High Definition - the camera family cont'd...
Panavised f900
The Panavised f900 is a modified f900, including a new front and bottom plate which is more secure than the standard Sony plate. The camera is designed to take the weight of the Panavision lenses.
The PV mount is fitted which necessitates the removal of white balance, shutter, roll buttons and menue wheel to a separate box.
A custom viewfinder and a new handle, designed with steadycam in mind are employed, along with a new high resolution colour viewfinder made by Accuscene.
A 35mm crew will feel at home with the Panavision camera lenses and accessories although some of the versatility of using video is traded for this design approach. The Panavision advertising is glossy and at times it is easy for the novice to get the wrong impression for instance claims that Panavision cameras achieve a wider colour gamut are hard to prove and many non video types think that SWAOTC was shot with anamorphic lenses. Panavision are fitting B4 lens mounts to some of their lenses so they can be used on HDW750ps in Europe for TV drama. It is uncertain if they will make these B4 mount lenses available to other users.
The new Accuscene colour viewfinder will initially be available exclusively to Panavision.
Panasonic Varicam
The Panasonic AJ-HDC 27Varicam has three 1 million pixel IT chips to form a 1220 x720 image at up to 60fps onto the Panasonic DVCPROHD format. The camera head employs 10 bit processing, 12 bit was not achievable in a small package due to heat and power considerations.
DVCPROHD varicam codec samples the image from 1220 x 720 to 960 x 720.
The difference between 10bit and 12bit is more obvious on a large screen or with carefully crafted lighting on smaller HD screens. Skin tones in particular look less plastic with 12 bit A to D processing.
The Varicam cannot produce a "native" 1920x 1080 HD signal from the camera head as it does not have the 2 million pixel ccds required. It does have ramping, time-lapse and native 60 fps recording. In timelapse mode a 1/4 of a second exposure is possible. Not quite long enough for taillights of speeding cars to join up and become a continuos snake of light but better than the Sony 750 and 730.
Numerous studio camera heads can output 60fps but the Varicam is the only camcorder with this feature.
The menu is well thought out and offers a range of features cinematographers have been asking for for years. The gamma curve is the closest yet to mimicking the response of film. That is not to say ccd cameras can have the same response as film! A gamma curve does not change the inherent characteristics of the ccd!
There is a useful real time readout of stops under and over that is useful to DPs who are new to video. The DVCPROHD system is lower cost than HDCAM because the recorder can only record 60fps. However the ccd can be scanned from 4 to 60 fps. All the time however the recorder is still humming along at 60fps. So if the DP wants 4 frames per second fine but the recorder needs 60fps to work so frames are repeated to pad the 4fps up to 60fps.
At the same time it puts a flag in the timecode part of the recording so in the edit only the key frames are extracted and the padded frames are ignored. If one is recording 60 fps then no frames are thrown away, if one is recording 10 frames per second then 50 frames are thrown away.
DVCPRO tapes are cheaper and smaller than HDCAM tapes.
The camera is small and light and is more sensitive due to its larger sized pixels. The 1920x1080 cameras need 2.1 million pixels where as the 720p cameras need only 1 million so it follows that more light reaches each pixel of a 720 camera. On the other hand use of gain on a higher res HD camera is a little less noticeable on a down converted picture than if originated on a 720p or standard def camera.
The Varicam would have taken off with more of a bang had its lower price been supported by a more straight forward post route.
