Anyone using the panasonic HVX200???

Was curious to know what other shooters think of the hvx200 for shooting underwater. I'm thinking about biting the bullet on a new rig, and looking for feedback from the field as to how it looks and works. Especially, how it looks in low light.. Thanks!!!!

Hi Dudeunderwater

I have been using the HVX since May 2006 and have shot quite a few hundred dives with it. If you want True HD rather than HDV, I don't think there is a better option.

I am still ironing out the bugs, there are a lot of settings on the camera that were totally new to me (Knee, Master Pedestal etc) and have taken me a while to learn and that process is continuing. I am sure others out there have figured out better settings for the Scene files than the standard ones that come with the camera and i would love to hear them.

Having said that, the camera performs well underwater. Under low light the images become grainy but that is a common complaint among most shooters that move from DV to HD as i have. In shallow water or under artifical lights, the images are beatiful. You have to be pretty selective int he way you shoot to make sure you get enough light. The autofocus is pretty weak under low light too. Other than that, the P2 work flow is good and the camera is easy to operate underwater (the the Gates housing). I only have the 8GB cards but even shooting 1080 which i almost always do, i rarely fill the cards on a single dive.

There are two functions which are very useful underwater:

1. The pre-record function is great and allows you to wait until the action happens before recording which saves hours of dull footage from being recorded.

2. The camera also has multiple white balance presets. I have found it really useful especially in shooting trip videos on a wreck. You can switch from preset A (red filter on) to preset B (filter off, lights on) instantly as you go inside and outside the wreck making it easy to keep up with the divers i am trying to shoot.

The fathoms SW44 lens is awesome and almost a must with this camera to get the most out of it.

I have a demo reel on my site all hot with the HVX, see what you think. http://www.underseaproductions.com/demo_reels.html

I hope that helps a bit, i would be happy to hear from other HVX shooters with any tips they may have come up with - especially low light scenefile presets.

Cheers

Josh

Josh,

Thanks for your thoughts & feedback. Good looking stuff on the demo. Video looks great, especially the rich colors, and my hat's off to you for steadness of the camera in shallow water surges. That can be a challeging situation.

How do you handle your work flow of dumping media off P2 cards, if say you were on a liveaboard 5 days or more????

Be sure you have a couple of terebytes handy ????

Was curious to know what other shooters think of the hvx200 for shooting underwater. I'm thinking about biting the bullet on a new rig, and looking for feedback from the field as to how it looks and works. Especially, how it looks in low light.. Thanks!!!!

He'll probably be glad to sell you one also...

I believe Panasonic is now offering a free 16gb P2 card with every purchase of a HVX200.

I use to have one and I think it's a different kinda of camera than the normal 'video' look of contrasty, high details and sharp images. The non full raster 960x540 CCD sensors give a interpolated softer look which is pleasing, especially topside shooting people. Ever wonder why all actors look younger on film? Same effect. The reason is the codec itself. In 720P, the luma is 960x720. In 1080, it's 1280x720. This is compared to 1280x720 and most other 1080 formats of 1440x1080, except with the EX1 which has a full raster 1920x1080 mode.

Depending on the look you like, it works very well. It is however, near its lifecycle being 3 years old. DVCPro HD has great chroma resolution being 4:2:2, but it's still lower luma.

Tech aside, you also have the issue of noise caused by the pixel shift process which pushes a low res sensor to output HD res. I found low contrast scenes (eg shooting out in the blue at deeper depths (50ft or more)) the noise kicks up. If you shoot true blacks, the noise isn't as prevalent.

Josh discussed this with me and his shots of a cave mouth from the inside shows how noise is handled by the HVX. This is one area where the HVX has a weakness. Playback on a HDTV the noise at 6db isn't bad.

My favorite feature on the HVX was the 720/60P over/under crank for slowmotion.

You also have to remember the HVX200 is 3 year old technology. The fans of this camera love the softened detail look and the better color grading the codec gives.

To minimize noise, keep mid and max gain to 3 and 6db respectively, set detail coring to +4 and keep v detail and detail 0 or -2. Also V Detail Freq should be on thin as I've seen twitter on Mid and Thck. I'll be testing a new noise reduction technique soon and will be publishing the results. I'm a little behind on stuff due to the holidays.

Thanks Drew

Excellent on the tech side as always, that is very helpful and difficult information to find elsewhere. I have recently started shooting a wreck (HMAS Brisbane) regularly and have had to revisit my noisy blues. It is usually possible to avoid it and only shoot in the right conditions(macro with lights when the light is bad, shallow and wide when the light is good) but trip videos with only two dives to shoot on doesn't give that flexibility so i am back at it again. I will try tinkering with those settings you suggested.

Dude:

I was on liveaboards for over a year with this rig and once you get your routine down it is easy. Depending on what i was shooting, i would rarely keep more than a few minutes of footage per dive so i found two 500GB drives was plenty for a few months shooting. My routine was to dry the housing and dump the cards to both drives after each dive, then go through all the footage at the end of each day and delete the rubbish to free up space. I have a couple of RAID drives at home that i dump the 500s to every few weeks or months. Now i am archiving to DLT tapes for extra redundancy. You need to add the cost of all this stuff to the cost of the rig - it ain't cheap, even though everyone is talking about how cheap drives are these days - when you add them all up....

Josh

No amount of tinkering will get the results you want. It's the problem with the pixelshifting technology. It exaggerates noise. Consider it the film look.

