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XDCAM EX


ehab assal

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
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Red promise a pie in the sky camera some time in the 21st century (at this rate that?ll be obsolete when and if it ever gets mass produced) - dependable, reliable Sony bring out what looks like a useful bit of kit and this is all the appraisal info we have?

 

Hi,

 

I was supposed to test one for a shoot last week, there seems to be a delay! Looks like an interesting camera.

 

Stephen

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Can any of you guys confirm if the vignette problems I've been hearing about are true? I've read on a few forums that between 10mm and 25mm on the lens that some cameras are experiencing mild vignetting in the upper left and upper right corners. Thanks.

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  • 1 month later...

Went to Macworld today and hung around the B&H kiosk for a good half hour, playing with the XDCAM EX. I can safely say, of all the prosumer HD cameras, it probably has the best glass I've seen. It looks like a legit Fujinon lens with some great contrast, sharpness and detail that surpasses Canon's latest.

 

I would LOVE to perform a full test of the camera and take it through the workflow of swapping the SxS cards in and out.

 

But just viewing it on a calibrated HD monitor at Macworld, I was really impressed.

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I would LOVE to perform a full test of the camera and take it through the workflow of swapping the SxS cards in and out.

 

Hi Johnathon,

I was never that impressed with the Z1's lens but I loved its ergonomics and it was designed with a shooter in mind. How did you find it compared to the Z1 and aren't Sony Cams generally Zeiss glass? What was the flip out LCD like and did you notice a shallower DOF with the new slightly larger sensors?

 

Thanks

 

Sasha

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Different Sony factory. Most Sony camcorders are done through the consumer division. This unit was very purposefully done through the design group and factory that produces the Cine Alta line (hence the Cine Alta label on the camera). This group decided to work with Fujinon to design a lens for the EX-1.

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Guest Stephen Murphy

I got to take a look at one of these at my local rental company yesterday and i was impressed. Just from playing with it briefly, to my eye the 1080p images looked almost on a par with a Sony 750 - perhaps better in some ways. The glass looked lovely and the depth of field was nice. I agree with Mitch - i think this is going to be a big renter/seller.

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  • 1 month later...

After seeing the very thorough demo at DuArt NY a few weeks ago side by side with 35mm, Super 16, F900, HVX 200, and Red One printed to 35mm as well as via 4k digital projector and being more than impressed, we picked one up last week. Have been scrambling to get fluent on it before we head overseas on Thursday to continue shooting this feature doc across four countries. (let's hope I remember to switch the anti-flicker to 50 Hz!) Will have a thorough evaluation by the time I get back, but so far more pleased than I expected to be.

 

Thoroughly puzzled by one critical aspect of picture quality which has me stumped as to which format to shoot: the camera can shoot in 1080 or 720 at 24p, 30p, or 60i, in either HQ (1920x1080) or SP (1440x1080 "thin raster") mode. What's disconcerting is that if the camera is connected straight to a 42" Sony Bravia 1080p LCD HDTV via the analog component output, the 30p and especially the 24p modes are horrendously jittery on any kind of movement. The camera pulls everything down to 60i internally (the Avid, and, I assume, FCP, throws away the pulldown if you import 24p clips into a 24p project), but while the native 60i modes scream "video!" and have the kind of jagged interlacing that just reaffirms your desire to gun down whoever thought of interlacing in the first place, the 24p mode has no interlacing artifacts, but movement is unbearably jittery.

 

Importing the clips into the Avid and playing them directly off the DVI port into the same monitor via HDMI doesn't demonstrate any of that jitteriness, but the computer is outputting 1080p, not 1080i. But since ultimately most audiences will be seeing letterboxed 480i DVDs, I'm pretty damn sure the pulldown jitter is going to be there. It's so bad that I can't even consider the 24p mode viable, but I hate the 60i mode.

 

Has anyone noticed a similar artifact on other 24p cameras - DVX, HVX, etc? This is pissing me off so much, tomorrow I'm pulling out my good old DVX-100 to compare it. I know it never looked this bad in terms of pulldown.

 

Other than that, the control over the toe and shoulder, hue and saturation, the 1-60fps frame rates, time lapse, 1/2" chips instead of 1/3", working tapeless, the onboard monitor and pretty much everything else is damned amazing in a $6500 camera. If only the cards didn't cost $900 for 50 minutes of recording, plus another $70 per 50GB XDCAM disc if you - duh - actually want to save your media instead of throwing it away. But I'll take it to be able to keep the intimidation factor low on docs and shoot 1920x1080 at this price point...

 

- Brian Dilg

director/cinematographer

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After seeing the very thorough demo at DuArt NY a few weeks ago side by side with 35mm, Super 16, F900, HVX 200, and Red One printed to 35mm as well as via 4k digital projector and being more than impressed, we picked one up last week. Have been scrambling to get fluent on it before we head overseas on Thursday to continue shooting this feature doc across four countries. (let's hope I remember to switch the anti-flicker to 50 Hz!) Will have a thorough evaluation by the time I get back, but so far more pleased than I expected to be.

 

- Brian Dilg

director/cinematographer

 

Brian,

 

Unless it was another demo at Duart, I had heard that the HVX200 was not there. Can you confirm that it was and how did it do? The discussion I had about this demo centered on the RED and that it didn't perform well, resolution-wise, in windowed 2k mode vs. the EX-1.

