I demoed the 500 and thought the look was a little 'softer' than the ex1. It still looked good, just a matter of taste. I like a shaper look.

I choose the ex1 mostly because of cost to image quality ratio and size. I do a fair amount of run and gun shooting.

When comparing the cost, don't overlook the bigger tripod, more expensive batteries, the charger, bigger carry bags and other accessories.

I wrangled cards for myself on a wedding shoot where I recorded well over three hours of footage on a 16 gig and an 8 gig card (in a 5 hour period). I was always able to find a second to plug one card into the laptop, then resume shooting on the second. Even the 8 had enough capacity to get me to a break point where I could deal with the cards - From what I've heard, the P2 cards get a LOT less time per card, so wrangling your own becomes trickier (doesn't the HPX 500 have a bunch of card slots, though, unlike the HVX200, so you can load more capacity at a time). The EX1 can take a 2 hour load with 2 16 gig cards... One issue with any of these cameras is that they'll eat just about any laptop's internal hard drive REALLY fast (the EX1 was responsible for 43 gigs in one evening at the wedding I just shot, and aren't the Panasonics about three times as disk hungry?) I'd count on external drives on set...

-Dan

regarding card capacities, i havent met many people who shoot more than 720p on the HVX (besides myself but i do a lot of greenscreens), so at that setting, the EX1 and HVX record times per card at the same capacity are pretty similar. 40min/16gb HVX, and a bit more for the EX1. of course keep in mind the HVX is recording about 700k pixels and the EX1 is recording about 2MP. if you prefer a sharper look, however, HVX/HPX's 500k pixel CCDs might be a tough sell over the EX1's 2MP CMOSes.

The XDCam EX format is surprisingly efficient.

It provides more recording time per gigabyte than DVCPro50. Yet it's robust enough to capture a lot of changing detail in a larger frame without falling apart.

Still, it means having a lot of HDD capacity instead of tapes.

I shoot everything in 1080p30, even with the HVX. So the difference in the amount of disk space required between the two cameras is dramatic.

I don't think it's anything like half (logarithmic for a start T1.4 on 2/3 is T5.6 as i said, that's no where near half) but if you're happy with 1/2in then 2/3 will only improve things. It's difficult to quantify everyones idea of shallow DOF.

As Matt quite rightly points out too i also find the 35mm adaptors a bit too cumbersome but they do seem a lot better than they used too and if you have the time to setup properly then they might be a good idea. I still find them like shooting through a window though and i don't know whether this is just operator choice but everyone seems to like wide open and 35mm just looks like the foreground is pasted ontop of a blurred background, too little DOF. If you stop down the lens to something more normal i don't know if there are problems with grain and dirt (it used to be the case but i think the current generation are much better).

I don't see the point of sticking a 35mm adaptor on a 2/3rds - i'd rather find faster lenses. Are those zeiss nikons okay for pulling focus on?

Anyway, the workflow on the EX has been faultless for me. And shooting drama you shouldn't be shooting too much each day. But i have a vaio laptop and can just take a card out dump it off and backup in two places.

Turn everything off (sharpening and whatnot) and i think the image looks like a SLR image, very useable with genuine 1080p resolution. Dynamic range is good, i've managed to get good skin tones outside and not blown the skies and it's very tweakable in camera.

cheers
paul

Well I'v see a whole lot of f900 with pro 35's. I just have the feeling that an HPX500 might make life easy, and then eventualy I'll make it complicated when I get a 35 adaptor. I could probably get away with one or two 32 gig cards.

But I don't want to give up on resolution and the CINE ALTA name. I bet you feel real special with that badge on your camera.

One of these days I'll have to rent them both and see what I like better.

By the time I buy a camera scarlet, and some new cameras from sony and pana will be out. Arrg.