A NEW EX1 first look
 

Good stuff....I can not wait for them to show up!

Do you know anything about the pricing on the camera?

US prices are:

EX1 $6700 street price
16Gig card $900
8 Gig card $500

Some are finding them for less, but these prices are a good benchmark.

Daniel Weber

Awesome review. The only thing I didn't like was that at one point he said the quality was the same as a 300 series XDCAMHD but then later on he said the resolution is much better then the 300 series XDCAMHD.

Which one is it? Is it better or the same?

If I'm not mistaken, he said it looked the same on side-by-side monitors. Looking the same and being the same may be two different things.

Best quality and best resolution
 

Maybe he mean the quality of colors or other ""characters"" of picture are the same of the 300 series xdcam hd but the resolution is much better. Maybe for him, is resolution not always synonymous of quality.
For exemple, the Panasonic AG-HVX200 have lower resolution, when comparde to the Canon XH-A1. But colors, and other characters, are better (in the HVX200). This i mean

Sorry for my English, he is not perfect :-)

Alessandro Zumstein

Geeeez, you did notice that the EX has chips that are 1920 x 1080 where the 300 series cams before have chips that are 1440 x 1080 hence the comment on the resolution being better.

He also said there was a marginal difference between the pictures of the EX and the 350. The images were comparable which jives with things said by other people who have used both.

So which one is it? It's both.

K

Wide and DoF
 

5.8mm @ the "widest" on a 1/2 chip - what will it end up in 35mm equalent? How much impact does the 1/2 chip have on the DoF compared to 1/3 chip?

I think it has more to do with the fact that it starts to get very hard to tell the difference between 1440x1080 and 1920x1080 on a monitor. Sure the Ex1 has more pixels but in the end it doesn't do all that much to make it look any better. So in the real world they both have the same type of look with the EX1 maybe just looking like it was a little bit more in focus.

35mm equalant: 31,4-439mm.

Is there any frame grabs to evaluate DoF?

By my calculation, you'll get about one stop lower DoF on a 1/2" chip than on a 1/3" chip, for a given field of view.

That means that after compensating on the zoom for the different chip size, so that the image on the two cameras is identical, a 1/3" camera at f/4 will have the same DoF as a 1/2" camera at f/5.6.

Approximately.

That's assuming the same diameter of the circle of confusion, which is reasonable if the images are viewed at same size and same distance.

It actually assumes that the CoC's are proportional in terms of actual size (in inches) on the chip, but the same diameter (in pixels) on the viewing screen.

In other words, it assumes that the visual tolerance for blurriness as it appears on the viewing screen, the defining factor of DoF, is held constant between the two formats.

I only say this because the CoC tolerance used in DoF calculations is generally measured in (fractional) inches or millimeters on the chip and that tolerance grows proportionally with chip size, assuming a constant resolution.

CoC diameter is the size of the "circle" created by a theoretical point of light falling on an imager out of focus. As focus gets blurrier the circle increases in size. CoC tolerance is the largest possible diameter of that circle that is still considered to be "in focus."

Yes. But it's the circle on the screen that is the crucial issue, rather than on the sensor. DOF is determined by viewing conditions because the issue is whether or not a circle on the screen is perceived as a point. The larger the viewing angle the more critical the judgment. So Cc for 35mm got smaller as screens got larger, which wasn't related to film or lens resolutions. Obviously you can relate this back to the Cc on the sensor (the basis of DOF calculations) once you define the degree of magnification involved.

Serena,

We are both saying the same thing.

But I just wanted to clarify that since the CoC spec is always given as a measurement on the sensor, it may be confusing to say the "same diameter of the circle of confusion" applies in both cases.

All in the effort to prevent a circle of confusion around this topic, for those who may have a more casual interest in DoF than we both clearly do!

Isn't the CoC a result of the resolution through the whole process.
For example an image from a 2/3" SD camera would produce a larger CoC than one from a 2/3" HD sensor if they were both viewed at a large viewing angle. Conversely at a small enough viewing angle there'll be no difference in the CoC as our eyesight becomes the limiting factor.

From what I've noticed also the amount of EE in video cameras also creates a differently perceived DOF compared to film. With video the image appears sharp within a certain range and then 'snaps' out of focus ouside that range.

Bob,

The CoC spec is an attempt to apply a number to the question "Does it look in focus to you?" There really isn't a threshold when things pop out of focus, just a threshold when they are perceived to be out of focus.

There are many factors that determine this. Even subject matter plays a huge role in this perception.

In 35mm film the sharpest standard generally used is .001" even though film resolution is considered to be four times as sharp as that.

The phenomenon you describe in video may exist to at the pixel level (never witnessed it myself) but generally defocusing is a gradual affair.

What you said is correct, but to rephrase it slightly, in most cases the acceptable CoC on an SD camera would be larger than the acceptable CoC on an HD camera. And the farther we get from the viewing screen, the more tolerant we are of a larger circle of confusion.

But other many factors come into play. Add some camera movement (with or without motion blur) and at larger viewing sizes I would bet you would want to see a more similar CoC spec between HD and SD.