I'll be publishing a technique of post noise reduction soonish. From pre-trials, seems to work well on the P2 files.

You're using AF?!? Heresy!

Well if you bought a SDLT Tape Drive then no wonder you are bitching about costs. 500GB drives are like $130 now. 4 will give you 1TB 1+0 RAID redundancy. Port Multiple in a PC case for a cheap RAID Array (just make sure you have good ventilation). And you're still ahead of the SDLT.

Josh

No amount of tinkering will get the results you want. It's the problem with the pixelshifting technology. It exaggerates noise. Consider it the film look.

I'll be publishing a technique of post noise reduction soonish. From pre-trials, seems to work well on the P2 files.

You're using AF?!? Heresy!

Well if you bought a SDLT Tape Drive then no wonder you are bitching about costs. 500GB drives are like $130 now. 4 will give you 1TB 1+0 RAID redundancy. Port Multiple in a PC case for a cheap RAID Array (just make sure you have good ventilation). And you're still ahead of the SDLT.

I am eager to see your post noise reduction techniques. I am not a big fan of the film look - give me clean video anyday.

AF - me? no never! well, somtimes if it works

Sorry, i meant LTO. Still not cheap but not too bad. I got mine for $600 on eBay, add the cost of the tapes and it is similar in price per Gig to my current LaCie RAID drives. But i have had 4 out of 10 LaCies die (none of the RAIDs yet - i have 3 of those). Research on the net will show horror stories of every other brand of external hard drive crashing too. Thats why i gave up relying on hard drives - even RAIDs.

Hi Josh,

I shoot the HVX200 with FS-100 drive. I'm an editor, coming from post to shooting since HD, so I'm not a fan of 4:2:0 color sample. I had to go with DVCPRO 4:2:2. I like everything about it. One firewire issue. poor design 4-pin plug can be damaged. Keep tweaking because the camera is pretty capable.

regards,

I am not a big fan of the film look - give me clean video anyday.

More heresy!

Sorry, i meant LTO. Still not cheap but not too bad. I got mine for $600 on eBay, add the cost of the tapes and it is similar in price per Gig to my current LaCie RAID drives. But i have had 4 out of 10 LaCies die (none of the RAIDs yet - i have 3 of those). Research on the net will show horror stories of every other brand of external hard drive crashing too. Thats why i gave up relying on hard drives - even RAIDs.

Well that's your problem. You're buying a fancy name brand with cool looking designs but they probably use non-enterprise (server quality) drives. Worst of all you get 2-3 year warranty from these manufacturers when drive warranties are 5 years. Always buy the enterprise drives. They are more expensive but built for 24/7 use. RAID 1+0 functions even when 2 of 4 drives die. I'd stay away from RAID 5 unless you have a dedicated computer acting as a server. Rebuild takes a loooonng time.

It's easy to build your own RAID array in an PC box and port muliplying cards are cheap(buy an extra one and keep it handy).

Josh,

Thanks for sharing your work flow. I can see the need for DLT tape back-ups, as hard drives can be iffy in the long run.

Drew,

You must be an engineer or in the post end of the business, the technical explanations are pretty in depth, sounds like some of my engineer friends here a home. For the past 3 years, been shooting with the VariCam, so pretty familair with DVCPro HD.

Investigating the EX1 further, I'm reading that they seem to have the work flow worked out for the 25MB 1440 X 1080 raster setting, being just like XDCam (It can be archieved to the 23GB blue ray disk, etc., etc.). But, haven't heard a work flow situation for the 35MB 1920 X 1080 full raster setting. I wonder is it's still being worked on, and haven't read anything about NLE handling this format, Avid or FCP. Guess that still maybe in the works also.

The full raster of the ex1 sounds good, seems it maybe better in low lighting and open water situations with the signal to noise ratio @ 54DB. The 4:2:0 color sampling and the long GOP are a turn off, however the add resolution is cool, and most of all, the ability to shoot 1080 24P, it's pretty impressive. The 200's pixel shifting is a turn off, and the noise in low lighting situations seem to be a common complaint. However looks pretty darn good in well lite situations as Josh's video demonstrated.

Have you heard of work flow examples for the full raster setting of the ex1 ??

Todd

There's a thread on the EX1 in the forums. It'd be better to post your questions there. In fact I think I posted most of what you want there.

Not many wetpixels shooting the HVX200?

That's good to know.

Looks like me and Josh are the 4:2:2 guys.

Right on Josh!

I've been using the camera for a while on land now and really like it compared to HDV. It is not HDCAM by far, but the camera is a workhorse and the firestore is great, still always trying to figure out a better workflow based on project. Blu-ray was my choice for backups and library of stock footage. You can get the 25gb discs for around $12. I will be getting the Seatool housing soon and looking forward to ditching my VX1000 and finally going under with HD.

I've been using the camera for a while on land now and really like it compared to HDV. It is not HDCAM by far, but the camera is a workhorse and the firestore is great, still always trying to figure out a better workflow based on project. Blu-ray was my choice for backups and library of stock footage. You can get the 25gb discs for around $12. I will be getting the Seatool housing soon and looking forward to ditching my VX1000 and finally going under with HD.

BD are still well over $20 each in Oz so aren't a cost effective option here yet. Good luck with the Seatool, keep us updated on your underwater progress.

Cheers

Josh