EX1 Footage and camera comments

[TMDFilms]

Hello,

I got my EX1 a couple weeks ago, but still waiting for my LetusEx to come in. The EX1 will be my first HD camera, so you can imagine how very excited I am. I've been testing this camera for a while now, so I finally went outside and shot some footage. It snowed that day, but that didn't stop me. This camera is great! I'm fairly new at this, especially to HD.

http://www.tmdfilms.com/solitude.html

Most of this was shot in 24p overcranked to 60. The camera operated well in the cold, I did not. It was a miserable shoot. Wet and cold. But I still had fun shooting with this fantastic camera.

The LCD screen is truly sharp. The expanded focus and the peaking functions are incredibly helpful.

I got serial #34 (1000034) and I have not seen any vignetting. I guess I got lucky, or maybe this camera was recalled and fixed before I got my hands on it. I received my second 8GB card fast, three weeks fast from Sony. Nice! Just in time for our next production which will ramp up next month.

[BrenMyster]

nice, FCP?

[myCharlie]

Very nice footage. Do you have any custom settings that you used in the camera?

[TMDFilms]

Thanks for the comments guys! I used Final Cut to grade the footage. The one thing I noticed is I had to be very careful with the white level when color correcting. Anything above 100 IRE resulted in H.264 encoding issues. If the whites where too white, H.264 bands and blocks flat whites. So I played it safe and had all whites around 98%.

For the picture profile, I started here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=110902
This helped me set up several profiles for outside shoots and for inside shoots. I found that several profiles are needed for the EX1.

[Alan Bradley]

cool footage man. i have an ex1 also. i am truly loving the LCD myself. also like the surreal images that i've been seeing of late. keep it up.

[dandobi.com]

ah! try n' stay away from doing slow motion in FCP ... killin' me smalls !

is it just me, or does the footage look a tad soft? i noticed from my little experience with the camera that it can catch some AMAZINGLY sharp images ...

but regardless, THANK YOU FOR SHARING!! i can't stand all the "coming soon!" or "frame grabs" i keep seeing ... people need to keep posting videos (like these). keep it up!! show us some more !!

[TMDFilms]

I softened the footage in Final Cut. Similar to a diffused filter. I wanted to get an icy soft feel that complimented the dreamy score from Vangelis.

The camera does produce some very sharp images. The 1080p stuff looks great on my 24". I'm hoping to do some more test shorts before we go into full production. There is still much to learn about this camera.