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 I should begin by pointing out that I’m fairly new to video. My idea
of a camera has always been a Leica M6 hanging over my shoulder and
extra rolls of film in my pocket. Now, as a burgeoning documentary
maker, I find myself loaded down with bags of lighting, tripods,
sound equipment, and cameras. For music videos, I frequently have a
whole car full of equipment for multi-camera shoots. That said, I
come to the task of evaluating the Panasonic HVX-200 with a
particular point of view. I like simple, rugged cameras that produce
gorgeous pictures. The HVX-200 is in my comfort zone.
First the ergonomics: The HVX is beefy. It feels bigger than the
other cameras I’ve used but also seems much better balanced. It’s
got an industrial almost military feel about it. Before using the
HVX, I’d been shooting with a Canon XL-1 and XL-2 so I’ll be
comparing a bit with the controls and features of these cameras.
Users of Panasonic DVX cameras will be much more at home with the
HVX. It looks, feels and operates like a chunky DVX-100. Compared to
the Canons, the HVX-200 is more handheld and less shoulder mount. It
also feels more compact like a cube. There are fewer adornments
sticking out. I personally like this a lot. The camera fits in a
smaller case than the XL-2 and feels more rugged as I’m carrying it
around.
My shooting style is mostly manual and the HVX makes this very
comfortable. The focus ring is smooth: although I’d prefer a
physical stop on it. There’s an auto-manual focus button just behind
the lens. When set to manual, you can give it a momentary push to
zoom-to-infinity. Below this button is a momentary button to force
an autofocus. Above the auto-manual switch is a focus-assist button,
which opens a zoomed-in window on the viewfinder to obtain a sharper
manual focus. I found this effective, although I could focus a bit
easier using the EVF rather than the LCD screen.
The fixed mount lens itself is a Leica Dicomar 13X with a 35mm
equivalent range of 32mm to 422mm. Century Optics is shipping a .6
wide angle adapter and 1.6 tele adapter with a full-zoom .75 adapter
and fisheye adapter to follow. These would give you an effective
35mm range in your bag of 19mm to 675mm. All in all, the lens
quality is excellent and the add-ons sufficiently flexible that I
don’t believe I’ll miss having a removable lens. To my eye, the lens
shows no objectionable qualities at any aperture. I tried the
Century Optics .6 adapter, which snaps on the front of the lens in
place of the lens hood, and I found minimal vignetting and an
acceptable level of barrel distortion, given the very wide angle of
view.
The Iris Control (I’ll always think of it as aperture) is a knurled
knob on the left side of the camera just behind the lens. It is
large enough to be easily accessible. The f-stop is displayed in the
viewfinder so you can adjust the iris without ever taking the camera
from your eye. This is a consistent characteristic with all controls
on this camera. From my still camera use, I have always preferred a
camera such as a Leica that has controls that can be differentiated
by touch rather than requiring that you actually look at the knobs
and buttons. I want to be able to operate the camera manually and
make any adjustments quickly and by feel. I find the ergonomics of
the HVX-200 very satisfying in this regard. All controls are large,
well-placed and well thought out. Although this camera has an
enormous amount of flexibility in its adjustments, I find that the
controls on the outside of the camera are ones that I am always
using. There’s nothing superfluous and the controls are clustered by
function. For example, right over the Iris knob is the ND switch,
and just behind the knob is an auto-manual Iris button. When the
aperture is set to auto, you can still adjust it manually with the
knob, but when the light changes auto will take over and reset the
F-stop.
The three-position switch for Neutral Density ND 1/64, 1/8 and off
corresponding to 7.5, 3 and 0 stops of light reduction. I find that
I use this frequently to reduce depth of field. One of the biggest
weaknesses of this camera, as with all 1/3” CCD cameras, is that
it’s very hard to throw the background out of focus unless you get
very far away from your subject. 2/3” CCD cameras use longer lenses
for an equivalent field of view, and therefore offer more depth of
field control. About all you can do with the 1/3” CCD cameras is
open the aperture wide, go to a faster shutter or ND, shoot at
maximum zoom, and hope for the best.
