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Panasonic HPX2000…Dark B-roll at night
As of early June, I have started shooting with the Panasonic HPX2000 P2 Camera. I shoot News and I work at night. I noticed that I always have to bump up the gain to see what I am shooting. When I first got the camera, I was told by the Panasonic rep that this camera shoots nicely at night or in low light. I beg to differ on that because I have to always bump up the gain to 9 or 12db to see anything.
Do I need to go into my settings and change something around like the Gamma or Master Ped or anything like that?
I am coming from shooting with a Sony SX camera and it handled shooting at night a lot better in my opinion than the P2 camera.
Every morning I shoot live shots with the reporter for our 2 hour morning show. I usually will have a key light on a dimmer for the talent and depending on the location I may use a 1k to brighten up the background.
With all that light, the camera still will say LOW LIGHT in the viewfinder but everything looks good according to the readout I am getting from my Zebra bars!
So if anyone has any experience shooting with this camera at NIGHT and has some settings or suggestions you can share that will give me better results than I am describing, I would like to hear from you.
I also looked at my footage on a monitor when I get back to the station and looks very dark on there too and on the air it still looks dark and I have an on camera light!
I do think I need to go into my menu and adjust some of the settings but which ones?
Thanks for your help!!!
Chuck
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4 Replies
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You sound like you know what you’re doing but I’ll ask the obvious anyway, are you sure you don’t inadvertantly have the ND Filter in, or perhaps the wheel not fully clicked to the off position. I have the HPX300 and I tested some low light footage under a street lamp and it looks clean at 0db, and acceptable even at +9 db.
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Well I heard about one of the other TV stations in the market had Panasonic send them some sort of software that they were able to download to their camera (they shoot with the same P2 camera) because they were having the same issue of very dark video when shooting at night. Apparently the software they downloaded fixed the problem. So I may have to give our Panasonic Rep a call. I was just hoping I could tweak some of the settings in the menu’s to allow the camera to see more detail when shooting at night.
Cre8tive Minds Entertainment, LLC
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This seems odd to me. I have an HDX900 which is the same front end at the HPX2000. While native 2/3″ HD cameras aren’t quite as fast as the best 2/3″ SD cameras, depending upon frame rate and resolution, the camera should have an ASA rating of at least 500, Panasonic rates it at f10 at 2000 lux.
I’m sure you’ve checked to make sure the shutter is off, extender isn’t on, no ND or outdoor filter, blacks not crushed. Stay away from Filmlike 3 gamma.
Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video
https://www.ssv.comJeff Regan
Shooting Star Video
http://www.ssv.com -
A lens that’s 1.8 or 1.7 wide open should get a decent image at night and will require a little bit of gain unless an object or image is really bright. I throw in a little gain for night time skylines and city streets. If you’re not getting a good image, then something is wrong. Still you have to have some light to get an exposure.
Are you wide open on these night shots? Are you setting your exposure based on the zebras? If so, where are your zebras set? Where is your low-light level indicator set? Default is 35%. You should be able to set your Filter Wheels at 1B then set your WB switch to Preset and shoot.
dp
dusty powers
http://www.hdcrew.net
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