This EX-1 HD camera would have to be one of the nicest additions to any design studio or production company.Talk about pure creative genius with a beautifully small form factor. Very admirable.
It’s an EX-1 HD video camera from Sony which National Geographic incidentally just approved for HD broadcast. Put an Arri matte box on it for a slew of filters and applicable attachments for any commercials shoot. Conversely, it can be stripped down and you could blend into the crowd on a documentary project. I prefer a less auspicious display of hardware personally. It’s about six-seven grand (dollars) plus change for the camera.
Philip Bloom DP has done a nice review of the camera with the RedRock M2 Encore adaptor which allows photographic lens.
I read this somewhere: In evolutionary biology, there’s a concept called convergent evolution in which unrelated organisms independently evolve similar traits in response to the same environment. For instance, dolphins (mammals) and fish have similarly evolving streamlined bodies and dorsal fins. What I find most fascinating is how the very different camcorder designs of the Canon XL H1 and Sony PMW-EX3 independently arrived at the same unlikely morphology — one that somehow bridges the classic shoulder-mount profile of the 1980s and prosumer Handycam of the 1990s.
Refilms comments on the EV-1
I’ve had the opportunity to recently shoot with the EX1 in diverse places like Kenya and India for roughly 8hr days over a 3 week period. True, the ergonomics are not ideal but nothing I feel a bean bag or bracing the camera into ones body can’t correct. Over the past year this camera has produced images that I feel are very impressive and a huge improvement over the Sony Z1U (which I was previously shooting with.) Transitioning from HDV, my work flow has really sped up on account of going tape less.
Working with a laptop, it can be hugely beneficial to review the dailies this way as well. If you are migrating from the XL-1, budgeting for a secure hard drive and back up solution is definitely worth investigating. Using this camera for a year, I’ve eaten up roughly 5 terabytes of drive space. Kenya footage with the EX1 it can be found at: http://www.refilms.ca/promotional-videos-2009.html
Good luck and if you have any more specific questions, please let me know as I have spent a lot of time with the camera and do feel that it is a real asset.