best/smallest 3 CCD

[motherhucker 0]

Can anyone recommend the best and/or smallest 3 Chip Mini DV camera? Dont need a ton of bells and whistles, just the clarity of 3CCD. Should be helmet mountable, of course, preferably without any gigantic mic appendages sticking off of it.
Thanks!

[AndyMan 7]

The Sony VX-2000 is da bomb. You can get it for $2000 at dbuys.com

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[RevJim 0]

What about the TRV950? Looks pretty impressive at $1,577 for a 3 ccd.

It's your life, live it!
Karma
RB#684 "Corcho", ASK#60, Muff#3520, NCB#398, NHDZ#4, C-33989, DG#1

[quade 4]

I believe all of the Sony three-chip cameras have a very specific issue in freefall. I've heard this referred to as "flutter" by some folks and some of those same folks might also believe this is related to air leaking into the camera during freefall.

Here's what I think is really happening.

On a single-chip camera the image stabilization electronically moves a portion of the image to compensate for the movement of the camera. This actually lowers the quality of the image a slight amount, but is a more than acceptable tradeoff.

On the three-chip cameras, the light gets broken up into red, green and blue by a prizm and sent along different paths to different CCDs. The CCDs are not all aligned on the same geometric plane. Normally, this isn't an issue because the RGB signals get mixed in pretty short order and you have a nice picture with everything aligned. However, in freefall, the vibration is so great and in so many different directions, the image stabilization sensors and programming just can't keep up and I don't think the image stabilization is calculated and applied to each individual chip either, just the over all scene, so what you get are funky misaligned RGB images layed over top of one another and it can look pretty bad. If you were hand holding the camera on the ground, it'd look just fine, but during a skydive with it mounted on your head -- that's a whole other issue.

Upshot of this whole thing is that I believe the three-chip cameras -can- be used for certain things and under certain conditions with certain settings, but unless you are willing to experiment and accept that sometimes you'll see some funk . . . you might actually be better off in normal circumstances by using a single-chip camera.

That said, if I were looking at a three-chip camera, I'd be tempted to buy the Sony PD-150.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[AndyMan 7]

Quote

What about the TRV950? Looks pretty impressive at $1,577 for a 3 ccd.

The problems with the 950 are well documented... Do a search. The issue revolves around it using a different auto-focus system that isn't so hot. The lens appears to 'flutter' in the wind.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[Cajones 0]

The 900 and 950 do, indeed, have a flutter problem in freefall. This' not due to the image stabilizing system. These cameras actually use an "optical image stabilization" system that uses the prism that splits the color channels to stabilize the shot. A different strategy than the electronic staibilization of the single chip, but could cause image stability problems if it "couldn't keep up" or was misaligned, somehow. The lens flutter issue comes from the "floating iris" used in the 900 and 950's. I have not seen this problem in the VX1000/2000, nor the PD150.

If you are looking for size in a fully functional camera, you may consider the PDX10. It is smaller than the VX's and PD's. Smaller, actually than some single-chip TRV's. It is DVCAM or DV(SP mode only) compatible, and has XLR 2-ch audio. Very,very nice camera. At $3000 (cheaper than the PD150's tag of $4500), no one seems to know if it's jumpable, yet, so let us know if you try it.

If you have the budget, we can talk about a camera/deck solution. The 3-chip cameras with anything better, image-wise, are unstabilized, however. To go with solutions of this nature may produce some stunning pictures, but would require extensive post-production. It also creates a more complicated environment, with wires running to battery packs and a recording deck (icky sounding to most of us, no doubt).

Then again - the single-chip TRV70 has an incredible image, and is even smaller, lighter, and cheaper than any of the other cameras mentioned. I'd even say the image is better than the TRV-900 (3-chip) by a small, but discernible, margin. Sort of a "good enough" for basically all of us, and cheaper/cost-effective solution.

The laws of physics are strictly enforced.

[quade 4]

Quote

The lens flutter issue comes from the "floating iris" used in the 900 and 950's.

Among the problems I have is accurately visualizing the problems some people describe.

The previous description and analysis of the problems I've seen are of footage from Craig O'Brien and his attempts at using at Sony TRV900. To me it certainly didn't look like an iris issue, but rather a rapid misalignment of the RGB channels which I could only assume was due to the image stabilization circuits.

So, anyway, by "flutter" caused by the "floating iris" are you saying that there is a rapid change in the exposure level?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Cajones 0]

The "flutter" I've seen in footage from the 900, and from the 950 I gave a go was not at all like what you describe from Craig. Makes me wonder about what Craig's problem was - if his camera was actually getting intrusion somewhere different than mine. I believe I can visualize his symptom, with a color "ghost" shifting a bit off the other two channels - like a silkscreen where one of the colors is offset. The syptoms of the floating iris are more like an object at the periphery of the lens flapping around in the relative wind. It did cause exposure level problems, full frame, with what looked like a weak chrominance signal in CMYK (this symptom may be more what you are describing, now that I think of both effects). I figured this was from the camera attempting to compensate with exposure levels. I tried to reproduce this in a static (non-skydiving) element with a strobe light. It didn't produce the "greying" or half-frame differences in exposure level, but it make people act funny for the camera. I figured I either didn't have a fast enough strobe, or couldn't find the "magic" frequency with the little twisty knob on the back of my strobe light. This symptom was not as constant as the physical "phantom object" moving around at frame edge. This phenomenon was easily reproduced in the back of my truck (Cazadora at the wheel). The runway failed to produce sufficient speed to produce observable results, but the labratory on Interstate 26 proved camera orientation and speed were both factors.

The laws of physics are strictly enforced.

[iam 0]

Wow.........speechless..........we are not worthy...

"Don't ever knock on deaths door, just ring the bell and run away - it really pisses him off"

[quade 4]

Quote

I believe I can visualize his symptom, with a color "ghost" shifting a bit off the other two channels - like a silkscreen where one of the colors is offset.

That's a pretty good characterization of what we were seeing.

"Phantom Object" -- fascinating.

Rapid (per field maybe?) changing of exposure level -- did you try different exposure settings; sport or something else?

I'm still trying to figure out what you mean by "floating iris".

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Cajones 0]

I'm not sure how else to describe the object moving at the frame edge. The first jump with it, caused several minutes looking in the lens of the camera, and shking it trying to see what was floating around inside of my camera. I even tried to look into the lens while standing in the back of the truck - wonder what the other drivers were thinking as we were passing them - and see if I could see it moving around inside the camera.

I must admit I can't put my finger on exactly who told me about the "floating iris" of the 900. I recall the term used in a conversation with Jeanie (Bonehead's greatest asset), and Steve - an excellent camera flyer from Raeford - who has used the 900 sucessfully. Correspondence with Sony about how this thing works and why it causes these problems was never resolved.

The laws of physics are strictly enforced.