With three cameras to test, you need also three cameramen, as we wanted to do as many parallel shots as possible in order to be able to compare the shots directly. So we did the test with Andreas Gockel, myself, and Daniel Erb, who had gained already valuable experiences on HDV during one of his movies and he also kindly brought his HDV camera to the test.
Because we wanted to also test the sound recording, Stefan Gilsing, our sound engineer and editor, took part. The most important thing during a test is careful documentation, so we decided to make a chart of the most important settings. In the cellar of 25p we made our charts for the sharpening and sensitivity test.
Three camera models obviously also meant three menubars, and so we spent some time making sure that we had set all cameras to factory settings.
We had problems with the small Sony HVR-A1E, a 1-Chip HDV camera, because
this camera uses a touch screen monitor. We wanted to know if it is
possible to use this small and cheap camera as a second unit during our project.
Normally you don´t photograph grey cards and abstract samples in tests, and so we went outside the cellar into the daylight, and for the field
recordings we selected a nearby traffic light crossing in the Prenzlauer
Berg area.
The first part of our test was the comparison Sony-HVR-Z1E + Movietube with the JVC GY-HD100. With the Movietube we could use the Movietube ST model held on the shoulder, with a Sony black-and-white viewfinder.
At present the Movietube functions with the cameras which have fixed
lenses (Panasonic and Sony), but doesn't fit on the JVC camera which has a interchangeable lens. The adjustment of the camera using the Movietube is not completely simple and requires a little exercise and patience.
The English operating instructions helped us to solve our initial
problems. After the preparation we stood with our two camera systems at the crossing: on one hand side the well designed JVC, which handles like a Digibeta; and on the other side the Movietube system with the Sony HDV and an extra Sony viewfinder. This was much more like a film camera system than a video one.
We turned over some different shots with both cameras parallel and then - because we had only a Sony-Z1 available, the same shots with just the naked Sony without Movietube.
One thing we wanted to find out with our test: how we can produce a
picture with our video systems that comes close to looking like film.
Critics of this approach normally answer: film is film and video is video
and if you want a film aesthetic, you have to do it on film and not try to
copy this on video. In some points these people are surely right, because for example the appearance of the film grain in the shots can perhaps be imitated but never reached completely by a computer algorithm inside your post-production unit.