Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 Review

Hollywood legends appreciate the flattering, organic look the Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 produces.

If cameras had human personalities, the Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 wouldn't have much of a sense of humor. Indeed, the 1080p P2 Varicam is a serious machine, a no-nonsense performer with a powerful work ethic. As Panasonic's flagship, the HPX3700 is hardly an experimental block of metal with heating or shutter issues, and a sensor the size of a battleship. The CCD's 2.2 million pixels are sampled thoroughly and completely pixel by pixel, no skipped lines or shortcuts in the processing here. In fact there is nary an aberration or picture artifact to be found in this top-of-the-line Varicam – a camera that can be relied upon with absolute confidence even under the most challenging conditions. The HPX3700 is a camera designed and built for the business of shooting and earning a living in the upper echelons of the industry; at this level there can be no substitute for performance, reliability, and proven technology.

In early 2010, the legendary Hollywood singer and dancer Carol Lawrence asked me to shoot the ultimate tap-dancing tutorial video, Tacky Taps with Carol Lawrence. The goal here was to capture Carol's inimitable style and grace in a production that would be instructional at its core but also something of a showpiece and historical record of the consummate performer, whose career has spanned five decades, from the role of Maria in the original cast of West Side Story to hundreds of television and live stage appearances all over the world.

Like most performers, veteran singer-dancer Carol Lawrence is highly protective of her appearance on screen. The HPX3700 caters to this extreme level of visual scrutiny.

It made sense to me that the performance of the camera should match Carol's own high level of craft. Given the age of the Hollywood star, the project demanded an organic look with great subtlety in skin tones and control of detail. It demanded a camera with precise color correction and true variable frame rates to capture the dancer's moves with grace, nuance, and flair. Clearly this was not the occasion for an inexpensive prosumer camcorder prone to clipped highlights, stark contrast, and ugly aliasing artifacts. The HPX3700 was the right tool for the job. Carol loved the camera and, more importantly, the camera loved her.

Considering the historical nature of the shoot, the sophisticated P2 camera made good sense. Matched to the Canon HJ22ex7.6B IRSE lens, it allowed me to capture the nuances of the dance steps and the grandeur of the star. The (slightly) overcranked look at 30fps added a nice dream-like effect to the dance numbers, which I captured with an abstracted lyrical quality.

As cinematographers, we are constantly struggling to maintain a three-dimensional illusion in two-dimensional space. We really only have two ways to do this: by maximizing texture and rigorously controlling shadows, and by the use of linear and aerial perspectives in framing our compositions.

Making use of a 12-point linear matrix function, the HPX3700 allows precise color correction in-camera, helping maintain smooth, flattering facial tones even in scenes with a broad contrast range.

In Tacky Taps, I made use of multiple mirrors positioned at slightly oblique angles along the studio walls to produce strongly converging lines. Two Joker 400W PARs (my favorite lights) were bounced off large show cards positioned above the camera to produce a broad, shadowless wash, which in turn produced a highly flattering light for the star's complexion. Moreover, the camera's broad dynamic range (over 11 stops when recording AVC-Intra 100) helped capture remarkable detail in the dancer's deep crimson wardrobe while retaining detail in the bright studio windows that reflected in the mirror backgrounds.

I should point out that the edging around objects in the HPX3700 is particularly tasteful and unobtrusive. This attribute is finely adjustable in the camcorder to prevent overcorrection and an objectionable plastic look. The 3700's image processing is extremely sophisticated in this regard; the 2.2-million-pixel CCD imager produces much more pleasing images than a hypothetical similarly configured CMOS-equipped camcorder could. CMOS cameras do indeed offer higher native resolution (at lower cost), but native resolution alone should never be the sole consideration when selecting the right camera for a job. High performance, not maximum resolution, is what audiences (and Carol) demanded for this assignment, and that's what the HPX3700 delivered.

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Keep in mind that the HPX3700 is a high-performance 1080p camera, and as such it's limited to a maximum frame rate of 30fps. A Varicam that ramps only to 30fps seems rather restrictive; the creative juices that guide and nourish me felt thwarted at times. The AJ-HPX2700 720p P2 camcorder has accustomed me to a full framerate gamut that operates at every step between 1fps and 60fps. That is not the case with the 1080p 3700. The processing load at 60fps would simply be too great to be practical given current CCD technology. Thus CMOS sensors have a distinct advantage because each pixel can be addressed individually; they can be clocked relatively easily at higher framerates. There may be significant compression and performance issues to consider at frame rates greater than 60fps, but suffice it to say, the HPX3700's ability to record to AVC-Intra 10-bit 4:2:2 (or 4:4:4 via dual-link SDI) is testimony of Panasonic's desire not to compromise image integrity.

A few decades ago at National Geographic, we often said that God made two kinds of shooters: the shooter who earned his or her living in the business and the artiste whose sensibility and livelihood lay somewhere else entirely. The HPX3700 is a no-nonsense camera intended for the former, offering plenty of muscle for the shooter who must depend on a serious imaging device.

In that context, the Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 walks the walk and dances the dance. In this business, that's an important consideration.

Company: Panasonic

www.panasonic.com/business

Product: AJ-HPX3700

Assets: Excellent image quality; excellent color correction; 4:2:2 color with AVC-Intra, 4:4:4 color with dual-link SDI.

Caveats: Cannot record at more than 30fps.

Price: $59,950 (list)

The diminutive Panasonic HMR10/HCK10 camera-recorder combination. The unit's compact size and low profile open up a wealth of interesting filmmaking options.

It happens sometimes that a two-piece camera-recorder is exactly what the doctor-director ordered. Whether you're shooting in the tight confines of a police car or under a sink or affixing the miniature camera head to the front of a careening luge at the Winter Olympics, the Panasonic AG-HMR10/HCK10 allows access to difficult or unusual locations, thereby dramatically expanding the creative shooter's visual storytelling possibilities.

The go-anywhere camera-recorder system can easily mount to your saddle as you approach the Great Pyramids.

The 10oz. camera head employs three 1/4in. CMOS imagers to capture full-raster 1920x1080 AVCHD. Recording in this format can be highly efficient, allowing three hours of running time at maximum PH quality on an inexpensive 32GB HDSC card. The down side of the long-GOP recording format is the more constrained 4:2:0 color space and the higher compression applied compared to popular intraframe formats like DVCPRO HD or AVC-Intra. (The latter format also uses the MPEG-4 compression engine, albeit with a much more professional profile.) From a creative perspective, the shooter must also know that the HMR10 produces enormous depth of field, an attribute that's usually helpful in point-of-view cameras to ensure sharp focus in even the most difficult applications.

Behold your imperative: to show the audience the world they haven't seen before. Given the portability and flexibility of the HMR10/HCK10, that imperative for every shooter is accomplished more easily than ever.