Don Greening's Blog

Yesterday we decided to do a low light comparison test between our Sony DSR-PD170 and our EX1. Unless you've been living alone on an island for the last few years you already know that the PD170 is the current low light king in the MiniDV class of video cameras. Heck, it's even the low light champ in ANY class of handheld-style camcorder. There are a lot of folks out there asking the same question I've had ever since Sony originally announced the PMW-EX1: is this an HD replacement for the PD170?

Okay, on with the testing. We set up the two Sonys side by side and pointing into the darkest corner of the room, which contained a couple of bookshelves with (you guessed it) some books and several photos in various types of picture frames. Right off, let me say that this was not a scientific analysis of the low light capabilities of these two cameras based on luminance values, etc. but simply our perception of brightness looking at the flip out viewscreens. I don't even own a light meter.

Test one. The PD170 was set to 60i, 1/60 shutter speed, iris wide open and picture gain at 0. The EX1 was set to 1080p, shutter speed 1/60, iris wide open and picture gain at 0. During all three of these tests the zoom position of both cameras was at full wide (no telephoto). We look at the viewscreens of both cameras to see which one has the brighter image. The PD170 wins. But not by much. Boy is it close!

Test two. Both cameras stay at the same settings except now they both have +9 dialed in on the picture gain. Wait a minute. Is the EX1 now showing a brighter image? Um, no. But there's so much more detail in the EX1 image that there's the perception that the image is brighter. It's really almost too close to call now. Here's the difference: there's considerably less eye strain trying to pick out detail in the EX1 image than there is looking at the PD170 image, even though the PD170's picture is a bit brighter. Looking closely at the two viewscreens we can see a certain amount of picture noise from the increased gain setting, but ONLY in the PD170 viewscreen.

Test 3. Both cameras still at the same settings but now we crank up the gain to +18 on both. In the PD170 viewscreen there's now 100% zebra bars showing on the edges of some of the books and on some of the picture frames. Looking at the photos (within the PD170's viewscreen) you know that there are people in the photos but there's no detail. It's more like looking at silhouettes of people.

On the other hand, the picture in the viewscreen of the EX1 now also has 100% zebra bars on the same objects and in the same places on those objects. The perception is that the image is still brighter than the PD170 because of the dramatic difference in detail but it's still a slightly darker image. In the EX1 LCD screen we both observe that the people in our framed photos are detailed and recognizable without straining our eyes at all. As I've already said, the casual observer is going to perceive the EX1 image as being the brighter of the two even though it's not quite as bright.

And the big surprise? At +18 gain on the EX1 there's substantially less picture noise than the PD170. The EX1 does have some noise but the actual noise grains are much smaller, presumably because the image pixels are so much smaller than the ones on the PD170's chips. I'm going out on a limb here and will say that the noise in the EX1's picture is at least 60% less noticable compared to the PD170. This fact really surprised me. So much for worrying that the new Exmor CMOS sensors in the EX1 were going to be the Achilles heel with this camera. I would have been happy just seeing the SAME amount of picture noise as the PD170 has, but this.........well, this totally blew me away.

We're done here. Hope you've enjoyed the articles and that this has helped those who are considering a purchase of the PMW-EX1.

EX1 Low Light Test Update: Friday Dec.14th 2007

Yesterday I re-did the low light test between the DSR-PD170 and the PMW-EX1 because I wanted a more reliable result by actually recording video clips, then generating frame grabs for comparison.

I still stand by my claim that the PD170 has a slightly brighter picture when viewing the flip out screens of both cameras. This observation was also confirmed by a second person when she also had a look during the 3 tests, but the frame grabs tell a different story. The EX1 now has the edge on the PD170 in the overall brightness catagory (If you can believe it). As for the picture noise differences, it's a toss up when looking at the frame grabs. For those interested in seeing the actual results, please be patient. There's a chance that the pictures will be posted on the Creative COW web site sometime next week, then the experts can decide.

Today my wife and I walked out onto the Port Coquitlam river dykes to do some scenery shooting with our new EX1. We didn't spend a lot of time there because it was cold and I was a real wimp today. We ended up taking about 10 min. of footage. I didn't try any other picture settings other than taking the camera out of the box and changing the recording setup to 1080P 30fps. I used the highest quality setting of 35 mbps.

When we got home I immediately hooked the camera up to our 50 inch Samsung plasma TV using component in. I pushed play on the camera and it cycled through all the scene files on the card non-stop. I  thought it would have stopped at the end of each clip but the camera just played all the clips in one go. Nice.

Anyway, the video is impressive. Huge amount of detail from what I'm used to from shooting MiniDV. I must say that watching the progressive picture on the plasma is far better than the flickering interlaced that is present in the broadcast hi def stuff from our local cable signal. Progressive shooting is the way to go when your delivery is for a client watching your product on an LCD or plasma screen. No contest.

Even though I was shooting with the default picture settings (other than 30p and a shutter speed of 1/60) I was impressed with the colour saturation, the amount of increased latitude in the blacks and highlights, and the amazing shallow DOF. I'm so used to shooting MiniDV and protecting highlights that I ended up unconciously underexposing just about every scene. This resulted in some picture noise in the blacks, but as soon as I exposed properly the noise disappeared completely.

