Another camcorder arrived today, the Panasonic AG-HPX250 along with Nigel Cliff from Holdan. Nigel and I go back a long way, he is a genuinely nice person and always has a smile on his face.

The AG-HPX250 is Panasonic’s flagship hand held P2 camera…

• Progressive-compatible U.L.T. (Ultra Luminance Technology) image sensor (1/3-type 2.2-megapixel 3MOS sensor)
• 22x Zoom Lens with Wide Coverage from Wide-Angle to Telephoto
• Full P2HD Image Quality with AVC-Intra Codec Recording
• High-End Operation with Multi-Camera Synchronizing and VFR Recording
• 4-position (clear, 1/4 ND, 1/16 ND, 1/64 ND) optical neutral density filter wheel

As usual the picture quality was exceptional, we had the camera in AVC INTRA 100 at 1920 x 1080 50i, Nigel told me that the 250 is now BBC HD approved.

Finally I get a chance to asses the Canon XF100 since I have just bought one. The camcorder has a lot of features packed into its small body and non more so than full broadcast CBR 50MB/s 4:2:2 (CBR=Constant bit rate), this wee chap is a lot bigger in features than at first glance.

Before we go any further the Canon out of the box is far to noisy but you can improve you pictures 100% by following my instructions below…

UPDATE : Having thought about this setting I had a look at some real life footage and setting it to 4 makes for a fair bit of NR added which is fine for still but not so good for live action so my updated setting would be setting the noise reduction to number 2. Note the different contrast and white balances can be ignored if anything it helps to exaggerate the noise problem. You can experiment yourself but in Automatic mode the camera adds a fair bit of noise.

Lets start with the lens this is one feature that left the NX70 standing, although sharing a similar 10x optical zoom the Canon is far superior starting at f1.8 at the wide end and f2.8 at the tight, this lens lets in a ton of light compared to the NX70 which goes from f1.8 wide but f3.4 on the tight end and that makes such a difference when you need that extra light at the tight end. In order to get the same exposure as the Canon I had to put the gain up to 6dBs.

Chromatic aberration is something that has not hindered any of my filming with both my NX70s but it does seem to be a problem for some shooters so here is a test I have done with this problem in mind.

Chroma fringing is part of a low cost lens I am afraid but it only happens on the outer most part of both lenses, at under £3000 per camera this has to be expected, I could do the same test with expensive Nikon glass and the results would be the similar, but its not the problem some people seem to think it is.

Zoom rocker, if you are an NX70 owner like me you will cringe at the word zoom rocker, due to the waterproofing the NX70 was fitted with a component that affected its variability giving us a fast zoom, this has been addressed and Sony will update that feature in March 2012 with a firmware update. The Canon has no such problems and even has extra menu features allowing you to get smooth starts and finishes through its very smooth variable zoom range.

The HDMI on the Canon is full size but is badly placed just under the hand grip while the NX70 has a mini HDMI socket which is more fiddly to use on a shoot if you want to use an external monitor. The viewfinder on the Canon is far to small unlike the NX70s viewfinder which is very usable in those bright sunny days.

The audio switches are far better laid out on the Canon, simple to understand with the audio pots on the top of the camera. Both cameras have professional XLR inputs but the Canon has a more robust handle and a 1/4″ screw allowing you to attach a small magic arm if needed.

Conclusion…

Without labouring on the subject both cameras delivered very high quality footage and although the NX70 does not have the luxury of 50MB/s 4:2:2 it does have 1080 50p. The one thing that does stick out is the Canons lens having f 2.8 at the tight end of the zoom does give you far brighter pictures in low light while the NX70 is having to use 6dBs of gain to even compete.

You have to dig deep in the Canon web site to find this CF card compatibility chart.

Ergonomically the Canon is in my opinion better laid out with both gain and shutter buttons on the outside of the camera and one of my gripes with the touch screen as used in the NX70 is how grubby it gets after a days shoot.

The Canon is more expensive to run using CF cards against the NX70s SDHC cards, that said you do have 2 card slots on the Canon which you can set to record to both, that is a great feature for archiving purposes, the NX70 has only one card slot and as yet has no way of recording to card and internal memory simultaneously but will be added in a FW update in March 2012.

The Canon does have syncro scan something I have missed as both the NX70 and the FS100 do not have this feature and the Wave Form Monitor (WFM) feature on the Canon is great for exposing your shots allowing you to see if your whites are clipping.

As usual both cameras will not match as they have their own colour profiles as I have a fairly large documentary coming up about diabetes I have decided to go down the Canon route with a C300 on order from H Preston Media, the XF100 will be a good cutaway camera and be less imposing for some shots and hopefully match the C300 better than keeping my Sony cameras.

