Sony PMW-150 ISO

[Hans van Turnhout]

I just received my PMW-150 (the European version of the 160). Could someone please enlighten me as to the native ISO of the cam.

Thanks.

//Hans

[Doug Jensen]

Congratulations on the new camera, you're going to love it.

I can't tell you what the native ISO of the camera is because I've never bothered to measure it, but I can tell you that the sensitivity of the camera will vary greatly depending on the Picture Profile settings you are using. And since it is not a smart idea to shoot with no custom picture profile settings turned on at all, it seems like it would be of little value to know what the native ISO is if you're never going to actually shoot with the camera setup that way.

If there is some reason why knowing the ISO is important, then it would be better to measure it AFTER your preferred picture profile settings have been created. You can think of different Picture Profile settings as being like having different film stocks. Some are more sensitive to light, and others less. So, just as a film camera has no native ISO (because it depends on the film you put in it) the PMW-150 doesn't really have a native ISO either unless someone is ignorant enough to use the "out of the box" settings. Just food for thought.

Mastering the PMW-200-160-150-100 Camcorders

[Hans van Turnhout]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I will certainly purchase your video for streaming (tried when I was at my summerhouse but the internet connection failed me) and learn how to master the cam. Received it the other day and it still basically has the "out of the box settings". Been away from video a long time basically only been doing doing still photography the last couple of years. The cam will be put to its first test tomorrow when I will shoot a friend dancing balett. It will be an indoor shoot with decent light. Any thoughts/recommendations on a suitable PP-settings?

Regards

Hans

[Alister Chapman]

With standard settings or Rec709 it's a shade under 300 ISO in progressive. The other gammas and cinegammas are all pretty close, but you will see some brightness changes as the grey point is shifted up and down a bit. Middle Grey for cinegamma 1 & 2 is designed to be at 33% which is a stop or more lower than the 40%-45% used with standard gammas and if this is not taken into consideration can make it appear as though the Cinegammas ISO's are quite a bit different to the standard gamma ISO because the pictures will look darker. Most people don't set middle grey to 33% with Cinegamma 1 or 2 as it looks uncomfortably dark but you must watch what's happening to skin tones if you do this as they will be right on the edge of the highly compressed part of the curve and even a very small amount of overexposure can make faces etc look a bit washed out and flat. I have never been able to get a definitive grey point for Cinegamma 3 and Cinegamma 4 from Sony, but the curves suggest it should be higher than 1&2 and I would use 40% as my mid grey for these curves.

[Hans van Turnhout]

Thanks Alister. Very helpful (but it will take me some time to digest). I just downloaded the Master DVD and gained a lot more understanding how the camera works. Time for me to start practicing and to work on picture profiles.

Regards

Hans