Actually I read it in another forum somewhere. Apparently, up at the serious 'pro' level it's quite a nuisance.

Of course "I read it in another forum" may well prove to equate to "A bloke down the pub said" or "I read it in The Sun" so it may all be nonsence.

__________________
I'm not young enough to know everything!

What do you mean, whats a nuisance?

It's a nuisance that it's hard to achieve a shallow depth-of-field with a miniDV camera

Its the combination of higher resolution and the ability to handle a much greater tonal range between highlights and shadows that gives film the edge over video and prevents you from getting the 'look' that you want. All of the above is valid if you are talking about normal standard defintion video. However, High Definition video is here, is affordable and it can match the quality of film. In fact, Hollywood movies are increasingly shot on HD video, and film will cease to be used for commercial movies over the next 10 years. (Take a look at 'Once upon a time in Mexico' if you can - it was shot in HD).

I shoot and edit in HDV and use a 17" HD monitor (costing £300) to demo the results, and viewers immediately notice the richness, clarity and impact of the HD images, even on a small screen. This seems to be precisely the effect you want for your work.

I don't know what your budget is, but you can achieve this for much less than the cost of your Panasonic cam by swapping it for an HDV camcorder (e.g. Sony Z1) and adding Cineform Aspect HD to Premiere Pro so that you can edit HDV - this will easliy give you the 'pro' look you are after.

GG

This is very misleading, bordering on wrong, in a number of ways!

Hollywood digital films (eg. star wars prequels, once upon a time in mexico, collateral etc) are filmed in HD.
Affordable "Hi-def" cameras (e.g. the Sony Z1, FX1, Canon XLH1 etc) film in HDV - Hi definition VIDEO.
There's a world of difference between HDV and HD formats.
There is no way you can expect to get the "pro" hollywood film look captured with £90,000 HD cameras with a £2000 HDV camera.

HDV is a gop format, with very long gops and much higher likelihood that a drop-out is devastating (20 frames or some such). it's also an MPEG type conversion onto tape - so needs assessment for image movement, artifacts and effect on colour acquisition. It's often simply called 'HD' which is fair enough but it isn't the same thing as HD.

To say you can "easily achieve pro effect you're looking for" by switching to a consumer HDV camera is ridiculous.

This still doesn't help with the fact that it's harder to achieve depth of field with a consumer HD/SD camera. It's easy to achieve a "Film look" as you describe, by using colour filters and shotting in 24p, achieving the 3d effect with depth-of-field is much harder and HDV cameras won't make a difference. Not to mention the differences in amateur vs professional lighting and all sorts of other production values.

Also, Gentlegiant, you say you edit in HDV you have your own HD monitor.
What good is that when
A) you then can't distribute the work in HDV because a suitable medium doesn't exist yet (Blu-ray and Holographic discs are a fair way in the future)
B) Your client has to have an HD TV/Display otherwise it's a waste of time

Pete - I think you're overreacting just a teeny weeny bit there!! My god, calm down.

Correct him by all means, but there's no need to rant on like he's just insulted your parentage...

(besides, HDV does have an improvement over quality on standard DV)

__________________
Redefining the concept of low budget filmmaking
Manchester Comedy Forum
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

There was no "Ranting" involved. I was just pointing out the inaccuracies of the post.
I was just trying to help out the original poster who might be misled by the inaccurate information.
I would feel guilty if someone spent £3000 after reading a post saying "go out and buy an HDV camera and immediately your footage will be Hollywood quality", just trying to make sure that didn't happen.

I've heard someone describe the new Panasonic HDV cam as "better than real life".

__________________

| video editing guides | our videos |
| wedding guides | website hosting |

that sounds like a quite a sad indictment of their "real life"!