PDW-F350L XDCAM HD camcorder

This review first appeared in Showreel Magazine. In addition I have also included some downloadable MXF files straight from the camera with no recompression. If you do not own an NLE that can accept these files, please visit Sonybiz.net where you can download the free MXF viewing software.

Background

In the last issue of Showreel I took a look at the PDW-F330 XDCAM HD, a 1/2” CCD high def camera which Sony is hoping will cover the middle ground of high definition production needs. The F330 also has a slightly better featured sibling in the form of the F350. This issue we put the F350 and the F330 to the test side-by-side on an extreme sports video to see how they fared.

In the months since its release the XDCAM HD system has been taking off in a way that I did not expect. People who stayed well away from the standard def variation of the system appear to have firmly given their stamp of approval to the new high def version. Whatever the doubters may have thought initially, XDCAM has definitely planted itself firmly on the map now. Ask most in the industry to think of a tapeless acquisition system and almost guaranteed that the first words out of their mouth will be XDCAM.

Could this dominance now be under attack? The other manufacturers have loaded their artillery and lie in wait ready to unleash their systems onto the world. Much has been made of the Grass Valley Infinity system. The Revpro recording media is very small and damn near indestructible as the footage of enthusiastic Grass Valley reps gleefully jumping up and down on top of the devices has shown. Although that isn't the only thing Infinity has up its sleeve. Infinity taps into an area many customers have been wanting to see for a long time now. A codec agnostic camera. Not only can Infinity record to different types of media, but it can also handle many different recording codecs too. One thing is for sure, a lot of people are getting very excited about this system as a result.

So where does that leave our blue laser friend? Certainly it means that there will be much more competition out there. For the average freelancer trying to plan their next camera upgrade the hair pulling is about to get worse. Whether this competition will be a good thing, or whether it will mean that the market will be too fragmented for freelance camera operators to own their own equipment any more remains to be seen. For now though the XDCAM is seemingly on a high. The popularity of XDCAM has lead to TDK releasing their own XDCAM disc with a tougher 'Durabis Pro' coating, thereby bringing prices for XDCAM storage down even more. The cost of recording and archiving footage has been one of the reasons so far why many are preferring the use of the XDCAM system.

Differences betweem the PDW-F350L and the PDW-F330

So, you have a few grand or so burning a hole in your pocket, and you have decided to get one of the XDCAM HD cameras with some accessories. Which one should you get, and what kinds of lenses are available for this new ½” system?

When I last tested the F330 I found it to be a very nice camera in general operation. I had one or two reservations, but overall it excelled at its purpose. This time around Sony supplied us with an F330 with a Canon auto focus lens which is included if you purchase the PDW-F330K package. More importantly they supplied us with the PDW-F350, the flagship XDCAM HD model. Canon also donated one of their new KH 20x6.4B KRS 1/2” high def broadcast lenses to marry to the cameras.

Aside from the sleek jet black paint job there are two major differences between the F350 and the lower priced F330. The first is that the 350 omits the analogue component outputs of the 330 in favour of an HD-SDI connection on the rear of the camera. This connection is not all that it seems however. While it does output a 4:2:2 colour signal, unlike the standard definition XDCAM cameras with an SDI board installed the 350 does not output a 4:2:2 signal direct from the camera head. Instead it upconverts a 4:2:0 signal.

Where the component outputs used to be the 350 has genlock and timecode connections instead, allowing synchronisation with other devices. There is also an additional composite video out connection too. This makes the 350 a slight step above the 350 for multi-camera operations.

Variable framerate recording

The last major difference between the two XDCAM HD camera models is the inclusion of variable framerates on the 350. Panasonic first introduced such abilities with its much famed Varicam model. No other manufacturer has seen fit since to attempt it in any other general use camera until Panasonic themselves released the HVX200 'prosumer' camcorder last year. Now Sony have decided to get in on the act, and not before time.

The 350 has two modes of variable framerate operation. Standard and extended. Assuming the camera is in the 50hz setting, standard mode allows the user to choose any framerate from 1fps to 25fps in single frame increments. It must also be noted at this point that variable framerate operation is only possible in progressive scan mode. The option of 50fps for slow motion is also available. Extended mode allows the additional selection of framerates between 25fps and 50fps in single frame increments to be chosen.

