Another sample video
 

Hi folks,

One more video:


This is the first time I have tried to upload 1080p footage to Vimeo, and it hasn't been entirely kind during the recompression of some details. You can download the .mp4 file from it to get a better idea of the quality. Vimeo insists on encoding it to 25fps too, which spoils a bit of the fun.

As usual, the original on my PC (much higher bitrate) has no such problems, but sharing a file of that quality is a b*gger for me!

I have some clips of leaves blowing in the wind, I will try to get an original .mts file shared soon. Playing that part back slows my computer to a crawl!

Re: Another sample video
 

Great job Mike! Thanks for showing what this camera can do!

Re: Another sample video
 

Thanks again, Troy. I'm hoping at some point that more people will start posting sample footage - using tripods!

Re: Another sample video
 

I downloaded the mp4 file from Vimeo. This one shows more detail than previous videos I have seen. So that was really nice to see, especially in distant objects. Also, I noticed that static shots fared better than moving and panning shots. The codec is most likely the culprit in that case.


I'm curious, did you use auto or manual exposure? I wonder how the EX1 would have handled the high contrast between ground-level lighting seen in some of the trail shots and the bright sky above. The overexposed sky bothered me. In your opinion, would it be possible to get better results with some very careful tweaking of settings, or do you feel the camera handled the contrast quite well under difficult lighting conditions?

Re: Another sample video
 

Hi Adam,

I used the camera in auto most of the day. I dialled in manual exposure for some of the difficult lighting (clouds/landscapes) but mainly left the camera to its own devices, other than using manual focus at times. I'm still learning how to get the best picture from this camera, I need to experiment more with NDs, and the various settings.

The very "contrasty" pictures are a challenge. This camera has no picture profiles, there's no way to adjust knee, gamma, black stretch and similar settings. That would make a heck of a difference in those conditions, but the option just ain't there. The only picture style adjustment that I am aware of is Cinematone on/off, and the only other tweaks are gain, shutter, iris.

There is an intelligent auto feature that is supposed to choose the best picture for various scenarios, but I haven't played with it.

Coming from a history of a Sony VX2100, then V1E, then Panasonic HMC40, I have always had fully adjustable picture profiles, but rarely used them, so I'm not too bothered by their absence. If you really want to be able to have total picture control, then this is probably not the best camera!

I do plan to upload some raw .MTS clips of the trees, water and similar details later on, so stay tuned.

My encoding in Premiere CS5 also destroyed a lot of the smoothness in those shots. 50p - 25p conversion for Vimeo isn't very forgiving. Again, this could just be me needing to learn to encode better.

Re: Another sample video
 

I have just watched the video on my HDTV and it looked very nice. I noticed that when the camera is focused on the foreground, the bokeh in the background looks like Monet's impressionism due to the AVCHD codec. I kind of like it.