I did use the Vegas waveform monitor which gives a fairly good indication of variation across the frame. However it is an accumulation and I intend to run a frame in PS to look more specifically at parts of the frame.

Bob,

If you don't have a spot meter, you can use your EX1 as one. Just set up the numerical brightness reading in the center of frame and pan the center marker around your surface to see if it's evenly lit. Zoom in all the way for the most accuracy.

And yes, Photoshop is arguably a better tool than a waveform monitor for looking at brightness across a surface because it allows direct readings in two dimensions, whereas the waveform aggregates each vertical column of pixels.

Of course, as Piotr said, I am not sure of the value of measuring the phenomenon - it's clearly visible once you shoot any reasonably even surface.

What percentage of the EX1s do not have the problem?

There has only been two reported in the whole EU channel, the discussions on here have made it seem alot worse than it is. No more will ship from sony with the slight defect, they're holding everything while each unit is checked.

What percentage of the EX1s do not have the problem? There has only been two reported in the whole EU channel, the discussions on here have made it seem alot worse than it is.
Is it me, or is the above self-contradictory?
No more will ship from sony with the slight defect, they're holding everything while each unit is checked.

Please share with us the source of this news - my UK supplier "promised" me last week that I'd be getting mine this week! FWIW, my regular Polish supplier "knew" already back in October they would not get their first shipment before January, or even February next year, which made me order elsewhere :(

It's probably best that we don't start speculating about the size of the problem again, we won't achieve anything by doing so other than to have the thread locked again!

It really doesn't matter how big the problem is for Sony, we know it exists on some of the cameras purchased by members on this forum and we also know that Sony are doing something about it.

I have just received an email from my supplier with a statement from Sony informing him that all future deliveries to the EU from the factory will not be affected, and that any customers who do receive cameras in current circulation that are affected will have their cameras picked up and repaired free of charge.

That's good enough for me, I would be happy to have another EX1 now safe in the knowledge that the problem will definitely be fixed, and for free!

Thanks Paul. I'm sure Sony will do the same here in the states.
That's good news.

Paul, did you get your camera repaired by Sony?

Paul, did you get your camera repaired by Sony?

No, I returned it for a refund. Hopefully getting another one early Jan.

I talked with Sony's Juan Martinez at DV Expo in Los Angeles, and we had a chat about the PMW-EX1 vignetting issue. We've also discussed it since then, and here's what I know so far.

First, some background: The prototype EX1 I had for review in October showed excessive "port-holing" (a very soft vignetting, with picture edges up to a stop darker than the center; the clear center was a circle perhaps 90% of picture height, with progressive darkening outside that area), and the optical stabilization caused motion-specific vignetting in the form of sharp-edged corner cropping, both problems occurring only at certain focal lengths, and only with the lens iris wide open.

My review unit was reported to have a misprogrammed lens, which caused the severe portholing and back-focus issues. I think the service menu back-focus fix described elsewhere on this forum would fix these sorts of things, but should not affect the asymmetrical corner-cropping so widely discussed, which is an alignment / centering issue.

I now have another EX1 for review, this time a nearly-final pre-production model (only the analog component board differs from full production models). This EX1 shows no abnormal port-holing: there is some slightly visible at full telephoto, full wide iris, and if I shake the camera with Steadyshot on, it steers around in response. However, at rest the port-holing is barely noticeable, and it's pretty much evenly centered, with no corner favored over another, and if I shoot a real scene instead of a blank wall, it's impossible to see, as the scene's own detail and variation in tone overwhelms the visibility of the port-holing.

Note that this is *normal* for industrial-grade wide-range zooms; it's certainly there on my Z1, and on the 15x Canon zoom on the DSR-500 I sometimes use, and on the stock Fujinon zoom on the JVC HD100--but, as on my current EX1, unless you shoot a featureless, blank wall, you'll never notice it.

More worrying is the asymmetrical vignetting or corner-cropping many people are seeing. The EX1 that Samy's DV & Edit had at DV Expo showed a noticeable corner crop in the lower right at full telephoto; my current review unit, like many of the ones discussed here, shows a tiny crop in the lower left corner, strongest between 10mm and 15mm, and most visible at full wide aperture. At worst, it only affects the outermost 5% of the image--If I shoot a DSC CDM chart, the darkening only creeps in halfway to the 90% safe area marker--but it is obvious.

