ProVideo Coalition.com: Camera Log by Adam Wilt | Founder | Pro Cameras, HDV Camera, HD Camera, Sony, Panasonic, JVC, RED, Video Camera Reviews

The EX1’s basic layout is very similar to other Handycam style camcorders. At just over six pounds in shooting configuration, and sixteen inches from lens shade to eyecup, it’s comparable in weight and size to other HD handhelds like the Sony HVR-Z1 or Panasonic HVX200.

Left to right: HVX200, PMW-EX1, HVR-Z1.

The design marries a Fujinon-built lens to a Sony camera; this marriage led to off-center vignetting on a few early EX1s, but current cameras shouldn’t have the problem (owners of afflicted cameras can have their lenses recentered by Sony).

The combination of the new lens, solid-state recording, and other unique features results in a fairly standard package, but one with a few quirks. Perhaps because it’s the first “Handycam”from the CineAlta group, there’s a slightly awkward feel to the beast; it doesn’t balance as well as other Sony handhelds, and some of the controls and connectors aren’t as well implemented as I might have hoped. These aren’t fatal flaws by any means, the camera just requires a bit of getting used to.

Lens Section

The camera starts off with Sony’s unique lens shade / cap, where a slide switch opens and closes two “shutters” built into the shade to cap the lens. First seen on the DSR-PD170, this shade means you’re never without a lens cap, nor do you ever need to worry about where to put the cap when you take it off. The shade bayonets into the front of the lens, and will accommodate at least one 77mm filter behind it.

The 14x Fujinon lens has a knurled, rubberized focus ring that has two modes of operation. It’s like having two lens types in one, so those used to Handycam lenses and those used to broadcast lenses can both be accommodated.

When pushed forwards (“AF/MF”), it works like most prosumer focus rings: it free-spins without limit. It can be used in a manual mode, with a “Push AF” button available on the bottom of the lens barrel, or in auto mode with manual override. It will focus as close as 0.8 meters (about 2.6 feet) with macro off; with macro on (set with a slide switch), the minimum distance shrinks to the front of the lens shade for focal lengths up to about 20mm, then it creeps gradually out to 2.5 feet as you zoom in.

If you push the ring back (“Full MF”), it switches to an absolute-positioning manual mode, just like a “real” lens: it engages an engraved focus scale and turns 120 degrees to travel between infinity and the 0.8m near focus point (macro is not available in absolute mode). I found the focusing scale to be dead-on (the body has a focal-plane mark on it, but the lens scale is calibrated to the front of the glass in video style, not the focal plane as in film style). The focus ring is marked in both meters and feet and displayed through a window on the otherwise-stationary lens housing. It’s infinitely better than having no focus scale at all, but remember that it only works in Full MF mode: when you switch to AF/MF mode, the scale sits at its last position and doesn’t move as focus changes.

This dual-mode behavior appears to work like the servo/manual zoom on the HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 camcorders. The mechanism is always under servo control, but in “Full MF” mode the servo precisely tracks the position of the focusing scale. Even in Full MF mode, you can hear the focus servos running as you focus the lens. Servo tracking is so responsive that, in my experience, it never lagged the focus ring, so the practical effect is every bit as good as a full mechanical focus. Because it is not a traditional mechanical system, there is the chance that it may lose focus under severe vibration, as when using the camera hard-mounted on a vehicle. I was unable to cause any loss of focus in my tests, and I haven’t heard of any problems with it, but if you plan to use the EX1 as a crash cam or POV cam in harsh conditions—which its SxS recording suits it to—you’d be well advised to test it yourself.

Aft of the focusing scale is a mechanical zoom ring, which turns 90 degrees to traverse the zoom range. It operates as smoothly as any other broadcast lens’s zoom. It has a stubby zoom handle that can be unscrewed, and those preferring power zoom can flip a switch under the left-side lens motor housing to engage the servo.

