Sony DSR 400 opinions

[PHX Shooter]

The place I'm working with now is using Canon XL2's which I'm not thrilled about. I'd like to transition them to a nicer camera and have been looking at the Sony DSR 400. I need to cover events (run & gun style), seminars and classes. in a typical day I could be shooting interviews and b-roll indoors and out, shooting in an auditorium/stage under stage lighting and in hotel meeting rooms large and small.

Most of what I'm doing will be destined for Web viewing (80%) and DVD (20%). This makes me think that HD is not an important factor (unless they want to future proof the footage). Using 2/3" chips and DVCAM I think will deliver sufficient quality for what I'm doing. I already have DV/DVCAM editing gear via IEEE 1394, so I really don't see Beta SP as being something worth investing in.

I'm curious of what impression the group has of this camera. I believe it has the Dynalatitude which is supposed to have a variable knee depending on the brightness of the image across the chip. I think this could be especially helpful in interviews in uncontrolled lighting situations and under stage lights where you'll have more hot spots. Does this actually work in "real world" practice?

The other option might be the JVC 5100 as it's cheaper. I've used a DV500 and it did a pretty good job fro this sort of thing. Bang for the buck is super critical and I doubt I can get them to look at cameras in the $16-28K range. Cost for a DSR package that includes Fujinon 17x is around $10k. There's also a package with a Canon 20x for a bit more. Any thoughts on the Fujinon glass? I had a 1/2" Canon 20x on my JVC and I liked that a lot (well, compared to the POS they shipped with the camera).

Thanks for the input.

[F4 Fan]

There are a couple of shooters who post here regularly that own the DSR-400. I’ve had mine for about a year and half and have shot everything from weddings to network news with it.

Like any camera the better the glass the better the image, one good thing about this camera is that at over 900 lines of resolution your video looks sharp no matter what. I’ve shot a wedding or two that were extremely backlit and the video turned out surprisingly good – even with highly blown out backgrounds. My normal work camera is a DVC-Pro AJD-810, a work horse camera with a very warm picture. The Sony, at least right of the box, has a very what you see is what you get picture. Accurate colors but very video-like and cool. But if you like to tweak your settings the DSR-400 has a multitude of menu options that only and engineer can understand.

The build of the camera isn’t that robust, VU meters are actually displayed in the viewfinder and on the flip-out monitor as opposed to on the side of the camera, setting time code is done in a way similar to that of the HDCAM series.

I’ve had some issues with white balance and have gotten some readings in the shade that was well up the Kelvin scale. Nice to know that the camera has a color temperature scale that goes that high, but if the video is off what good is it? Although I have to say that the Auto Trace works pretty well, especially in run and gun situations and as all the filters are clear you can go from outside to inside and keep rolling and still have accurate color.

For the web and DVD’s not a bad camera, not sure if it would last long under the rigors of daily news, but the picture, even with a mini-DV is good enough for network news. If I were to do it again I might consider the DSR-450 with it’s 16x9 and 24p capability. It wouldn’t be high definition, but it would be close. Still for day to day news, I prefer my Panasonic.

And I've seen this camera cut with footage from the JVC and I'd say they match up pretty close.