the music is really lovely Ian. I would love to do a dvd of Kew through the seasons, you would be perfect for it!

Phil

I think I am going to be on the Sony stand for the entire three days of broadcast forum at the end of month. Sony have hired me to answer people's questions about the EX1. Be good to meet you UK chaps who are going.

I'll definately come and say hello Phil. I will probably be there on the first day.

I'll be with a guy who is desperate for me to film with him every week at Poole Speedway doing the pickup shots from inside the track. I tried to talk him into buying an EX1 but his budget won't stretch to it and he has just picked up a Canon XHA1 from Ebay. Decent cam for £1900 he paid for it.

I pick up my EX1 tomorrow from Prestons. Trouble is I have upgraded both cards to 16Gb, and they are out of stock. So I will have a camera and won't be able to shoot anything on it! :(

Only day I have free to go up there, and I like to pick my cams up rather than the post. Thrilled and gutted equally.

that is really annoying. Can you borrow an 8gb card off them or something?

I wondered what Yevgeny meant when your name cropped up at BETT, Olympia today, and I said Sony should hire you as you were doing such a good job promoting the PMW-EX1 to folks like me, and he said "They are doing". :)

Got to see the Miller 20 tripod and can see why you like it so much. Now added to my order!

PMW-EX1 was very prominent on the stands of the two Pro video dealers I could find at BETT. One was showcasing ReflecMedia's lens/reflecting grey chroma screen using the EX1 as the main camera, although they admitted they'd only got theirs on Friday. The other had the EX1 as the main display camera with a rack full of nothing but EX1 brochures at the stand entrance.

Both were claiming that the EX1 will be more plentiful supply in 2 weeks time.

Not sure I can get a day off for the broadcast event at the end of the month(after 3 months "time out" I start a new contract on Monday and have already had to request a week out at the start of March for a conference in Las Vegas) but if I can I'll be there and will come and hassle you with questions ;-)

That's exactly what I am going to ask when I get there. The 12 months interest free credit to too much to ignore, so I upgraded the cards and got an extra long life battery. was going to pay cash but just had a monster income tax bill through so the money had to be diverted to the Govt.

Be suprised if they don't lend me a card as I have purchased my last three cams from them and they will have hold of my 16Gb until I send the 8Gb back.

So Steve,

You are driving all the way from Dorset to Prestons?!!

Didn't take long. Just over 2 hours each way. Just got back indoors with my lovely EX1. They had one 16Gb card and they are getting more in next week so the other one will be in the post. Weather was dreadful coming back.

Now charging up the batteries for a bit of a play with it later on.

90 mins later:
I live in a house built between 1590 and 1610. As you would guess, the walls are two feet thick and the windows on the small side. To say its quite dark (but very cosy) is an understatement.

I couldn't film in there with my HVX, as it was always too dark unless the sun was streaming through the window. I have just seen the light. Literally. No I am not turning all religeous. I opened up the aperture and bam! Let there be light! I opened it right up and flicked the gain to medium. I had to close up the aperture. Most sensitive camera I have ever owned by a mile. A friend always raved about the low light capabilities of his PD150. I wonder how the EX1 compares to that cam.

Just got the clips loaded onto FCP. My HVX is still here waiting to be picked up by the new owner. I was going to do some side by side test footage tomorrow but he has rung and is on his way, which is a shame, as it would have been a good opportunity put put the two side by side and had some comparisons. And then post it on that other forum for them to rip it apart!

Loved it. Is that your father? Or is the name a coincidence? He's got a great look and presence onscreen.

thanks! that is my dad. he will be very happy with that!

Well, he should be happy with it. It's not easy to look good on camera. Most of those who are new to it (though I have no idea if he is or not) look like deer caught in the headlights.

I thought he did a great job of looking relaxed and natural. Some people never get there.

My favourite shot was the low shot of him through the feet. Got a chuckle out of it. The seaweed (plants in the stream?) was great, too.

Oh, heck. It was all great...

Phil

Did you figure out why you weren't getting good edge to edge focus? I think you mentioned that this was a problem with both the Brevis and the Letus.

yes the ex1 seems to have very minor spherical aberration at close up zoom, this can be fixed with the right lens in front of the adaptor. Am sure the appropriate guys are working hard at it right now.

But i need to stress it barely shows, you have to really look for it and it really only shows on wider lenses.

Hey Phil, do you mind sharing your zoom and focus settings on the EX1 and Letus? Stuff looks great!

