HVR-Z7U vs EX1 Comparison

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drdimento

Well-known member
Anyone make this comparison. We recently picked up a Z7U and are considering two or three more. First this camera has SOOOOOOO many features, bells, and whistles for the professional that we are discovering that this is a SERIOUS learning process.

We're told that the Z7U in HDV with CMOS x 3 sensors that are the same as the EX1 . . but . . with a valuable noise filtering/cancelling circuit results in about the closest comparison to the EX1 (which we didn't think would work for our scenario PLUS we didn't want to get back into proprietary cards like we had with P2) and thus wondered if owners could share their positive & negative experience(s), complication(s), or fix(es)/solution(s) that provide them with the "best of the best" or overcoming the worse.

Of special interest since we do at least 40 Weddings and Events a year previously and will probably do nearly 80 this year, we'd love to hear how the low light issues are best overcome.

For additional information, at present and for the meantime we interface the Sony Z7U with our multiple DVX100B's and is the only camera that has given us an almost identical image to this valuable asset (the DVX100B) in our company's business.

Many thanks in advance for those who make their valuable offering here.
 
drdimento said:
We're told that the Z7U in HDV with CMOS x 3 sensors that are the same as the EX1 . .
Click to expand...
sorry, didn't get it, Z7 is 1/3' , EX1 is 1/2' sensor, and that makes some difference,
I used to have A1 (very good camcorder), but then I rented for a day EX1, put them side by side, same day my A1 was on ebay.
I do weddings, and a wedding mostly is an indoor event, so the sensor size is very important. It's incredible how EX1 handles low/no light conditions; I'm not sure if I still have those side by side A1/EX1 shots, if I do I'll post them.
cheers.
 
Not from my tests it is not. The EX1 kicks the Z7 in many ways but not in sensitivity.

Check this page our I put together a few months ago

EX1 vs Z7
http://www.glasseye.com.au/articles/ex1vsz7/

Just be patient if it takes some time to load as it is only hanging off my ADSL connection (512K upload limit).
 
Sure it shows it is more sensitive, but not by much at all. It certainly isn't far better, just a little bit better (5-10 IRE).
 
Doesn't the Z7 shoot HDV? In my book, that ditches the camera for any serious pro work right from the get-go. Some of that softness is probably due to the HDV CODEC, not the lens, as the article would suggest.
 
On a still shot like that the 25Mbps vs 35Mbps provides little difference at all, certainly not visually detectable. Then you have 1920 vs 1440 pixels (both are x1080). Sorry but that difference in the image (ie the Arri) is not the diff of 480 pixels across the full image. The image is soft, not low res.

As I said before, the EX1 kicks the Z7 in many ways but not in sensitivity.
 
oh and by the way, the Z7s sensor is only 960x1080 anyway (not even full HDV) and uses rotated pixels to interpolate the data between pixles. Even so, as I just said above, the images are soft, not low res and I'd love to see a Z7 with a decent bit of glass on it.

Having said that I know a producers who returned his S270s even after putting some decent glass in front of them. He said for concert work, the sensors dynamic range was too poor. He went and bought another DSR450.
 
I just looked at your comparison.

You didn't mention the shutter speed used. You also said that you used the defaults of both cameras. Considering the camera defaults on the EX1, I can understand why your image didn't show much light sensitivity difference. The EX1 is not a point and shoot camera. It really needs to be tweaked like a pro camera to get the best out of it.

Once I tweaked my camera, I was absolutely STUNNED by it's low light sensitivity, and put up some video on Vimeo to show it. The test was not scientific, quite similar to yours, but I rated the EX1 at 3200 ISO and did the shoot with no gain. The results are available if you care to see them.

GuyB said:
As I said before, the EX1 kicks the Z7 in many ways but not in sensitivity.
Click to expand...
 
Both were shot with a 1/50 sec shutter speed which is standard for 1080 50i

Feel free to post a link to the Vimeo clip.
 
There seems to be a lot of noise in that video, is that because you had gain in or the compression of Vimeo?

Most agree the EX1 is rated at about ISO800 in interlacd mode and about ISO400 in progressive (with 180 degree shutter).
 
Download the original video down at the bottom if you'd like to see what it looked like before Vimeo recompressed it.

Also not that the video was shot with about 17 foot candles of light. I don't know if you have a light meter, but 17 footcandles is NOT MUCH.

And yes, I rate my camera at 800 interlaced and 400 not interlaced in most instances. However that is typically with the cine gammas. STD3 is a bit different as you can plainly see. The EX1 in STD3 is actually more sensitive than my DVX.
 
Indeed. My original low light testing was done with Gamma set to CINE1. Just changing it from that (which is more suited for outdoor usage) to CINE4 gave me a LOT more detail in the dark areas of the picture (it's suited for low light but not highlights).
 
GuyB said:
There seems to be a lot of noise in that video, is that because you had gain in or the compression of Vimeo?

Most agree the EX1 is rated at about ISO800 in interlacd mode and about ISO400 in progressive (with 180 degree shutter).
Click to expand...


Upon my own testing my conclusions as far as sensitivity of the EX1 are what Adam Wilt found with this review:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/review_sony_pmw_ex1_1_2_3_cmos_hd_camcorder/P3/

ISO 400 in 1080p modes
• ISO 800 in 1080i modes and
• ISO 500 in 720p modes.
 
I read Adam's tests. He was using a prototype for the tests. I wonder if any further improvement was done on the production model. Not saying it was, but just curious.
 
GuyB said:
On a still shot like that the 25Mbps vs 35Mbps provides little difference at all, certainly not visually detectable. Then you have 1920 vs 1440 pixels (both are x1080). Sorry but that difference in the image (ie the Arri) is not the diff of 480 pixels across the full image. The image is soft, not low res.

As I said before, the EX1 kicks the Z7 in many ways but not in sensitivity.
Click to expand...


I noticed a big difference in detail on the EX1 when comparing 25mb/S and 35mb/S footage of the same subjects. We're talking about losing 1/3 of the picture data.

And also with 960x1080 sensors and interpolation, now I fully understand the soft images. I much doubt any glass is going to improve on that by significant amounts. I had the same issue with my V1Us--the picture lacked real, honest-to-goodness fine detail. I don't care what voodoo is done to 'enhance' the images from these sub-HD sensors--there is no way to create detail where there is none sampled by the sensor. It's a corollary of Nyquist's sampling theorem. They can fake it, but I always spot it when comparing to full-raster HD images.
 
basspig said:
I noticed a big difference in detail on the EX1 when comparing 25mb/S and 35mb/S footage of the same subjects. We're talking about losing 1/3 of the picture data.
Click to expand...

Sure, but on a completely static image the data rate isn't going to make any visible difference in the compression. The resolution will make a difference, but not to the level seen by the frames which leaves the lens at most fault. I know someone who replaced the lens on a S270 and got much sharper images so I know the lens is the major culprite in the softness.
 
I shot some footage for a friend on the HVR-Z7U yesterday. It was my first time with the camera. Since I haven't seen it played back at full-res yet my comments should be kept with something of a grain of salt. I was impressed with the Z7U's lowlight performance. It seemed to give fairly clean footage even when shooting about a stop underexposed. The light sensitivy didn't seem as good ast the DVX100--I didn't expect it to be--, but the picture was rather clean which was a big plus.


EDIT: After viewing the clips at full resolution, it appears that the footage isn't as clean as I thought it was.
 
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