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Saturday, December 06, 2008

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An EX-3 Review In Process

Bruce A Johnson | 12/06

Is the EX3 For WPT?

I’ve already made it clear that I am a Sony EX1/EX3 fan. I think Sony may have hit the sweet spot that makes solid-state recording a usable technology for broadcasters, in conjunction with XDCam disc recording for archive and backups.

However, steering an entire broadcast station to a conclusion like that is a much harder process. There are many more variables involved than “Hey, Bruce likes it!” (And truth be told, in many senses an endorsement from me is just noise on management’s radar.) Our capital budgets are small and constrained by many competing priorities, not the least of which is and was the conversion to digital TV. But the sea-change that the SxS recording system represents deserves a close examination. To that end, I have secured a loaner EX3 camera from Sony, with the purpose of showing it and it’s workflow to all stakeholders in the production process. This includes shooters, audio people, engineers, management, the media librarian and more. Early reviews are quite positive.

At the same time, I have been starting to play with the bleeding edge of the SxS system - using adapters and SDHC media to lower the cost of recording. (I previously posted about this rather surprising turn of events here.) The adapter and media of choice for this trick is currently the Kensington 33407 media reader card and the preferred media itself is the Sandisk 16Gb Ultra II card or the Transcend 16Gb class 6 card. (Those last two links lead to Amazon pages.) Check out the prices - the Transcend card is under $30! For an HOUR of recording time! Those are the kind of numbers that will make station management sit up and notice. We currently pay about $25 per tape for half-hour HDCam stock. That means SxS represents real savings in not just cash costs, but personnel as well. I dumped an 8Gb SxS card into a Lenovo micro-laptop in about 4 minutes - SEVEN times realtime. Long waits for digitizing could be a thing of the past. It is not inconceivable that a switch from HDCam to SxS could pay for itself in less than six months.

So what am I seeing here? Is this a real revolution, or just a mirage? Am I being blinded by “gear lust?” I sure hope not, because for less than $9000 the EX3 is an extremely impressive camera. The fact that it could pay for itself with cost savings in very short order is icing on the cake - a very thick, creamy, flavorful icing.

Or am I nuts?

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Bruce, I don’t think you are nuts, you are just experiencing the incredible price/performance ratio of this gear which makes it pretty irresitable. I am presently transitioning from a Sony 16:9 DSR500 (which is a full broadcast-like camcorder) to a Canon XHA1.

My problem is that the Canon just doesn’t handle like it’s bigger older brother and it’s harder to check sharpness in the viewfinder, specially in pressure situations. I’m often in a situation where I have to shoot and am saying to myself that I hope that shot was sharp!

I’ve since made an adaptor to fit the camera to an old Sony DXC1800 tube camera shoulder mount that had been lying around for 10 years. That has given it stability.

I suspect that higher resolution viewfinders, with faster and more responsive zooms will also go a long way to making people like me more happy. I think I would be prepared to pay a few extra thousand dollars for this.

So better stability, faster/more responsive zooms and sharper viewfinders. Thats what I reckon it will take to bring your mates on board.

Jim Nicholls

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/08 at 09:52 PM

I have experience with the Canon HXA1 as well. It makes really great pictures, but what makes me go towards the Sony EX1/3 is the 1/2” chip. I had almost forgotten how much depth of field we give up with a 1/3” chip. And the great viewfinder and reasonably priced recording media and easy addition of affordable archiving makes even more sense to me.

Still haven’t gotten everyone to use it yet, but it does seem pretty popular so far.

BAJ

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/09 at 05:22 PM

Bruce, have you come across any posterization type effects in the shadows with this camera?

I have shot quite a bit of stuff with both the EX1 and EX3. However on my last job I noticed that in shadow areas, with the Cinegamma 4 that I was using at least, there was some quite jarring tonal changes. Mid-tones and highlights were fine. But the cheek bone area on an interviewees face for example made the shadow look more like a dancing splodge of something rather than having any form of smooth tonal change.

Peoples pullovers showed this effect too, as did the black curved edge of a laptop lid.

Posted by Simon Wyndham on 01/14 at 10:04 AM

mirage Delft Exotic bag i like Canon HXA1 but i prefer ex3 as well

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