pmw 200 camera

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Asimo
Posts: 2
Joined: November 3rd, 2012, 2:56 pm

pmw 200 camera

Post by Asimo » November 3rd, 2012, 3:28 pm

Hi,

I'm new to this forum so please be gentle.

I've been happly shooting on my pdp 150p. I mainly shoot weddings and corporate events. In the process of updating my ageing editing system which was based on Matrox rtx 100 card, premier 1.5, athlon 1800 mp dual processors, tyan motherboard.

My questions are- would I see any benefits when I get my new pmw 200 and I shoot in 4:2:2? Are there any benefits in doing weddings / corporate events in 4:2:2?
Secondly is there a big difference in my pdp150p and pmw 200- in terms of quality, userability. I mean would I be able to pick this camera up and run with it?

I'll be upgrading premier CS6 production version, i7 3970k processor, gtx670 gpu, 6 2TB hard drives in raid 5

Thanks.
alisterchapman
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Posts: 431
Joined: February 1st, 2011, 7:43 pm

Re: pmw 200 camera

Post by alisterchapman » November 7th, 2012, 12:14 pm

The PMW-200 is a big step forwards from the PD-150. While in 99% of respects the PMW-200 is a much better camera you must remember that the it is an HD camera while the PD-150 is an SD camera. For SD productions the PD150 is still hard to better. The PMW-200 won't be more sensitive than your PD-150 and in low light the PMW-200 may even be noisier, this is because to get an HD image you must use smaller pixels on the sensor.

Provided you consider the above. I think that in every other respect you will find the PMW-200 a big step forwards. The lens is a delight to use, the workflow extremely fast and efficient and picture quality is really fantastic. For Weddings etc I think you will find that 4:2:0 35Mb/s will be more than adequate.

I am a Sony fan. I don't pretend otherwise, but I honestly think that the PMW-200 is the best camera in this class every produced.
Asimo
Posts: 2
Joined: November 3rd, 2012, 2:56 pm

Re: pmw 200 camera

Post by Asimo » November 7th, 2012, 1:56 pm

alisterchapman wrote:The PMW-200 is a big step forwards from the PD-150. While in 99% of respects the PMW-200 is a much better camera you must remember that the it is an HD camera while the PD-150 is an SD camera. For SD productions the PD150 is still hard to better. The PMW-200 won't be more sensitive than your PD-150 and in low light the PMW-200 may even be noisier, this is because to get an HD image you must use smaller pixels on the sensor.

Provided you consider the above. I think that in every other respect you will find the PMW-200 a big step forwards. The lens is a delight to use, the workflow extremely fast and efficient and picture quality is really fantastic. For Weddings etc I think you will find that 4:2:0 35Mb/s will be more than adequate.

I am a Sony fan. I don't pretend otherwise, but I honestly think that the PMW-200 is the best camera in this class every produced.

Hi Alister,

Thanks for the response.

I've been meaning to change to a shoulder mount, but I haven't found any within my budget for what I do. I wanted to get away from tape based and move onto card based solution.

Majority of my customers are looking for HD footage and I think the pdp150p is a fantastic camera, but it's a little long in the tooth now. I think I might have to boost the gain a little and hope :? the footage doesn't get too grainy in low light conditions.

Moving onto tapless work flow brings up other issues like how do you archive footage. If you have 4 hr footage to clear off your cards do you just burn it to blu ray disc? Or buy cheap SD cards and copy footage onto them? What is the best way to do this?

Do you still get drop outs on card, like you do on tape?

Can you let us know what the difference is between 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0 and any other combination of colour space? What are the advantages and disadvantages? If not do you know of a document on this subject that I can read up on? Or maybe you can cover this in your future online tutorial?

Why didn't Sony just make PMW 200 shoot in 4:4:4 or is this going to be in a revised addition- PMW 250?

Using XQD cards for 4:2:2 capture, is it possible to manage with the 'H' series cards or do you need to go for the 'S' series?

Thanks.
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