Vincent, Can't say you weren't warned though (unfortunately not be Sony).

I was warned fair and square, although not at the time of purchase with the EX3.

I will find a way around this problem. I just can't believe Sony would let such an obvious flaw as this through their hands, after all they are supposed to be the leading light in the video industry.

Oliver, unless, at the time of writing, you do not buy the 486 then there is no way you can find a way to this problem. In my case I just couldn't stop recording a wedding and ask the groom to change his rented black suit because the present one is turning brown in my viewfinder. The 486 resolves this problem quite well with some limitations. Hopefully the Tiffen one would be even better. I have no hope in Sony ever correcting this issue for the EX1 and EX3. They might address this issue in the next EX series camera.

Vincent -
Just keep telling yourself "but... its a feature - not a problem!"

Brian is right. Right now the 486 is the only solution but soon there will be something better from Tiffen and others chasing their tail.

Yesterday, I climbed on top of my house and shouted from my rooftop that I hoped no more posts would appear on this subect . . . it apparently did not work.

I didn't hear you Brian.

Yesterday I spent three hours recording a production of Grease, and yes most of the cast were all in black T-shirts or sweaters. My Canon footage looks fine but the Sony footage is unusable. I will now spend another three hours on Friday doing the same job.

Here are two stills from the show. (sorry, I have blanked out the faces)

I simply keep 486 filter on my EX1 at all times, out of necessity. You never know when will the black contamination issue occur, so... as always - better be safe than sorry.

Here's the source where to get it, or here's another source as well.

these screw on filters are great unless your going to attach something to the front of the lens, ie: wide angle, telephoto, and even a 35mm adapter. looks like i'll be buying a 3-stage mattebox instead of a 2-stage to go along with my Letus. thanks Sony.

I just did a school concert of Grease and the first night I recorded it without the filter and yes, most of the blacks colours were useless but the 2nd and 3rd night I recorded it I used the 486 filter and it worked out great, a big improvement.

Just had a look at the sony still Vincent and yes, thats what mine looked like too, before the filter was fitted.

I can see that the 486 filter is an essential item for this camera, just as the DM baseplate, and other software to make HD to SD acceptable. I wonder what else I can spend my money on?

Vincent may change your opinion after you see a black coat groom :-).I just bought 486, should not be used permanently, but it's good to be in the bag when needed

I have changed my mind after my disastrous job, a 486 filter would seem to be the answer. I will be asking Sony to rectify the situation, by either supplying a filter or adjusting the camera. I re-shot the job last night on my Canon XH A1 and the footage is perfect. Having spent £6000 + on the EX3 I would expect a better result. I personally don’t see the logic in having to spend an extra £120 to solve a problem that shouldn’t be present.

You absolutely right, the problem is the sony to remedy.Se seems not to think about us and to our needs .. just to our money :-)

Vincent,
While I think it is worth complaining to Sony (don't forget to talk to your dealer as well) you won't want to wait for their answer if you have other jobs which might be helped by buying the filter yourself asap. The reputation you are saving is yours not theirs. Good luck

You are right Daniel, but I think there is also a point of principal involved here. Should we just shrug our shoulders and let Sony of the hook. I am sure that many other manufacturers would have been hauled over the hot stove for supplying goods which have a built in flaw.

Don't get me wrong, I love the EX3 and would buy it again tomorrow if I needed to. I just find their excuse for the Red issue a bit weak - it's a feature of this camera. This is like saying a car with no side windows delivers better ventilation.

I guess I will fork out for the 486 filter, although from what I am reading here, that is not the perfect answer either.

Have a good weekend

Having just forked out for the 486 filter, what if anything can one do about Chroma aberration?

As fellow professionals we should stop making excuses for Sony and all agree that for the needs of a working professional the high degree of Far Red contamination is a flaw in the EX design.

Pointing to the characteristic less pronounced in higher end cameras as leverage against this issue does not solve the problem. It is a problem and it has for many permanently damaged their confidence in Sony cameras. Personally I am considering selling my EX.

There are comparable choices in the market without all the unnecessary headaches. As the issue gains notoriety in the industry I suspect Producers will start to stay away from cameramen with EX gear because they simply won't want to deal with the extra issue when they have many other owner/operator choices out there.