Unfortunately speed ramping is not possible. However it is possible to record at 50fps and then perform the speed ramp in post. This will require the addition of sound recorded from a separate device since the camera does not record audio in variable framerate modes. Possibly the lack of speed ramping might be a good thing, having saved us from having to view such an effect in every single production made, as opposed to having to see it in every other production as things stand now.

Using selectable framerates also has one other slight drawback. From 1fps to 25fps - which performs the same function as undercranking in a film camera thus speeding up the action on playback - the video is recorded using the full 1080p resolution. However above 25fps video is recorded at 1440 x 540 lines. I noticed too that video is actually physically stored at this resolution rather than being interpolated to 1080 lines. NLE's that read the footage assume a pixel aspect ratio of 0.6667 to display and render the footage in its correct shape.

Is the quality adversely affected? On paper the idea of going down to 540 lines seems unacceptable. However I am pleased to report that to my eyes I couldn't honestly tell. Side-by-side or split screened with 1080 footage and the difference might be viewable. Seen in isolation and I doubt the majority of people would be able to tell that there was a reduction in resolution. Obviously this is still a limitation, but not a debilitating one.

You might be asking yourself why, with the half resolution limitation, it wouldn't be just as well to record interlaced footage with the cheaper 330 model and perform the old line doubling slow motion trick in post? Closer examination shows that there are a few reasons why it is much more advantageous to record using the 350's built in variable framerates.

The first is that the line doubling trick creates line twitter where the alternate fields have been line doubled. Aliased 'jaggies' also appear on diagonals. By using the 350's built in framerates you won't suffer from any of these problems, and you will have the added advantage of being able to select all of those other framerate speeds. Fancy shooting at 32fps for a subtle slow motion? You can do that with the 350. Fancy shooting a martial arts sequence at 20fps for that 'Ching Siu-tung' look? You can also do that with the 350. You'd never perform these sorts of speed adjustments to the same satisfactory degree by attempting them in post production.

As per the 330 the 350 is a 'one world, one camera' model as Sony puts it. This means that it is switchable between 50hz and 60hz (with the added selection of US NTSC and Japanese NTSC modes) thus allowing it to be used in any country in the world. This function allows users in 50hz based countries the luxury of an additional extra trick when it comes to shooting slow motion footage. Put the camera into 60hz mode and 60fps recording becomes available. Because high definition is the same resolution in all countries it is possible, assuming your NLE will allow a frame for frame display of the footage instead of interpolating the framerate, to obtain slow motion that is 10fps slower than it would have been in 50hz mode. Using Vegas for example, by judiciously using the clip time stretch option allows such frame for frame conversion. If you are using frame interpolation software such as Realviz Retimer this extra temporal resolution will help when attempting to slow the footage down even more.

It must be said that shooting good slow motion with the camera is not a case of just selecting the framerate that you want and pressing record. One factor that needs to be taken into consideration is the shutter speed. Those who use the old trick of line doubling interlaced footage for slow motion will know that usually a 1/100th or 1/125th shutter works best for obtaining smooth, yet crisp motion with no smeary motion blur. What I found when I shot with the F350 was an altogether different result. A 1/100th shutter at 50fps should logically be an ideal. However I found that it looked a bit too smeary and 'video' like for my tastes. Instead, after much experimentation, I found that using a 1/250th shutter at 50fps gave me the most film like slow motion with perfect clarity, as well as perfect smoothness of movement. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but it works. Just remember to readjust the shutter when you switch slow motion off or change framerates!

When in variable framerate mode it can become tricky to operate the camera. This is because while the footage that is recorded to disc is perfectly smooth, the view in the viewfinder updates according to the framerate. This means that at anything other than 25fps or 50fps the motion that you see in the viewfinder is a very uneven and jerky update. This is not to say that it is impossible to use, but it can be tricky, especially at very low framerates.

