HC3 performance in low light?

[DougH 270]

Does any one have personal experince with the performance of the HC3 in low light or "no light" conditions?

A lot of my more memorable jumps are canopy flight right around sunset?

I have been reading that the 3 chips cameras are really poor in low light conditions, the pc1000 for example.

I am trying to decide if I should keep waiting for a pc330 or pc350 to finally sell for a reasonable price on ebay, or if I should snatch up one of the hc3's instead.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[DSE 5]

No HD camcorder in the sub .5 chip will perform as well as it's counterpart in the DV world. Impossible to do so. Squeezing 1440 x 1080 pixels (or in some cases 960 x 1080 pixels) onto the same .3 chip as DV squeezes 720 x 480 pixels means something has to give, and what gives is light performance.
The HC3 is adequate, the HC5/7 are fairly better due to DSP, not greater sensitivity.

Additionally, the HC3 isn't a 3 chip camera and 3 chip vs single chip isn't really related to light sensitivity. The diff is CMOS vs CCD in this case, and CMOS is noisier than CCD in light that is not optimal when dealing with inexpensive CMOS sensors.
Sunset dives shouldn't be any problem for you; night jumps definitely would be. You might see some noise in the low end of the HC3 image, but nothing that I think you'd find objectionable. The HC5 image would be more clean, but the colors (IMO) would be a bit off, given the way the DSP processes color in a heavily processed frame.
If you're dealing with HDV delivered/viewed as SD, you've got the equivalent of a 4:2:2 SD image, so you can reasonably clean the image if the noise is objectionable.
http://www.vasst2.com/search.aspx?text=HC3 has a prerelease review of the cam I did last year.

[vid666 0]

Quote

Does any one have personal experince with the performance of the HC3 in low light or "no light" conditions?

A lot of my more memorable jumps are canopy flight right around sunset?

I have been reading that the 3 chips cameras are really poor in low light conditions, the pc1000 for example.

I am trying to decide if I should keep waiting for a pc330 or pc350 to finally sell for a reasonable price on ebay, or if I should snatch up one of the hc3's instead.

simply put it BLOWS. as awesome as HC3 HD is during the day, even when it's overcast you can see that it's nowhere near the quality. Nighshotwise - it's quite poor compared to the TRV22 that i used to use.

[RedKite 1]

simply put it BLOWS. as awesome as HC3 HD is during the day, even when it's overcast you can see that it's nowhere near the quality. Nighshotwise - it's quite poor compared to the TRV22 that i used to use.
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Love my HC3 as I do, I have to agree that the stunning quality in good light is visibly absent in overcast conditions. This isn't to say that the quality is bad, it's just disproportionately lesser. In short, acceptable but no longer stunning.

Regards

Red Kite

[DSE 5]

I'm lousy at putting things in simple form, aren't I?

[RedKite 1]

I'm lousy at putting things in simple form, aren't I?

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Now don't put yourself down Doug........everybody loves Professor Frink as well....."with the CMOS and the JPEG and the hoy-aye"!

On a serious note another feature which is a bit of a let down on the HC3 is the 'Fader' facility or lack of it!
No fade over just black, white or a very long mosaic.
Or have I missed it somewere? Wouldn't be the first time.

Regards

Red Kite

PS Genuine thanks Doug for all the PM's you've answered for me over the last year or so. Top man.

[vid666 0]

Quote

I'm lousy at putting things in simple form, aren't I?

Actually I enjoy your posts immensely. It's just no matter your knowledge, it's no sub for a larger sample group - thus I posted my personal experience with one camera.

cya

[DSE 5]

Thanks for the kind words, Red. But it is true I use 10 words where 2 might do.
Nope, HC series don't have fancy in-camera editing modes. Those are mostly a thing of the past, primarily because NLE's are now easily accessible, but also that these features use up memory allocation that is needed for other functions/DSP.