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HPX 370 Blurry in Concert lighting conditions
I am currently using two brand new HPX370’s at a major concert venue. We are not using CCUs, rather just taking the straight HD-SDI out of the camera.
Over the weekend, we needed to move one camera farther away from its normal near the stage position, and using a lens adapter, we put a 2/3″ Fuji 19×8/7 lens on it. I wasn’t present at the concert, but I got word from the venue that when harsh lighting changes occurred, the picture appeared blurry. The director said during constant lighting, it seemed ok.
I am wondering if this has something to do with the DRS being turned on, and whether the compensation is too drastic under such extreme lighting conditions.
Help?
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9 Replies
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Please help. I need some advice here. These cameras are new to me and I don’t know my way around the features quite yet. Thanks.
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Please help. I need some advice here. These cameras are new to me and I don’t know my way around the features quite yet. Thanks.
Scott, I’m having a similar problem. At first I thought my back focus was out but that turned out to not be the case. I notice that it’s not showing the problem on the viewfinder but in the sdi output and the recorded media on the p2 cards.
I’ve noticed that the problem usually clears up when I go up on the ND filters. I had a commencement shoot last weekend with a few 170s and a 370. It was in the morning so ND filter 2 was sufficient. As the ceremony went on and the sun started showing it self a little more the image starting getting fuzzy. I was TD and could see it on the monitors. I told the camera operator to switch the ND filter to 3 rather than 2 and it sharpened up. I mainly have the problem when I’m outside in the sun but it seems fine when I’m shooting concerts with nice lighting.
Here is some concert footage used with the 370 https://www.youtube.com/user/LUMLEY75?feature=mhee -
Thanks for that. Concert footage looks good. What lens? I spoke with one of the Panasonic developer engineers who said that part of the problem might be inferior optics in the 1/3″ to 2/3″ adapter. Also said that the tiny 1/3″ chip just gets a little overworked in harsh conditions and there’s nothing to be done about it except, as you say, crank in the ND filter to let less light in. He said the CMOS chip performs best at 2.8 or so. Also I asked about the Chromatic Aberation Correction circuit and he said that when you put an older lens on it that doesn’t read the circuitry, it turns itself off.
Thanks for your help.
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Well looks like we were in the right ball park then. I have a fujinon 1.6 – 4.5 77 mm on the camera. I feel like they owe me a new camera or something. It’s hard to deal with this problem especially since it’s not noticeable in the viewfinder when recording. Only in playback. I’ve had to re-shoot a few things and when it first let me down it was in a concert situation where light was hard and I couldn’t use the shot at all.
I haven’t heard much about this problem but we can’t be the only ones out there. -
I’ve found in using the HPX-370, that when you close the lens down to a small f-stop, it will affect the sharpness of the image. I never shoot with a setting smaller than f-8 and find the sweet spot to be around f-4 to f-5.6. That’s why the image gets better when you dial in some extra ND. Don’t know if it’s a diffraction problem from the iris blades, the small sensor size or probably a combination of both. Keep the iris around f-4 to f-5.6 and the camera should give you a sharp image.
E=MC2+/-2db
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These cameras are useless outdoors. If a camera is static you can dial it in, but once the operator moves, or the lighting conditions change, I can’t adjust the camera fast enough in the truck. Just shot an IMAG event last Friday, it was a nightmare and we are very disappointed with the master recording. Panasonic has got to fix this.
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Hmmm…
I’m running 5 of these cameras in a sports remote truck shooting outdoors all the time. I’m not seeing any of these issues. Also using the ND4 filters to get the lens opened up a bit in daylight.Cameras are attached through OpticalConn fiber cables using CCU’s in the truck. All HD digital. No issues and I’m pretty picky about image quality. Weird…E=MC2+/-2db
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I just had Panasonic over to test what we are seeing. The engineer is aware that these cameras have focus issues under variable lighting conditions. I am very disappointed to say the least.
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Just wanted to add that I have noticed the same issues with shooting outside with our 371’s.
Dialing in more ND than usual does seem to “fix” the problem so we now make sure all operators are aware of this.Mike
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