[Jim Watt]

I’ve noticed some “strangeness” in focus a few times in screening material we recently shot. It seems and this is assuming I didn’t screw up and refocus…shots that are under exposed, go soft. Since this is way after the fact, I have no idea which filter I was on, but interiors, in theory would be with no ND or ND 1, and exteriors with at least ND 1.

I know this sounds wrong, in theory if they were under exposed the iris would be giving more depth of field, but it has happened several times and I don’t think or at least I hope I didn’t miss the focus that far.

I’ve been too busy to make some sort of analytical test, but in 24 hours of video I don’t expect to get a half dozen shots that are soft.

jw

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

[Jim Watt]

We’re using compressor because we were under the impression the end product would be good. Also standards conversion at a post house is extremely expensive (54 hours of material) and the client doesn’t have the budget.
thx…jw

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

[Jim Watt]

I have the same problem with the exported aif file.

Any suggestions?

thx…jw

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

[Jim Watt]

I thought that might be the case, but when I copy the 1080i/60 audio track and paste it on my 1080i/50 timeline it is short by a few seconds and out of sync.

I tried syncing up one segment thinking that everything else should fall into sync, but that wasn’t the case it drifted out in just a few minutes.

thx…jw

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

[Jim Watt]

We’ve traveled a half dozen times or so with NP1 batteries, but hand carried them, however no one even looked at them when we ran them through the scanner, & that’s domestic and in 3 different Asian countries.

I don’t think they’re taking the batteries seriously at this point, but you can bet if they happen to check a piece of checked gear and find batteries they’ll either remove them or ask you to hand carry.

jw

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

[Jim Watt]

For educational distribution try Library Video and School Specialty.

jw

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

[Jim Watt]

I think a lot depends what kind of gear you’re taking. We shot for 2 weeks recently in a variety of cities with a PMW-EX1 and had no issues anywhere other than Tianenmen Square, which is where I would have expected it. Then it was just a cop asking who we worked for and we explained we were tourists.

If you’re taking a large camera and shooting anything other than b-roll then the only way to go is to get it cleared through the embassy.

In Xian, one guard in pit-1 took exception with the size of our camera, but he was the only one out of several on the site.
good luck…jw

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

[Jim Watt]

We simply move the BPAV folder to the trash and then dump the trash before ejecting the card. The problem you ran into is caused by ejecting the S x S card before dumping the trash.

Formatting the card is a solution of last resort, since we keep our setup on one or two cards and don’t want to erase the file.

We’ve done this with about 50 folders and it works great.

jw

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

[Jim Watt]

I just finished a 20 day shoot in China with the BP-U60 batteries. It was cold, about 25 or so, we were outside most of the time and I was shooting 2-3, 16 gig cards a day and never went through two batteries. On several days only used one. It was snowing most of the time so I was using a rain cover and ended up using the “crappy” viewfinder rather than the LCD most of the time, so that saved on battery drain a bit.

Aside from the issue of battery drain when left overnight, they PMW-EX1 seems to be working just fine.

The viewfinder on the other hand is very disappointing & not as good as the Z1U & FX1 models.

JW

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

[Jim Watt]

None that I’ve experienced unless you leave your inverter plugged in and it runs your battery down overnight, though we leave it on for several (3 or 4) hours at a time and there’s no problem. They’re not expensive and work anywhere in the world where you have a 12V car system.