HC3 1 touch white balance ?

Hey, on the front page of Wetpixel there is an announcement by L&M for their new HC3 housing stating 1 touch white balance through the touch screen.

Anyone else read or hear about this ?

I know the HC1 has WB through the touch screen but I understand it take 4-5 touches.

Ok here's the deal. The Bluefin HC3 can access three of the six visable controls in the p-menu. The three we think are most useful are Tele Macro, Smooth Slow Motion, and White Balance.

There is some set-up to move the buttons to the right column of a 2 column by 3 row grid and to set the WB once to highlight the one push button. But that's all a one time deal. Once you've set one push, the camera seems to remember that you want one push.

So after set up on the right side of the p-menu should be

TELE MACRO

SMOOTH

SLWREC

WHITE

BAL

Here's the sequence for getting to "one push white balance"

Push the left knob to activate the p-menu

push the left knob to activate the White Balance menu

push the left knob to activate "one push white balance"

In this mode you can record and zoom and reset the white balance multiple times with one push of the left knob. If you want to adjust the manual focus or exposure, you'll need to exit.

If you want to then shoot in auto white balance, you can push the "easy button" twice.

If you want to avoid all of that and are willing to spend a few hundred bucks more, check out the Sony A1U. http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/b2b...lease/9103.html

It's a really nice camera and has a programmable button that for uw is used for "one push white balance.

Hope that is clearer than Monterey Bay during a bloom.

:-) Barrett

Barrett,

How does the resolution of the HC-3 stack up against that of the HC-1(discontinued but still avaliable) or the A1-U? Those two had the same CMOS chip size and , while their were real advantages to the A1-U, the image was the same. What size chip does the HC-3 use? Does it have the expanded focus feature?

Steve B)

Hi Steve

I'm pretty sure the HC3 chip is different to the HC1/A1. I'm sure I read somewhere that the pixels had been 'rotated' somehow to allow more green to be captured - while the HC1/A1 was more towards the red end. This is very untechnical I know so perhaps someone else can explain it better!

I had a HC3 on order, but it didn't turn up when it was supposed to so I cancelled. The trip I was going to use it on ended up being cancelled due to force 6 winds, so it's not like I would have got any filming done anyway!

After hearing about the 'more green' thing I'm going to hold off again on HD. It could probably be countered with filters and WB but I can't seem to see the trees for the wood right now where HD is concerned and at the moment I don't have the spare cash to make too much of a mistake. Especially as you'd think my hormonal pregnant wife acted like I'd just ordered an Aston Martin when I told her the HC3 was on the way!! LOL Oh well we're talking again now

Cheers, Simon

Steve,

The final "resolution" on tape is the same b/t the HC3, HC1, and A1U, but the chip size is slightly smaller in the HC3.

HC3 Imaging Device 1/3" 2100K Gross Pixels ClearVID CMOS Sensor

vs.

HC1's 1/3" 3000K Pixel CMOS Sensor

The following link has more details and camparisons. http://www.camcorder-compare.com/sony-hdr-...ny-hdr-hc1.html

The HC3 does not have expanded focus, but has better low light capability (5 lux vs 7 lux). The HC3's biggest advantage is the smaller size. The A1U's biggest advantage is the programmable button for one push white balance.

:-) Barrett

That would explain why the HC3 has better low light. If both have 1/3" sensors but the HC3 has less pixels then each pixel must be larger and hence more light gathering capability. And in fact you can see that the still MP count is lower on the specs.

Just an observation...