This is not a technical review! I'm a screenwriter and film director and formerly exclusively worked on 35mm and 16mm. I bought the PMW-EX1 in January 2008, shortly after its release and have just shot an arthouse feature film on it. This is undoubtedly the best thing since Super 16mm for filmmaking. In fact I prefer it to 35mm: if you set your scene up smartly, you need almost no lighting. It is light and manageable, so you do not need a huge camera crew. We shot 'documentary style' and our crew consisted of myself, as director, a cameraman, a sound recordist, a continuity/logger, a production manager, and two general assistants. It was a pleasure filming and it was only possible to make a professional film this way because of the EX1. The images are crystal clear, the latitude is amazing. We tried to make flat, dreary images for the story it's hard to make ugly pictures with this camera :-). The SxS workflow is really easy and fast you just need a fair amount of disk space. But not nearly as much as I was expecting. I am editing the whole picture on one of my 750 GB disks in Final Cut Studio 2 on my quad Mac. It's a great camera and it will truly revolutionize low-budget arthouse filmmaking. And no more sleepless nights about negative scratches and hairs in the gate!!!
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The EX1 model is Sony's first XDCAM model specifically targeted at the higher end of the prosumer segment. It offers the best image quality in its class, bar none.... if the operator is aware of the CMOS vs. CCD sensor differences. The most important item, if one has only shot CCD cameras, is to be aware of the rolling shutter situation on CMOS cameras. This is not a problem by any means, just someting that one needs to compensate for when planning the shot. Frame rate and shutter angle are ever so important when determining panning speed or tracking a moving subject, and when shooting any scene containing strobes (such as live shows, emergency vehicles, etc). This is not an issue specific to this camera, but rather to any camera employing CMOS sensors.Focus is dead-on accurate, image quality is superb, battery life on the standard battery could be better, and plan for plenty of storage for offloading recorded media.
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This camera seems to split the forums. It's a camera that will not work in tourist auto mode, it would be a waste of money to do so.Having tested the cam now 2 month, it will be the main cam for my movie short. The image is brilliant, the options are great to improve the needed quality. The hot discussed rolling shutter, is nearly not visible when the shutter is set to a longer duration. Which supports the mostly wanted CINEMA look, and so no problem for me.
Workflow and integration is perfect with Final Cut Pro.
The Lens is a surprise in that price-range and shows the typical breathing, which lenses have, again: in that price range, no critic on that, but just to mention it.
After several cams with menu operation, I love to have buttons and a adjustments that I can touch and move, and the menu is well organized for the 'stuff' you don't need so often.
My only concern is the Microphone so close to the Lens, as it gives no real space to use any Standard Matte box. (Why the Focus-wheel has no cogwheel and the two other (focal length/aperture) have one, I have no idea, but that is an easy fix.
Th EX1 has real pixels and nothing interpolated or shifted, just true information, which makes the camera outstanding in that price-range. With a Black Magic Extreme card you get 10bit HD SDi 4:2:2.
The only thing that can bother with that camera really, if you are not certain if you would like to have a EX3 ;*)
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