The zoom ring is large, and in manual mode, is very smooth. With the
XL2 I normally zoomed manually for focusing and used power zoom to
get a smooth zoom effect while shooting. This is more problematic
with the HVX since you need to disengage the power zoom to easily
turn the manual zoom ring. Maybe I’m supposed to do this with the
XL2 but I’ve never bothered. Here it’s pretty mandatory since it
feels like you are forcing the motor if you don’t disengage. On the
other hand, I’ve started using a Manfrotto control for most of my
shooting. On sticks, I’m using the 522P camera control which has
three zoom speeds as well as progressive and constant zoom. On my
Fig Rig, I’m using the 521P controller. Both offer me enough
flexibility that I haven’t been using manual zoom on this camera.
Also, the power zoom seems much quieter than other cameras I’ve
used. I’ve yet to hear the motor, even in a very quiet scene. The
degree of zoom can be displayed in the viewfinder as either Z0-Z99,
feet and inches, or meters. I haven’t decided which I prefer yet,
but it’s nice to have the flexibility.
One nice feature of the viewfinder is that the 16x9 image is
displayed inside a 4:3 frame. So data like aperture, zoom, shutter
speed etc. is displayed mostly above and below the image. This makes
it much easier to leave this data showing and still see enough of
your scene to shoot.
At the bottom of the camera there are three buttons labeled USER1,
USER2 and USER3. These can be used as shortcuts for settings such as
fade in, and fade out. Frankly, I don’t find these buttons very
useful. I would much rather see them be able to do functions like
remember a zoom position, or remember a focus setting.
Behind the flip-out 3.5” viewfinder, there are more controls
including shutter speed select, SMPTE color bar generator, Time Code
settings, Image Stabilizer on/off, Zebra mode, and audio input
selections.
Once again, these controls can be operated by feel without ever
taking the camera away from your eye. The shutter speed is displayed
in the viewfinder, along with F-stop and focus distance. The time
code can be set to either free run or to advance only while
recording. Free run is particularly useful in a two camera shoot
such as a music video, where you zero the TC in both cameras when
you start, leave one camera running to record the audio and a full
event long shot, and then use the second camera to start/stop on
close-ups. The consistent time code between the two cameras will
greatly assist in the editing. There is also a provision to
synchronize the time code of multiple cameras over the Firewire
connection.
The camera has the familiar image controls found in the current
generation of high end consumer and professional cameras. These
include Chroma Level and Phase for subtle color palette adjustment,
Detail Level for crisper or softer edges, Detail Coring for noise
control, Color Temp for coarse color correction, Master Pedestal for
controlling the range of blacks, Gamma for controlling the dynamic
range curve, and Matrix for either subtly brightening colors or fine
tuning the color curve for fluorescent lights, and Knee to control
what happens to blown out whites. There’s also a Skin Detail
control, been referred to sometimes as “Barbara Walters Mode”, which
is effective at softening skin wrinkles. These settings are
associated with one of six named Scene settings. These settings can
be saved to an SD card. I’m already building up a little kit of SD
cards with settings to match different shooting situations.
White balancing is a simple one-button push of the AWB button on the
front of the camera. Be sure to carry a white card and you’ll get
great color. You can also save two white balance settings (A or B).
There is also an Auto Tracking White feature to gradually change the
white balance to changing conditions. I’m not a big fan of this
feature but I can see the value. If you didn’t bring your white
card, there are two fixed settings for 3200K halogen light or 5600K
outdoor light. Panasonic recommends that you periodically adjust the
black balance. You do this while not recording by setting the white
balance and then holding the AWB button longer to reset the black
balance.
In addition to the image settings, the Scene settings also include
setting the camera to Video Mode or Film Camera mode. When this is
set to Film Cam and the Recording Format is set to one of the 720
line progressive settings (720P), then the Frame Rate can be set to
a range of 12 through 60. For example, if you are shooting in
720/24p and the Frame Rate is set to 60, it’s called “overcrank”
and, when played back, your video is played in slow motion. If set
to a low setting, such as 12, you will get an “undercranked” shot
which plays back twice as fast as reality.
This feature is a hoot. Before I used it, I thought of variable
frame rate as yet another in-camera gimmick like fades and wipes.