As the end-user oriented company they always claim to be it is tragic that the only peep Sony has made is an implication that "it's a feature, not a problem". In exchange for maroon blacks my reds will come out better? This is as ridiculous as it sounds. Faithful blacks are basic. Before you get to amping the resolution, solid state and full raster you have to get your blacks straight.

Blacks are fundamental in any image, whether it has black in it or not. There is no arguing that by any engineer. Although this is a far red issue and not overall blacks the point is this -- it is has to do with black reproduction and should have been noticed, probably was, and addressed during the blacks testing phase.

Juan Martinez, Sr. Product Mgr intimately knowledgeable with the EX project, is a member of this forum. Juan, you should make some type of response about this. I apologize for sounding strong but we EX owners are trying to communicate to the company that this is frustrating many, many Sony customers.

Please read
ProVideo Coalition.com: Stunning Good Looks by Art Adams | Cinematography

Thank you for that link Dennis.

I will hold off from buying the 486 as at first sight the Tiffen filter produces a better looking image.

Regarding the question "I’d be curious to see which version of the chart you prefer: saturated reds, or desaturated reds. " Of course the vibrant colours in the clean shot are nicer, but this vibrancy can be acheived in the filtered shot by increasing the saturation by 5 to 10% whilst still keep the black black.

I made a new test with the filter 486 applied to EX1.

tiffin IR filter ...
 

Any idea or news as to when tiffin will release their new IR Non-hot mirror filter for the EX1/3?

Another example of green
 

In case it helps, I've attached a frame grab from some footage that I shot recently. Please ignore the terrible lighting (or lack thereof) and exposure. :)

This was shot on an EX-1 at a fairly wide zoom, if not fully wide, because I couldn't get any further behind the foreground actor - I was sitting on the desk behind him as it was. Having read this kind of information before, I keep a 486 on my camera at all times, just in case. If/when I get to the point of having lens adapters, I'll deal with the issue again at that point, I'm sure.

There's another shot that I did that day fully-zoomed that showed a non-colored vignette when the camera moved (it was a hand-held shot), but I'm not sure that's a related issue - I'll probably try to reproduce in the future and narrow down the issue to the 486 or just something inherent to the lens on the EX-1.

The green is clearly visible on the right side on the ceiling tiles and also contaminates the dark blue on the left shoulder of the shirt in the foreground.

This shot is completely uncorrected off the camera - I've done some contrast/red-tint primary correction for this shot in After Effects - and I'll probably put an additional color correction, masked with a large feather, to get rid of the green on the edges, prior to the primary color correction layer. Had I not been doing color correction in AE, it would have probably been more of a pain, although since I'm using Colorista I probably could use it's masking features as well in something like Final Cut.

Hopefully this helps a little bit - at least to show people an example of the green with the 486. If people are interested, I'll report back with the results of a masked color-correction to the green so you can A/B the results. Just let me know.

Most probably you did not need to put on the 486 at all since from the attached frame grab it seems that you were working under neon light. I never had problems with such light - it's the halogen and tungsten (and natural sunlight) that produce the problem.

To be honest I hadn't thought about it - I have the 486 on there all the time right now as I'd rather be safe than sorry - my belief is that fixing the green vignette, if it shows up at all, is much easier than fixing the IR contamination if I forgot to put on the 486.

Your point is noted, though.

But if I had taken it off, I wouldn't have a nice example to work on to see how the correction works and wouldn't have anything to share on the board! How tragic would that have been?!? :)

I think you meant to say "fluorescent" light and not neon.

I didn't even catch that myself - I read it as "fluorescent". :)

It's been a while since I had researched this, but if his original point was correct, it's pretty much any type of light other than fluorescent that would potentially create this problem for the EX-1? Makes the green cast of fluoro bulbs seem like a Godsend at this point, doesn't it? :)

As far as I know the problem only shows up with tungsten and sunlight. You shoud be quite safe with fluro, LED and HMI lighting.

i just got my boss ex3 for a few tests, and im also waiting the tiffen filter to come out.

we just film with halogen and daylight, so, its brown everywhere :(

hurry tiffen, hurry! ;)

No problem. I saw that and had to scratch my head for a minute. I'm thinking about swaping out the lamphead in my Lowel RifaLite to put in the fluoro module and remove the tungstens. That way, I might be able to light my talking heads without the IR issues.

I have seen this problem with both fluro and HMIs. Haven't tried LED yet....

