Zacuto recently held a camera shoot-out (video also embeded after the break) to compare image quality. Actually, it's more of a format comparison. The cameras/formats compared:
- 35mm Film
- Red One
- Sony EX3
- Panasonic HVX200 (w/ Letus & Redrock Micro adapters)
- Panasonic HPX170
- Panasonic HPX300
- Canon XH-A1
- Canon 5D MkII
- Nikon D90
You can probably skip through the first six minutes or so to get to the footage comparison. Copied & pasted from my IM with Dembro, here are my impressions:
- Film: Awesome.
- Red: I know for a fact Red footage looks great, what did they do ((Not to knock Filmworkers, but some Red footage we had color graded there & down-converted to SD also looked a little off as well. But I'm sure they, like the rest of us, are still working out our Red workflows.))?
- HPX300: DOF is terrible, color is nice.
- HVX200 (Letus Ultimate): Noisy, soft.
- HVX200 (Letus Elite): Same.
- HVX200 (Redrock): Same.
- EX3: Not bad, but something seems strange with the focus.
- HPX170: Okay, but a bit dull.
- XH-A1: Blah.
- 5D MkII: What did they do? That camera is praised for its low light capabilities, but the blacks are completely crushed.
- D90: Flat.
Dembro & I both came to the same conclusions: 1.) Film looks pristine and b.) It looks like Zacuto is really trying to push their low end cameras to people who otherwise wouldn't have even thought of renting one to begin with.
In all honesty, though, the closing statement is spot on: Any of these cameras in the hands of a skilled professional can produce great results.