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HPX500…Best picture quality in full size camera for the $$?
I am contemplating an HPX500 purchase. It almost seems to good to be true that you can get a full size 3 X 2/3″ chip HD/SD camera w/ 17 to 1 Fujinon lens w/2X plus 4X16 gig cards, a case, a tripod plate for $21K-$2000 rebate=+-$19,000. My fear is that if something seems to good to be true, it may very well be. A local rep of a competing line told me the true resolution of the image sensors on the HPX 500 is 960 X 540, 520K/0.5M pixels. I cannot find that info in the Panasonic literature. Can anyone speak with authority to this issue??? Sometimes it seems that compression and bit rates make up a shell game so that is hard to tell which really is the best picture for the buck in a user friendly, NLE friendly HD camera.
I recently purchased an EX-3 and I am impressed with how good the 1920 X 1080 1/2″ CMOS sensors look on my big 1080P monitor. I like the hard stops on the “real” lens and the viewfinder is amazingly crisp… But it still feels like a “toy” camera in my hands. After 30 years I need my primary camera to have the look and feel of my trusty ‘ol Betacam. Do I need to spend the extra $$$ for an HPX 2000 or is the HPX500 TRULY a 1080p HD image? Perplexed? Terry Shiels -
3 Replies
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I would consider trying a demo or renting one first. That’s a major expense to pull the trigger on but as such you’ll get some love from a wise dealer.
Noah
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Also there is no magic here. It is a great camera for the price range, same as the lens is a good price for the price range. But you are not getting the same quality as a HPX2000 and a $20K Fuji lens.
But as Noah said you need to use the camera and make the judgement call, a day rental on a HPX500 is probably $600.
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Internally as far as vision processing goes it’s practically the same as a HVX 200/202.
You can think of it as an HVX with a professional body, switch gear, and 2/3″ chips.
The larger size chips bring with the advantages of better depth of field control, more active pixels, and better pixel registry so things like CCD smear are not as great a problem as in 1/2″ or 1/3″ cameras.
At the end of the day your EX-1 is using more pixels to create 1080 than the HVX 500, but that has never been the only consideration for what is a better camera.
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