dosdan
Established Member
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- Dec 17, 2014
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- Location
- Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
I've recently bought a HC-V750 specifically for sports. I've done a lot of junior soccer, futsal, athletics & some swimming photography over the last 5 years. Mainly I've used a Pentax K5 & K-3 with Pentax DA* 60-250/F4 (weather sealed) and Sigma 70-200/F2.8 HSM II.
In athletics I tried the video mode of the K-3 (as well as creating moving sequences from bursts of up to 26 raw shots), and also used my old Panasonic NV-GS400 3CCD MiniDV camera for some sprint race recording (I've got 3 of them for multi-cam stuff, but rarely use them now).
Anyway I decided to get the HC-V750, mainly for the 120fps slo-mo. I'm in PAL land, but I purchased a NTSC version from the US since:
There are two main areas I'll be using the camera: coaching & competition.
For coaching I'll be using a static tripod setup (Velbon DV-7000) with ext. Lilliput 7" 5DII LCD monitor (with hood). This will mainly be for discus, long jump, triple jump, high jump and hurdles. The idea is to provide immediate review in the field. (With the K-3 at 1280x720x60p I was having to load it into Sony Vegas Pros and do a 0.25x slow down, before rendering it as a WMV to send to the coach or athlete.)
I was going to get a Casio High Speed P&S (EX-ZR800) to fulfill this slo-mo analysis role, but going the 120fps videocam route will be more versatile and will better suit shooting competition stuff.
I've received the Panasonic HC-V750 camcorder on Saturday morning (13 Dec 2014), and shot a Distance Medley Relay race with it at the QLD State Athletics Facility, Nathan, that same evening. (Google Maps - BTW, the stadium on the right in the map was where the 1982 Commonwealth Games was held.) I shot 1920x1080x60p 50Mbps MP4 format. It was shot at 6.44pm under floodlights. The results were sharp and I saw no obvious noise when watching it on my TV. I was impressed.
Since I'd only received it that morning, I did not get much of a chance to fiddle with it before use, and ended up shooting in Intelligent Auto mode. The image was reasonably bright for action shot under floodlights, but looked a little dull. I improved it in Sony Vegas Pro by cutting the brightness a bit, and doing a slight contrast boost.
Here's an original-on-the-left/adjusted-on-the-right comparison. (I've also add a race-time indicator in Vegas Pro for lap-time analysis):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/3swiegn8q1upiml/Video Processing Comparison.jpg
There was a medium breeze that evening, but the internal mics sounded good with the Strong level of wind noise reduction applied. I've got a Rode VideoMic and Rode Stereo Videmic, with Dead Cat & Dead Kitty windsocks, so I may try them later.
One area I'm finding tricky is the zooming. There isn't much proportionality in the movement of the W-T lever. It's hard to do slow or small zooms, so I'm overshooting the zoom destination a lot.
The Camera can shoot Full HD 120fps slo-mo, which is encoded to a 60p 28Mbps MP4 (50Mbps format is not available in slo-mo). In the camera this can either be played back as 60p (1/2x) or transparently interpolated on-the-fly up to 240fps and played back at 60p (1/4x). This is determined by a menu option.
If you export the file, it will be 60p MP4, so it will play at ½x on other equipment. However you can do a Slow Speed Conversion in-camera and export a 60p ¼x file.
You can also downsize when exporting to 1280x720 or 640x360. Downsizing might be a good idea if emailing the clip to the coach.
There are two options for Slo-mo: Interval & Always.
"Always" means that the whole clip will be slo-mo.
"Interval" means that up to 3 segments within the clip can be slo-mo, while the rest is 1x. The start & duration of the slo-mo segments is determined by when you press & hold the SLOW button. This is obviously inconvenient if the segments will be long, but I can see uses for it. Say you are replaying straight away on-site with an ext. LCD monitor e.g. for coaching purposes. If using Always, it may take a long time at ¼x to get to the part you are interested in. When shooting, by pressing the SLOW Button when the athlete gets to the main part of the movement under analysis, this means that later on, during playback, it won't take long to get to the slo-motion part. Since this is a touch screen, if you want you can press on the replay progress bar to jump to specific parts. Unfortunately, in a mixed speed recording, the progress bar shows the same for the full clip. It would have been nice to have the extent of the slo-speed segments showing in a different colour along the progress bar.
I presume most slo-mo users will leave it in Always mode. It defaults to Interval mode, and inept reviewers have been frothing at the mouth about having to hold down the SLOW button to get slo-mo.