Slide switches for auto/manual iris, macro on/off, manual/auto focus, and a “push auto” focus button follow, and then—wonder of wonders—a true, honest-to-goodness iris ring, calibrated in full stops from f/1.9 to f/16, plus C (closed), with perhaps 45 degrees of travel from f/1.9 to f/16. You can read off the stop with much higher precision than with an internal iris using only a viewfinder readout, since you can see exactly where the index mark falls relative to the two nearest stops (nonetheless, there is still a viewfinder readout, with half-stop precision). You can be very precise in your iris setting, as it has effectively infinite positions, and you can do aperture pulls during a shot as slowly as you please without worrying about the “stepping” that occurs with some cameras’ servo-driven irises. Backlash, at least on my unit, was well under 1/6 stop.

It may sound silly, but this manual iris ring is one of the things I most appreciate on the EX1, and feel the lack of most keenly when working with other handhelds (the Canon XH series cams have a ring, but it’s really just a glorified version of the free-spinning, uncalibrated servo thumbwheel found on most handheld cams). I like being able to set my aperture “just so”, and to be able to open or close it the tiniest amount, and to do it quickly and without bother, and the EX1 lets me do that as easily as any “real” lens on a broadcast or film camera does. In this price segment, only the JVC HDV cams with their interchangeable lenses let me set stops as quickly and precisely as the EX1.

Camera Section

On the camera body proper, there’s a three-position ND filter switch (off, 1/8, 1/64; each ND filter is worth three stops), flip switches for gain and white balance, pushbuttons for zebra, peaking, and full-auto modes (the latter contains a green LED that indicated when full-auto is engaged), and three assignable pushbuttons that default to LENS INFO (an onscreen focus and depth-of-field indicator), BRT DISP (a readout of the brightness of the center of the picture) and HISTOGRAM. A fourth assignable button, along with the white balance pushbutton and the shutter switch, sit beneath the lens on the front of the body.

Unfortunately, these front-mounted buttons are flush-mounted and hard to find by feel; on several occasions I’ve reset the white balance while fumbling for the shutter switch. When the camera is tripod mounted, ASSIGN 4 is fairly inaccessible and hard to reach when you need it.

Atop the body, below the handle, are three pushbuttons used to control SHOT TRANSITION (a built-in two-position shotbox allowing preprogrammed changes in focus, zoom, and exposure), a slide switch to turn LCD backlighting on and off, and six membrane switches used to control viewfinder information and toggle colorbars on and off. The membrane switches are impossible to find by feel, and I frequently wind up turning the LCD brightness down while groping for the display on/off button. Sony has cleverly set up bars so that they can be turned off while the camera is running, but not on, so at least you won’t ruin a shot while randomly prodding these buttons.

The handle itself has a fat pod at the front containing stereo mics and the flip-out LCD, with volume and playback control buttons as well as a four-way joystick for menu selection, a lockable start/stop button, and a single-speed zoom rocker with a high/low/off slide switch. There is a shoe mount and a clamp for an external mic, but no 1/4” threaded hole for screw-in accessories.

The 3.5” LCD swings out from under the pod and can be rotated through 270 degrees, from facing forwards through facing straight down. However, it can’t be aimed to either side, for use in tight quarters or by an assistant.

Moving aft, there’s a discontinuity between the cylindrical camera section and the squared-off storage section: there’s a ventilation passage running completely through the camcorder.

The camera grows warm when it’s turned on, so be aware of this cooling feature when enclosing the camera in a rain cover or underwater case.

Storage Section

Two SxS cards slot in behind a sliding cover. Status LEDs light green when a card is inserted but removable, red when a card is being read from or written to. Cards can be hot-swapped and the active card can be selected with a SLOT SELECT button. Dual pots for manual audio control and a MENU button finish off the right side of the camera.

The rear of the camera has a thumbwheel for menu item selection as well as a CANCEL button to back out of menus. These controls are alternatives to the joystick on the top of the handle, and either set of controls may be used at any time. Likewise, either the thumbwheel or the joystick can be used with Direct Menus (discussed below); I’ve tended to use the thumbwheel over the past few weeks, and as a result the SEL/SET legend above it is nearly worn away, a problem I’ve seen on other EX1s.

