Are you happy with your Z1
 

OK I have decided that the Z1 is the go me me. (I THINK)
All I need is a cam that does 16.9 real good and future proof myself for the onset of HD.
Price in Australia is ok, it will probley drop price as I speak now.

But just before I hand my hard earned over to purchase the ZI, I was looking for one last comment from users on this camera good or bad.
With so many cameras out there that do the same thing (sort of) it's very difficult making the right choice & I hope that I will be choosing the correct camera.

Cheers
Simon

Thumbs up from me. I've got 2 and have had no problems other than a blown firewire port (not exactly uncommon - just be careful how you connect it to the computer).

I mainly use it for weddings - sometimes have to shoot with high gain bacause of low light but picture is still very good.

I just wish the Expand Focus would work while recording rather than just in standby mode. And if you don't have quick record switched on it can take what seems like forever for it to start recording.

I am thinking of switching to the EX1 but thats because i like the idea of tapeless record and capture - not because of any shortcomings with the Z1.

Ian

I have two, and I may get one or two more over the next year (for multi-camera coverage of live events). Like Ian said, there are things that would probably be a little better if done differently, but that's probably true for anything you can buy off the shelf.

I particularly like the low-light performance, which is very important for many of my projects. A relatively good gain ("good" as in "not adding much noise") combined with the black stretch feature have saved many shots for me.

- Martin

I'm still quite happy with my Z1 which I bought in June 2005. No problems with it whatsoever. If I were in the market today though, it would be a much tougher choice. But my original reason for getting the Z1 was a PAL project, but I didn't want to get a PAL-only camera.

First off, I have a Z1 and like it a lot. Second, what do you mean by future proof yourself for the onset of HD? What would you be producing with your Z1? The technology has been evolving and there might be a better choice.

The EX1 does have a better resolution vs. the Z1U, and I like the tapeless editing aspect.

If I had the money for the EX1, I would buy it over the Z1U.

But, I do use a couple of Z1U's for my business.

The only thing I don't like is that it is not very good in low light, and the LCD can give a false image preview. There have been many times when I shoot video, and the video in the editing suite winds up being to light, or too dark...very frustrating!

Thanks for the advice people, I'm going ahead this week so looking forward to the learning cruve with this cam.
Cheers
Simon

What would be a GOOD choice for low-light performance then among HDV cameras, in the price range that the Z1U plays in? I stepped up from an HC3, which is horrible in low light, and while of course it's always better to have even more/better performance, in general I am impressed with what the Z1U does when I use it outdoors at night or in fairly dark places indoors.

- Martin

If you've got lots of action, water, outdoors and motion, stay away from the Z1U. It's very easy to overload the codec. We do a lot of shooting on the water and of the water. Those sort of situations give the Z1U fits and you get tons of compression artifacts. For static interviews, weddings etc. I'm sure it's fine. Other wise, stay very far away.

Though the HDV codec can have fits, I filmed an entire season of adventure videography using the Z1 as the A camera... and it came out fantastic!

A heck of a lot better than you'll ever see on cable, anyways. As long as care was taken to NOT kill the codec whenever possible. :)

I absolutely adore my Z1, though I can't wait for the Cineform SOLID (is it officially named that yet?) to be able to bypass the HDV compression.

Carl

I love my Z1u, I use it with my V1s and typically use my Z1 as my workhorse.

As mentioned above, you want to watch your lighting, but other than that, I've been very happy my Z1.

Nothing will ever replace my GL2 though, no matter what. :}

This is the nature of the HDV codec.

Choose your codec that suits, then choose your cam that suits - in that order.

Extremely wise advice.

Forgive my ignorance but I am a rookie at HDV and considering various cameras at this time, myself. But what should I be looking for with codec issues with HDV? I have only had a couple of opportunities to play with a FX-1 and a V1U but I did not notice any issues when recording the Blue Angels with the V1U. Nor did I notice any codec issues when recording motorcycle road races. Both are pretty fast moving subjects. Plus, several have mentioned issues with shooting water. I know that Discovery Channel used 50 Z1U's when filming "Worlds Deadliest Catch" which obviously has lots of water in the shots. What did they do to overcome the codec issues?

Well I have done the deed and got the Sony Z1, now I can stop talking to myself ABOUT THIS CAM,THAT CAM.
One thing is its a lot bigger than my PD170 BUT THATS COOL.

This is what I got.
Sony Z1
Millier DS10 tripod
Couple NPF970's Battery Pack
Rode Deadcat
Sony Lead Light HVLLBP
Rode Condensor Mic NTG-1
Sony Lavalalier Wireless Mic System

And I still have the old PD170 for backup, SD 4.3 stuff.

Now how do I turn this on............

