Bruce Greene

Some biased facts :) 1. I remember that the post house that handled the VariCam job I once did complained they had to rent some box to convert frame rates or something and it was generally a nightmare. Why was this? The frame rate converter is used to create slow or fast motion effects when shooting at high/low frame rates and converting them to 24fps (or 30fps) to integrate with normal speed footage. Final Cut Pro editing software can now do this in post without the need for the box. If you shoot 24p and edit 24p no frame rate conversion is necessary. 2. It has Firewire compatibility. Can the director import into his Mac/FCP at all resolutions and all speeds? Not from the camera, a Panasonic 1200a or 1400 dvcproHD tape deck is required for firewire output. 3. Can it do 25P, or just 24P? The Varicam can shoot any frame rate from 6-60. That's how it got it's name. 4. Can it play back 24/25P without rendering/downconverting (since it records in 60)? Yes. 5. Is it full 1080P or just 720P HD? This is not as simple a question as it sounds. I'll address it below. 6. Is it as sharp and has roughly the same color rendition as Sony's F900? From my testing, I would say that in real world shooting, both cameras are of similar sharpness and the color rendition can be customized on both cameras how ever you would like it. 7. Is it well paired with the Pro 35 adapter, or will the image go a bit soft? I haven't used the Pro 35, but I think I'd rather shoot film before I messed with it as it has an almost 2stop light loss and other time consuming restrictions. And anything else you could think of that would be relevant would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. The f-900 has a slight resolution advantage. If the f-900 is a "10" on a scale of 1-10, the Varicam is a "9". It is not an obvious difference. The f-900 (HDcam) format has fewer compression artifacts, but the Varicam is quite close when the "compression mode - dark" is set in the camera menu. Where the Varicam comes into it's own is on 4 points: 1. Variable frame rates for slow and fast motion, even speed ramping in camera if you'd like. 2. The Varicam software menu is set up to allow extending the dynamic range of the camera, a lot if you need to. This can make a lot of difference when shooting high contrast scenes such as day exteriors. I love this feature, though I wish I could customize the gamma curve more than is allowed. 3. The menu on the Varicam is a little bit easier to navigate and learn vs. the sony. 4. The Varicam DVCproHD data can be captured via firewire and edited in it's original form on a computer from a firewire drive. This can be a big deal for lower budget post production. My thoughts on "full 1080 HD" vs. "just 720P"... I just shot a test this week for a feature film that will shoot digitally in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. I shot the same subject on a Sony f-900R and a Varicam. The tapes were then cropped to the widescreen aspect ratio and an anamorphic film print was struck by eFilm. First, the print from eFilm for both cameras was beautiful. On the big screen the quality was better than any 35mm print I've seen at the local cineplex (Not an answer print at the lab though). The F-900 had just the slightest. And I mean slightest advantage in resolution. Very hard to tell without seeing one right after the other. And my test subject wasn't moving. Motion blur at 1/48th sec shutter speed (24fps) will create enough blur to make the difference pretty meaningless. After the test, by coincidence, I went to my local theater to see "Pan's Labyrinth". It was a very nice print, but no sharper than my test at eFilm, and maybe less so. From my experience, on an HDTV monitor, I think it would be near impossible to say which camera was used. If you make a great image with either camera, it will look like a great image. Don't be fooled by the 1080 vs. 720, it's kind of like "11 is one louder than 10" from "This is Spinal Tap". In conclusion, the F-900 has a small technical edge in image quality, but the Varicam has it's own advantages that, in many cases, I think outweigh the technical differences. I would pick the camera that has the most features that you will use...unless your clients think "11 is really one louder than 10"

I'd just like to add that I've often seen much more noise when the image is seen on an LCD or Plasma monitor than on a CRT. This is especially true when the LCD or Plasma has light looking black levels. Just an observation to add to the mix.