And, as others have noted, when you shake the camera, the corner-cropping moves in response to Steadyshot.

Juan Martinez, a "Senior Manager, Technology" for Sony, confirms that some of the cameras shipped have this problem. This is the first one-piece, fixed-lens camera that Sony has done where the lens comes pre-built and pre-tested as a unit from Fujinon, and is then integrated with the camcorder body at Sony. While the lenses arrive bench-tested and approved, it appears not all of them are being mounted on the camera bodies in perfect alignment (having worked on several engineering projects involving third-party components, I can attest that it's easy for something to go seriously askew at the final integration stage without anyone noticing until it's too late). Juan said, "we go over these things with a fine-toothed comb, rejecting cameras even for almost invisible cosmetic defects. So, yes, we're taking this very seriously." Sony has reworked its internal processes to ensure that these problems won't happen in the future. The good news is that the camera is heavily backordered, so there isn't a lot of faulty stock sitting in warehouses waiting to be sold. The stuff currently being airshipped (as of 14 December 2007) should all be correctly aligned.

As to the cameras in the field, It looks at this time like Sony will have a procedure to set them right. Juan spoke off the record regarding the details, so I can't be more specific, but I'll spread the news (as will every other reporter concerned with the EX1) as soon as it's announced. It may take a while--remember the audio fix for the PD150?--but if you have an EX1 with obvious, asymmetrical corner-crop vignetting (not normal port-holing), there should be a remedy coming.

Now, will it make the lens perfectly flat, corner-to-corner, even with Steadyshot on? Probably not: aside from the slight edge darkening caused by port-holing, severe camera agitation may cause even a perfectly centered lens to corner-crop (or at least edge-darken) momentarily as Steadyshot steers the image around. On my current EX1, violent shaking in the 10mm-15mm range causes the upper left and lower right corners to corner-crop very slightly, perhaps 3% at worst, although at rest, or with Steadyshot off, both corners are clear.

If we assume that this EX1's lens is centered along that diagonal axis, we might expect a fully-centered lens to corner crop equally on all four corners this same way: perfectly clear most of the time, but showing a momentary corner crop at certain focal lengths when Steadyshot is working hard. My Z1 does exactly that, and over a wider zoom range, too.

But to keep things in perspective, I've never noticed this in my real-world Z1 footage over the past couple of years; it's only now, when I'm specifically looking for it, that I can see it when shooting a blank wall. When I shoot real-world stuff, scene complexity has (so far) always overwhelmed the occasional corner crop; if I were to shoot a flat sky or other expanse of smooth, featureless color, I might see it, but in all my footage of people and birds and water and cityscapes and foliage and the like, it may be there, but it simply doesn't draw attention to itself. If you spend your time shooting blank walls, it's worth worrying about. If you shoot the real world? Not so much.

So, to sum up: yes, a bunch (unknown percentage) of EX1 have alignment issues causing asymmetrical corner cropping. Sony is aware of this; Sony agrees that it's a problem. Cameras being delivered now are supposed to have the problem fixed, and Sony is planning to fix the problem on existing cameras: details to be arranged.

Adam, thank you for this detailed information!

I look forward to hearing how Sony will handle the problem cameras in the field.

Thank you Adam. In my case the corner darkening is 1 stop (RHS) and is outside the safe area. In these days of LCD displays the concept of safe area is maybe an anachronism. Have also observed that it is difficult to see in real scenes.

I'm all for making measurements but how to do this?
Perhaps capturing a frame and analysing that with PS would be better?

Yes the waveform shows the effect quite well (and it's variation with zoom) but you need to grab a frame and use PS to actually measure the fall off in each corner. Using the waveform monitor you can locate the worse frame and capture that for analysis.

To record the clip I wound down the projection screen and used only daylight entering the room. Wasn't even, but no steep gradients. You need only to measure relative to an unaffected region, so evenness isn't really required (just slow gradient).

My corners are 1 stop down and all outside the safe area.

Using the blue shy? The sky is not uniformly bright and you do want to expose at f/1.9 . Why do we want to measure? Interest. And to check whether the sky is really falling. Adam's comments are appropriate here.

