There’s been a lot of buzz over the Canon 7d. The video footage is gorgeous for the price point ($1,699). It allows you to capture footage with great DOF for a fraction of the cost of an HD camera with the correct lenses and attachments. Igniter bought a 7d a couple weeks ago and we’ve been testing it out. This week I’m going to do several posts about the results. Here is the first.
We shot on a green screen and tested out the ability to key. Our Panny HVX200 has always had quite a bit of digital artifacts on the edges that have annoyed me in the past when trying to key. Below are the more than impressive results of a key taken from the Canon 7d. We also compared straight footage from the Panny using a Red Rock and the Canon 7d using 50mm 1.4 lense. These are stills grabbed from the video footage. I’ll have more video clips and thoughts on the 7d later this week.
Hey Barton
Thanks for this comparison. I do green screen stuff fairly often and recently sold my HVX kit and began building a 7D kit. I was not sure the 7D would be able to do the green screen work as well because of the codec and the supposed lack of resolving power. I figured I could always borrow my friend's EX3 if I needed to green screen.
Your examples are very encouraging for me. I look forward to the rest of the posts as I always look forward to your twitter updates and blog post.
Thanks
Mark Fogarty
Media Missionary
Muddy River Media
http://www.MuddyRiverMedia.org
Get Muddy… It's Free!
Awesome, Mark! Yes. There are some interesting work flow draw backs with the codec but for shorter films, I believe the price and effort is totally worth it. Will post more of those thoughts later this week.
Bart, Thanks for doing a write up on this. I was just thinking about scaling back on some of my stuff, potentially upgrading my video camera to HD (currently have an old school Sony 2100) or even upgrading the XTI to a Canon 7d or 5d. Its cool to see what all is new and out there for the rest of us that can't afford a RED camera
Tears. Another good write up might be on building a solid travel kit for documenting missions work. Just a thought, but keep doing what you do.
Aside from that, way to highlight a hilarious picture of my bro Mattew Borrett. This kid is so solid and I cannot even begin to describe what a great friend he is in my life. I don't know if they're any photos up from his wedding yet, but if you haven't seen these they're incredible. http://www.milliehollomanblog.com/index.cfm?postI...
Barton, We have both the 7d and HVX200 and recently did a green screen test using the 7d. Although it looked great, there seemed to be some artifacting in the details of the image (the subject's hair). However, the overall key was awesome using keylight. Thoughts?
Hmm. Well, Compared to what I've been using… any artifacting is very minimal and once reduced to 720p from 1080p… I'm extremely pleased. Again, for the money, I'm not sure you can come close without spending a lot more. Our Panny is a $5,000 and has a ton of digital artifacts throughout. I'll be using the 7d from here on out for short films. As you know, there are some drawback for filming long shoots with tons of footy but I'll post some more on that this week as well.
I've yet to shoot any green screen footage but just finished my first 2 cam shoot with 7Ds. Recorded the audio on a Zoom H4n. The cost and results of the 7D are tough to beat. I look forward to shooting more and not using my other cameras.
I'm curious about how using Zoom compares with external lav for example directly into camera mic port. Why did you choose to go double system? Did you use external mic with the Zoom or its own mic? Thanks. – Chris
I used a Sennheiser wireless lav connected to the H4N. I went this route so I would have more control over the recording and monitoring of my audio. I used the camera mic audio as a backup. I'm doing another shoot this week and can't wait to experiment with some different lenses and dof stuff.
Awesome! Thanks for the input, Ryan! I'll have to check out the H4N.
We switched all of our cameras (2 of them haha) to the 5d Mark II, for the money and what it does you can't go wrong…we love them…thanks for posting Barton
Kinda wierd comparison. I totally agree on the 7d bein the way to go for image quality. The hvx is nice having the xlr inputs and really nice slow progressive zoom though verses the jerky lens on the 7d… so i guess you could get a follow focus and record audio seperately and the 7d is great.
On a side not i've never seen the hvx look so bad. For a good comparison you probably shoulda shot the HVX in 1080 and reduced to 720 also.
We have the HVX200, first generation. It only shoots 1080i. The outdoor shot has a RedRock attachment so both were shot at 720p. Nothing reduced on those. Agreed… the HVX200 footy looks terrible. Not sure if there's something wrong with our camera or what.
No nothing is wrong with your HVX200. I have had an HVX200 since March of 2006.
Initially jazzed about HD and greenscreen….. I finally came to the conclusion that the HVX
was not going to give me the results needed for HD greenscreen & finish. The newer HVX200's do a better job than the older ones but not much. I rent a RED if I need to do a greenscreen job
that has a real budget. The HVX will work for smaller web videos but get up to 720p – forget it.
So I think I will go Canon 7D.
[...] the rest here: Already Been Chewed » CANON 7D WEEK Post a [...]
Ronnie Lloyd
I've shot plenty of green screen w m hvx200a. To make a comparison w any other camera while you have a Redrock on is fakery.
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