NOTE: Let me clarify that the picture noise present in the underexposed shadow areas was not a failing of the EX1 but of our Samsung plasma TV. Once viewed on a computer monitor and increased to twice the resolution I could see no noise in the actual recorded video. 

The double zebra bar function is wonderful, at least for me. Now I can set zebra 1 at 80% for faces and zebra 2 at 100% IRE to see what woul be totally blown out if the picture is recorded. Both zebra settings can be active at the same time. The pro cameras have had this feature for years and I've been waiting a long time for a camera I can afford that has this function.

The lens contols for manual focus and zoom are smooth, give lots of feedback and are repeatable for things like rack focus, etc. What I liked best is the iris ring on the lens. It's so much easier to adjust exposure than anything I've ever used in the past. And it's fast and smooth.

One of my shots today was of a small boat on the river going by at a brisk pace. I zoomed all the way in (14x) and panned with the boat for several seconds. There were lots of bare winter tree branches in the foreground of the picture whipping by but the XDCAM codec powered right through the fast action without a hiccup. I have a new respect for the MPEG2 35 mbps VBR compression. 
 
I haven't done any capturing to computer yet, and will report back after that test is carried out. This camera will definitely help to make an amateur videographer look more like a pro because it's always easier to shoot good video with a better camera. The pros, on the other hand, will be able to accomplish amazing things. 

- Don 

Today I connected the EX1 to my Mac Pro in preparation to transfer the video clips over to Final Cut Pro. I had already installed the Sony Clip Browser and Sony XDCAM Transfer Tool v.2.1 onto my Mac several days ago so now it was just a matter of getting started. 

 There is more than one way to transfer the files over but I elected to simply do it within the FCP log and transfer window. In order for this to work the software required is Final Cut Pro v.6.0.2, Quicktime Pro v.7.3 and Mac OS v.10.4.11, in addition to the above mentioned Sony software which is free. These are minimum requirements. Of course, for those who are already using OS v.10.5.1 you probably already have QT 7.3. 

 Once the camera was connected via the included USB cable I turned it on and waited for the camera device icon to appear on the desktop. When it didn't show up I looked into the camera's VF and discovered that it was waiting for me to say "OK" to its question which was: "Do you want to connect your EX via USB?" or something similar. Once I confirmed the request the device showed up on the desktop like a hard drive or disc image icon with the label "Untitled."

 I started up a new project in FCP and chose a new sequence with the setting XDCAM EX 1080 30p 35 VBR because that's what the footage was recorded at yesterday. Once that's done you're ready for the transfer. Now, logging in this instance isn't done in the traditional way like you would do if you were capturing tape. You don't use any of the log and capture controls. Instead go to the file menu and choose: "Import > Sony XDCAM." (Even though I had the log and transfer window open I'm not sure now that it even needs to be active in order to access the camera. Just a thought that others may want to look into when it's time for them to transfer video.)

 Immediately the Sony Clip Browser window appears within FCP. From here on in it's just a matter of highlighting each (or all) of those scene files and choosing "Import" on the lower right side of the Clip Browser window. Before transferring each clip you have the option to add a clip name, meta data, etc. to give each clip a unique filename. BUT BEFORE YOU DO IT......I highly recommend that you change the default capture settings within the Sony Clip Browser window. Meaning, you want to change the place where the actual video files will be saved. Why? Because the default location is on your startup drive inside your Documents Folder. Even though you may have already created a scratch folder on your media drive(s) within FCP these transferred files will not be there when you check later. They will instead be in the folder location that you have chosen within the Sony Clip Browser window. Maybe you can change that to your capture scratch folder if you want, but whatever, as long as your media is on your media drive and not on your startup drive.

 Why Sony chose the startup drive as the default location is known only to Sony, but your media should not be saved to your startup drive, only a separate media drive or a drive array. Using the USB camera connection resulted in a transfer speed of roughly 15 or so sec. for each minute of media transferred. Choosing a lower recording bitrate will probably result in faster transfer times.

 Plugging your SxS Pro memory card directly into your Macbook Pro's Express 34 slot will dramatically reduce the time it takes to transfer media, down to about 5 min. or less for a 16Gbyte SxS Pro card which is about 50 min of footage recorded at the HQ camera setting.

 In FCP's Browser window some of the transferred clips are showing up twice. Not too sure why this is happening but from what I've been able to find out it's not happening to everybody. There is a workaround. Folks here at Creative COW like Ben Kupfer and others have reported that if you delete your filenames from the Browser and import again from their folder on your hard drive there will be no duplication of filenames when they show up again in the Browser window. You DON'T have to actually re-transfer the video again from the camera. Make sense?

 Before you delete the actual video clips from your SxS Pro Memory card I recommend that you go to the clips on your hard drive and check each one, making sure they play okay. Just double-click each .mov file and it will play in the stand alone Quicktime Player window. Once you're comfortable with your workflow and have seen the reliability with it then you probably won't have to do this last step before reformatting the card, but for now I'd check first.

Stay tuned for part 3