Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 208 Location: Lafayette, CA
HV20: Awww, it's cute...
Well, it's here. And it's TINY!!
But, hey, size doesn't matter, right? (At least that's what they tell me... Repeatedly!)
So, got to mess around with it a bit before the battery died and I'd have to say that there's good news and bad news (though not too bad fortunately). Here's how I saw things during my brief tour.
First the bad news. No totally manual mode. The closest you can come is either shutter or aperture priority modes which are still auto-exposure modes. Pretty weak. But... In either of these modes there is an on-screen exposure adjustment. The only problem is I have no idea how it goes about adjusting said exposure. If you're in shutter priority mode does tweaking exposure mess with the aperture? On the flip side, if you're in aperture priority mode does it change the shutter speed? Or is it some kind of gain setting? Don't ask me for I am sans clue and the manual ain't saying.
And someone, please, tell what the hell Cinema Mode is because the manual says that CM combined with the 24P mode looks great. Really? Why? Cinema Mode is primarily an auto-preset with no control other than exposure, so, I will be avoiding it like a Tenderloin hooker, thank you very much.
Do you like buttons? Knobs, dials, that kind of thing. Well, tough luck. There are about 5 controls you'll use during shooting with two of those buttons being used to access on-screen settings and menus. Clunky but doable. But what may put you off this camera for good is the focus control. It's a little roller on the left side of the unit; no focus ring at all. I cringed when I first saw this as I'm sure others will do. The strange thing is, I tried it and found that I kind of dig it. It's just a smooth up and down movement rather than the usual contorted wrist and arm movements used on typical lenses. But, hey, that's just me; I've always been a big fan of up and down movement, what can I say.
The final thing I found rather egregious was the lack of a FireWire cable. I mean, come on, they cost like 13 cents at the source in China. Canon can't pony up for a crucial IEEE 1394 connector cable? What's up with that? I can understand the lack of an HDMI cable, you practically have to steal your Granny's life savings hidden under her mattress to afford one of those but a FireWire? Please! But I digress...
The cables that DO come in the box are your typical AV cable (video, left/right audio), Component (sending an HD signal to HD ready TVs), and a USB cable for still pictures the camera is capable of. (No mini-SD card included for the stills though. Don't get me started...) An A/C power unit for the camera is included and used to charge the cute little battery that is also included. (You use it to charge the battery while it's in the camera; external battery charger is extra)
"So what's the good news" you've got to be asking yourselves by now. Well, 24P, duh! And real 24P to boot. Since it's a single sensor they don't need to mess around with the Pixel Shift kludge used in Canon's 3 CCD cameras. Nice.
Also, there are a bunch of Automatic White Balance settings (per DVRG doctrine) plus, if you insist, a manual WB. Sweet.
Another plus is what they call Image Effects which are preset Color Depth/Brightness/Contrast/Sharpness settings. Though you may not be too keen on the presets you have the option of setting them all manually. Excellent.
On top of all that are the camera's still image capabilities (3.1 MegaPixels, 5 pics/second high speed shooting mode, etc.), standard DV functionality, micro size (can you say "stealth-cam"?), 4:2:2 uncompressed[sic] capture capability through the HDMI connection and a $1,099 price tag all add up to a pretty good deal in my book. Plus I've now got a handy little HDV deck for our film we'll be shooting this summer.
Next: Actually shooting some footage with the wee thing. Stay tuned.
Ahh thx for the review bfindleton!
Hope you can post some shots with that to feed our fetisch like hunger!
Btw about the shutter / aperture mode, I think I recall reading somewhere that it's bypassable by getting it in tv-mode (?) then doing something something bla bla, don't quitte remember. But even so, hope that gives a little.. hope.. My grammar teacher would kill me to not use synonyms.
Anyways hook us up with some footage!
_________________ What do we know, and how do we know it?
Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:01 pm
jwdenzel
Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 291 Location: Northern California
Nice review. Thanks much.
And yeah, I'd love to see footage. Can you shoot 720p? Or just 1080?
On a lot of these "birthday cameras", you can attach a lens adaptor to get some larger lenses. Is that possible with this camera?
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 917 Location: San Francisco
Re: HV20: Awww, it's cute...
bfindleton wrote:
First the bad news. No totally manual mode. The closest you can come is either shutter or aperture priority modes which are still auto-exposure modes. Pretty weak. But... In either of these modes there is an on-screen exposure adjustment.
But can you do some sort of exposure locking so it won't "breath" as you pan from one lighting condition to another? If not, that's a dealbreaker.
bfindleton wrote:
The only problem is I have no idea how it goes about adjusting said exposure. If you're in shutter priority mode does tweaking exposure mess with the aperture? On the flip side, if you're in aperture priority mode does it change the shutter speed? Or is it some kind of gain setting? Don't ask me for I am sans clue and the manual ain't saying.
From what I've read it sounds like it would be combining the iris or shutter setting with gain, and you can't keep it from including gain in the mix. Another bummer.
bfindleton wrote:
And someone, please, tell what the hell Cinema Mode is because the manual says that CM combined with the 24P mode looks great. Really? Why? Cinema Mode is primarily an auto-preset with no control other than exposure, so, I will be avoiding it like a Tenderloin hooker, thank you very much.
Sounds like it might be a cinegamma-type mode, where it tries to max out dynamic range. Could be a good thing, but only testing will tell.
Joined: 08 Mar 2007 Posts: 77 Location: Phoenix, AZ, US
Stu, you nailed it. This cameras seems to have everything... but no exposure lock (shutter auto adjusts when in aperture priority mode), so it's pretty much useless for filmmaking. Argh! So close!
Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:59 pm
Stu Site Admin
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 917 Location: San Francisco
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 208 Location: Lafayette, CA
Joshua Provost wrote:
Stu, you nailed it. This cameras seems to have everything... but no exposure lock (shutter auto adjusts when in aperture priority mode), so it's pretty much useless for filmmaking. Argh! So close!
Actually...
There is a way to lock both shutter and aperture. In either priority mode if you activate the manual exposure setting it will lock everything down.
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 208 Location: Lafayette, CA
Stu wrote:
From what I've read it sounds like it would be combining the iris or shutter setting with gain, and you can't keep it from including gain in the mix. Another bummer.
I can't seem to find the part about the gain being part of the exposure auto-adjust in the article.
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 208 Location: Lafayette, CA
"In Tv, or Shutter Priority, you can set shutter speed manually while the camcorder adjusts aperture. In Av, or Aperture Priority mode, you can set the aperture manually while the camcorder adjusts shutter speed."
I'm willing to take John at his word, even though he's not a Canon engineer, but I'd like to find an empirical way to determine if gain is being dragged into the mix. I hope not but with Canon you never know.
I'm still trying to figure out a 24p acquisition strategy. There seems to be a Mac workflow that involves a couple of third party apps but I'm really hooked on CineForm's Aspect HD and hope they come out with a preset that can address this issue. I refuse, nay, I rebel against editing long GOP source. "Friends don't let friends edit .m2t". I'll shoot some 60i tomorrow and see how it looks.
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 208 Location: Lafayette, CA
I finally got CineForm to work within PP2 using the "Aspect 1440x1080 24p (CF24 or P2)" preset. The trick is you have to Customize the Capture setting and select "Remove Sony CF24 pulldown".
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