Four small slide switches toggle the two audio channels between auto and manual gain, and between the internal mics and XLR inputs. A PICTURE PROFILE button pops up the menus for the six picture profiles (image adjustments). A DC IN jack accommodates the cable from the EX1’s AC Adapter and battery charger, while the battery snaps in below. Unfortunately, it’s either/or; the battery can’t be charged on the camera but must be removed, but you’ll want to do that anyway: leaving the battery on the camera will drain it after a couple of days, even with the power turned off.

Of course, that’s if you even manage to turn the power off properly. The power switch is a three-position slide switch: CAMERA/OFF/MEDIA (the latter being the equivalent of “VCR” on old-school tape-based cameras). In practice, it’s very easy to overshoot the central OFF setting, and switch the EX1 from CAMERA mode to MEDIA mode, or vice versa. As the camera shuts down and restarts in the process, the LCD and EVF go dark for five seconds before lighting up again, so if you overshoot the OFF position and don’t check that the EX1 really is off, it’ll wake right back up, probably after you’ve closed the LCD and packed up for lunch. I have become very aware of the switch’s position, and I wait a good, long time before closing up the LCD… yet I still wind up leaving the camera on by mistake at least once a week. I’d suggest pulling the battery out whenever you’re shutting down for more than ten minutes.

Right Side

The rotating handgrip dominates the right side of the camera. It rotates from completely flat, through the 30 degree forward tilt in the photos, through about 30 degrees past vertical—very useful when handholding the camera near the ground. The rear of the grip has the start/stop button as well as the rotation release; fortunately the two buttons are very different in feel so it’s easy to tell ‘em apart. Atop the grip are buttons for EXPANDED FOCUS, which works whether the camera is stopped or rolling, and REC REVIEW for seeing the previous shot. These two buttons are well placed for easy access (EXPANDED FOCUS in particular is very handy during run ‘n’ gun operations) but are too close together and too similar in actuation force; fortunately REC REVIEW can’t be activated while the camera is recording. The front of the grip has a multi-pin remote port for start/stop and zoom, similar to but not pin-compatible with a standard Fujinon controller.

The EX1’s handgrip is spaced out from the body, perhaps because of the need to clear the fat rear end of the camera. As a result, it’s a very lopsided support—about four inches off-center—and handholding the camera at eye level with the right hand alone is difficult. With the grip flat, it’s harder to keep level than the Panasonic HVX200, the previous winner in the hard-to-handhold sweepstakes; the smoothly rounded grip affords no purchase and the whole camera simply slumps to the left. I’ve found the best way to deal with it is to rotate the grip to about 30 degrees; this lets you use your thumb along the ridge of the handgrip as a leverage point, and also lets the leading edge of the rear section rest, somewhat uncomfortably, against the base of your thumb. The torque thus provided lets you operate with the right hand alone, at least for short periods, so that your left hand can toggle various switches, adjust audio gain, or reposition the LCD.

Normally, though, your left hand wants to be under the camera, supporting it and taking some load off your right wrist. I found it useful to leave my tripod plate attached; it gives me a shelf to park on my left palm while leaving my fingers free to fiddle with zoom and focus. Operating without the plate works almost as well, but cramps my left hand up against the body a bit more, limiting my reach.

Of course there are a variety of support rigs available from third parties, like shoulder stocks and body braces, that can help take the load off, and mounting the camera on a tripod, dolly, or Steadicam makes the problem go away. When transitioning between mounted and handheld operations, watch out for the grip: in some positions its leading edge projects below the plane of the camera’s baseplate, interfering with whatever the camera is mounted on.

The SDI BNC connector resides at the right rear corner of the camera. It comes with an untethered rubber cap that will fly off and become lost at the earliest opportunity. A 4-pin i.Link (1394) port and 1/8” stereo headphone jack occupy the right side of the carry handle, near the EVF, and have tethered rubber caps. The analog outputs and USB connector all occupy space below the rotating handgrip, behind a stiff plastic cover. The cover is hard to snap open and closed and interferes with the handgrip; once you get it open, any cables plugged in interfere with the handgrip and prevent you from handholding the camera unless the grip is rotated to the fully forward position.

