Which Camera?

[alisterchapman]

That review was written quite some time before the 500 was released, but most of the points are still valid. I really like the 350, it is very low noise. The new PDW-680 is about the same price as a 350 and that will give you 50Mb/s all be it on optical disc. You could always add a NanoFlash to that for the ultimate flexibility (in interlace only). Don't forget the camera will act as a deck that you can read and write from. From what I'm hearing on the rumour networks optical disc is starting to sell very well all of a sudden possibly due to people that purchased solid state in the last 3 or 4 years getting fed up with dealing with archiving and storage of solid state shot material. The PDW-F800 is selling better now than it ever has previously. For a 4 year old camera that's quite interesting. AFAIK there are no plans to replace the F800, 700, 500 or 350 any time soon.

[peterL]

Nigel Cooper did follow up that review on the 350 with one on the 500 in which he concluded; "There is no way your average ENG guy is going to pop out and spend this kind of money on a 500 when he/she can simply spend £15,000 on the PMW-350 (which includes a decent lens and a bloody good viewfinder and a half decent mic) and then simply slap £2,000 down on a NanoFlash and hey-presto, 4:2:2 colour space and 50Mbs recording, just like the PMW-500, only £17,000 cheaper..."

Re optical disc cameras: I can't see much of an issue with solid state archiving and storage. We ingest our vision onto servers using the quantel editing system. They're currently archiving to DVC Pro but when the tapes run out, we'll be archiving to discs and, ultimately, some kind of server/ HD based storage.
So, shoot solid state- archive to discs!

I've seen 3 cammos retire hurt in the past 3 years here using pdw 700s. As a guy who started shooting with an Eclair ACL, I'm finding the 700 rather unpleasant as a current affairs field camera.

[alisterchapman]

What is it you find so unpleasant about the 700 that would be greatly different with a 350 + NanoFlash? Compared to BetaSP and Digibeta it's a lightweight.

Many organisations just don't want the extra step required to go from the solid state shooting media to the archive media, whatever it is. News organisations will have hundreds of hours of material coming in every day. If archiving is simply a case of putting a disc on a shelf life is kept very simple. In addition the proxy files can be kept on a server taking minimal space yet giving a good reference for looking for shots.

I too am a solid state shooter these days, but I do miss the simplicity of the long term optical disc workflow. I've experienced hard disc failures that have then meant having to dig out the backup copies and re-creating the master copies, all work that isn't needed when you have near indestructible optical discs on the shelf.

[Robin]

RE the 700.. my points would be the high wattage.. compared to a 500..the heat it generates ,the weight,compared to 350/500..and that you need to have "enough disc,s on you" admittedly less than lugging around tapes.. Iam talking doc,s here not news of course.. but having said that.. yes if I was shooting 6 days a week as staff camera person.. I wouldn't want to be doing down loads every day..

Re the 350.. seems the point is the 50 Mbps or not needing it.. if you don't then its the way to go.. if you need 50 for almost every shoot.. then having the Nanoflash attached would become a bit of a hassle.. I have been doing that for about 2 years with my HDX900.. never had a problem.. but there is a hassle factor having this box up on the handle.. two more cables to go wrong.. a separate remote on/off switch.. extra height hand held etc.. (Im a fan of the nano..and will still use it if a backup is needed during shooting.. ) but really it made me a bit twitchy.. I wanted everything internal and compact.. and so bought the 500..

Small aside.. don't know if the 350 has it.. but with this extra board installed.. there is a great 2 X digital extender.. with very little quality loss.. if any for tv anyway.. so now I have a 4.5 mm to 118mm zoom lens !! amazing..even without the lens optical extender..

[peterL]

Re archiving issues: what we do at the moment is ingest optical discs into our server, then cut stories and any relevant rushes that need to be kept for file vision are archived to DVCpro tapes, soon to be archived to discs. There is minimal retention of camera discs. So, whatever we shoot is not that relevant to the archive process because we have raw vision on one side of the server and archived material on the other.
At the moment we are actually ingesting optical discs, DVCPro tapes, GoPro vision, miniDV vision on a regular basis, that's every day Robin and downloading is faster than playing them in real time.

Yes, the 700 may be a lightweight compared to Beta, but it's 2012. I have had people we shoot stories with asking me for years now, aren't your cameras getting any lighter??? I used a DVCPro 50 for ten years and now they've [engineers we never see out on the road] acquired something [marginally] heavier. The news guys normally carry more gear on their cameras as well- RE50, sungun, radio receiver, and soon to have 4g transmitters as well..... they're pushing up to 12kgs for the camera and 8 for their tripods.

