HPX300 performance

[Michael Shugrue]

I have tested this camera and did a comparison against the HPX-500 and the HDX-900 with dps ,producers to see the difference. Could they tell- some could but most were very impressed with all the options. They liked the inexpensive camera that feels like a eng camera and the built in wave/vector as well.

The lens that comes with the camera is just that… a lens( it works and if the client does not have the money it works fine). However the 18x looks great. Our rental inventory is 80% Panasonic. If you did not tell the broadcaster what it was shot on I would be surprised if they could tell that it was with a 1/3 inch chip. Power consumption is at 17w compared to 36w from the 900.

The vari frame rates look great from docs and epk’s,etc. I have picked up a ACM-17 to see how B4 mount lenses work on the 300 as well.

Michael

[Tom Matthies]

I just spent a couple of hours doing a demo of the camera today and over all I was pretty happy with it however I did notice that the shadows looked pretty noisy. I was shooting DVCProHD 1920 x1080 24P with pulldown. Anyone else notice this or care to comment on what they’ve seen over all?
Tom

[David Aretsky]

I love my 300. The settings that come with the camera are very noisy, you have to change them. Turn down the sharpness, turn up the coring to like +7, I believe I also turned detail down to -5 and shoot everything at -3db.

If I remember correctly these are the settings I am using and this camera looks great. Wish I had a copy of the scene file on hand to check.

Have not noticed any skew yet but I shoot at 30pn most of the time and don’t use 24p also most of the time I am on a tripod.

I would recommend this camera, it’s a lot more heavy than a 200 or 170 though so if you are used to a small camcorder type camera then you may not like the extra weight, if you are coming from a bigger eng camera it will be lighter though.

The lens is ok but it does breathe a lot.

The 10 bit 422 AVC-I is great for color correction and I can’t wait to see what it does with a greenscreen.

Thats my take.

dangerd

[Harry Rabin]

If you could possibly find that scene setting info that would be great. I am seeing excessive NOISE and I will try the additional settings you mentioned. Kind of CRAZY they ship it so poorly configured. My DP almost tossed the whole rig!

COMMENTS ABOUT THE HPX300 out of the box:EXCESSIVE NOISE, ARTIFACT low light, shade??Not using Cine Effects. Have tried several variable rates and codecs from AVCIntra100 down to DVCPROHD and everything we shoot is NOISY?? Have the latest firmware installed, 9.30.00. Have tried the lens that came with it and a Fujinon HD 18x lens and still noisy. We compare it to our HVX200 and there is NO NOISE on the 200?? Either this camera is defective or some parameter we are unaware of has been set. The GAIN is at low. We even cranked it down to -3 and still noise.

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