F900 vs HDX900 Why we had a shoot off

[Ernie Santella]

Thanks for posting that info. I’ve been amazed at my HDX900 since I bought it. Now, I really don’t regret any ‘second thoughts’ I had about the Sony.

Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com

[Tony]

Thomas,

The F900R is more ideal to be compared to the HDX-900 not the outdated F900/3.

In anycase looking at the cameras live or playback from the onboard vtr does little to understand what occurs in post after the image has been recorded to tape.
When push comes to shove the differences between the two cameras will be easily apparent in post.

FYI depending on how the manual knee (DCC in Sony world) is set up this will have a major impact on how much detail you retain in the highlights it sounds like the F900/3 you used only had a mild
DCC setting which could have impacted the results you were viewing when you compared the HDX-900 to the F900/3/

I personally would have used a Ecinema display to compared the two cameras instead of the Sony CRT monitor to really see the spacial resolution differences.

I recommend selling your F900/3 on the open market and get more than what Sony offers and even if you only get under 30K for it you will still be able to
buy the HDX-900 outright given the lower cost. You can’t lose out on this one given the price Panasonic is offering for the HDX-900.

I believe everyone has at sometime in their career suffered the pain of working with a lemon camera or piece of gear regardless of the vendor and it is a horrible place to be.
Without knowing the full details of what occurred I wonder why Sony did not offer you a straight across trade in for another F900/3 to replace your defective camera?

This clearly would have been the best thing to do to make you “whole” again. Did you ever ask Sony or your dealer to simply replace your lemon F900/3 with a working F900/3 as a straight across swap?

You did not mention the specific failures on your F900/3 in your post and this would have been useful for finding other users who have had the same possible issues.

Determining if the issues are unique to your camera body or a sign of an overall bad design is critical.

I work with the 900/3, 900R, HDX-900, Varicam etc and I can tell you that as the HDX-900 is a great camera at its price point but there are major differences in terms
of operational use (ie file structure), exposure range, spacial resolution, easy interface with existing accessories (ie RCP panels) etc that really set the two cameras (F900R and HDX-900) apart in terms of my specific workflow and expectations.

One of the major highlights the 900R offers is hypergamma which has to be used to really understand what it allow both creatively and technically for a DP or video engineer.

The 900R is not perfect in anycase either as I have discovered some items which need to be resolved and I have passed on that feedback to the rental houses and dealers I work with.

Only your clients and you can decide what best meets your needs and I highly recommend talking to several other owner/operators as well as major rental houses to describe their experiences with both
Sony and Panasonic service. You may be amazed to learn you are not the only one who has had issues with either company positive or negative.

In closing no one camera is ideal for all cases and I regret that you have had such bad problems with your F900/3.

I wish you the best of luck in resolving your problems and hope you can move on to better results with your next camera purchase.

Tony Salgado