The NX70 does give a great account of itself when you consider its up against 50MB/s and the superior 4:2:2, once you eradicate the inherent noise given off by having the noise reduction switch set to automatic the Canon excels with a very solid, punchy picture, the Sony produces a more natural red with the Canon producing a more pleasing skin tone. The external gain and shutter on the Canon does it for me as the NX70 can be a bit of a pain having to access many of the cameras functions via the touch screen.

I have enjoyed my two NX70s but time to move on lets hope I get the same pleasure from the Canon XF100 six months from now !

The JVC KY 1900 was an industrial camera in fact it was one of the few camcorders to be produced with a plastic orange body making it very distinctive, JVC brought this camera out during 1982.

The KY-1900 had three saticon tubes which resolved around 400 lines of resolution in their day, price was around the £4700 mark.

Weighing less than 8 pounds, this super-compact three-tube camera is designed without compromising quality.

• Three newly designed Saticon tubes
• High performance dichroic multi-layer mirror optical system
• Die cast aluminum frame
• 52dB signal-to-noise ratio
• 9dB gain available for really low light situations
• Optional 6:1, 10:1 or 14:1 servo zoom lens
• Automatic iris control with weighting detection circuit
• Automatic Beam Control, knee compression and white clip circuits for highlight processing
• Auto white balance with 8-bit memory
• Built-in genlock and color bar generator

The 1980s saw the introduction of the Saticon tube industrial camera like the KY1900 but they suffered from “light scaring” in other words if you were filming in a steel factory you dare not point the camera at arc welding or you stood a high chance of permanently “brurning” a hole in the tube, this was known as “burn in”. Another anomaly with tube cameras was their propensity to “stick” while panning, once again it was a simple case of overloading the tube with pin points of light and you would get a smearing affect.

Early cameras were very basic indeed with most of your controls at the front, IRIS, WHITE BALANCE and VTR on and off switch, there was nothing else other than a gain switch 0 or 9Dbs and registration.

On the side of the KY1900 you have 4 yellow pots…Blue-Vertical, Blue-Horizontal, Red-Vertical, Red-Horizontal, by tweaking each pot pointing the lens at a registration chart you were able to align the red and the blue against the green gun. What you were doing was changing a magnetic field on each Saticon tube as they were prone to shift with temperature, the earths natural magnetic field and bumping the camera itself.

Manual registration lead cameramen to become paranoid as wo-betide you if you turned out to a shoot and forgot that all important jewellers screwdriver.

Later cameras came with auto registration where you pointed the camera at a chart and pressed a button.

This camera with lead acid battery attached would sit on your shoulder at around 12-14 pounds (5.44Kg-6.35Kg) no wonder we all suffer from back or shoulder problems.

Does it still work ? After 30 years I fed it a 12volt power supply switched it on and waited…no picture…then I blasted my “test dolly” with a 600W LED light and a glimmer of hope but very noisy and the viewfinder still showed no pictures.

Remembering these cameras need some time to heat up I left it for about 30 minutes and would you believe it…pictures.

These pictures were recorded onto a Sony GV-HD700 in DV mode via the composite video input then a still was taken via the PHOTO mode on the HD700.

My hat off to the Japanese video engineering department at JVC for producing a camera that can even today produce pictures after 30 years, not only that but very accurate pictures especially when looking at the colour rendition chart.

This has been a roller coaster of a ride for me to finally own my all time favourite camera from the past and that distinctive orange body is so sexy and distinctive even after 30 years, todays cameras are somewhat boring in the fashion department but I have it on good authority that black is defiantly the best colour for cameras and tripod legs as reflections are kept to a minimum.

As an aside my late Uncle Dick was partly responsible for the invention of the Vidicon tube made by RCA. America was a major player in video technology back in the 70s and 80s, the Vidicon tube was the core of many broadcast cameras during the late 80s, early 90s and my uncle was a pioneer in its development !

CES 2012: Panasonic is showing mockups of two large-aperture zoom lenses for Micro Four Thirds. The Panasonic stand plays host to mockups of a 12-35mm F2.8 and a 35-100mm F2.8 lens, prominently badged ‘Concept’ lenses. Next to the models is a lens roadmap confirming the company’s intentions to build a 12-35mm (24-70mm equiv) and 35-100 (70-200mm equiv) ‘X’ grade zooms, but with a note that the maximum apertures are ‘to be determined.’ The diagram appears to suggest both lenses will arrive later in 2012.

Strange but interesting “the maximum apertures are ‘to be determined” and heres me thinking its f2.8. Now take it from me Mr Panasonic lens designer you will win a watch if you can make these lenses f1.8 or better still f1.4 maximum aperture, that would allow a fantastic shallow depth of field for AF101 users, the 12-35mm being a cracking standard zoom for the AF101.