Sony have made it easy to switch between the different framerates. By using the rotary dial that is usually used for menu selection it is possible to select different speeds very quickly instead of needing to dive into the operation menu every time you wish to make a modification. I must warn you though that using variable framerates is addictive! It is tempting to shoot everything in slow motion. I just hope that this kind of effect doesn't become a cliché of video through overuse.

Lens choices

As I mentioned earlier we were supplied with two different lenses. The Canon VLC-719BXS auto focus lens, and the Canon KH20 1/2” broadcast lens. The VLC-719 is the lens that the many budget conscious users will be using. This lens will help those wanting to get into high def without the overheads of a higher end lens. The trouble is that I am not sure how much use people will get out of it. The build quality is certainly very good. Both the zoom and iris controls are smooth with very little play. The big issue with this lens though is the nature of the focus control. Yep, you've guessed it, it is one of those infinitely rotating servo focus systems.

For people moving up from handycams or the likes of the DSR-250 this might not be much of a problem. But for those that are used to fully manual lenses you will want to stay away. Usually trying to focus with such a mechanism is a bit like arming a covert sniper with the Vulcan rotary canon that Jesse Ventura uses in Predator. It isn't a total loss though. The camera does have the ability to display the focusing point in feet in the viewfinder, but this doesn't solve the problem of being able to mark focus points on the barrel and repeating the moves take after take unless you are very, very careful.

This brings me nicely onto the Canon KH 20x6.4B KRS. This is part of the new HDgc range of high definition lenses Canon have developed exclusively for the XDCAM HD cameras. Currently a family of four lenses all aimed at the 1/2” XDCAM HD cameras, three of these are fully manual models, while the fourth, the KH 19x6.7 KAS is servo driven. To develop this number of lenses for such a new format shows that Canon must have full confidence in the XDCAM HD system to succeed.

While the other lenses are all aimed at different price ranges and capabilities, the KH20 can be considered to be the budget model listing at around $9000. The lens is a fully manual affair and operators of current 2/3” broadcast cameras will feel right at home with it. The main difference between the KH20 and the other two manual lenses in the range is the lack of Canon's Digital Servo Drive which allows functions such as zoom movements to be programmed in, and thus repeated precisely over multiple takes among other things. The lens optics on the KH20 are of the same quality to the other lenses, so the difference in price is down to the lack of the Digital Servo Drive as well as a 2x extender which is included with the other two models.

As one would expect the build quality of the KH20 is up to Canon's usual high standards. Once again the controls are very smooth with very little play. In this regard the lens is certainly up to the same quality as the company's 2/3” broadcast lenses. Focal lengths are from 6.4mm at its widest to 128mm at full zoom with only half a stop loss of light. On the 1/2” XDCAM HD this means that you can expect an angle of view of 57 degrees when fully wide making it a good general purpose lens. Maximum aperture is f1.4. While the Digital Servo Drive is not included on the KH20 the lens still keeps the shuttle shot function which allows the operator to quickly zoom in, grab focus, and then automatically return to the focal length they were using previously.

The images produced by the 350 with the KH20 attached were very sharp even with the cameras detail turned off. Colours looked vibrant while fine detail such as blades of grass were nice and defined. The lens was comfortable to hold too. Canon have introduced a new grip into the design making the hold slightly more solid. High definition glass is much harder to make for smaller formats, so it is commendable that Canon have considered the price class of the camera and produced a lens that most owners of the camera will be able to afford, without compromising the build quality.

Cinegammas

In the previous issues test that I performed with the 330 I used the cameras standard gamma setting. This time I decided I would give the cine-gamma option a try. The standard definition XDCAM's have a film gamma option, as does the DSR-450. Sony is realising that users want more and more from their cameras, and quite often a post grading process is used. Sony recently released new software for the HDW-750 which introduced new cine-gamma options. These are similar to the gamma options on the XDCAM HD cameras. The Cine-gammas work by adjusting the gamma curve so that more contrast range, especially in the highlights, is compressed into the same tonal space as the more linear standard gamma. This can more fully utilise the capabilities of the CCD's. The result is an image that generally looks duller and flatter than normal. Images produced with such gamma curves should be thought of as a 'picture in progress' and need to be compensated for in post.