I called Sony tech support again today to check on the status of the vignetting problem and got the following info:

-I was sent the attached pdf memo from Sony discussing the problem.

-I was told that Sony support is expecting pre-paid shipping labels that will be sent to owners of cameras exhibiting the problem. These labels will ship the camera off to Sony for re-alignment of the lens. The person I spoke to said they were expecting the labels this week and would overnight them to owners.

-He took my name, address, email address, and s/n. I received the attached memo a few minutes later.

So...if one has a camera with the vignetting problem I would make sure Sony tech support knows about it so they can send you the shipping label.

Carroll Lam

Thanks Carroll -- your post has been copied and stickied at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=110466 for greater visibility.

Contents of PDF linked in previous post:

To our loyal Sony PMW-EX1 Customers:

Since the launch in November, the PMW-EX1 has been received extremely well within the
market with a huge level of order commitments and very positive feedback from customers
using the product.

Sony regrets to inform you that there have been a small number of reports of a specific lens issue
with the camera, which upon further investigation by our engineering team, has been identified
as ‘unbalanced light falloff’ at the edge of the picture. The cause of this has been identified as
being a result of a mis-alignment of the center of the lens and the light axis. Sony takes such
technical matters very seriously and although this issue has only been seen on a very small
percentage of the units supplied worldwide, Sony has implemented a full review and
modification of the manufacturing process in order to alleviate any re-occurrence of this issue.
Sony will re-align any camera exhibiting the symptom described above at no charge to you at
the highest priority. If your camcorder exhibits the symptom described please call our Product
Operational Support Center at 1-800-883-6817, option 2-5-2 for advice on how to proceed.
When calling, please be prepared to supply your camcorder’s serial number, as well as place of
purchase.

Sony would like to thank you for your continued trust in our commitment to you as your vendor of
choice when investing in high quality professional video tools, and for your patience regarding
this matter.

Thank you.

Mel Medina
Senior Product Marketing Manager
Professional Video Products
Broadcast and Production Systems Division

And to all Australian owners I received the same story this morning. A lens alignment jig (or several jigs) is/are being sent to Australia to fix the problem ASAP. So a good response from Sony, and a reassuarance that it was a very minor problem that could be very rapidly fixed.

Thanks to Chris for re-opening the thread as I am sure that it has facilitated the rapid resolution of this issue, with a very positive response from Sony.

An even better response from Sony - I have been offered a new replacement camera. Can't beat that for service.

Sony have done well here.

Graeme, do you get to keep using your current EX1 camera, pending replacement?

That is a definite yes Christopher, but I wont have to wait long - Sony ordered the camera from Japan as soon as they heard of my problem, and it is waiting to clear customs as I speak. I am told that I will have it in 1 -2 days. That is service!

My Dealer has been really excellent in getting all this done - Macrays in Sydney. Chris if this is against Forum rules please delete this statement - but I don't think there are any DV info sponsors in Australia.

It's all good. Thanks for the updates Graeme,

Thanks Graeme. I have two EX1's waiting to ship from Tasman AV, and will try this approach for them to be replaced by Sony straight up, since Serena and John's appear to have the vignette issue from the same batch. Thank you for the heads up.

Sony contacted me yesterday, I was told they are sending out shipping labels and that the EX1 wil need to be shipped to a service center. I was told the turn around is 5 business days..

No exchange was offered.

Chuck

Hello, I am Juan Martinez, a Senior Manager of Sony Electronics. I just want to point out that a very small percentage of cameras exhibit this condition.

Sony takes quality issues very seriously, so we set optical bench at several locations that can realign the lens in about ten minutes. Any person that suspects that their camera is affected should contact our Product Operational Support Center hotline at 1-800-883-6817, option 2-5-2, for advice on how to proceed. When calling, customers should be prepared to supply their camcorder’s serial number.

I would like to put the Ex1 lens in perspective.

It is the first hand-held camera to offer full manual or automatic control. The lens has absolute markings for the iris zoom and focus. There is a mark for the focal plane on the right side of the camera.

