Panasonic AG-HMC 40 /150

Editguy43 wrote on 12/23/2010, 7:19 PM
Does anyone have any experience with either the Panasonic AG-HMC 40 or 150. I am looking at either 1 or both of them for early next year. the 150 for my main camera and the 40 for secondary use.

I have never used AVCHD or tapeless before and frankly it scares me a little but that is the future. so might as well dive in.

would these cameras complement each other or fight? the 40 is cmos and the 150 is CCD would that make much difference in matching clips on the timeline and such.

Also does Vegas play well with Panasonic's AVCHD codec.

Any and all feedback will be very helpful, also if those cameras are not that good what would be good in their place around the same price line.

Paul B

Comments

RRA wrote on 12/24/2010, 3:32 AM
Hi,

AG HMC151 is my primary camera. I use it mostly in 1280x720x50p. Before buy I was affraid about level of noise in low light condition (CCD). But I'm not doing reported job. Scenes are always carefully analized in terms of light. I have added SmallHD DP1 to setup, as tools for estimation of noise level and sharpness. Also VariZoom controller for Zoom, Iris and Focus control, when camera is mounted on jib or dolly.

When I have to chromakey, prefer full HD and grab video stream just after CCD via HDMI and Black Magic Intensity PRO (in order to achieve 4 2 2 colour scheme). IMHO optimal setup, like quality very much. No problems in Vegas, fluent editing. I plan the same as you : to buy HMC40 as secondary, would like to check CMOS and timelapse feature.

Very cheap media (SD card) are very convincing to me. I don't need to prepare my setup to record long events (rather minutes then hours).

Outside of Vegas you can face with problem, that free or low_cost applications wil be not capable to recognize format of your file.

I have bought book from Barry Green about HMC151. It helps to juicing this orange ! Like also, that can export and collect scene definition on SD card or backup on my PC. Some usefull scenes has been included with book.

Only one thing which I wonder is magenta. Can't achieve deep, clear magenta with this camera (result is more like raspbery ). Maybe I'm doing something wrong or just this serial number has this special feature. Acctually I hate this colour, so can neglect problem.

Best regards,