I want to thank everyone on this forum for all the input about the EX1 since I started researching them in January. I'm a 25 year video veteran, I've owned 5 high end Ikegami and Sony 2/3" Betacams over the years, one DSR500 DVCAM, and then I waited for HD to shake out for a year, thinking I'd buy a 330 or 350, before buying two EX1's in March. We started production March 31st on a 20 day "tele-novela" interactive video for the medical center in English and Spanish with a dozen actors, a small film crew, and an on-site editor. The scenes are 4 or 5 minutes long and by the end of the day, we've shot 3 or 4 full scenes after turnarounds and close ups. It's pretty grueling, often a little toasty out in the sun or cold in a restaurant or house, and these cameras do not flinch. They are rock solid. I bought 4 BPU 60 batteries to go with the BPU 30 that comes with the cameras and I've never come close to running out of power on a long day. I couldn't get delivery on Sony HD 9050 field monitors in time for the shoot, so I bought a couple of 24" 1080 computer monitors and feed them component out of the cameras---they look fabulous and the client loves them. They fit on a Rock'n Roller cart with a shelf and are sandbagged down for safety. And, they run off a car battery for our exteriors, all day long. I doubt I'll ever use a 9" monitor again. My editor uses FCP and has all but the last scene rough cut and downloaded to a thumbdrive for the director to take home and review at the end of the day. There is a feature in FCP that allows him to pull up both cameras and switch them "live" on the time-line. Timesaver! Then he goes back and adds close-ups where neded. In this tapeless world, we master on a G-Tech 1TB and backup on a LaCie 1TB Raid 1. And then we burn blu-rays overnight of every clip for hard copy archiving. We are on our 3rd TB and we still have 3 days of shooting to go. I bought three 16 GB cards for each camera to go with the two 8's that come with it (after rebate). I CAN get through a day without downloading if necessary or if the editor gets sick or is not available, but, it sure is nice to have on-site downloading and it also makes it easy for the AD to check for missing shots or continuity issues.
That's been my experience so far. This show looks like a million bucks and I hope to put up some clips (if the actors will allow it) on this board so you can see for yourself how amazing the EX1 is. The lens is clean, the depth of field with ND is perfect for most every situation we've been in, and you don't have to pour on the light--although we do use my Digimole 200/400 HMI's pretty exclusively because digital cameras love daylight, in my opinion. Anyway, I hope this helps anyone even pondering getting an EX1. It's a workhorse. Again, I would not have considered it over the 330/350 had I not read all of your input for 3 months. Thank you. Chris
That's been my experience so far. This show looks like a million bucks and I hope to put up some clips (if the actors will allow it) on this board so you can see for yourself how amazing the EX1 is. The lens is clean, the depth of field with ND is perfect for most every situation we've been in, and you don't have to pour on the light--although we do use my Digimole 200/400 HMI's pretty exclusively because digital cameras love daylight, in my opinion. Anyway, I hope this helps anyone even pondering getting an EX1. It's a workhorse. Again, I would not have considered it over the 330/350 had I not read all of your input for 3 months. Thank you. Chris