There is no output to a ext. LCD monitor (Lilliput 7" 5DII model with a Panasonic DU21 battery plate – I've got plenty of DU14 & DU21 batteries from my MiniDV cams) during slo-mo recording, but it displays fine during playback.
Here are two slo-mo versions, both in Interval (mixed mode). The lowest shutter speed in slo-mo is 1/120s (NTSC model) but you can go into manual mode and use a faster shutter speed or adjust the iris, gain, WB or focus. It looks like my relatively low bit-rate re-encode is showing a lot of artifacts. For my purpose here, it doesn't matter.
The recording sequence below was approx 10s normal + 10s slo-mo.
The first version is an export without conversion:
Approx: 10s 1x + 20s ½x = 30s approx playback length
Dropbox - Slo-Mo 1.wmv
Note: the video will play more smoothly and look clearer if you download it first. Not sure why Dropbox videos, played online, look so crappy.
The second version is with Slow Speed Conversion:
Approx: 10s 1x + 40s ¼x = 50s approx playback length
Dropbox - Slo-Mo 2.wmv
Here's a Full HD slo-mo long jump sequence resized to 1280x720. My son wasn't in the mood to do a proper long jump, but at least it's a jump. Normally I shoot LJ head-on from the end of the sand pit, but this time I tried side-on. I think I prefer head-on.
The sequence in the video is the jump at:
I've just ordered a 5V/9V/12V Li-ion ext. battery pack. 5V will suit the HC-V750, while 12V will suit the Lilliput monitor.
NEW 15000mAh DC 5V 9V 12V High Capacity Rechargeable LI ION Battery Pack Charger | eBay
I've also got Zoom H4 & Tascam DR-2d SD audio recorders, but I tend to use them for near-subject recording and sync afterwards in post production, rather than for on-camera sound pickup and/or recording.
The HC-750 has a rear accessory mount. With the Lilliput montior and DU14 or DU21 battery mounted on it, it's quite flimsy. A good hit of in the field would bend or snap it off completely. It's really not intended for this amount of weight. I'm looking for a good U bracket mount for the Lilliput, rather than mounting it from the bottom, off the camera.
Dan.
In athletics I tried the video mode of the K-3 (as well as creating moving sequences from bursts of up to 26 raw shots), and also used my old Panasonic NV-GS400 3CCD MiniDV camera for some sprint race recording (I've got 3 of them for multi-cam stuff, but rarely use them now).
Anyway I decided to get the HC-V750, mainly for the 120fps slo-mo. I'm in PAL land, but I purchased a NTSC version from the US since:
- It was cheaper
- I'm only shooting progressive for PCs and modern TVs and I won't have to worry about NTSC deinterlace/conversion issues
- I want the fastest frame rate for temporal resolution.
There are two main areas I'll be using the camera: coaching & competition.
For coaching I'll be using a static tripod setup (Velbon DV-7000) with ext. Lilliput 7" 5DII LCD monitor (with hood). This will mainly be for discus, long jump, triple jump, high jump and hurdles. The idea is to provide immediate review in the field. (With the K-3 at 1280x720x60p I was having to load it into Sony Vegas Pros and do a 0.25x slow down, before rendering it as a WMV to send to the coach or athlete.)
I was going to get a Casio High Speed P&S (EX-ZR800) to fulfill this slo-mo analysis role, but going the 120fps videocam route will be more versatile and will better suit shooting competition stuff.
I've received the Panasonic HC-V750 camcorder on Saturday morning (13 Dec 2014), and shot a Distance Medley Relay race with it at the QLD State Athletics Facility, Nathan, that same evening. (Google Maps - BTW, the stadium on the right in the map was where the 1982 Commonwealth Games was held.) I shot 1920x1080x60p 50Mbps MP4 format. It was shot at 6.44pm under floodlights. The results were sharp and I saw no obvious noise when watching it on my TV. I was impressed.
Since I'd only received it that morning, I did not get much of a chance to fiddle with it before use, and ended up shooting in Intelligent Auto mode. The image was reasonably bright for action shot under floodlights, but looked a little dull. I improved it in Sony Vegas Pro by cutting the brightness a bit, and doing a slight contrast boost.
Here's an original-on-the-left/adjusted-on-the-right comparison. (I've also add a race-time indicator in Vegas Pro for lap-time analysis):
There was a medium breeze that evening, but the internal mics sounded good with the Strong level of wind noise reduction applied. I've got a Rode VideoMic and Rode Stereo Videmic, with Dead Cat & Dead Kitty windsocks, so I may try them later.
