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MillimeterReview: Panasonic AJ-HPX2700
Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Barry Braverman
The (re)making of a legend.
he Panasonic AJ-HPX2700 P2 Varicam offers an excellent balance of features, resolutions, operational advantages, and good performance in low-light situations.
Few professional broadcast cameras have achieved the vaulted status and battle-hardened reputation of the original Panasonic Varicam. Introduced at NAB 2001, the initial model provided many diehard film shooters like myself a much welcome and relatively easy transition to electronic image capture. Now I find myself looking through the eyepiece of a tapeless Varicam.
Needless to say, the migration of the Varicam to the P2 stable has been long awaited, as many industry developments have portended the promise of a new breed of Varicam: metadata, AVC-Intra, 10-bit recording, the benefits of the tapeless format, and the vast improvements in the imager and processing. Documentary and nonfiction shooters have reason to celebrate with the introduction of the reborn Varicam; there is simply no better-performing camera that is as versatile and relevant to the challenges facing today's broadcast shooter. At less than $40,000 MSRP, the Panasonic AJ-HPX2700 P2 Varicam is a veritable revolution in a box.
The AJ-HPX2700 P2 Varicam is a full-raster native 720p camcorder that features a simple and proven workflow. The camera is extremely rugged and produces near-D5-quality images at variable frame rates from 1fps to 60fps. Shooters can rely on the HPX2700 to produce startling pictures under a variety of conditions.
10-bit recording too
Thanks largely to the P2 flash-memory system, there is no longer the same physical limitation of videotape with respect to delivering bits to the recording medium. In addition to recording traditional DVCPRO HD, the AJ-HPX2700 enables capture of 4:2:2 images at 10 bits using AVC-Intra 100, effectively delivering for the first time at this price point a master-quality camcorder à la HD-D5 to the broadcast shooter.
The impact on screen is immediately apparent to me, with more accurate color rendition and extremely smooth gradients. These two factors are especially evident in facial shadows and smooth monochromatic areas of the frame, such as the sky or an actor's wardrobe. Shooting in 10 bits in AVC-Intra, there is little risk of seeing dreaded compression contours or banding, which have long plagued traditional 8-bit video codecs.
In my field evaluation of the HPX2700 conducted over the summer of 2008, I shot a good portion of a new documentary The Making of Bottle Rocket for The Criterion Collection and director Wes Anderson. Anderson had asked me to direct and shoot a half-hour show that would capture the recollections of the principal players (including myself) who had participated in the realization of the cult classic in the mid-1990s. I had shot the original 16mm version of the movie in 1992, and now I was given the chance to shoot the retrospective documentary using, in part, the AJ-HPX2700.
A couple of things stood out in the course of the shoot, such as how sharp and smooth the images were — even with the camera detail cranked down to as low as 5 in some cases. The inherent dynamic range was evident in the camera, particularly in Film_Rec mode at 600 percent. The enhanced dynamic range from 500 percent to 600 percent in the updated Varicam drew more than a few “oohs” and “aahs” from the project producers. I like that from my employers, as it often leads to more work — and the HPX2700 certainly was a big factor in that.
