Oh yeah, that was a real scientific comparison test.... Not that one wouldn't expect the EX-1 to benefit from the years of technological development since the PD-170 was first launched. So is anyone surprised by the conclusions?

Not really... Like you say there has been a development been going on since the PD170 came out. I have the PD170 and still like it a lot, and it is still good in low light, but so is my XHA1 and even my small HV20 is not that bad.

/Ulf

1. It's good to see that Sony is still the champ.

2. It's amazing how long the PD170 has been the reigning champ!

its one thing to be able to capture in low light, but retaining colour gradation, saturation and image sharpness is more important IMO.

Ive found the sonys to oversaturate reds when pushed hard (yes even on a chunky DSR570) with extensive image softening to a point of looking ghastly.

Im sorry, but Id rather use a DVX100at 9+ with a 20w light, as opposed to a PD170 with no light at 12+... At least i'll get my colour in the can and retain my image vibrancy

Im sorry, but where do they get that the PD170 looks brighter at 9db gain. Looking at the image, the EX pukes on the Z1, BUT if you look to the left (compare teh white wall), u can see the red shift im talking about... sadly even the EX has it but not as prominant as the PD.. On white Anglo skin, its not a good look..

Moving on.. the percpetion of brightness here is the fact that the EX has a higher res, which allows for a sharper differentiation of contrasts. This in itself is what makes the eye percieve the image to be sharper/brighter, however it IS brighter if you look at the shadow gradation, shadow detail, red tones (based on the camera.. if it was a Canon i'd say check the yellow and green shifts, and Blue for Pana) and moreso, white levels

Anyone using 18+ on a PD is a fool IMO.. its bad enough the camera doesnt even hit the 400k pixel mark (ie inherantly soft) but excessive softening with gain at 18+ looks like rubbish IMO. On a 1080p panel ... well... you decide..

Whoever wrote this has no idea what theyre talking about.. I wouldnt call this a definitive answer by a long shot...

You might be able to eliminate some of your problems with color shifts when you up the gain if you redo the white balance. If you have a camera that requires you to do it manually also resetting reference black is advisable too.
The EX1 seems to have a number of parameters associated with WB in the service menu, I suspect you might be able to calibrate it more accurately if you put in the time and have the gear to get it right.

Bob.

And these were my thoughts when i had a mess with the cam at the launch,,, this is the beauty of this camera... the fact that its an F350 in a box is amazing and frankly, there is not other camera which it can compare to (aside from the 330

To compare this camera in low lit environmetns vs sd is really very silly IMO

Each camera has its nuances, and you take the good with the bad.
In the end, working around those compromises is what gives that element of character to the camera. In the end, with experience and exposure to certain envirnments, it WONT MATTER what camera you use, as you will instinctively KNOW what settins the camera needs to be on to get the best picture.

As for black balancing, Bob, youd be surprised how many people dont know about this, let alone a lowly DVX which can do this makes a WHOPPING difference when using electronic gain IMO.

I just wish the Canon A1 had a black balance check. Sadly it doesnt and th only way to get true blacks is to run it through curves (which is too noisy for my liking) or run levels (much MUCH cleaner)

I only got my head around these things from working with our SI-2K. Setting Black is a manual operation. Cover lens and click the icon. I think the F900 has a similar function. On the SI that creates a reference frame that is subtracted from anything you shoot in that scene file, so any offsets are adjusted out on a per pixel basis. WB is only metadata in that camera so you can change it in post with no harm done to the image, one of the great things about shooting RAW. No doubt this sort of tech will soon be in more affordable cameras and all this futzing with settings before the camera rolls will be a thing of the past.

Regardless, not enough attention gets paid to the blacks, most LCDs hide the mirk down there. Some of the HDV cameras have nasty things hiding in the blacks, things that if nothing else use up a lot of the mpeg-2 bandwidth. Hopefully the EX1 has less noise in the blacks and combined with the XDCAM encoder will produce much more usable images.

Bob.

Some of the HDV cameras have nasty things hiding in the blacks, things that if nothing else use up a lot of the mpeg-2 bandwidth.

Bob, you have a very good point here. Have been wondering if compressing blacks, while helping to get rid of those "nasty things", allows to use the bandwidth in a more efficient way?

Merry Christmas to All

Piotr

You could try adjusting master pedestal, that'll crush the blacks but be careful. There's no undoing it ones you've shot it. If it helps on the V1 I don't know. It'd be good to get rid of that blocky noise in the blacks but I think last time I tried the results were even worse.

Bob.

On the V1, there is no explicite "Master Pedestal" setting (as can be found on the Canon A1, for instance) - but I've been compressing blacks in low-light situation with much the same effect, i.e. getting rid of noise in the darkests parts of the frame, which simply turn into black then.

However, I do not think the encoder is smart enogh to use the "saved" bandwidth elsewhere :)

You might be able to eliminate some of your problems with color shifts when you up the gain if you redo the white balance.

That's an eminent idea with any camera.

Higher level broadcast cameras have special circuitry to eliminate the color shift problem with different exposure levels. My Sony DXC-D50 has it, I'm surprised the DSR-570 doesn't (or was it just that the camera op didn't know all the menus?).

And black level is universal also in higher end cameras, doesn't cost much to do but gives a good return (when you're not limited by a DV25 codec say).