Cheers
Simon

I assume the z1u's were not primary cameras on that shoot, other than that I have no idea what they did if they used them on deadliest catch. All I know is we used to use them on boats all the time and the codec would just fall to pieces. You could look at the frame and see compression artifacts everywhere. Just terrible. So many beautiful shots made ugly by the codec. Scared me off hdv forever.

We replaced it with a camera that is not HDV and now all is well. The thing about shooting on water is that your entire frame is high detail, high contrast, and changing every frame. there is no way the codec can keep up with that.

That's good to know, Jeff - something I have not tried yet myself, but I can see how that type of situation with little to no similarity between frames would be a nightmare scenario for long GOP. Thanks for sharing!

- Martin

Jeff, when they aired a show on "the making of World's Dealiest Catch" They showed the equipment when they were getting it in and setting it up and the ONLY cameras they seemed to have were Z1U's. They had crates with 5 Z1U's per crate. And 10 crates. They did say that when the show was over that all of the camcorders were trashed because of the continued salt water exposure and they just threw them away.

Interesting about deadliest catch. I did not notice anything terrible watching at home, but I imagine, with some of those shots that they had to do a whole heck of a lot to clean them up. Mind you, all the shows I watched were in SD.

I'd have to say that I have never seen enough compression artifacts from my FX1 to deem the footage outright ugly; even in high motion subjects. Jeff, what NLE and/or capture program do you use? I know I'm stating something very obvious and basic here, but I can remember when I first viewed my 60i HDV footage from my FX1 in Avid Liquid 7 I saw all sorts of crazy looking compression blocks dancing all over the screen. I was really scared at first, but when I viewed the .m2v files in VLC (deinterlaced of course) they looked great. 60i HDV in Liquid looks horrible, so I was wondering if you use Liquid, or perhaps maybe other NLE's show something similar.

I'll second John's comments. I shoot a lot on the water, and a lot of water events (Ironman, outrigger canoe races, etc) and have been very impressed with HDV footage from the Z1 and V1. Of course, my frame of reference is SD output from PD 170s. I'm sure the big Pana and Sony HD cameras are a bit cleaner, but for me, HDV has been a huge step up in image quality, both on the water and off.

Z1U Accessory...
 

Congratulations!

When funds permit, you may want to add one more item to your Z1 setup:

The Sony Wide Angle Adapter, (.8) .....I have it and it will yield approx. 20% wider shot for you with no distortion and you can "zoom through" it regardless of the focal length setting you're at...

It's currently offered on Amazon at $104 US. (Check BH Photo too.) Great value!

Something to think about....

Have Loads of Fun...

John

Thanks John Reilly,
Yes as soon as money permits I will get the Wide lens. In Australia is selling for six times that price in AUD.

I wonder If Amazon would ship to Australia? I will ckeck It out.

Cheers
Simon

All I'm saying about the Z1 and HDV is make sure you are aware of its limitations.

I've looked at the footage originally in Premiere CS2 captured off a sony hdv deck, then we got our new equipment and it was final cut pro, then final cut pro with MXO monitoring.

That's for editing. Then deinterlaced because ultimately it goes up on a progressive screen through progressive delivery. I've seen it on plasmas, LCD's, computer monitors, exports to bmp's and picts in every export setting.

I've compressed for final delivery at 720p 11 mbit wmv and seen it big on projections screens. There is very little that we shot in 6 months with a camera around water that I couldn't find compression problems.

But that said we move a lot. I don't think you could find more challenging shoot locations for that camera than what we do.

It's probably excellent for 80% of most people. You just want to be sure you're not among the 20% that have problematic locations and applications.

Woops--My Mistake...
 

Simon,

Sorry about that.....I gave you the wrong pricing on the Sony VCL-HGO872 Wide Angle Adaptor for the Sony Z1U...

It is actually $370.00 USD at B&H. When I was writing earlier, I was busy opening my Sony Battery from Amazon, which was $104....Dumb mistake.

So, actually, the price you found over there is not 6x US, but still 40-50% more.

Sorry for the confusion,

John Reilly

Steven, I'm wondering how the color matchup is between the V1 and the Z1 ?

We've had some major probs with trying to color match the singlechip CMOS cam Sony A1 with a 3 chip V1. We finally gave up as they were just too far apart for production use.

For the most part the color matching is pretty easy. In my humble opinion, the V1u's are a little more color brilliant, but that's just my opinion from the wedding's we have done. So what I end up doing is adjusting the saturation a hair in post. CMOS vs CCD is not that big of a deal for what we do.

I did a 2 camera shoot on a cloudy day with a V1U and and FX-1. We spent some time getting the WB to match using a PVM-8041 Sony field monitor. In post, the images were virtually the same. But I would expect slightly more color saturation out of the V1U on a bright sunny day. But I have no facts to support that.