EX in the fields: review from Norway and India
 

Hello all,

We received our EX about 2 weeks ago and immediatelly headed for a nice one week shoot in Norway. The EX held up very nice in -10 degrees Celsius.

I wrote a short review with my first impressions and some frame grabs on our website:
http://www.dendv.nl/ex-review1.php

More frame grabs and clips are to follow...

Next week's destination is India. I will definately keep you posted how our new little gem is holding up in a complete different climate over there!

Hope you enjoy reading the report, plz let me know!

Regards,
Erwin

Nice review!!

Very well done, great shots as well.

It is good to hear that the camera will handle the cold weather. I will be taking mine to Mongolia in the middle of February. I asked some Sony sales guys how the camera would hold up in the cold temps there and they shrugged and said "You tell us when you get back!!". I feel a little better about this trip after reading your report.

Keep up the good work and stay safe in India.

Daniel Weber

Thanks for the review. I'm looking forward to your India frame grabs.

Thanks for your thoughts, Erwin, especially concerning the potential of audio distortion. Hope you figured this out while/before you were recording and not after. Please continue to comment on settings and such.

Thanks,
Bill

thanks for taking the time to do a write up.

Hi Erwin...........
 

I am sooooo jealous!

The cam AND India as well.

Great review BTW, looking forward to the shots from India.

Well done.


CS

Erwin, Thanks for the review.

I am interested to learn how the EX1 performed with the driving shots on a mountain road with the car suction mount. Perhaps a good test with the potential for vibration to cause the rolling shutter effect? This is the one setup that concerns me, especially as I will be on outback corrugated dirt roads. Any feedback or clips, are much appreciated.

CHristopher,

Where abouts in Australia are you located? Just asking because I thought you were in Melbourne - but obviously if you are looking at a lot of corrugated roads you would need to be a lot out of town!

Graeme, I am located up on the Gold Coast, and the specific corrugated roads I refer, are along the coast of North Queensland. Intended ultra low budget Feature, a good chunk of shots at the start require shots with car suction mount to driver or passenger door, etc.

Test: shoot 720p50, instead of 1080p25, and playing out those 720p50 shots at 2x speed, dropping every second frame, would that decrease the chance of rolling shutter, if it was an issue in this instance at p25? The theory in my head: is the CMOS scan time twice the speed at p50 than p25?

Back to Erwin's coverage.

Christopher,

Aha - the far north. I love it. Travel to Cairns and beyond quite regularly in the dry! Have done the Bloomfield track 2 times in the last 4 years and then north on the Cape road.

Back on the video track - Christopher, I think that people make a much bigger deal out of rolling shutters than they deserve. I have been shooting with a Sony A1 as my B cam for 2 years and have never had a problem related to the rolling shutter.

I have had occasional HDV codec break up with very rapid moving scenes, but this is not a rolling shutter issue. I know of others who have been shooting XD CAM for more than a year and have never had any issues with the Codec breaking at 35Mbs - so I think that you will be safe at this bit rate. On the other hand I have heard of vibrations from cars breaking the HDV 25Mbs codec. I will be interested to hear your feedback, but I think that you will be very safe at 35Mbs.

All the best,

great review. I hope you are enjoying the camera as much as me!

Graeme, I am mostly a defender of the rolling shutter technology for my intended use. I must determine if fast vibration, moving the EX1 back and forth, up and down during a scan cycle may be an issue when recording via car mount along the corrugated dirt road, although I hope not. Every other setup should be cool. Lots of tests in due course. Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it, and looking forward to Erwin's images and report regarding his car mount test.

Wry nice rewiew
 

Hello Erwin, very nice rewiew.
I have a question of the equipment.
What Tripod head and tripod do you use in the picture 0028?

I drove around yesterday for a quick test (1080 30P 1/60). The EX1 was hand held with OIS off aimed out the windsheild.

Granted the footage did not look that great due to a lot of movement, I did not see any wobble. I imagine if I had the camera aimed out the side window there might be a bit of skew. But, with that type shot and all the motion blur, the slight skew will not be a problem for myself.

I understand why there is concern for rolling shutter artifacts, but I believe that Sony has done a decent job of minimizing these artifacts with the EX1.

I will have a look at that driving footage this weekend and will post it in the review when I update it this weekend.

Tripod used is the Sachtler DV6 SB, which is in my opinion a very nice and suitable tripod for the EX.



Regards,
Erwin