The USB connector is used for transferring clips to and from computers. The EX1 uses the same micro-D-shell connector used by most Sony HDV cameras for analog component outputs, and another micro connector carries stereo analog audio and composite video, and Y/C with the optional VMC-15FS cable. While the EX1 comes with breakout cables, the lack of any standard video connector other than the SDI spigot means you should carry those special cables with you on shoots—or simply abandon any external monitoring using analog signals.

The SDI and analog video connectors are output-only. The camera can record HDV-compatible inputs on i.Link, but it cannot record SDI or analog inputs.

Dual XLRs on the right side of the carry handle accept line or mic signals, and provide +48v phantom power. Each is individually switchable; in combination with the selections on the camera’s back panel, you can set up one input to use the internal mic on auto gain, while the other is manually controlled line level, or mic level with phantom, or any other possible combination of inputs you might desire.

Displays

The 3.5” LCD is fully daylight readable, and it’s the best LCD I’ve seen on a handheld: it uses 480 rows of 640 RGB triads, or 1920 total elements per line. The dot structure on the LCD is so fine that I have to move to within six inches to see any pixelization at all. It resolves about 500 TVl/ph horizontally and 400 vertically. Even without the EXPANDED FOCUS pushbutton on the handgrip, which enlarges the image by 2x, this LCD is usable for HD focusing—at least, it’s the first such on-camera LCD that makes me feel reasonably confident I’ve got the focus right, even in its normal display!

The EVF, by contrast, is merely as good as the EVFs or LCDs of other handheld cams: the dot structure is plainly visible, and it resolves only 300 TVL/ph horizontally and 200 vertically. This is about what I see on HVR-Z1, and it’s better than the EVF and LCD on the HVX200. In practice I keep the EX1’s LCD on even when I’m using the EVF for eye-level shooting, because I can focus the EX1 with the LCD, while the EVF leaves me playing a dangerous guessing game—the same guessing game all the other handheld cams I’ve used heretofore have made me play.

Both LCD and EVF show the entire raster, without overscanning. You don’t have to worry about turning “underscan” on to see the borders of the image, because you can always see the borders. This is the way it should be.

The data overlays on the displays are among the best around. Almost every status readout you can imagine is available, and each can be enabled individually in the menus. There are also a histogram, dual zebras (differentiated both by direction and by thickness), and a digital peaking overlay offered in any of four colors—white, red, yellow, or blue. Any of a variety of markers can be overlaid.

The LENS INFO button displays a focusing scale with a white bar indicating the depth of field for the current zoom and aperture settings. Unfortunately the bar itself has no thin black outline, as do the rest of the data display elements, so it can be hard to see against a bright background. On my sample camera, too, the focus readout was off: four feet measured between lens and test target, and four feet as read from the lens barrel, was shown as about 3.5 feet in the Lens Info display. Other distances similarly read about 10% too near. I don’t know if this is a discrepancy in this one camera or if others suffer from it, too.

When all this information gets in the way, a single push of the DISPLAY button makes it all go away—and I mean all of it. Nothing, not even a recording indication, is left on the screen. Another push of the button brings it all back.

In MEDIA mode, the displays default to a 12-up thumbnail display, which handily shows up on the video outputs, too. Pressing the thumbwheel or joystick pops up a context-sensitive menu, letting you display clip info, add a shot mark, delete the clip, or “expand clip”: display 12 thumbnails spaced through the clip. Clip info shows you the more details about the current clip, and you can move to the previous and next clips without returning to the 12-up display.

Etc.

The camera comes with an infrared remote, capable of limited control: start/stop, zoom, momentary autofocus, and playback controls. Unfortunately, the camera is only sensitive when the remote is held in front of it, not behind, and the remote is ignored by default. You have to enable it in the menus, and you must repeat this whenever you cycle the camera’s power. These peculiarities limit the remote’s usefulness.

The power supply is an auto-sensing 110/220 V unit. It feeds the camera through a permanently attached cable, or charges a battery at the flick of a switch.