 

Thanks,

 

Boyd

Edited by Boyd McCollum
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n I had about this demo centered on the RED and that it didn't perform well, resolution-wise, in windowed 2k mode vs. the EX-1.

 

Thanks,

 

Boyd

 

 

RED in 2K mode is very soft. MUCH MUCH softer than if you shot 4K and then rendered out 2K files. I'd stay away from shooting RED 2K.....

 

jb

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Importing the clips into the Avid and playing them directly off the DVI port into the same monitor via HDMI doesn't demonstrate any of that jitteriness, but the computer is outputting 1080p, not 1080i. But since ultimately most audiences will be seeing letterboxed 480i DVDs, I'm pretty damn sure the pulldown jitter is going to be there. It's so bad that I can't even consider the 24p mode viable, but I hate the 60i mode.

 

Yes, the camera doesn't record pulldown. At least not in HQ mode. Not sure in SP mode as I never use it. But as the component output is an analog signal it has to convert it to interlaced. Component is really not a good way to monitor progressive HD. You should have a SDI monitor for that on set. Then you will see no interlaced effects. But in any case you only see that because you are looking at an analog signal. In fact, this is not present in the footage you recorded.

 

Has anyone noticed a similar artifact on other 24p cameras - DVX, HVX, etc? This is pissing me off so much, tomorrow I'm pulling out my good old DVX-100 to compare it. I know it never looked this bad in terms of pulldown.

 

Maybe on the DVX100 it's less obvious because it has 1/4 of the resolution so you are allowed to be more sloppy when panning.

As with any 24p camera you need to be careful when panning, just like with a film camera. If you are not you will see the jitter. I never notice any when it's panned right with the EX1.

Edited by Michael Maier
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  • 2 weeks later...
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I had a talking head 2 camera shoot at Harvard business school yesterday, big deal professor there limited time, etc... I rented 2 EX-1's from Boston camera co (boscam.com) for the shoot I am happy with the cameras overall. I shot 60i in SP mode (for run time) with 2 16G cards for each camera. I filled one card each and downloaded the contents to my laptop on site as a backup after switching both cards to read-only the download was fast and I opted to retain the 2 cards and the reader for another day to download again to my G5. Sony's FCP plugin seems very good and stable with fast download speeds the clips go into FCP seamlessly so no problems so far.

 

The camera was nice to use, for it's small form factor, I had both cams on sticks with tram's and lectro's for each speaker with a pair of sennheiser shotguns on booms, before I shut of the camera's internal mic's I noticed that even touching the camera lightly showed up in audio. The image seems very good and the lens on full manual works well except for the zoom control which I could not get a good clean start from and the first 1/6th of the zoom paddle did not do anything so that is a minus on what otherwise seems like a winner from Sony.

 

I was much more impressed with the EX1 than the HVX overall and I do not think i could have fit 2 bigger cameras into this setting so a small camera with a full 1080X1920 1/2" chip set is nice, even though I did not us it at full potential..

 

Card recording is a little sketchy to me especially if you plan to erase the cards (as I will, they are rentals) no originals but the SxS cards seem robust and the software seems good, I do not know how much cards are for this camera, are they P2 pricing or more reasonable? For the money involved for this shoot I would seriously consider buying cards as "originals" if they were $2-300.00 each...

 

-Rob-

 

-Rob-

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Card recording is a little sketchy to me especially if you plan to erase the cards (as I will, they are rentals) no originals but the SxS cards seem robust and the software seems good, I do not know how much cards are for this camera, are they P2 pricing or more reasonable? For the money involved for this shoot I would seriously consider buying cards as "originals" if they were $2-300.00 each...

 

 

The pricing per gig is similar for both the SxS and P2 cards (around ~$900 for 16GB cards), however the record times are vastly different. The 16GB SxS card will give you 50 minutes at 1080/60i while the 16GB P2 card will give you 16 min at 1080/60i (or 40 min at 720/24p).

 

I found a couple of good charts comparing recording times for each card using various formats and sized cards at TapeStockOnline:

 

http://www.tapestockonline.com/sxspromecavs.html

 

 

Boyd

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Card recording is a little sketchy to me especially if you plan to erase the cards (as I will, they are rentals) no originals but the SxS cards seem robust and the software seems good, I do not know how much cards are for this camera, are they P2 pricing or more reasonable? For the money involved for this shoot I would seriously consider buying cards as "originals" if they were $2-300.00 each...

-Rob-

 

The 16GB SxS cards retail for exactly what the 16GB P2 cards retail for, $800.00 ea.

 

I have shot around 3,000 cards worth of material on P2 in the past two years, over 800 cards in a week for a three camera tv pilot. I have seen no failures of any kind from P2, I have seen files lost because of user error. P2 is pretty bulletproof although I have heard stories of static electricity while carrying a card in someone's pocket erasing a card of material. But that was second hand so I don't know if it was true.

 

Anyone with half a brain knows that you transport P2 cards with the rubber cap on the connection in it's own plastic case anyway. The SxS cards are the same, you use the nice little plastic cases that Sony provides. FWIW, I have been carrying a MiniDV tape in a pocket, in a case and fell on it and shattered the case and tape shell. That's not the faulty design of MiniDV at work there, that was my own stupidity. SS memory is the same. If you are careful with the media itself, it is quite reliable.

 

Dan

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