i don't know about the ex-1

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

doofalot

Active member
i just keep hearing horror stories about this baby but i don't know how many of them are relevant for real life use in narrative filmmaking and how many of them are people trying to show the theoretical limits of the camera in extreme situations.

will the ex-1 hold up in a chase sequence? a fight sequence in a boxing ring? a martial arts showdown?

or is it only incredible when philip bloom aligns the sun and stars for some breathtaking nature photography?

has anyone seen the ex1 results for situations that are realistic for narrative film but will create supposed challenges for the ex1 like fights and chases? are the fighters all bendy and wobbly and diagonal?
 
I know Sony's promotional footage involves planes in the sky. They're fast moving objects. No wobbliness was observed. Also, Philip Bloom has footage of ice-skaters, in his Kew Gardens, I think. No wobliness there either. I think someone here (or on dvinfo) said that if you're panning fast enough to create the wobbles, you're panning too fast, and it would look bad on any camera.
 
doofalot said:
i just keep hearing horror stories about this baby but i don't know how many of them are relevant for real life use in narrative filmmaking and how many of them are people trying to show the theoretical limits of the camera in extreme situations.

will the ex-1 hold up in a chase sequence? a fight sequence in a boxing ring? a martial arts showdown?
Click to expand...
You're going to hear folks on both sides of the aisle arguing, but the simple fact is that only you can tell if it'll be satisfactory for your uses. I'd say for running/handheld, no, the EX1 is the wrong choice for that.

There are numerous clips all over the web, just search for "rolling shutter" and you'll find all you can stand. If you want some EX1-specific clips, many have been posted here. Some people think they're extreme, others are reporting that these are the results they got. Regardless, you have to decide whether the product will handle what you're looking for.


For an extreme example, here's what it looks like on a really fast pan:
http://www.vimeo.com/1167949

If you know you'll never do a shot like that, then maybe the EX1 is appropriate. However, if you're going to do shots like that, then forget the EX1.

No amount of "wishful thinking" will make the problems go away. The only thing you can do is educate yourself as to what circumstances it happens under, and either avoid those circumstances, or avoid the cameras that can't perform under those circumstances. Anything else is folly.

or is it only incredible when philip bloom aligns the sun and stars for some breathtaking nature photography?
Click to expand...
Philip Bloom can make any camera look breathtaking.
 
Last edited:
Barry_Green said:
You're going to hear folks on both sides of the aisle arguing, but the simple fact is that only you can tell if it'll be satisfactory for your uses. I'd say for running/handheld, no, the EX1 is the wrong choice for that.

There are numerous clips all over the web, just search for "rolling shutter" and you'll find all you can stand. If you want some EX1-specific clips, many have been posted here. Some people think they're extreme, others are reporting that these are the results they got. Regardless, you have to decide whether the product will handle what you're looking for.
Click to expand...
yeah see that's just not cool. that is what i would classify as 'moderate to extreme rolling shutter' in what is not really an extreme filming situation. it looks like crap. now i don't know if the shot would have been usable on a ccd chip. maybe the situation was extreme and entirely gongshow from a professional perspective, just running all shaky with camera pointed sideways. in which case, it would just end up looking like smoothcammed rubbish no matter what. and it smells.

thanks for the links.

yeah bloom's stuff is damn nice. but at the same time, i did watch the ww1 short and i have to say that anything still had that bloom great photography look, but the second the camera was moving or even if the subjects were moving quickly in a closeup it didn't look bad but it had this real TV video feel to it for some reason, maybe the way the EX handled motion.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
doofalot, for me as I went through this decision proccess, I guess it depends if you're gonna shoot well planned, carefully thought out footage, or handheld jerky motion at high speed settings or very fast pans at high settings.

Just investigate the bad stuff and don't take it at face value.
I'm going to be using my EX1 for wilderness adventure stuff, but I'm going to carefully shoot each scene and not just run with the camera bouncing in my hands because personally I don't like that kind of footage from any kind of camera. But some people like it, no doubt. If I was going to shoot a lot of the jarring walk/run footage, I doubt I'd get the EX1. I don't know. But there's not many other options out there for me because I NEED the full 1920x1080 chip size to hit the specs of some of my markets. For my handhelf moving stuff I'll be using a stabilzer much of the time, but that's more because I prefer the look of the fluid movement than the jarring movement. I think whatever camera you choose you'll be very happy with it and get amazing footage.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
doofalot said:
yeah bloom's stuff is damn nice. but at the same time, i did watch the ww1 short and i have to say that anything still had that bloom great photography look, but the second the camera was moving or even if the subjects were moving quickly in a closeup it didn't look bad but it had this real TV video feel to it for some reason, maybe the way the EX handled motion.
Click to expand...


