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Upgrade HDR-FX1 for XDCAM EX
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[Pedro Ferreira] “will my neighbour competitor leave me eating dust in normal Lighting conditions?”
What are “normal” lighting conditions? There are SO MANY times when I shoot corporate or marketing videos where conditions prevent me from using a light kit in very low light situations. The EX1 will be the first small “hand held” size camera that can produce good video in low light. I sometimes have to shoot in dimly lit bars or restaurants. I’ve also shot corporate videos in testing labs where no light is permitted. Now if you’re shooting in daylight or with a light kit all the time it’s not as critical.
[Pedro Ferreira] “Files, and converting them to uncompressed 10 Bit, and am Very Very strict on final output quality, wich means most projects involve major surgery to achieve the best look possible. “
You’d likely get better quality shooting with an EX1 in 35mbps (instead of HDV 25mbps) and going to ProRes although 10 bit uncompressed is certainly ok. Of course in a studio situation the EX1 will give you 10 bit uncompressed straight out of SDI.
[Pedro Ferreira] “So, I need to record sometimes more than half an hour non-stop to edit next, and that cam’s inability to record at least that kind of time makes me wonder If I am missing something or not”
Huh??? Two 8GB cards gives you 50 minutes and 2 16GB cards will give you 100 minutes at 35mbps or 140 minutes at 25mbps. In addition, if you bring a laptop you can record NON STOP since one card can record while the other offloads into the laptop. 50 minutes of video would take around 5 minutes to load into that laptop.
[Pedro Ferreira] “And CMOS are a MINUS for me…If they where as good as they say, F900 would have CMOS…or F23 too…you see… “
CMOS technology is being improved on. It’s gone from 1 chip consumer cameras to small chip cameras like the Sony V1 and will eventually have the performance for 2/3″ cameras. The Grass Valley Infinity is also using CMOS. Sony certainly will be developing higher end CMOS cameras too.
[Pedro Ferreira] “When I need to shoot anything worth it I go HDCAM or HDCAM SR (rented ) “
And certainly the F23 is a better camera than the EX1 if you have the budget. If you’ve limited yourself and your client base.
The Z1 can’t shoot progressive, over crank, under crank 720p60 and with 1/3″ chips it won’t match the depth of field of the 12″ chips on the EX1.
I’d STRONGLY recommend you read both the EX1 product literature and the many “first looks” that have been posted around the web.
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Okay.. I’m a bit uninformed about it… Thanks for your help. I will do a better research and try to find other kind of specs about the EX1. My main goal is to achieve top pictures for each client demand, based on price/performance ratio, and as you’re telling me the EX1 will give me an edge on the lower market pricing jobs, such as smaller simpler corporate videos, or so. I do some more complicated jobs, but for those, I most always end up hiring personnel and gear.
Cheers to you all, and all the best!
Pedro
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I’ve seen it now. 8 bit (huh?) recording as usual, will not do the miracles you made me believe it would do comparing to my actual cam, and with proper lighting conditions the BIG results are almost not perceptible.
EX1 is more flexible but will not make a huge difference in my pipe.
The major difference for me would be color latitude…and of course contrast too, but none of them would be a blast…
I will buy a BREVIS35 and play with it a bit for now with my prime lenses 😉
Cheers!
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Just for you to know, the Grass Valley approach uses 2/3 inch sensors and 22 bit internal processing and 10 bit 4:2:2 recording… certainly not comparable to SONY’s EX approach…
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and you said something about NOT using CMOS in 2/3″ chips because they were not good enough.
[Pedro Ferreira] “Just for you to know, the Grass Valley approach uses 2/3 inch sensors and 22 bit internal processing and 10 bit 4:2:2 recording… certainly not comparable to SONY’s EX approach… “
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I’ve mentioned it because someone mentioned Grass Valley as a reference to what SONY is doing, and it simply does not compare one thing to the other… There are very BIG digital cinema cameras out there… you are of course comparing a 1/2 CMOS to a FULL SUPER 35mm CMOS or very near like RED ONE or the 2K approach from Silicon Imaging, and SONY is WAY behind that in CMOS technology… for now.
CMOS is in fact much better in terms of linear contrast response, and as so you should get way better Black response with it…BUT… companies like CANON, among others simply kill this kind of dynamic with BAD internal processing. SONY is on its way but is far from being the best, so I remain with my 2 cents, CMOS is still very beta in low end cameras.
The EX1 is a Great camera, regarding final considerations.
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Craig,
[Craig Seeman] “if you bring a laptop you can record NON STOP since one card can record while the other offloads into the laptop. 50 minutes of video would take around 5 minutes to load into that laptop.”
Just had a thought and perhaps you or someone else can speak to it. I’m sure I read somewhere that the cards can only be formated in the camera. What about wiping the cards of data prior to reuse, after you have copied them off with the lappy? Can that be done in the lappy or is it limited to the camera? You see the problem, vis-a-vis continuous recording, if it can only be done in the camera.
Ron Shook
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Although I don’t have direct experience shooting with one card and formating the other, my understanding is that may not be a problem. I believe it may also be possible to delete the clips from the card from the laptop so that one wouldn’t have to reformat the card each time.
Interesting question though regards the workflow but the presentations I’ve seen all pointed out theoretically continuous record with 2 cards and a laptop.
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For what it’s worth, the manual states that you can format a card in-camera while the camera continues to record to the other card. The manual also states that an SxS Pro card formatted by a device other than the camera will have to be re-formatted by the camera before it can be used again.
Perhaps the Sony transfer software will have the ability to reformat a card before being inserted into the camera for another go.
– Don
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I have B&H website open in another tab in my web browser right now. It says that the Sony PMW-EX1 has a 24p mode. Is it really progressive or interpolated. Is it better than the Canon XL H1 in this aspect (I understand that the XL H1 does not shoot real progressive)?
Since bigger sensors mean shallower depth of field, then Sony’s EX1 DOF should be noticeably shallower than the XLh1’s. Am I right in assuming that?
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