However, I’m now a convert. Beyond the obvious super-smooth slow
motion action shots, I found that a bit of slo-mo is very useful for
getting nice steady hand held scenic shots. And a bit of undercrank
makes for very dramatic action shots of, for example, skiers or
motorcycle jumps or car chases. I tried some slow motion (overcranked)
shots of the surf and snow during a recent blizzard. The interesting
thing about these is that you don't notice during playback that they
are not recorded at normal speed. Just seems like the waves are more
dramatic and the snowflakes are more visible. I never realized how
powerful changing the speed of non-people shots can be when done
subtly. The terms, incidentally come from the days of manual film
cameras, if you crank the film fast and get more frames per second
then you have slow motion when it's played normally. The opposite
happens when you under-crank.
I expected to have problems with a stroboscopic effect on pans, as
I’ve seen when shooting at 24 on the XL2. Either I’ve been lucky so
far or the Panasonic is just a lot better at 24 fps but my fast pans
with this camera have been very pleasantly smooth.
Unlike some other HDTV cameras, which are optimized for 1080
interlaced video compressed to HDV recording format, the HVX-200 is
optimized for 720 line progressive scan video recorded to DVCPRO HD.
A major difference with the HVX-200 is that the output is recorded
with far less compression than with the various HDV cameras. The HVX
records at 100 mbits/second as opposed to 25 mbits/second for HDV.
For a recording with little motion, the two approaches (HDV versus
DVCPRO HD) will both give beautiful pictures. The advantage of
Panasonic’s approach lies with the ability to capture far more
action in the shots. This difference can be graphically illustrated
by showing a rapid pan shot with both cameras. Very often with HDV
you’ll see some breakup or pixelation in the image while the
Panasonic video will be rock solid. This is the “satellite TV”
effect, in that it’s much like watching a football game on satellite
TV in a snowstorm. Another advantage of the HVX recording method is
that it records 4-2-2 color rather than 4-2-0 color sampling as HDV
does. The practical result of this is that there is much more color
information available for better color correction in post. Yet
another advantage of DVCPRO HD is that there is no inter-frame (or
temporal) compression. So editing is far less work for your
computer. With HDV, your computer has to uncompress each compressed
frame sequence in order to regenerate the frames for editing.
According to Panasonic, the HVX operates natively in 1080p mode,
meaning that it is capturing 1080 horizontal lines sequentially (not
interlaced). However, it does not record 1080p. The choices of
recording formats with this camera are extensive. It supports nine
High Definition modes (1080 or 720 lines) and twelve Standard Def
modes (480 lines). Recording takes place in DVCPRO HD at 100 mbits/second,
DVCPRO 50 (50mbits), DVCPRO 25, and DV. Both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect
ratios are supported. I believe that this has more flexibility than
any other camcorder regardless of price. I also believe that the
horizontal resolution is as good or better than any other 1/3” CCD
camcorder and most 2/3” camcorder. The only major limitations of
this camcorder versus a $65,000 Varicam appear to be low light
performance, depth-of-field, and ability to change the frame rate
while recording.
The HVX-200 records on P2 memory cards at it’s maximum resolution,
streams over Firewire at 720 lines or below, or records normal
miniDV tapes. The P2 cards are PCMCIA form factor cards which can be
directly inserted into a laptop for accessing like a hard drive. The
cards come in 8GB or 4GB size currently, although a 16GB card is
rumored and Panasonic has estimates that 128GB cards will be
available within the next couple years. With the 720/24PN setting,
an 8GB card will hold 21 minutes of recording. The camera holds two
cards and the cards can be hot-swapped without stopping recording.
So with enough cards, or with a laptop or Panasonic’s P2 Store, you
can record indefinitely.
There’s been a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of P2 cards
versus tape. At 1080/60i your recording time without swapping cards
is short, 16 minutes with two 8GB cards. For event photography this
would appear to be a severe limitation. If you must have 1080i and
you are doing primarily unattended shooting or don’t want to deal
with hot-swapping cards while shooting, then this is probably not
the right camera for you. If you find, like me, that 720p looks at
least as good as 1080i then don’t worry about the record time.
Swapping cards works just fine and you always have the option of
direct recording to hard drive via Firewire. If you don’t want to
make the investment in at least two or three 8GB P2 cards, then I
don’t recommend the camera unless you are planning to record only
via Firewire or you are going to use the camera as an SD camera
until you can afford the P2 cards.
