Panasonic HC-V750 or HC-V550

ziggylulu

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Hi, I have narrowed my choice down to the Panasonic HC-V750 or HC-V550
Zoom is important as well as picture quality. I know that the 550 has got a longer optical zoom
than the 750, but given the higher pixel would I be able to go into the digital zoom more so on the 750 thus giving me a better quality reach.............Thanks.
 
Yes, the V750 has 20x optical zoom. I think you can go to 50x, with a little digital zoom added in, without tossing away resolution. But be aware that any consumer-quality zoom lens with very large zoom ratios (20x) will have plenty of engineering compromises.

  1. V550 has a much smaller sensor, so it will be noisier in LL.
  2. The V750 has a built-in video light to help further with close LL shooting.
  3. 3. The max. MP4 bit-rate on the V550 stops at Full HD at 28Mbps. The V750 continues on to Full HD at 50Mbps, although the video info programs I have tell me that the bit-rate is more like 45-46 Mbps. (This is for the NTSC version; not sure about the PAL version.)
  4. V550 uses 4.9W recording; V750 uses 6.7W. Same battery.
  5. V550 is quite a bit lighter (w/o battery & SD card): 237g vs 354g
  6. V750 has fancier 4 mic array that is supposed to handle wind better.
  7. V550 has no accessory shoe. V750 has a cold accessory shoe, but it's rather flimsy.
  8. V750 is claimed to have a better quality zoom lens: "World's first consumer implementation of 4 lens groups being driven separately". This is supposed to offer better image quality across the zoom range.
  9. V750 has a 120fps 1/2x or 240fps 1/4x (interpolated in-camera during playback or export) slo-mo (NTSC version; I presume the PAL version is 100fps/200fps).
  10. The V750 has a 49mm diameter lens-filter thread, so it can take filters and lens hoods.

Dan.
 
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Panasonic use what they call Intelligent zoom. This is a mix of optical and digital BUT with no degradation.
So with Intelligent zoom the 550 will go to 90x and the 750 to 50x. Panasonic put another limit on the 750 of 60x which is their way of saying beyond 60x you may get degradation. The final stop for the 750 is 1500x.( but that's rather silly - don't you think?)
 
Trust Mfrs and Marketing to cause confusion.
Digital zoom means you have a picture and you are enlarging part of it..in effect you are going to pixilate the picture, but maybe just 20% digital zoom is OK.
Optical zoom is the real thing, but lenses are a compromise so for a given cost a longer zoom will have poorer quality - Unfortunately no-one gives lpm figures so you have to believe a 2ox lens will probabl;y outperform a 50x lens at max ( and indeed all the way, some may say!). However, if you want to 1)follow sport - or 2) small wildlife, then a longer zoom may help 1) for safety by 2) by not frightening the birds off their perches.
The Zoom feature that "extends zooms" may work like this - at wide setting the sensor pixels are skipped regularly, so you record light from the whole width ( Since HD only needs a 2Mpx image and yr sensor is delivering many times this for any "Stills". As you narrow the zoom, it moves the registered pixels towards the centre - this boosts some definition since lenses usually perform best at their centres. However, the longer the zoom the greater the problems with focus and light-gathering - so noise will increase.... an issue indoors.

Ideally you need to try each camcorder - but I suspect the price you pay will determine the real "Image Quality" - but making a Movie isn't only about technical quality. Yet somehow one suspects the more expensive camcorder will have additional features that could come in handy later-on and when you move to 4K, the better-optics will make it a useful back-up camcorder.


[ Oh BTW the best way to handle "wind noise" is to fit a faux-fur muff - will look odd but who cares? . . . Any electronic "fix" is bound to affect quality and IMHO to be distrusted - better not to have it in the first place. .]
Good luck.
 
Could anyone tell me how to set the zoom to infinity on the Panasonic HV-V770? Thanks,
 
Could anyone tell me how to set the zoom to infinity on the Panasonic HV-V770? Thanks,
This is a rather meaningless question. Do you mean set the focus to infinity or set the zoom to maximum? The 770 has an optical zoom of 20 times or 20x, that is the range of the lens itself plus an electronic tweak which uses part of the CMOS sensor to magnify the picture even more. This electronic fix will degrade the picture over its full range as it uses less and less of the sensor as the picture is magnified. In the 770 the composite zoom of optical + electronic can be set to 50x, 60x or 1500x. 50x is what Panasonic call the "Intelligent" zoom as at this level the picture is not degraded to any extent, 60x is their suggested limit for zoom in this camera but the system will allow up to 1500x where serious picture degredation will occur. To set the zoom limit go to RECORD SETUP > ZOOM MODE in the MENU and set your zoom limit.

The Focus can be set manually using the wheel by the lens mount. Set the camera to Manual (MNL) and chose Focus in the LCD list. Then set to MF (manual focus) and rotate the wheel 'till your subject is in focus. You are helped by a blue "halo" appearing around the subject when the camera considers it to be in focus. Infinity is where the light from the subject is entering the camera in parallel rays i.e. from a great distance, so any distance shots and panoramas would be at "infinity". Focus correction would only react if the subject were close. My 750 will auto focus down to about 1" from the lens which is fantastic for macro work. Auto focus on the 750/770 is very good and I leave mine in AF mode for most filming. Occasionally it can be fooled and will "hunt" between two subjects at different distances so manual focus is used.
 
The zoom on the 550 is pretty amazing and produces very good sharp video at full "extension" ...... very impressed.
 
I have just purchased the 550 and in Bright sunlight shooting at approx 30 Yds distance the subjects were far from sharp! - Is it supposed to auto focus through out the zoom range? Does the 550 have a manual focus?
 
Please read the Manual p58. Instruction on Manual Focus.
Have you set the camera to iA? for auto focus? Have you given the autofocus time to settle? 30yd is almost equivalent to infinity. Are you videoing through glass?

Just done an experiment with my 750. The camera is set to iA and I filmed a tree outside through a UV filter and a double glazed window, the camera gave perfect focus even at the full Zoom setting of 50x.
 
Camera was set to iA - shooting a Boules tournament in open bright sunlight - was not necessary to Zoom fully out - did not intend or understood it would be necessary to focus manually - and in any event I do not seem to have the Manual Focus adjustment on my HC-V550 Camera

Since writing the above have now discovered how to get into Manual mode
 
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If the V550 is like the V750, in iA AE mode you can force the choice of the initial focus point used for the AF tracking. To do this, first press the pointing finger icon on the Centre LHS of the LCD screen. Then press where on the screen you want the AF tracking to commence from. You can press again on the screen during the recording to re-establish the AF point, if the AF tracking wanders away from it. (To turn off AF tracking, press the point finger icon on the Centre LHS again to "gray out" the icon.)

But a shiny thing like a boules ball may not work well with AF.

boules-petanque-in-a-bag--%5B3%5D-83-p.jpg



You could also try, in SCN menu, the Scenery item (Mountain-with-Cloud icon). This should use a smaller iris which will give a deeper Depth-Of-Field. (The user manual only talks about not overexposing a scene with a bright sky, but this mode, at least on a DSLR with its bigger sensor, alters the iris used. With a consumer videocamera, with its smaller sensor and usually greater DOF, this may not be the case.)

Note: you can't select the AF tracking point in a SCN or MNL AE mode.

Dan.
 
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Many thanks for your most helpful comments - clearly I have much to learn about this Camcorder - I learned from another contributor that this Camera also has a time-lapse facility - I think I need to stay quiet until I have familiarized myself much more with this Camcorder
 

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