Can EX-1 or EX-3 shoot fast moving objects with the “rolling shutter” issues

[Ronnie Martin]

I have shot over 300 hours of high speed car racing over the past two years at night with both the ex-1 and ex-3. The cars are moving at over 100 mph and the light (which is very low) changes every 10 or 15 feet or so. Because of the fast moving cars and the changing light we operate auto iris and the ex cameras keep up without a problem. The footage is aired on 4 TV stations in my state. We shoot 1920x1080i and the end result for the TV stations is SD 4×3 DVCAM tape. The show is 1 hour long and we are in our 20th show for this season. There are times when I am running as much as 9db of gain and the iris is at 1.9 and I still get amazing results under the most extreme circumstances. As of this date the Ex cameras have never let me down and we are considering buying two more. One more EX-1R and a EX320. The rolling shutter has not been a problem when the still camera guys are shooting the post race interview. Once or twice in the past two seasons I have seen the banding on a frame when the still camera went off right next to me. I just inserted a white frame over this frame the effect was not a problem.

When Sony came out with the EX series the hit a home run in my estimation.

My only complaint is the off on switch on both cameras and the fact that there is not a station in my state that can originate HD programing. I was so disappointed when I visited some of the stations and saw their infrastructure. I hate to see my HD footage down converted to SD.

Ronnie Martin

Ronnie Martin
Kato Video Productions
http://www.dirtracingvideo.com
http://www.ramtv.tv

[Brent Dunn]

I shoot sports shots.(say that 3 times really fast) I’ve shot boats also with no problems. Not from a helicopter. I shoot a lot of soccer games which require a lot of whip pans since the action is constantly switching directions.

Since you are not sure, I would recommend renting a camera and going out on a shoot. You’ll be happy with the results, but if it doesn’t quite live up to your expectations, your only out a few hundred bucks. If you like it, you’ll feel better about your purchase.

The Canon 5D / 7D would not be a good choice. They do suffer a lot of rolling shutter issues and they are hard to focus / zoom on moving targets.

Brent Dunn
Owner / Director / Editor
DunnRight Video.com

Sony EX-1, V1U
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 7D
Mac Pro Tower, Quad Core,
with Final Cut Studio

HP i7 Quad laptop
w/ Adobe CS-4 Production Suite, After Effects
& CS-5 Production Suite. Window’s 7

Manfrotto Tripod’s & Heads

[Craig Seeman]

Tangentially I ran into this website today. It seems their stabilizer plugin and stand alone utility can fix rolling shutter issues.
https://www.prodad.com/home/products/videostabilizing/300391667,l-us.xhtml

I believe CoreMelt has a stabilizer plugin (Lock & Load) that can do this as well but it’s specific to Final Cut.

Keep in mind that these are “compromises” because, as software stabilizers, they may need to blow up the image a bit as part of the fix. I’d just thought I’d point them out for those who really really really need to fix the odd skewed shot.

[Bill Giglio]

Hey All, thanks for taking the time to post. I appreciate the input.

I bought the EX-1R and I’m stoked. I only got three days with it before it left today on a job, but the footage I test shot is fine. No overtly observable artifacts. I’ll post once this shoot wraps with more definite findings.

..Now, if I could only get comfortable with tapeless workflow. Not too confident in Clip Browser; have heard Shotput is the way to go. Hope all those BPAV file opens in post!