From the optical perspective the lens is very notable:
1- Widest and lens for any hand-held camera.
2- Chromatic aberration compensation, not only for the lens but also when the wide angle adapter is utilized.
3- Virtually no ramping (does not lose stops as you go telephoto)
4- Virtually no breathing (image does not change dimension when focusing)


Juan Martinez

Mr. Martinez,

Thank you very much for your personal reassurance given to the EX1 early adopters in the USA. I'm located in Europe, and have been waiting for the delivery of my pre-ordered EX1 for over 2 months now. Can you tell us the European customers, whether new cameras will already be free from the vignetting problem - or is there a number of units on the way to European dealers that will need re-alignment?

With Regards, and Best Christmas Wishes from Poland!

Piotr Wozniacki

Hi Juan

Firstly I'd like to thank you for taking the time to respond on this forum, it is very much appreciated by myself and I'm sure by other forum members too.

I'm sure that most of those who have been lucky enough to try the EX1 will agree that the lens is a wonderful advancement over previous lenses on this type of camera and that the positives you list are a great benefit.

In terms of the issue that has effected some of us, can you confirm that the ten minute procedure you describe removes the visible corner cropping in the lower/mid range completely?

Thanks again for responding here, I hope you are not too overloaded with questions.

Best regards

Paul.

Mr. Martinez,
Thank you for taking the time and sharing this information with dvinfo.
The PMW-EX1 has really brought pro camera quality to the hand-held market.
I am very impressed on fast Sony has addressed this issue. This quick response really shows how professional and dedicated Sony is to their pro CineAlta Division.

Thank you,
Steve Thomas

I too wish to thank you Mr. Martinez for providing a Sony response here on the forum. I am one of the early adopters whose camera exhibits the vignetting.

The Sony tech support staff has been very responsive to our calls to them regarding this problem. Kudos to them also.

Carroll Lam

Is this a physical or firmware adjustment?

Is this a physical or firmware adjustment?

Given that Sony Au are waiting for a jig I'd hazard a guess it's physical.

Hello, I am Juan Martinez, a Senior Manager of Sony Electronics. For those who are not aware, Mr. Martinez is Senior Manager of Technology at Sony Electronics.

Many thanks Juan for posting here -- your presence on this site is greatly appreciated!

Given that Sony Au are waiting for a jig I'd hazard a guess it's physical.

If that is the case, I do not want to take delivery of my cams sitting at the dealer. I'd prefer to wait for a properly QC batch.

Edit: I am now said to be getting some EX1's that will have been checked by Sony Australia, perhaps another batch/build, swapping out the EX1 units being held for me by my dealer. They shoud be available by the 1st week of January 2008. Looking like a good result.

I wonder how many were manufactured in the first batch? I want to get a second wave camera...not a repaired one. Perhaps someone would know how Sony goes about the assembly process and how long it will take for them to be shipping newly built units.

I received a call back from Sony... they are shipping me a shipping label and having me ship the camera for the adjustment.

Said it would be a 5 day turnaround.

I mentioned that I'm in the middle of a project where the camera is needed and they said " anytime you like... we will honor the fix as long as it's needed ) I'll have to wait till after the holidays to ship mine.

They also said that the 2nd card will most likely ship sooner than 8-10 weeks.

They thanked me for my patience and said that Sony really wants to make things right for us early adopters.

I, too, got my return paperwork yesterday, but I'm waiting until next week to ship...almost no point in doing so before then with Christmas...and I can't stand the thought of the new beast tumbling down the conveyor belts at FedEx in the last-minute waves of holiday boxes. (I made a film for UPS once about the impact on sorting hubs of late train arrivals...it was VERY eye-opening). It might also be a good idea to give Sony a week or two to get good at doing the fix.

We checked 3 other cameras below S/N 100500 at my dealer yesterday. Our camera and the other 3 (or 4 cameras from the batch of 5 they first received) all exhibited the vignette; one on the top right/bottom right, another two on the top left/bottom left, and the last one on the top left/top right.

The Sony Pro group folks have said there is a mechanical re-alignment and a software update as part of this fix.

I picked my camera on Wednesday 12/19. Serial number 100808. So far so good. I wasn't testing under idea conditions though but if I have to look that hard . . .

Craig, did you look at the actual captured footage on your computer?

Also, if you have an SDI monitor, you can see the full raster overscan and all.

Test1 is kitchen cabinet. Not quite flat white but you can see the corners look good.