After playing around with the various gamma selections I decided to use Cine-gamma 2 combined with the Cine colour matrix preset. Theoretically this would give me the widest contrast range possible out of the box ready for post grading. In fact I was utterly astounded at just how much range Cine 2 achieves. I managed to expose an interior to a manageable level while the view through the window on what was a very sunny day was still perfectly visible without the huge amount of blowout that is usual with video cameras with the standard, more linear gamma settings.

There are limitations. This isn't a substitute for shooting on some film stocks! But it does drastically expand the cameras capabilities for those wishing to make independent features. On the incredibly clear bright sunny day when we shot the mountain board footage this extra range came in very handy indeed. Although I should mention that at first it is trickier to find the right exposure level using these curves. It is certainly a good idea to slightly under expose, something that most people who are used to attempting a 'filmlook' with video are used to doing.

Another difference between the F350 and the F330 is the addition of a 2” 16:9 viewfinder. The 330 uses a 1.5” 4:3 model which, while usable is not ideal, especially when peaking is used. Detail can become more difficult to discern. The 2” model on the 350 is a huge improvement and is much easier on the eyes.

1/2" lenses or 2/3"?

If you are thinking of purchasing an XDCAM HD you will need to consider carefully whether you wish to purchase 2/3” glass, or 1/2”. The former will allow you the option of upgrading or adding a 2/3” HD camera to your arsenal later on. Using the 2/3” adapter on the XDCAM HD increases the focal length by 1.37x that of the lens you are using. There is no degradation to the image, and contrary to some reports on the web there is no light loss from using it.

The trouble with 1/2” glass is that there is no way of knowing how far the format will be taken. Purchasing such lenses without the certainty of the resale value that accompanies 2/3” formats make it a tricky decision. If you wish to upgrade to another shoulder mount camera the 1/2” lens will generally not be of any use if other cameras in the pipeline are anything to go by. This may also be a concern for companies that wish to add other cameras with different formats to their arsenal as time goes on. After all, why burden yourself with the need to purchase yet another lens, when one lens that can be interchanged between cameras would be better? The problem becomes worse when you need a range of lenses with differing focal lengths. Time will tell whether the 1/2” format was a good idea or not. The use of the 2/3” adapter seems like a sensible idea for many people to take advantage of despite the increase in focal length that accompanies it.

For those that have made up their mind to get one of these new cameras, the decision will be whether to get the 330 or the 350. There is no doubting that the 330 is incredible value for the money. It all depends on the type of video that you make. For low level corporate and industrial work the F330 is ideal. Users in those areas have no need for slow motion and other bells and whistles. The F350 on the other hand is far more suited to broadcast work and independent film production.

4:2:0 colour sampling

What about the 4:2:0 colour sampling? I hear you cry. Well, colour sampling does need to be placed into perspective. HDCAM for example also suffers limitations in chroma sampling. The trouble is that while such technical discussions go on ad nauseam on the web, the truth is that for many purposes nobody in the general viewing public will notice. People watch television with their eyes, not a waveform monitor, or zoomed in 600% in Photoshop. Unless the footage will be used for a film out, or really requires heavy post work the colour sampling issue can be a rather mute one.

With Discovery HD having approved XDCAM HD for unrestricted acquisition the format could well become very popular. From what I have seen so far, the use of 1/2” CCD's really seems to make minimal difference to the picture. Okay, there is perhaps a little more noise than I would like to see, as I noted in last issues look at the 330. But at the end of the day a camera is nothing without talent behind it, and I feel that the XDCAM HD gives the user a multitude of tools to help get the job done very effectively. With all the major NLE manufacturers now supporting the system, including Apple, the XDCAM wheel is set to continue turning.

Addendum

Since writing this review I have had the chance to look at the Canon KH20 lens in more varied situations. When at opened up beyond f5.6 there is very noticeable softening of the picture towards the edges. High contrast edges are also very prone to chroma abberation. Since looking at the Fujinon range of lenses I can highly recomment taking a look at those as an alternative. Although I have it on good authority that the more expensive lenses in Canons 1/2" line are very good indeed.

Thanks to Gavin Allen of Schematise Photography for the stills taken in this review.

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