And it will have to be a very heavy duty jib as well. Even a 2 axis head can be quite heavy with an f-900. With the camera and head you'll probably have over 100 lbs at the end of the jib.

I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by color spectrum. The matrix does have un equal effects on different parts of the color space. It's kind of like squeezing a 3 dimentional color space by two sides and watching it squish out the other two. Neutrals don't change because they're at dead center. This is the best I can do with words to explain this I think.

There are no 3 axis heads that will hold an f900r and still be small and light enough to go on a steadicam so you're out of luck here. There is a Steadicam like device that has a 3rd axis electronic stabilzer called the "alien revolution". You can read about it here: http://www.alien-revolution.com You might also want to check out this: http://www.robotswithcameras.com/ to learn about this robotic camera dolly with a 3 way stabilized head. It might be just what your looking for. BTW, I think you're idea is a good one. You'll just have to develop a very-very light weight HD camera/lens and a mini 3 way motion stabilized head that can be handheld in some fashion. It will probably take two people to operate the thing (one to fly it and one to pan and tilt it) but you'll get some amazing shots after your million dollar (at least) investment.

OOPS, Just re-read your original post. You are shooting film, so disregard my post above. I confused "video clip" with the idea that you were shooting video. Never mind. ;)

Good news, your problem has nothing to do with color bars :) You have two variables: 1. The calibration of your computer monitor vs. the calibration of your customer's monitor. There are firstly the brightness/contrast controls of the monitors themselves, they could be very different. Also there are two common gamma setttings for computer monitors. Macs come from the factory set to gamma 1.8 and all others set to 2.2. A file that looks good on a 1.8 monitor will look darker on a 2.2 monitor. Note that Macs can be set to 2.2 in the control panel. So if you're on a mac set to gamma 1.8, the quicktime file may look normal on your monitor but darker on your client's monitor if it's set to gamma 2.2 2. There is something about compressing into sorensen 3 that makes the compressed file darker. I've noticed this before and found that I need to lighten the video clip before making the compression via sorrenson 3. Hope this helps. Note that since you're producing a quicktime for computer viewing, you don't need an NTSC monitor to adjust the color/brightness. You should have a properly calibrated computer monitor though. You can buy a special instrument to calibrate your computer monitor for between $100-$300. And lastly, you could be using a cheap LCD monitor or laptop that changes brightness when you move your head. Don't use one of these for judging images. :angry:

This may sound stupid, but... when you shoot color with a 3 chip video camera, each b&w chip is exposed through a red, green, or blue filter. When the camera is white balanced, the luminance of Red=Green=Blue. I don't think you can increase the quality by placing additional filtration over the camera lens. You are essentially double filtering each chip. That said, you might get more interesting results if you shoot b&w film in three passes and have it telecined in b&w and apply the color in post. Or 3 passes of a b&w video camera, but I haven't seen one in a few years. :blink:

Gamma adjusts the mid tones. A setting of .45 is neutral. Raising the number will make the image darker by increasing the contrast in the brighter half and decreasing the contrast in the darker half of the image. Lowering the number does the opposite. Gamma does not change the brightest and darkest parts of the image, ie. the white or black points. Knee changes the contrast of the highlights of the image by extending the dynamic range of the camera into the brightest parts of the image. One sets a point called the "knee point" at the exact luminance that the effect will start (something like 85% IRE for example). Then one sets the "knee slope" which determines the amount of contrast reduction. Unlike gamma, the knee changes the white point, extending the range of exposure. It does not effect contrast below the knee point. Because knee changes the contrast starting at a specific point, the change at the knee point can sometimes be seen by a decrease in contrast and saturation at that point and can be an ugly effect if you're not careful. Matrix is a color control that changes how colors are represented and is controlled in a non intuitive way like adding green to the color red etc. It does not effect neutral greys, blacks or whites. Therefore, it's not the way to control the overall color balance of the image, such as "warming it up" etc. To use this control, one needs a good color test chart and a waveform/vector scope. It is effective at changing the way specific colors are reproduced and is used in conjuction with a "color correction" control which changes saturation and hue of specific colors. There you go :huh:

