XDCam HD Wedding Use

[Peter Corbett]

If you get this camera and plan to shoot 16:9, DEFINITELY get the 2″ F350 VF option. The 1.5″ is just too tinsy to frame and focus correctly in widescreen. Same goes for Panasonic DVCPRO cameras that ship with a 1.5″.

Peter

Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
http://www.php.com.au

[Nigel Cooper]

Angel, I know the chap you are talking about and there are just too many factors to really go into here.

Two important factors that did not help him are:

1. Terrible cheap SD lens.
2. Used out of the box with no menu tweaking or proper setting up (especially via service menu).

There are many things you can do in service menu to crush out noise, but at the moment there is a trick (secret) to accessing them, but firmware will bring them back into the regular menus soon. I’ve had great success at this.

There is a downloadable PDF on Sony’s site giving tips on many different shooting/camera set up techniques, one such tip is the one called “Issue 07: Tips for Shooting Without Coarsening Dark Areas of an Image”.

See this link:

https://www.sonybiz.net/biz/view/ShowSiteSection.action?section=SB+SS+ALL+BC+RefInfo+XDCAM&site=biz_en_EU

There are others such as issue 09 too, these will help a lot.

However, one thing you must remember is that the noise issues with +3db or more gain is the bane of HD, even Panasonic cameras suffer from this.

With the Z1 there are factors that people just don’t understand. On the face of it, you can be forgiven for thinking that the noise is less than XDCAM HD, but there are serious trade-offs. You lose definition for starters and you’ll get edge blocking in areas where dark and light areas verge, or edges merge; this is just the beginning. You can set up the F350 to do this, but personally I prefer a tad of grain with +3db in, as opposed to all the junk the Z1 brings to the party as a compromise.

Finally, larger CCD blocks with loads more pixels = less light absorbency i.e. a bit more noise. You get this with HDCAM and Varicam models too, not just XDCAM HD. Personally I am quite happy to be overwhelmed by those massive/huge HD 1920×1080 super HD images for a little noise when I switch in the gain. Also, you get noise in SD camcorders, you just don’t notice it because the SD (720s576) resolution is a lot lower, so it is hidden away in the softness of SD land.

One piece of advice, try-before-you-buy, but you really do have to set the camera up and use decent glass; for me, Fujinon are ahead of Canon.

[Angel2403]

Thanks for the feedback and detailed post.

You have given me lots of useful info.

I am tempted to go the F330 route with Fuji HD lens. Although, would need to be under

[Bruce Rawlings]

The lens really has to be the best you can afford. It is a waste of time buying an HD camera and then putting a naff lens on it.

[Nigel Cooper]

Angel, feel free to drop me an email, click on my Profile above and send me message via my web site with your contact number, I’ll give you a call and give you the full SP on this.

Personally, I’ve just today taken delivery of an F350 and in a few days I expect to take delivery of a Fujinon XS17x5.5BRM lens, which has just been dropped massively in price in the UK to around

[Thomas Hughes]

I’ve got the F330 with a Fuji 17X standard def lens. The camera does very poorly in low light. Is there any reason to think it might do better in low light with the Fuji 17X HD lens? Thank you.

[Nigel Cooper]

None whatsoever, lens has nothing to do with it. That is a very poor quality lens for XDCAM HD though, try Fujinon XS17.5.5 instead, it is a thousand times better. Your camera is totally waisted with that SD lens.

[Thomas Hughes]

Thanks again, Nigel, very helpful.