Phil, cannot wait for your vignetting tests!

Also, do you know whether they are going to arrive in bigger batches, or just one camera per week?

Congrats Phil!
Post some clips!

Mine is Serial number...3!!!

Holy cow!! No 3! Congrats dude!

Serial number 3 - cool.

Whatever happened to the "hundreds" of cameras supposedly bought by CNN et. al?

They obviously have higher numbers.
Phil's was 3 and he just received his today.
There are higher numbers that received them last week.
I guess this all goes without saying.... LOL

Yes, of course - but the rumor was that they were getting the first cameras. Oh well.

Mine is shipping today - should have it tomorrow.

Serial numbers 1 and 2 are owned by Sony and are demo units.

I will do some vignette tests tonight and hopefully get some footage shot as soon as possible. Just got work getting in the way. But I was going to shoot 3 shorts on my f350 next week. Am now going to use the ex1 instead. Be an interesting test.

Wow, Phil
So technically you own the first production model!

Great, let us know how your vignette test and your shorts go.

no sign of vignette problem at all so far.

Initial thoughts. All lovely, but will need some firmware updates. Would like to assign OIS to a hard button but I can't. You can on the z1.

For some reason my macbook pro can't seem to play 1080p 25 at full frame rate full screen. Weird!

He's in the UK so I'm going to assume he purchased a PAL version. I believe CNN will be purchasing the NTSC version.

the cameras do both PAL and NTSC, so the versions are basically the same.

Daniel Weber

Oh dear...how did this happen? How could Sony do this to me?

Bigger is better right!? Form factor, picture quality etc. No handheld will ever feel as good as a pimped up beast on my shoulder but Sony have gone and screwed it all up for me!

Yes it has better picture quality than many full size cameras but it's so little. I feel like less of a man. Perhaps the only way my relationship with my EX1 can flourish is by going to couple's therapy. After all I do love it!

Seriously though, it's very very impressive. I bought a miller solo ds20 to go with it. What a great combo. A really stable, lovely fluid head and light tripod coupled with a stunning HD camera. For the first time ever I feel I could actually take this on public transport and still be pretty lightweight and not kill myself. First time I have felt confident in doing so. I don't feel there are any compromises made now.

Congratulations to Sony on a revolutionary camera. This really is going to change everything. It's just I am going to pull a lot less chicks with this in my palm than my F350 on my shoulder! Damn you Sony!! Perhaps I just need to get a Ferrari as a crew vehicle to make up for it!

Phil, I'm confused, you start off saying it's not going to work for you, then continue with it's great?

Maybe I'm tired and slow today, but are you keeping it?

After all, you knew it was not a shoulder mount cam when you bought it.

Maybe, I need to reread your post... LOL

Sorry Stephen,

My English sense of humour.

It's brilliant but I was talking about how I am going to miss using my big camera as this little beast seems to do it all so well! Have rewritten my earlier post to make myself clearer!

I'm hearing you now Phil!

I thought you own an F350?
I guess it would be a lot like a minature F350!

good ole British sarcasm....

It's like I put my F350 in the washing machine on boil, then tumble dried it and it shrunk but also came out smarter!

As I have said earlier I am going to see how well it works as an F350 replacement, not just a B camera on a 5 day shoot across Britain next week. Lots of flying so it's ideal.

Excellent Phil.
This is actually one of the reason I wanted this camera.

As much as I like the full shoulder mount, it can be a real pain lugging it around all day.

I really believe these cams are going to make awesome event cams.
I can't wait to do a multicam live concert shoots with a couple EX1 cams!

I multitrack live using the old Yamaha O2R with a 24 track Alesis HD24, works great.

i'm doing a multicam concert this weekend with a rented ex1 as the long, wide shot.

Great, let us know how it works. Maybe a frame grab or more. :)

Oh I just cant keep quiet anymore :)

I guess this will make some of you jealous or even start to dislike us :)

We got a new batch of cameras delivered yesterday, photo at ex.bolanski.com.

And a Sony PR guy called and did a phone interview with Per-Axel about our investment in new cameras for the University.

/Andy

The top one on the left pile was supposed to me mine :)

Wow,
It must be nice to be rich guys! LOL

Just received an email that my EX1 ships tomorrow.

I have started to build a custom alum shoulder brace with a two gyro setup. I will post pictures once it is built and is working well with the camera.

Just picked up my cam. and 16gb card. I willTry to post some clips today or tomr.

Thanks Brian. I'm looking forward to it.
Mine should be here tomorrow.
Fortunately, I have this week off!

FYI....

I just got word from abelcine that they have not received their shipment yet.... and that they are not getting as many as promised by sony. They say that a big reseller in NY got the lions share.

I'm apparently #1 on the list to receive.... we will see.

Just got mine - #122

First Impressions:

It's a real tour de force of design and engineering - I'm referring to the box it came in. Some of the most complex cardboard sculpture I've ever seen in any kind of packaging.

Tiny! The camera is much smaller than I thought it would be - about 10% smaller than I had thought - feels compact and solid. Doesn't have the hollow "toaster" feel of the HVX.

No one mentioned the clever integral matte box lens cover - pretty neat and good for those of us tired of sending $50 checks to Panasonic.

LCD screen is amazingly sharp - just the setup screen was impressive.

I agree with the handholding criticisms - the handgrip strap seems slightly wrong. The camera is heavier than you would expect when you first lift it, though it is still pretty light.

Hey Phil, Have you tried to fly the EX1 on your Merlin?

I had two concerts to shoot, one in NYC at the Hammerstein and one in Atlanta, 11/10 and 11/16. Budget indicated the EX1, but I couldn't find any.

We stretched and I called in favors from my friends that own 350s, so it became 5 camera F350 in the end...which worked out ok :-)

I would have really loved to have some EX1s there though to replace the floating V1s we had. Oh well. Next job.

Not yet...on my list after trying the extreme on it!

Good to hear from you Nate!
The F350 is one heck of a camera. I bet the EX1 would work well for on stage shots. We've used a couple HD100 cams in the past. It worked ok, but a bit noisy and light hungry. If anyone knows about the HD100, it would be you.

Are you multitracking yourself, or does another company provide the two track master?

I'll try not to derail this thread too badly.

Over the last few years, I've learned that HDV cameras are generally not that great for concert work, with the sensitivity issues compared to 1/3" DV cams. It's a tough call, great looking resolution downconverted to SD if you find that you have enough light, or bad grain/gain issues if you find yourself on the unlucky side of the lighting levels. I used the HD100 on just one concert, and moved on.

Generally we hire a portable ProTools rig and an engineer to record night of show, and then session is handed off to mixer/producer of the band's choosing.

Bigger bands are increasingly recording every night's performance because it's so easy and cheap to do so, all you need is a $3k hard disk multitracker and a stack of bare drives.

This particular band was carrying their own ProTools rig for every show, and they will get me final mixes.

Just got mine #149!

Fisrt thoughts... dont like little pigtail wire on battery charger for camera power... Canon has the better idea with a detachable cord.

Hand grip is harder to use one handed, I like the rotating feature just wish there was more to hold on to.

Havent had a chance to do anything but record bars and try with my macbook pro to FCut.. worked like a charm

Chuck

Thanks Nate, sorry for the slight detour. I like ProTools rig.
For live shows, I'm using the ole Yamaha O2R with the Alesis HD24 (24 track).
Works great.