Test2 is my green screen. You can see vignetting but not of the "corner crop" variety others show. There does seem to be a bit more on the right but the picture wasn't flat lit.

I checked the above in Final Cut Pro. I then opened the shots in Quicktime Full frame size on my 23" Apple Cinema Display and did the screen grab. Don't have an HD video monitor yet.

Craig, I take you slowly zoomed through full wide to tele when looking for the vignetting. I'm sure you heard it's been seen with wide open aperture and focal length between 8 to 25mm
If this is your worst case, it looks good to me.
Picture 2, what was the focal length and aperture set at?

It appears that the serial number from each individual cam appears along with the number from each clip.Cam numberxxx 808,clip number 808 xxx

F1.9, 8mm. Camera mounted on tripod and hand zoomed through so I could stop at various points with some precision.

Green screen shot was just lit with a china ball we had on the ceiling so I know it's not evenly lit.

I'm going to do more testing though but like I say if it's this hard to find. . .
In November I had checked with the first camera they got in (and they're one of the few [two] Sony authorized service centers so apparently on Sony's word they can fix themselves). That camera had the issue plan as day and looked as bad as some of the worst examples posted here. So I've had another camera I've checked this on. I'm not seeing anything like that on this camera.

A mildly tangential tidbit. If you look on page 15 of the manual where all the parts are identified there's a line that's unnumbered. It says "Cover of the lens control block (See "Note" below.) The note says, "The lens is properly adjusted at the factory. Do not touch the controls of the lens control block." Just a wild speculative hunch but that may be where the tweak is that Sony's doing to fix the issue. Just a "fun" speculation.

That's the default . . . on my camera. It's easy to change though in the appropriate menu. When I did testing I wanted everything outside of the test procedure to be at factory defaults.

It appears that the serial number from each individual cam appears along with the number from each clip.Cam numberxxx 808,clip number 808 xxx

A mildly tangential tidbit. If you look on page 15 of the manual where all the parts are identified there's a line that's unnumbered. It says "Cover of the lens control block (See "Note" below.) The note says, "The lens is properly adjusted at the factory. Do not touch the controls of the lens control block." Just a wild speculative hunch but that may be where the tweak is that Sony's doing to fix the issue. Just a "fun" speculation.


Hmmmm...
That's interesting.

Hey Craig, glad to hear all is well!

A lot of "on the fence" buyers are probably glad to hear too.

Ok.... I recieved my prepaid label and overnighted to Sony.
Spoke to the engineers on a conference call yesterday.
They confirmed that mine was the first return and would be the first
fix they would atempt. MAN, was I sweating! They explained < in short hand english > that the adjustment that they were going to do is the same adjustment that takes place at the factory before the camera goes out and that it was a routine proceedure. They assured me that the camera would come back as brand new and fully adjusted perfectly. I also explained the power drain on the battery of about 25-30% a day when the camera is powered off, and asked them to look into that issue while camera is there as well. I was promised a return of the camera next friday.

Camera just arrived SN 0100795. Battery is on charger and I will test today.

Larger batteries are on backorder. I was told next week. No problem with cards.

First impression is very compact.

Brian,
You probably know this, but the battery drain issue is all EX1 cameras.
If it's left in the EX1, it will drain dead in two days.

I'm not sure why it's drawing so much current in its off condition, strange.
I'm fairly sure there's no easy fix for this.

yep. I know it's not just mine. None of my other camera's ever drained a battery like that in the off position. It really hosed me when it first happen without a spare to back me up. Sony engineers had not heard of it " so they said" and sounded concerned when I told them how fast it drained. The camera really shouldn't be pulling any juice in the off position and the tech guy was hoping my battery was shipped back so they could check it. Might be a good test to charge a battery full and let it set for a few days OFF the camera to see if it dies on its own? It would maybe help rule out the battery.

Mine seems to hold a charge when not left in the camera, so the camera is definately loading the battery in the off position.

I Agree. I just gave my battery a check and its still full after sitting for 3 days. I "hope" there is something sony can do about this.

One thing to be kept in mind is that even though the power switch of the camera is in the Off position, the lcd monitor still switches on momentarily when the battery battery info switch on the camera (below the handle) is pressed for a few seconds. This might have something to do with this issue.

No Vignetting on my camera.