OMG !… I forgot about this prototype two years ago at Canon Expo…Please tell me Canon have not gone onto develop this juke box come hairdryer. This will be the best comedy show since Charlie Chaplin if this menace has been reincarnated.

All the info live from Los Angeles starts from 10pm tonight UK time. I will be glued to the keyboard bringing you all the exiting information from both Canon and RED…the event of 2011 tonight from 10pm.

Around 9pm tonight we will be getting the first pictures of the new Canon large sensor camcorder more importantly the first specifications and pricing in fact Chris Hurd from DV Info Net has had an email from Canon…

Why is this news so momentous, so far all we have is teasing from Canon themselves…here is my take on this news.

Canon have been a major player in the DSLR race with the 5D Mk11 being the first camera to have HD video built alongside the photographic part of the camera setting a new benchmark in video/photography.

Until the announcement of the 1DX this year Canon have done little to amend the inherent problems that dog the DSLR from being a truly professional filming tool but even the 1DX has built in flaws that were explained by a Canon rep as being a part of the pro video input in other words “we are just about to launch a large sensor camcorder and would prefer if the 1DX was not a competitor”.

Why is this even newsworthy…Canon have a knack of looking at a marketplace and introducing camcorders that don’t need add on’s to make them broadcast friendly. They also want people to buy lots of Canon glass as they have had the best two years of all time because of the DSLR phase.

Canon also recognise that cameramen/women do not care for expensive add on’s like NanoFlashes etc in order to “make the grade” with the likes of the BBC etc thats why Sony missed the boat big time with the PMW-F3 making it 35Mbs claiming to speak to the “right people” when they clearly got it so wrong.

Thats why this Canon announcement is so important, professionals may at last have a large sensor camcorder that will be fit for purpose straight out of the box and the other most important point is the EF lens.

The Canon community have been waiting for an electronic solution for almost a year without success or delivery for the Panasonic and Sony large sensor camcorders, MTF are bringing out 3 adapters later in November for the AF101, FS100 and PMW-F3 but only to control the iris.

Many users have been disappointed with 8bit 4:2:0 processing which can cause banding in certain circumstances, I predict the Canon will come out of the box with 10bit 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 processing once again giving the competition a major headache.

What about that all important sensor…I think the Super 35mm sensor is just fine on my Sony FS100 but some people are predicting a 4K sensor which would be fantastic as long as you have the choice to still shoot 2K as for the majority of us 2K is as much as we need without a major rethink in the editing department.

My prediction : Firstly we will see a minimum spec camera as follows : 10bit, 4:2:2, CF cards, 50Mbs, EF mount, Super 35mm sensor, HD SDI, Hi Res viewfinder…beyond this we might get a second camera with 4:4:4, 12bit, 100Mbs, PL mount with EF adapter, 4K sensor. Pricing £6500 and £12,000.

This will have Sony and Panasonic in a major panic as they will be forced to show their hand on any new development for a PMW-F5 or an AF201, RED are also announcing Scarlet specs and pricing this evening but if Canon pull out the trump card as I predict then RED will have a lot less customers banging on their doors.

It’s all about “GLASS” the majority of Canon users have Canon glass now remember Canon may not introduce a specific EF mount camcorder but they will have an adapter for EF glass similar to Sony’s LA-EA1 that allows the Alpha lenses to be fully functional with the E mount seen on the FS100.

If Canon have been clever they will have designed their EF adapter to be controlled externally with a pull focus unit…only my thoughts.

You can be sure we will have all the specs and pictures as soon as Canon post them later on today.

The rumours are flying in thick and fast as to what Canon are going to announce tomorrow it seems that we are going to be treated to 2 camcorders a semi Pro version and a Pro version.

Rumours have it that both cameras share the ability to accept the full range of EOS lenses while the Pro version will also accept prime lenses.

We are talking 2-4K in line with a poke at RED and pricing from $15K down to $10K or lower for the semi Pro version all total speculation.

If Canon finally enter the large sensor marketplace I think they will put less effort into making the “prefect” DSLR because it will have a knock on effect on video sales which is why it was interesting that they down graded the recent 1DX DSLR with a non clean HDMI output.

If proof were needed Chris Hurd from DV Info Net is attending the special event, if you take on board that Chris lives in Texas and Hollywood is 1245 miles away it takes one special announcement to get someone to travel a 22 hour journey so you can take it from me this is a big time large sensor camcorder or two from Canon.

Please remember there is also a 7 hour time delay so if the news is not broadcast till 3pm as Chris seems to think it will be 10-11pm in the UK before news filters through.