Have you checked this out on other cameras? That is, are you sure it's not something unique to your particular camera?

I'm sure Phil won't mind my butting in here as we have had this very conversation. The answer is, you have to zoom until you lose the fall off on the sides. The reality of my Letus is I'm losing quite a bit of my field of view to eliminate the fall off. A 20mm lens is behaving closer to 26mm.

On the other hand, edge to edge seemed quite good on my set-up.

vince

I have complete another little short called "South Bank"

You can read about what I used to shoot it on my website and of course see it!

Phil, great stuff as always though the music isn't too my taste!;)

Question. The very first shot. How many frames a second, and you are also panning during the shot. How did you accomplish that without it being jerky? Just put extremely soft constant pressure on your fluid head as it moved right?
Thanks
Steve

OMG!
That was absolutely beautiful man!
That's it, I got to get out of this freaking desert!

You've got the magic bro when it comes to shooting this stuff. I see why Sony has looked you up ;) LOL

Reminds me of the film Koyaanisqatsi. I'll second the question about the pan during time lapse. How'd you do that without a motor?

Thanks

The sequence was edited in 720p as most of it was 720p due to overcrank. All the timelapse was 1080p which gave me the ability to zoom into the shot and then pan along in the motion tab in FCP giving the illusion of motion controlled tripod.

Phil

Are you receiving money or favors from Letus in exchange for the link on your blog?

Hi Mark

I have links to both Cinevate and Letus next to each piece of work so people can go to their respective websites.

The Letus one does register that I sent them for that I get a tiny percentage if someone buys something from them. The Cinevate one doesn't.

I don't believe that effects my integrity in the slightest. As I am sure anyone who has emailed me and asked my opinion will attest I have always been honest and recommended what I believe is best for them! The money I get is barely enough to pay for my coffee each day!!

One company did ask me to become a "sponsored shooter" for them, which meant basically just using their products and nothing else and produce nice stuff using them for people to see. I declined even though it meant free stuff for ever. Without impartiality my opinion is worthless here. They agreed and withdrew the offer.

Am desperate for Cinevate to help me out and get my EX1 working better with the flip but not heard a peep in ages, I feel like I do need to redress the balance but until I can produce images perfect enough with it I can't, so Dennis, PLEASE let me know how your fix is coming along?

I big up the EX1 because I love it not because Sony pay me. I wish they would though as apparently people are buying them because of my recommendation, something I find quite astonishing. Although they are paying me for three days to be on their stand at the broadcast exhibition at the end of the month. But, just my normal daily rate.

I will continue to use whatever I like the best at this moment in time. This will constantly change as new equipment comes out, when it does I am sure I will get whatever it is and try it out, if i love it, you will here!!

Phil- I called Cinevate, last week, Hubert said the flips were going out the following week. Let-us see if that happens. The ND really helped my EX footage in the bright sun. I was impressed with the footage. Nice to have a video camera with a DOF. Opens up a whole new world of footage from a video camera.

I got CA and I await the Leopard version of Magic Bullet to fix this.

The SDI out of the EX does not seem to be as sharp as the component out, have you seen this at all? or is is just me?

I will post the newer footage over the next few days @ my blog @
http://web.mac.com/stevecahill/Steve...Blog/Blog.html

I've always thought of that as an HD to SD technique. Just hadn't thought of its as something one could do going from 1080 to 720 (slaps head). Thanks.

It also amazes me you can get shots that would be impossible in New York City. They are very restrictive about where you can bring cameras and even more restrictive if there's a tripod involved.

For example, $10,000,000 liability insurance and over $10,000 to have MTA staff on hand if one shoots in the NYC Subway System according MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority).

Not only do you have a good eye, I am amazed you get the time to set up those shots without being harassed . . . or maybe there's a story behind some of those shots.

I do agree that you have become the guy here that when you mention a piece of gear on your blog or here that I open a safari window and google it to see more about it..... you should feel good about you promoting through real life experience and not as a paid shil.... makes me feel better reading it anyways. Mike Curtis of hdforindies.com does a good job of balancing his blog time with earning some coin by linking products he cheers on his amazon page.

so how bout other things your sweet on?

Phil, what coffee do you drink? Right now I'm on the fence between Illy and Lavazza with my lapovoni..... think I'm leaning toward lavazza for my caps.