One area I'm finding tricky is the zooming. There isn't much proportionality in the movement of the W-T lever. It's hard to do slow or small zooms, so I'm overshooting the zoom destination a lot.
The Camera can shoot Full HD 120fps slo-mo, which is encoded to a 60p 28Mbps MP4 (50Mbps format is not available in slo-mo). In the camera this can either be played back as 60p (1/2x) or transparently interpolated on-the-fly up to 240fps and played back at 60p (1/4x). This is determined by a menu option.
If you export the file, it will be 60p MP4, so it will play at ½x on other equipment. However you can do a Slow Speed Conversion in-camera and export a 60p ¼x file.
You can also downsize when exporting to 1280x720 or 640x360. Downsizing might be a good idea if emailing the clip to the coach.
There are two options for Slo-mo: Interval & Always.
"Always" means that the whole clip will be slo-mo.
"Interval" means that up to 3 segments within the clip can be slo-mo, while the rest is 1x. The start & duration of the slo-mo segments is determined by when you press & hold the SLOW button. This is obviously inconvenient if the segments will be long, but I can see uses for it. Say you are replaying straight away on-site with an ext. LCD monitor e.g. for coaching purposes. If using Always, it may take a long time at ¼x to get to the part you are interested in. When shooting, by pressing the SLOW Button when the athlete gets to the main part of the movement under analysis, this means that later on, during playback, it won't take long to get to the slo-motion part. Since this is a touch screen, if you want you can press on the replay progress bar to jump to specific parts. Unfortunately, in a mixed speed recording, the progress bar shows the same for the full clip. It would have been nice to have the extent of the slo-speed segments showing in a different colour along the progress bar.
I presume most slo-mo users will leave it in Always mode. It defaults to Interval mode, and inept reviewers have been frothing at the mouth about having to hold down the SLOW button to get slo-mo.
There is no output to a ext. LCD monitor (Lilliput 7" 5DII model with a Panasonic DU21 battery plate – I've got plenty of DU14 & DU21 batteries from my MiniDV cams) during slo-mo recording, but it displays fine during playback.
Here are two slo-mo versions, both in Interval (mixed mode). The lowest shutter speed in slo-mo is 1/120s (NTSC model) but you can go into manual mode and use a faster shutter speed or adjust the iris, gain, WB or focus. It looks like my relatively low bit-rate re-encode is showing a lot of artifacts. For my purpose here, it doesn't matter.
The recording sequence below was approx 10s normal + 10s slo-mo.
The first version is an export without conversion:
Approx: 10s 1x + 20s ½x = 30s approx playback length
Dropbox - Slo-Mo 1.wmv
Note: the video will play more smoothly and look clearer if you download it first. Not sure why Dropbox videos, played online, look so crappy.
The second version is with Slow Speed Conversion:
Approx: 10s 1x + 40s ¼x = 50s approx playback length
Dropbox - Slo-Mo 2.wmv
Here's a Full HD slo-mo long jump sequence resized to 1280x720. My son wasn't in the mood to do a proper long jump, but at least it's a jump. Normally I shoot LJ head-on from the end of the sand pit, but this time I tried side-on. I think I prefer head-on.
The sequence in the video is the jump at:
- 1x speed. Since I only shot a ½x version of the jump, I sped this part up 2x in Vegas Pro.
- ¼x speed (120fps, interpolated to 240fps in-camera, and played back at 60fps)
- 4 cropped frames from the ¼x part, showing how every 2nd frame (interpolated) tries to bridge the gap between the original frames (here, frames 1 & 3). You will notice that there is also some motion blur in the non-interpolated frames. In video, slower shutter speeds are usually used than in stills. Normally you don't notice the motion blur in a video. If fact it helps to smooth out any jerkiness. But you definitely notice it when you single-step though the sequence.
I've just ordered a 5V/9V/12V Li-ion ext. battery pack. 5V will suit the HC-V750, while 12V will suit the Lilliput monitor.
NEW 15000mAh DC 5V 9V 12V High Capacity Rechargeable LI ION Battery Pack Charger | eBay
I've also got Zoom H4 & Tascam DR-2d SD audio recorders, but I tend to use them for near-subject recording and sync afterwards in post production, rather than for on-camera sound pickup and/or recording.
The HC-750 has a rear accessory mount. With the Lilliput montior and DU14 or DU21 battery mounted on it, it's quite flimsy. A good hit of in the field would bend or snap it off completely. It's really not intended for this amount of weight. I'm looking for a good U bracket mount for the Lilliput, rather than mounting it from the bottom, off the camera.
Dan.
Last edited: