ex1 vs canon xf300
 

Hi,
I am a serious hobbiest looking for a new camera
I have a Canon xha1 that has been nice but I am ready to upgrade
to a tapeless system. I shoot mainly action video's of Dogs Herding AGility etc.
Also do some short film.
1) is this tapeless system easy to work with in FCP
2) How does the auto focus and stability compare to Canons products?
3) Do any of you guys use SD cards with an adapter and are they reliable?
Which cameras do a better "film look"
Thanks!!!
Love to hear your opinions!

Tapeless workflow works great from all of these cameras with FCP and many others.
Only major pain is having to archive everything to hard drives, data tape, DVDs or whatever before wiping the cards (your ORIGINAL master don't forget!) and allowing you to re-use them.
On point 2, not trying to be funny, but if you are a "serious" hobbyist I'd hope that AF performance would be irrelevant as you should be thinking about manual focus anyway.
As for film-look my guess is that they'd probably do about the same in terms of colour/dynamic range etc., but the EX1 would have a slight edge if you wanted shallow depth of field (although this is quite minor as the depth of field will be the same if you shoot the EX at f4 and the Canon at f2.8 for instance, it's only a 1 stop difference).
Steve

most my experience is shooting action
I shoot a lot of still with a eos mark Iv curious
have never tried manual focus with action shots with video
isn't it very hard to focus on a dog jumping in the Air running across the
beach trying to catch a frisbee using a short depth of field

It is hard but then it's hard for AF too. There is a good reason why professional broadcast and film cameras do not have any AF lenses.
Steve

and why film lenses like Cook and Zeiss have a 'long throw' (lots of twist between close up and infinity) for precise focus stops, and micromotor-driven AF lenses have a very short throw.

All in all, a very good advertisment for a Follow Focus assembly, which should gear-down the throw and provide you with marks for certain focus positions. Unless of course you use a Nikon lens with no end stop at infinity...

About the AF - I shot 2 soccer games a few weeks ago with 2 EX1s and used AF on both. I haven't edited both games yet but what I have seen is very good. I started a thread recently "How to Shoot Sports WITHOUT Autofocus", and there are several great comments from NFL and NASCAR cameramen. They said the key is having the aperture as close to F8 as possible (any greater and diffraction starts softening the image).

Since you are in Chicago, you should go to Abel Cine Tech in Oak Brook and talk to Gregger. This is where I get everything, and he has an EX1r on the floor.

About "Film Look" - I definitely think the EX1 has the advantage with its Picture Profile adjustments. Check out xdcam-user.com and Alister Chapmen - he provides great insight into the EX1/3 PP settings.

Surely we can't judge the Canon on picture profiles/film look yet, is it even available yet?
Steve

I would not judge any camera by its Picture Profiles as all is possible in post.

Bruce, that's not entirely true. Part of the role of picture profiles can be maximising dynamic range, in the Varicam for instance, as well as many others, you can get an extra 2 stops or so of useable range with the right settings. In post you can only work with material that is there in the first place, so once a highlight is blown, it's gone.
Steve

Steve I agree with you, I was too sweeping in my statement. I was really thinking of those who try to achieve quite heavy looks in camera. I have my EX1 and HDCAM set up to retain highlights after that a colourist works the magic to makes the pictures look really good.

Thanks!!!!