[Jim Watt]

Quite whining! This is an excellent camera for the money and with a little time you can get used to the crappy viewfinder. Use the focus assist and you’ll be more comfortable finding focus in the viewfinder.

I’ve shot thousands of hours of video beginning with a TK 76 to the Varicams I now own, but this little camera takes great pictures, is light and if you use a short mono pod rested in your belt when shooting portable you too will come to like it.

I’ve shot 6, one hour programs with it all over Asia and the Caribbean in a variety of climates from heavy snow & rain to 90’s & 95 percent humidity and it has performed admirably.

For the monopod setup I installed an aluminum plate to the tripod mount with my Sachtler plate attached there, then forward I have a quick release plate attached so I can quickly attach my monopod. It works great. you should give it a try.

jw

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

We started at the default -41. Audio was useable, but you could hear and almost feel a little clipping. Lowered the trim and the sound improved immensely, but my partner Kelly who is a network caliber mixer hears everything, so to my ear I really didn’t hear it so much as feel it, but even to my ‘tim’ ear it sounds better with this setup.

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

-24 on the receiver and -20 on the transmitter.

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

We’ve shot about 70 hours on our EX-1 in a variety of locations, with a phantom powered Sennheiser, and Panasonic camera mic and RF units from Lectrosonics to Sennheiser Evo 100 and 500 RF mics. Only thing we’ve seen is we must turn down the input trim levels in the camera to -50 to keep the Evolution receivers from clipping.

jw

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

There’s no reason to edit in anything other than the native XCAM EX format, with rendering set in the sequence to Pro RES. Once you finish the edit, you can then use the Kona LH or Kona 3 card to lay off to DVCPROHD tape. You’re wasting time and mixing compressions unnecessarily by ingesting real time via HDSDI. Use an S X S express card reader and the Sony file transfer utility to ingest your material. If you feel you must have 4:2:2 color space in your finished program transfer the finished timeline to a Pro-res HQ timeline.

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

I’ve never tried this particular unit, but I can tell you that a mono-pod set up so it fits in your belt, using the camera strap around your neck for added support & safety, works great for this and practically any other small camera that has an “out back” view finder.

Just think about it….when you have no support in front, under the camera, what’s holding up all the weight of your camera, matte box, light and RF’s?

Good luck…jw

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

I think there is definitely an endemic problem with back focus on these cameras. I sent the first one I purchased back to Sony and they replaced it.

The replacement had excellent back focus on the clear filter, but filters 1 and 2 were soft. I’ve read several other posts that have had the same problem. Fortunately I found a post on the DVXuser.com site that at least shows you how to set back focus. This operation fixed or rather set, the back focus on all three settings and it looks great.

Open the maintenance menu, which of course Sony doesn’t tell you how to find. Mark & Mary Ann Weiss on the DVXuser.com forum gave me instructions on getting to the menu. You get to it by pressing Menu sel/set and the Cancel buttons simultaneously.
Then using a back focus chart at sbout 9 feet distance zoom in and focus on the chart, then zoom out to wide with the aperture wide open. You can use the shutter to control the f-stop.

In the maintenance menu choose backfocus adjustment (FB).

When it finishes leave the menu, then put in ND 1 and do the same thing and then do it with ND-2.

Worked great on my camera.

jw

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

I don’t think that is the problem. The sequence is still in the same project. I may try copying the sequence to a new sequence and see if that helps. Basically I haven’t changed anything, knowingly from the last time I worked on this project.

thx…jw

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

I have run into issues with continuous recording to a second card, but solved it by importing the source file from both cards into the transfer utility. That solved what appeared to be a corrupt file problem.

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”

[Jim Watt]

Thanks Walter…appreciate the confirmation.

jw

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”