Sony HC3

[paulpost]

So, same size sensor but less pixels should give lower lux. OK, lets compare the new HC7 and HC1 both 1/3' sensors , both 37mm lens, HC7 3.2 Mpixels, HC1 2.8 Mpixels in theory Hc1 should be better in low light.
I think this lux level comparison is very relative and I'll explain why.
One evening I was playing around with my old camcorder Sony DCR TRV38 and the new HC1. I have both turned on and aiming at the same object in the room and I started to deem the light little by little, when the picture on the LCD of the TRV38 turned almost black and white (no more colors), the picture on the LCD of the HC1 was still full of color, little bit grainy but a lot better.
Now my point is that the TRV38 has a 7 lux low light and HC1 is 10 lux .
Paul

 

[limeyx]

So, same size sensor but less pixels should give lower lux. OK, lets compare the new HC7 and HC1 both 1/3' sensors , both 37mm lens, HC7 3.2 Mpixels, HC1 2.8 Mpixels in theory Hc1 should be better in low light.
I think this lux level comparison is very relative and I'll explain why.
One evening I was playing around with my old camcorder Sony DCR TRV38 and the new HC1. I have both turned on and aiming at the same object in the room and I started to deem the light little by little, when the picture on the LCD of the TRV38 turned almost black and white (no more colors), the picture on the LCD of the HC1 was still full of color, little bit grainy but a lot better.
Now my point is that the TRV38 has a 7 lux low light and HC1 is 10 lux .
Paul

First of all, lux is very 1-dimensional and doesn't really give us too much info.
second of all, gain can be used to combat this, and cameras like FX1 are really clean at 6 or 9db of gain. Not sure how the HC cameras are with that.

Second, I saw a post on hdvinfo.net forums that said in order to get 2 lux, Sony dropped the shutter speed to 1/30 where all the other cams are quoted as 1/60

honestly, I dont think it matters too much.
For me, the concerns are

- HDV -- I think most modern HDV cameras will give us a plenty good image.
AVCHD -- i think can give a great image but I am not convinced the current cameras are there yet
- manual control of camera -- FX1 in L&M housing is good here
- size/weight (my FX1 fails miserably)

I went with the FX1 mainly because of manual setting, and 3CCD -- I have a single CCD DV camera and was not happy with the image quality so much.

Also, I will not use a camera which manually controls the camera buttons -- what a pain.

And so much of it is the person *behind* the camera, and what you put in front of it that matters really.

i think HC1/HC3/HC5/HC7 will all be just fine for 90+% of us.

 

[wilbkr1]

Hey,

Don't want to highjack the thread, but what would the community recommend to edit HD? I did a search with not much returned. Thank you for the help.

 

[diversteve]

Hey,

Don't want to highjack the thread, but what would the community recommend to edit HD? I did a search with not much returned. Thank you for the help.

Vegas Movie Studio Platinum - the Platinum version has HDV support.

The latest Premiere Elements will also do HD. Amazon seems to have the best price usually for some reason. With either you can move up to the pro versions later without having to relearn the interface.

On the Mac side, the consensus seems to be Final Cut Pro from what I've seen.

 

[wilbkr1]

Hey,

@ Steve Thank you, I know you work with HD. Do you find one porgram better than the other?

Vegas Movie Studio Platinum - the Platinum version has HDV support.

I did a quick google search and Vegas seems to be a nice app for a very fair price. Do you use this as your primary?

Thank you for the help!

 

[paulpost]

Hey,

Don't want to highjack the thread, but what would the community recommend to edit HD? I did a search with not much returned. Thank you for the help.

The best way to find what is more suitable for your set up would be to dowload all the tryal versions and see which is working the best for you.
But you have to consider your computer's power of procesing HD .
In my situation a had to buy a new dual core. But this is not the norm.
Paul

 

[diversteve]

It's all I'm using(VMS), the Pinnacle is on my old machine. I have used Premiere in the past - pre-HD and I intend to upgrade to either full Vegas or full Premiere Pro in the future.

 

[drbill]

Isn't there a current thread on NLE software where the current exchange could be redirected (not that the hijack isn't of some interest). Perhaps Steve can redirect it.

 

[diversteve]

Perhaps Steve can redirect it.

Actually I can't - I only have jr. Mod powers in the AZScuba forum.

But to get back on topic:

One evening I was playing around with my old camcorder Sony DCR TRV38 and the new HC1. I have both turned on and aiming at the same object in the room and I started to deem the light little by little, when the picture on the LCD of the TRV38 turned almost black and white (no more colors), the picture on the LCD of the HC1 was still full of color, little bit grainy but a lot better. Now my point is that the TRV38 has a 7 lux low light and HC1 is 10 lux .

Paul, I'd think some of what you were seeing was related to the quality of the LCD's. Maybe the LCD on the HC1 is better in resolving color in low-light situations. And your TRV is an older camera with an older LCD. So I'd expect the HC1 to be better. I have seen something similar to what you describe, I had an old TR700, when used inside in a low-light situation, everything looked brown on the LCD. But it was better when viewed through the AV outputs on my component video monitor.

I think the only way to accurately do a comparison like this would be to take the SD output from both cameras and feed it to two calibrated monitors. Or some sort of test equipment like the camcorder reviewers use. What's visible on each LCD monitor may not be what each camcorder's image sensor is capable of resolving.

 

[alo100]

So, same size sensor but less pixels should give lower lux. OK, lets compare the new HC7 and HC1 both 1/3' sensors , both 37mm lens, HC7 3.2 Mpixels, HC1 2.8 Mpixels in theory Hc1 should be better in low light.
I think this lux level comparison is very relative and I'll explain why.
One evening I was playing around with my old camcorder Sony DCR TRV38 and the new HC1. I have both turned on and aiming at the same object in the room and I started to deem the light little by little, when the picture on the LCD of the TRV38 turned almost black and white (no more colors), the picture on the LCD of the HC1 was still full of color, little bit grainy but a lot better.
Now my point is that the TRV38 has a 7 lux low light and HC1 is 10 lux .
Paul

Huh, so the min lux showed at the spec may not reflect what it's actually like?

User feedbacks like this is always useful. I would stay tune to see how's the performance of HC7 is going to be comparing to HC3/HC1 from you guys.

One thing that's bothering me is that usually people would people would mention something like, "we are using 0.08 micron (1x10^-16 of an inch) cmos technology for this product..."

Wait, I think I saw something:
HC7 1/2.9" 3200K Gross Pixels ClearVid™ CMOS Sensor
HC3 is using 1/3"
if the fab technology changed, we are not even using the same type of sensors anymore, it's even harder (for me) to estimate how's the behavior is going to be, smaller is size (photo diode) but denser in an array.