Now, looking at the 350- the way things are shot now, lots of hand held, funky wobblecam stuff- swinging a lighter camera just gives you more scope for shots. I'm now not doing shots I used to do with the panasonic just because the 700 is so damn unwieldy. We do a lot of shooting in cars. The 700 is a pig to work with in cars! I don't think Jon Steele's great doco "Baker Boys- Inside the Surge" would've been as hot if he'd used a 700.

I used to have my wide angle on 95% of the time, now I put it on only when absolutely necessary. I change lenses a lot these days.

Power- we all got supplied with an extra 2 batteries because the 700 is so power hungry. It's now not uncommon to put 5 or 6 batteries on charge at the end of the day. 88Wh.

Shooting time- we were running the Panasonics at 25mbps for 1hour and 6 minutes per tape [looked v good off-air]- now we shoot at 50mbps for 46 mins per disc. We typically shoot about an hour on a job, so now it's a disc change every time. A 350 at 35mbps would have been more than adequate- we don't process or broadcast in HD.

TRipod- can I use a 75mm FSB 8 with a 700? I think I definitely can with a 350. There's another 2kgs gone.

Color viewfinder would be nice- instant feedback on balance...

We FTP vision back to the station using the camera to playback into Macs- instead of using a 300 dollar card reader. Can't shoot anything if the camera's a playback unit!

Alister, I just think, out on the road, we have gone backwards by choosing the 700. It is after all, 5 year old technology now. Who wants to use a Canon 1D mark 2, or an iphone 1?

For my program, I do long shoots for most of the day. There's a lot of handling of the camera and tripod for extended periods. After 30 years, it's starting to become a big problem. 2 years ago I was off for 9 months due to a shoulder recon. That is what's creeping up on anyone using this gear on a regular basis.

end of rant

[Robin]

Im with you !! if your not doing HD then yes the light weight,low power 350 would be better.. the cards would last for ever..My comment on down loading was meaning in a situation where you just handed over the disc,s to someone else.. not that you had to ingest yourself !.. in that case yes then real time would have you sitting there longer than down loading a SXS card..
I still use a 100mm tripod ... Sac 18p with light weight CF legs.. and don't have receivers, camera lights etc on the camera.. the 500 is noticeably lighter than the HDX900.. or a 700/800.. not surprisingly given no moving parts..
Maybe its just a conflict of those siting at a desk wanting to make their lives easier .. by cutting out a step in the archiving.. and those in the field actually doing the shooting wanting the latest tech and lighter gear to shoot with.having said that I will also want to shoot with a shoulder mounted camera.. I think the 350/500 series is a pretty good compromise ..

[peterL]

Just thought I'd mention one other thing as I've just travelled to SE Asia with the 700.
Firstly, again, heavy to carry around airports for long periods and not very user friendly as carry on luggage.
We now need to take 6 Lithium batteries with us. Our aviation regs stipulate Li-ion batteries can be carry-on baggage only, and no more than two per passenger. So, if you have a crew of two, you can only take 4 Li-ion batteries away with you!
Of course, if you have to carry your gear on location, in the tropics, camera, tripod, discs, and 6 batteries, not to mention the litres of water required, things get pretty bloody tough!

[Robin]

You are allowed one battery to be attached to the camera.. plus 2 more.. so sorry .. you can carry another one with you

[peterL]

haha.
Thanks mate.... I don't know why people say those things about ya....!

[alisterchapman]

In defence of the 700 and optical disc there are many situations where crews on the road, in particular in remote locations on long shoots will find discs preferable to solid state as they won't need to take a computer or other system to manage backups. I'm not saying that optical disc is better than solid state, just that for some people and some workflows it may be preferable to solid state.

I don't think it's really fair to compare the power consumption of an SD DV based camcorder with an HD one. In general an HD camera will require more power than an SD one due to the extra processing power and the extra amount of data to be moved about. But, yes the 700 is a bit of a power hog, especially compared to the 350 and the Li-ion battery situation and flying is getting to be a real PITA. Having said that I wouldn't want to be on an aircraft with a Li-Ion fire in the hold.

If you don't need 50Mb/s then the 350 is a no brainer really. It's a lot of camera for the money.