Derek, do you know if this occurs with the compact fluoro's like I'd put into my RifaLight?

Dave......yes I did mean fluorescent.

Derek....LED's do not produce such effect. In fact I swapped my old trusted PAG halogen on-board lamp with a LED Zylight 90 and the change was dramatic (without the 486). In fact once I was caught out with my 486 in the bag and I was filming under tungsten light. In order to save the day I just switched on the Zylight, increased the intensity and the blacks turned to blacks again (since I had no time to search and attach the 486).

What I did find strange lately was that a black suit turned bluish (even with the 486 attached to the EX3) when filming under low energy saver lamps. I was filming in a hall lit up only with these PL lights (they were of the cold light type) and this particular person ended up with a bluish suit. It was only a one off thing but I found it very strange considering that I had the 486 on. Other blacks remained black.

Brian, thanks for that. I was wondering if the CRI of compact fluoro's would be better than the average office fluoro's in overhead fixtures OR if the compacts have the same, more or less IR output than the standard overhead tubes.

Greetings Brian.

For z90 how do you handle mounting and powering. I avoid the ex1 front accessory shoe because it's flimsy and can't handle the weight of anything but the lightest weight on-camera lights, much less the the z90.

For powering I tried the Bebob coco-EX using z50 but the battery drain was too rapid so no way to use it with z90 of course. I tried the tekkeon battery and carried it in a pocket but that is precarious and limits camera movement.

My next solution is v-mount on a zacuto with p-tap and rod arm for the z90. Do you have a picture of your rig?

Hi Max, I use the Z90 primarily on my EX3. The Z90 is surprisingly very light in weight and cannot see any problem in putting it on the EX1 front accessory shoe. I have the Bebob EX3 V-mount adaptor togeher with the VF Gadget shoulder mount. The Z90 draws up to 30 watts in full power and so you need a powerful battery to be able to sustain such power. I use a BlueShape 210 WHr battery and power both the camera and light. Apart from giving me many hours of filming, this battery also mkes the camera back heavy.

Going on to the EX1, I do have an EX1 as a spare camera in case the EX3 decides to pack in. I have bought another VF gadget plate and found that it can be used with the EX1 and will turn the camera from a hand held to a shoulder mounted camera. I have bought a Hawk Woods V-mount adaptor and has attached this to the Vf Gadget so that I can power both the EX1 and the Zylight with a V-mount battery (the same that I use for the EX3). I have never used the EX1 with the Z90 on board but as I said I cannot see any problem in this.

Please note that for stability purposes I have attached the Z90 to the accessory shoe with the help of an accessory that has a hot shoe end at one end and a screw that fits the Zylight at the other end. By this way the Zylight is closer to the camera body and hence more stable. I did not buy the articulated arm which would make the rig rather unstable. I use my EX3 mainly for shoulder mounted wedding filming (no tripods) and hence stability and compactness is of prime importance. The Pag light was surprisingly more protruding than the low profile Zylight!

Brian,

I'm aware it's a bit OT in this thread, but you got me interested in your EX1 solution. Could you please elaborate on the parts used, and perhaps put some pics?

I don't Know why' but I don't seem to have a huge problem with Blacks in my studio.

I use a fairly inexpensive black felt backdrop stretched very tight over a wood frame.

Frame below is from a shoot yesterday. It is lit with a combination of florescent and tungsten lights, with careful control of spill onto BG.

It is shot with an EX3, there is absolutely no red tint in the blacks. White balance was with a pure white card, not a warm card.

I put the frame into PSD to check balance in blacks with eye dropper, from an export out of Color. No correction applied.

I know that if I spill tungsten light onto fabric I will get warm blacks.

So in my opinion if lit well there is no problem with red shift in blacks at least in my studio.

The shots below show frame, and light setup. There is also a softbox just to the right of the camera that shot photo.

I've seen the black -> brown effect under all lighting (except HMI, which I simply did not have access to - but probably will be the same story there.)

My understanding is, it depends on the fabric/light combination.

The only way to be safe is to use the darn 486 filter with your EX1/3.

Olof, if that doctor were wearing a black business suit, are you saying that the IR problem still wouldn't be there?

Here is a frame grab from FCP in PSD with info tool.

We shot him in suit as well.

Go figure I don't see any overly red. Maybe it is just my PP. I am using a UV filter but that is it.