Shoes? I like the look of Puma suedes but they are a bit flat footed for me and at the end of a day of shooting my feet ache.... so I switched to black NB runners... nice and light and I feel like I'm walking on clouds.... great with the merlin/vest/armex1 combo.

shavers..... I gave up on blades and switched to just rotory but I'm still not happy. I think it might be one of those things that one is never completly satisfies with and just comprimises. kinda like film look plugins...hehe

Dang coffee .... repeat post!

I'm seeing just the opposite going to my 1920x1080 Dell monitor. We also hooked the EX1 up via SDI to a $5,000 JVC pro monitor. It was nothing short of excellent.

This footage is the exact reason I can't wait till we have 4K camera's to shoot with... I'd love to be able to pan and zoom from 4K down to 720...

It'd be like shooting with a meriod of camera's all at the same time....

good job again Phil...

Edit: I haven't tried it out yet but Cineform has on their site a Cineform Prospect product in Beta that will allow the EX footage be encoded into unlimited spatial resolution.... its called
Prospect 4K... this could be an interesting experiment... take 1080 footage, encode to 4K and then pan and zoom on a 720 timeline..

looks like I won't have to wait on 4K camera after all.. :-)

A lot of the "south Bank" stuff was shot at Waterloo station concourse.
- Its a complete zoo in rushhour, but it is a fairly big concourse and honestly 99% of people really couldnt care less what you're doing - as they only have (literally) 82seconds before their train home leaves.... all they want is to make it onto their regular train to get home in time for their favourite TV programme..

What you *can't* do though is leave a bag unattended anywhere. that sort of thing is a complete no-no in London and has been for many years and for good reason...

The one piece of South Bank I thought was (perhaps) a little scary for Phil is when the roller-blader did the jump coming straight towards him, and fell, and to me, judging by how OOF it was, it looked like those skates really came pretty close to the camera !! Phil can you comment on how close the guy got to you ?!?!

my magic bullet looks works great on leopard. which magic bullet do you mean?
I go to a spot, set up and look around trying to get certain shots, then I move to another spot. I am pretty quick. it was funny as there was another crew there shooting on DVCPRO HD varicam with a huge entourage for a corporate shoot, then there was little old me with my little camera and tripod!

Am decaf at the moment as I drink too much of the damn stuff!

Shoes, always loved pumas, but have started wearing some adidas y3 trainers. I don't dress like most cameramen in the UK. I don't wear Timberlands!

Shavers when i can bothered (!), gillette mach3 ultimate power or whatever the latest is called. I like wet shaves best

Women, I have always preferred brunettes, but have a soft spot for redheads.

My favourite colour is blue.

I wanted proper rush hour but they would not let me come until 10 which was a shame as it was much quieter than I had wanted.

I had a pass around my neck and for about 30 seconds had a chaperone. I was asked by police a lot if I had the pass then I showed them so no problems. If I had my nice 20x HD lens on my f350 I could have got so much better shots of people. But the longest lens I had with me was just a 105mm so I had to be much bolder and in your face than I had wanted. Never a good thing when trying to catch natural reactions.

The Skater landed about 3 foot from me. I had my 85mm Shift Tilt Lens on so it looked closer than it was!

Decaf? Phil, try the real italian "espresso". Short, hot, strong, but less coffeine than all the other variations. Not to be mistaken with Cafe Americano, Short Black and the likes. Even bought a real espresso machine just to get that quality. No more high blood pressure ever since. There is an Aussie magazine "Crema" that explains all ins and outs...

Shoes? Italian brands like Magli or the Aussie things from RM Williams.
Italian again...

Thanks Phil for making that clear. As has been said before, your insights and opinions are much appreciated!

I'm using Magic Bullet on Leopard as well. No problems.

The original Magic Bullet doesn't work on Leopard but Magic Bullet Looks is fine. And a great program as well.

steve did you say you were going to the broadcast forum?

Yes I will be there first thing on the first day.

Your latest film is awesome Phil, I really love the over cranked shots of people walking around the station, although I think I too would be a nervous wreck shooting somewhere like that.

I filmed in a small country town in Norfolk yesterday and even there I got some abuse from a bunch of road sweeping blokes and was very wary of some hooded kids that seemed to be following me. I'm not a small chap, but I was quite glad to get the gear back in the car!

Keep up the good work mate, and I'd still like to do a shoot with you one day if your ever up for it.

Paul.

hey Paul, I lived Bury St. Edmunds from 80 - 86 and still have a scar on my knee from an incident with a moped and a sugar beet near the five-way to Thetford. someday I hope to take the wife and kids back and show them the sites.

This is the best sentence I have read in 5 years. It's pure poetry and I'm not joking.

vince