Marc, If it were I, I would light the scene using the light meter and expose the camera using a waveform and a monitor. Unlike with film cameras and negative film, 1/10th f/stop change on an f-900 is a significant difference of exposure. It could be the difference between clipping your hightlights and photographing them. A "5.6-8.0 split" is not quite accurate enough for f-900 style of shooting even after calibrating your ISO setting for the camera set up that you're using. At the very least, set up the zebras at just below the white clip point. I like to set mine about 10% under the maximum % the camera will record. I think in standard set ups, the clip point of the f-900 is about 109% unless changed in the camera menu.

From tests that I've done, I find it very hard to see a difference in picture detail between the f-900 and the varicam. It would seem like 1080>720 but there's more to it than that. On a full color motion picture shot at 1/48th second shutter speed it will be very hard to see a difference between the two cameras that would be more visable on a black and white resolution chart. So it's my opinion that the difference in picture detail is trivial, you should test to see if you agree.

It's not really over exposed, just kind of low contrast, probably due to some setting in the camera. It can easily be corrected to look like this:

I've been told that fuji and panasonic tape comes from the same production line and are identical.

The last time I shot a Plasma (Panasonic model) there was pulsing like with an out of sync HMI lamp. We fixed the issue by shooting with a shutter angle of 144 degrees (Varicams let one select shutters like on film cameras). In the f900 use the syncro scan to find a shutter speed that gets rid of the flicker, probably close to 1/60th second.

I've used both cameras and find that overall the quality of the images is similar with both cameras once one learns how to set up the cameras to their best advantage. The f900 has more pixels in the luminence chanel and on a resolution test chart it will look slightly more detailed. I have though done an experiment where we brought still frames from each camera into photoshop and enlarged the Varicam frame to the same number of pixels as the f900 frame for comparison. The result, to me, revealed that in real world shooting the two cameras matched resolution for all practical purposes believe it or not. This may be because they each shoot the same number of color pixels or because with real world motion blur or optics limitations it's very hard to see any difference in resolution. I did notice that the f900 had better looking digital compression artifacts than the Varicam. Panasonic has added an alternate compression setting in updated software and the newest model (H) that is supposed to improve this though I haven't checked it out in such detail. It's called "Compression Mode" in the VTR menu. The main difference between the two cameras is that the Varicam can shoot at all frame rates from 5-60FPS. Also the Varicam has an alternate menu that lets one extend the dynamic range of the camera which is a way cool tool. This method to me is superior to using the knee settings on the f900 to try to get the same effect. And lastly, the Varicam format can be captured in its native format for editing in Final Cut Pro using firewire drives which for some projects can be a real post production advantage.

Andy, I'm using the Panasonic BT-LH1700W 17" LCD monitor with my Varicam. Price is a little under $3000. The monitor is very close to a calibrated (white balanced, not just color bars) CRT and is sharper than 20in CRT as well. Blacks are a little milky compared to a CRT though. It actually looks better in a room with some ambient light rather than in a black tent. I've even used it on the beach in bright sun and could still see an image (critical viewing did require a serious shade though) Other pluses: It is light weight, runs on ac/dc, has HD-SDI and SD-SDI inputs, Analog HD and SD inputs, has a gamma corrector (approximate) for Film Rec mode on a Varicam, and a crude, but very useful waveform monitor. I just used it today on a shoot with a Sony f-900 and it color matched a just calibrated Sony CRT very very well. And to my surprise, it did not look fuzzy when down-sampling the f-900 to 720 pixels and was even a little better than the 20in sony for judging focus, though not quite as sharp as 23in 1280 pixel LCD display. Best of luck with your up-coming film. -bruce Oops, I meant "1080 pixel LCD" display.