Transferring the cards to a G4 Powerbook is a pleasure. From Final
Cut Pro you select “Import…Panasonic P2” from the File menu. A
window shows you each clip and you can select which ones to import.
I’ve found that I can “capture” a couple hours of video in less than
a half hour. Surprisingly, the P2 Store appears to be a bit slower
copying but still is fast enough to have the card ready for
recording by the time you’ll need it.
My shooting mode with this camera is to stick with 720/24PN
recording mode going to the P2 cards. This maximizes my recording
time, lets me take advantage of over- and undercrank, lets me stream
simultaneously to Firewire, and gives me beautiful softer film-like
video. I also shoot with Cine-Like-D Gamma because I prefer an
extended dynamic range with a bit softer saturation. You can call it
Film Look versus Reality TV, or Erotic versus Graphic depending on
your market. Mastering the Scene settings is clearly the longest
learning curve with this camera but has a big payoff in achieving
the results you want. With your personal Scene kit on SD, you’ll
never need another lens filter (except maybe a polarizer).
One caution when recording in Cine-Like Gamma: There’s expanded
dynamic range but Knee is disabled so there’s nothing to prevent
blown-out highlights. Be sure to turn on the Zebra and keep a close
watch on the highlights.
The HVX-200 is capable of recording fantastic audio. While recording
onto P2 Cards, the camera always records four channels of 16-bit
audio sampled at 48KHz. Two of these are XLR inputs for external
mics and two are the onboard mic. Phantom power is available for the
XLRs. The A/D conversion and filters are excellent. My only gripe is
that you can only set and view the levels on channel 1 and 2. So to
get 4 useable channels, you need to set your levels for channel 3
and 4 and then adjust your input levels for 1 and 2 externally if
possible. There should at least be some sort of a level balance in
the Menu items.
The headphone output can be set to either input or frame-delayed
recorded output. You may find the latter annoying, as you’ll hear
the output as an echo of reality. I use Bose noise canceling
headphones so I don’t hear anything but what’s going to tape. For
playback, the camera speaker is surprisingly loud. At a recent
shoot, I reviewed a shot and had the whole room turn to look for the
boom box culprit.
Shooting with this camera is a wonderful experience. It’s a sturdy,
well-thought-out machine that lets you quickly adapt to changing
situations. For the manual shooter, everything is in the right
place, easy to use, and visible in the viewfinder. The pictures you
take will be mind blowing. Which brings up another important
consideration of shooting with this camera or with HD in general.
This is an unforgiving medium. Focus, motion, color, lighting are
all much more critical than with SD broadcast recording. Lighting is
especially critical with 1/3” CCD cameras since the light
sensitivity is less than with 2/3” cameras or some DV cameras. Bring
lights or find light. Your available low light shots may be
disappointing.
Focus and camera motion are also more critical. I am not a steady
camera handler by nature. I use sticks as much as I can and I use a
Fig Rig coupled with an attached monopod for most of my “handheld”
shooting. This works for me. Although I find the HVX easier to hold
and better balanced than the XL2, the HD output puts a much greater
demand on good shooting. This is a hefty camera at almost seven
pounds with battery. It supposedly just barely works on a Steadicam
Merlin if you paste a couple quarters on the counter balance. I
recommend getting a sturdier tripod than you might use with a DVX100
or XL2. I had been using a Libec M20 with my XL2 but for the HVX-200
I’ve acquired a much sturdier Manfrotto 3182, 510 head, and the
previously mentioned 522P control arm. One nice feature of this
setup is that I have a compatible quick release on the tripod and
Fig Rig.
The HD Revolution has reached critical mass. The demand for high
definition video is growing dramatically and the ability to provide
HD can provide a significant competitive edge to the independent
producer. Of the under $10K high definition cameras that have been
introduced, the HVX-200 is in a class by itself. It is better
compared to the $65K cameras that are its genetic heritage. After
shooting with this camera for a couple weeks, I don’t want to go
back. It’s the first video camera that I’ve used that gives me the
kind of image quality that I have cherished in film. It’s also the
first video camera that I’ve used that gives me the ergonomics,
engineering and construction of the very best still cameras.
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