I think Philip wanted the fast-shutter look for a "Saving Private Ryan" effect. That has nothing to do with the chip.
 
gabrielflorit said:
I think Philip wanted the fast-shutter look for a "Saving Private Ryan" effect. That has nothing to do with the chip.
Click to expand...

i totally got that he went fast shutter for SPR but still something about it said video to me, even taking that into account. but yes good observation. anyway he still did a good job and his actors were only so so which caused me to focus more on the camera stuff i think.
 
Barry_Green said:
You're going to hear folks on both sides of the aisle arguing, but the simple fact is that only you can tell if it'll be satisfactory for your uses. I'd say for running/handheld, no, the EX1 is the wrong choice for that.

There are numerous clips all over the web, just search for "rolling shutter" and you'll find all you can stand. If you want some EX1-specific clips, many have been posted here. Some people think they're extreme, others are reporting that these are the results they got. Regardless, you have to decide whether the product will handle what you're looking for.
Click to expand...

also while googling will give me tons and tons of discussion about rolling shutter and plenty of lightning and police car strobes it doesnt actually give me much in the way of narrative work done on the ex1. all i can really find is mr bloom's world war piece. given that he is the ex1 guru and a cinematography master i wouldnt mind seeing what is achievable in the hands of the merely talented.
 
If I'm not mistaken, the previous DvxFest, LoveFest, featured the EX1 in one of the top three entries, Winter Lilacs. You won't see any crazy pans - as a matter of fact the camera gets out of the way for all but two shots. Another good place for EX1 clips would be Vimeo - do a search for the PMW-EX1 or EX1 tags. There's "ex1 footage here" threads on both dvxuser and dvinfo, but Vimeo / Exposure Room will give you a better idea of what you're about to see.

Cheers - yes, the EX1 isn't the silver bullet.
 
wouldnt mind seeing what is achievable in the hands of the merely talented.
Click to expand...
Talented is one thing, recognizing the product's limitations is perhaps another. A mildly talented or even brilliantly talented filmer, who puts a rolling shutter camera in one of the "bad" circumstances, is going to end up with pooched footage. Avoid those circumstances and you can get brilliant results.

The rolling shutter can/will affect you in a number of circumstances:
Flashes/strobes: nothing you can do about it, you're going to get big bands across the footage. If it's a rare/occasional thing you can try repairing it in post, but if it's constant flashing you're hosed. An occasional flash? Maybe you feel like fixing that in post; a Barack Obama speech? Forget about it. A longer shutter speed appears to slightly lessen the impact, but it's always going to happen.

HMI/fluo lighting: if you're shooting under magnetic HMIs or fluorescent, you'll get rippling bands throughout your footage. You can try to control this by using a shutter speed of 1/40th or 1/60th, or by only using high-frequency electronic-ballast fixtures.

Skewing: if you're panning the camera, the footage is gonna skew. It just is, and there's nothing you can do about it. The faster the pan, the more the skew; it can range from minimal to wildly objectionable. So either shoot primarily locked-down shots, or compose your shots in such a way as to hide the skewing, or experiment to find out what level of skew you're comfortable with.

Stretch/compress: if you're tilting the camera up or down, the image will shrink/stretch depending on which way you're going. Again, there's not a thing you can do about it. The slower you go, the less noticeable the effect will be. The faster you go, the more noticeable.

Wobble: if you subject the camera to shocks, vibrations, or fast reversals (such as running handheld footage will do), it's gonna wobble. Get used to it. There is nothing you can do about it. So, like the doctor said when the patient complained "it hurts when I do this", the doctor says "don't do that." Use a Steadicam or put the camera on a crane or something instead of trying to handheld/run with it.

Match moving/compositing: the rolling shutter is going to complicate your ability to do 3-D graphics compositing and match moving. Russ Andersson of Syntheyes says "just don't use a rolling shutter camera for those shots." Obviously, like everything else, it's all dependent on your level of tolerance. If it's a mild movement, the rolling shutter effect will be mild, and you might get a perfectly satisfactory composite. It's all up to your threshold of acceptability.

And, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be the camera movement: you could have the camera totally locked down and still get rolling shutter artifacts. What happens to cause it is motion in the frame. That can be caused by the camera moving around a stationary object, or by a moving object around a stationary camera (for example, shooting a spinning fan even though your camera's on a tripod). And, of course, a moving camera with a moving subject can cause it. What matters is the AMOUNT of RELATIVE motion. Little motion = little discernible artifacting; more motion = more artifacting. Puredrifting posted a photo of a golf club that's bent like rubber. The camera could be locked down, but a fast-moving golf club is going to distort on a rolling shutter.

These are the cold hard facts. Sounds problematic, and it is. But in every problem there's also an opportunity. If you learn all this stuff and learn how to avoid the problems, you could probably bill yourself as an expert EX-1 DIT who can make sure that whoever hires you won't get rolling-shuttered footage; you could consult and advise them. But if you're the type who doesn't want to bother learning all this stuff and maintaining this type of database of information, why buy into the problem?
 
Last edited:
gabrielflorit said:
If I'm not mistaken, the previous DvxFest, LoveFest, featured the EX1 in one of the top three entries, Winter Lilacs. You won't see any crazy pans - as a matter of fact the camera gets out of the way for all but two shots.
Click to expand...
Excellent example.
Winter Lilacs is an example of superb cinematography with an EX1, and is about the 180-degree opposite of what's being asked about here (action scenes, fight scenes, chase scenes). For a film like Winter Lilacs, sure -- EX1 did extremely well. For a show like COPS? I think that'd be the extremely wrong tool for that job.
 
I remember a discussion of rolling shutter on the Canon HV20. Someone had attached the camera to a light tripod on a breezy day. Somehow the wind was creating high frequency vibrations, and the "jelly cam" distortion effect on the footage was very noticable.
I have never seen anything this bad out of the EX1, and my guess is that it is much harder to set up high frequency vibrations in a camera that is so much heavier than an HV20. It may be that the data is being read of the chip more rapidly than the HV20. Certainly Russ "Syntheyes" Andersson was talking in the first instance about the HV20 when voicing his concerns about the rolling shutter.
This is not to say that the concerns are not there, but that the concerns that arose about the HV20 seem to have led people to assume that the EX1 will be just as problematical, and from all I have seen and experienced, that may be entirely the case.

My view is that if you are doing controlled, planned shooting, where you can do retakes (and it is very quick to take the clips on to your MacBook Pro and check they are OK), you are not going to find a better camera in the price range. It is an excellent green screen camera because of its resolution, low noise image, light sensitivity, and relatively non-destructive codec.

I have no first hand experience of using it as a documentary/news camera, and I would imagine that the rolling shutter issues there would have to be balanced against the fact that it produces a fantastic image in low light, getting you shots that might not be possible at all with another camera.

I guess if you are looking to use it at 1080p24/25 as a film camera replacement, then some of the issues become non-issues. If you pan too fast your image will look jittery before stuff starts to tilt. If you hand hold your camera you will need to stabilize it somehow, as again it will look jerky before it starts to wobble. These are to do with low frame rate and HD resolution, and not to do with rolling shutter.
 
Last edited:
doofalot said:
wtf? do people not take pictures at Iron Maiden concerts? if sony was smart they would publicize successful clips like this shot with the EX1 and explain how and assuage the fears of the prosumer masses.
Click to expand...

...actually, at live concerts like that the flashes of cameras wouldn't be an issue because the stage lights are so bright they would cancel the flashes out.
 
Last edited:
It's my understanding that a slower shutter speed can negate the skewing and wobble effects we see to an extent. Could someone put together a test, possibly? Testing shutter speeds with correlation to pans and skewing?
 
Slower shutter speeds have absolutely NO effect on skewing and wobbling. There will be exactly the same amount of skewing and wobbling regardless of the shutter speed. Slower shutter speeds will add blur to the skew/wobble, but the same amount will still be there.
 
Sorry didnt mean to say negate. I really meant hide the skew somewhat. But still id like to see how much more the lower shutter speeds hide the skew versus the higher shutter speeds...
 
Last edited:
There's some pix on DVInfo where a guy tested that, he had some picture of vertical black/white bars, I think it was some manner of piano key instructional picture or something, and he panned past it with slow and fast shutter speeds. The amount of leaning is identical, the difference is whether the black-to-white transition was blurry or sharp.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top