCHD version of the Z5/FX1000 with hard drive and flash memory recording.
Ron Evans

[Norman Gaddis]

Originally Posted by Greg Laves

Norman, the brightness of the two images is closer than I would have expected. The FX1000 is slightly better with lower light, it seems, but I expected to see more difference.

But I noticed one other thing and it might not be that way on your video. It seemed like there was some sort of noise on the HMC150 frame grab where there is black lettering on a white back ground. I zoomed into the small Antacid printing on the Rolaids bottle and it looks like there is something abnormal there. Maybe it is a result of the codec. Or just the screen grab. I don't know. Is it my feeble eyeballs or is there really something there? It looks like what used to be called "black clip" back in the old NTSC 4 x 3 days where the equipment was reluctant to switch rapidly from black to white and back again and you would wind up with a funny pattern on the edges.

It could be the conversion to the Canopus HQ codec. I edit with Edius and my PC doesn't have the horsepower to edit AVCHD natively, so I converted the Panny's original .mts file to the Canopus HQ codec, then created the still from the Edius timeline.

Tomorrow, I will import the native .mts clip into Edius and make a still from that to see if there's any difference.

[Norman Gaddis]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

I believe the chips on the FX1000 would lead to a higher resolution image than the Panasonic. Blowing up the image might just reveal this difference. I agree that the FX1000 image seems to be higher resolution with less edge artifacts. The Panasonic is great value though since it really has to be compared to the Z5 so may be $1000 cheaper!!
I just wish Sony had an AVCHD version of the Z5/FX1000 with hard drive and flash memory recording.
Ron Evans

Bear in mind that even after spending a grand more for the Z5, it's still not tapeless. You have to pony up $850 more for the CF recorder.

[Stelios Christofides]

I thought that it was included in the package.

Stelios

[Norman Gaddis]

Originally Posted by Stelios Christofides

I thought that it was included in the package.

Stelios

It's included with the Z7 but not the Z5.

[Scott Barnhill]

after watching the demo vids here

Sony | Micro Site - HDV

Am I correct in saying, it looks as though you don't need an 35mm adapter to acheive shallow depth of field?
After watching this it makes me want to switch from my XH-A1 to the Z5.... Incredible.

[Khoi Pham]

With the 20X lens, you can get shallow shallow depth of field if you are far enough to zoom in, but they said something about round shutter leaf in the camera that is doing it, don't know.

[Martin Duffy]

[QUOTE=Khoi Pham;976471]Yeah thanks for the still, I would go with the Pany if it has 20X zoom



Hey I am in the same boat. (THis is a post I posted on the Pansonic 150 discussion board)

I wonder if there is a 1.4 lens or similar for the new 150 Pana Camera. I am considering buying the Sony FX1000 mainly due to its 20X zoom which is great for me as I film a lot of sport. That camera also has a wonderful very fast zoom speed critical for "getting in" very fast".

I was appalled at the last Panasonic HD cam (whatever it was) as it had the slowest zoom on earth!

Obviously the new Panasonic is not tape based which sounds appealing but the 13X lens to me is very off putting.

My past experience with tele lens' is that anything past a 1.4 tele gives you the black ring when on a wide shot.

On my Panasonic DVC-62 (52mm i think) and Sony TRV900 (43mm) I have used a Sony 1.4 lens and don not get the black ring. The 1.4 just gets you in there and makes a big big difference to the impact of how gootage looks.

If I thought there was a 1.4 or 1.5 lens that did the job on the new Pana 150 then I might go for it as I can see its a great cam, very light and no TAPE!

What is the mm of the lens?

There seems to be a bit of paranoia about using the card system. Surely any professional video guy would be transferring to hard drive and then transferring to another drive as a further back up.

Hard Drives are cheap these days.

[Lou Bruno]

Khoi....I am with you on this matter. I can just hope for a Canon 3-Chip with the light sensitivity of the EX-1 and 3 Sony models. LOU

Originally Posted by Khoi Pham

Yeah thanks for the still, I would go with the Pany if it has 20X zoom and as low light but I shoot in alot of big church and 13X will not be enough, and I'm sure AVCHD even at 17Mbps is better than HDV at 25Mbps because it is twice as effecient, can't never get a perfect camera. )-:, We need something like Canon 3CCD 20X, with same low light as Sony FX1000, but shoot with AVCHD on the SD card.

[Joel Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Lou Bruno

Khoi....I am with you on this matter. I can just hope for a Canon 3-Chip with the light sensitivity of the EX-1 and 3 Sony models. LOU

The best situation would be for Canon to use the best attributes of their current video-capable D-SLR chip and build a true video camera around it. Its my suspicion that that is what Canon is working on and why the XHA1 got a relatively mild makeover recently - the next camera in that price range will be drastically different and substantially better.