COW Articles: Sony CineAlta HD A Creative Cow Real-time Report: EX1 vs. PD170

[Don Greening]

The report is somewhat misleading because the initial test conclusions were reached from simply looking through the viewfinders of both cameras. The text of the article has not been updated yet to reflect the result of the frame grabs that are from a another test done 2 days later where the findings are somewhat different.

The frame grabs show that the EX1 beats the PD170 slightly in all stages of the low light test but that the EX1 generates more picture noise at plus 18 gain than the PD170 does.

After the first test I was concerned that the viewfinders might not be giving a true representation of what the recorded video may actually look like. So, to take any viewfinder discrepancies between the 2 cameras out of the equation I re-did the test. The frame grabs in the article are the result of that second test.

– Don

[Ron Shook]

Don,

Thanks for this test. It was quite illuminating and quite frankly, to me, amazing. This is quite a leap in HD low light performance, which I just didn’t expect.

[Don Greening] “The frame grabs show that the EX1 beats the PD170 slightly in all stages of the low light test but that the EX1 generates more picture noise at plus 18 gain than the PD170 does.”

The picture noise in the PD170 is masked by softening probably by lower detail enhancement. If you’re able to, lower the detail enhancement on the EX1 and check the noise level again.

The book shelves also show us the barrel distortion at full wide, but… surprisingly, it’s slightly less than the PD170 even though the EX1 lens seems about 10-15% wider than the PD170 lens. Looks like there’ll be less need for a supplementary wide angle adapter with the standard lens on the EX. Excellent!

Ron Shook

[Don Greening]

[Ron Shook] “If you’re able to, lower the detail enhancement on the EX1 and check the noise level again.”

Will do. Initially I thought the test would be most beneficial with the Sony default settings right out of the box. All I did was change the recording format from 1080i to 1080p. The shutter speed default was 1/60 and I never messed with the shutter angle or even looked to see what it was but I’m assuming it’s at 180. To keep the test fair I also reset the PD170 to default settings as well.

Any further testing or comparing will have to wait now until later as I will be away over the holidays until Jan 1st.

– Don

“Away from the camera but not from the COW”