Essentially the same as for the FX1/Z1 on which there is a lot of writen

Sami
I got mine from proactive I had the third camera in. Can remember when I ordered it but at the time they said a deposit would secure it and I would be third in the queue.

MH Stevens
Yes I wondered about that but there may be differences as the EX1 is an XDCAM.

I think my issue with the ATW (Auto white balance) could be down to me using low light levels and -3 gain.

Well, Mark, colour me green! Enjoy. You deserve it! - Graham

Thanks Graham. Im going to try and stick some footage on chienworks.

Mark: With the FX1 I find the programs a pain. They are either never quite right or you set the wrong one by mistake! If your shooting allows the time stick with P1 and tweak every setting, softness, color balance, saturaion, gama, black streach etc for every shot. That way you get to know your camera real good and your level of control will really grow. Its a pity all these controls are menue driven, and as Serena pointed out re the finger nails, you can not shoot this camera and play the guitar.
Mike

Actually classical guitarists do have longer nails on the plucking hand. No good on the fret, of course. In my comment I had been going to say that EX users and classical guitarists would have something in common, but thought then that I'd need to explain! And now I have!

Setting up picture profiles takes some time because you need to evaluate the results on a calibrated monitor, so it can save a lot of time to have various "looks" stored in pp. Whether you do this depends on whether you want images you can show without post processing and the standard built-in curves cover the sort of popular pre-packaged profiles you find on still cameras (landscape, people, B&W, RAW). The FX1 had very limited options, but you can still change quite a lot within each profile in terms of sharpening, colour saturation but only one choice of gamma (cinegamma or normal gamma). The XDCAM EX1 offers more gamma curves and great flexibility. Generally I shoot RAW in stills (requiring post processing) to give me the greatest bit depth (12 bit) and minimum compression. In video, with only 8bit there is always a problem recording the whole scene without clipping whites (eg. clouds) or clogging up shadows. If you use a "flat" gamma curve then you can record a bigger scene range and at the same time you can change gamma at the low end of the curve to resolve detail in shadows.
http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/view/ShowContent.action?site=biz_en_GB&contentId=1193315622112&site=biz_en_GBpicture profiles[/link]
In the studio you might prefer to create the right look for the purpose, but in the field you might like to be able to select from your library of looks. Certainly that is popular with a lot of operators who buy downloadable profiles: http://www.digitalpraxis.net/sonycurves.htmDigital Praxis[/link]
The XDCAM HD cameras allow you to download picture profiles (somewhat like ringtones); see p9 of
http://www.hbcommunications.com/Eblasts/Sony_Spotlight_Eblast/XDCAMHD_broch.pdfXDCAM HD brochure [/link]

EDIT: when you read Sony's descriptions of the differences between their picture profile sets, one can understand why many people opt for buying profiles set up by experts. Unfortunately the EX doesn't enable this, so you just have to adjust them yourself.

>>>a function to automaticly focus from one focus setting to another<<<
p64 in manual

Hi Serena,

Yes I already had that one profile from Sonys website And no you can't use the pre programmed XDCAM ones you have to put the settings in yourself. Thats why I mentioned it when I started the thread!
"Does anyone know where there are specific looks written down so they can be programed in?"

Yes you would need a decent monitor to see your own adjustments the camera LCD is not up to this. Even then you would need to play the footage filmed in different light etc to get an idea of its look.. Times that by all the variables and it becomes a pain. However as Mike says at least this way you really get to know your camera. But those variables would be like a combination lock.. MILLIONS.... Probably best to read a book about what is actually happening within the settings of the EX1.

I want to use those who have created settings aquired through training, trial and error experience and knowledge. Otherwise you could create the look you want in post. What I'd like is a few looks already done and written down. Study them. See how they work and use that as my starting point! Jay Gladwell kindly pointed out a site with a soon to be made training DVD.

http://www.xdcamex.co.uk/about.php

Its got a bit about scene files and the memory stick?????? I guess this must be a mistake?

Thanks Serena page 64 I hadn't thought shot transition was actually pre-programmed focus adjustment!

One thing to keep in mind is the look is cooked.
My preference would be turn down or off anything that could be done just as well in post, for example edge enhancement. Once it's baked into the image I think it's a devil to get rid of. The same might go for some of the extreme gamma curves.
It's probably also though worth considering anything that might help the encoder do it's best but again as you've rightly noted it can take a lot of work to get the best mix for different shooting scenarios.

Bob.

I agree with Bob. Remeber the time (not so long ago), when the dispute was hot about the alleged superiority of the Canon A1 vs Sony V1, attributable by many to the image tweaking capablities being "better" in the former? On DVINFO, there even has been a sticky on the various "looks" one can squeeze from the Canon... Well, I tried both cameras and have chosen the V1 afer all, because those tweaking capabilities were of no great value at all. Why? Because if you're after a certain "look" for purely artistic purposes, you will be better off getting it in post. If you're after a "technically better" picture quality, well... No matter what I did with the Canon, the image simply was not good enough compared to the Sony. (IMHO).

Which doesn't change the fact that if I had access to some "scenes" or looks from an expert, I'fd happily give it a try with the EX1. Also, I'd like to see all 8 gamma curves compared graphically (the pdf brochure shows the cine ones, but I cannot find the standard curves anywhere).

Piotr

This is even more the case with this level of camera. You have so much dynamic rage that you can even do things like gradient filter effects in post that would be better to do on the camera if you were working with HDV.

I agree Bob. But if you're sure of the look you want its better to do it in camera. This was one of the many reasons for me buying it!

This ATW Automatic tracing white balance is not doing its job!

My room has tungsten lights and a colour temperature of 2500K when white balanced or a reading taken. The ATW consistently sets itself to 3400K .

Why is it doing this? Is it this bad? Or is there something wrong with the camera? Its not a problem as I can set the balance manually anyway its just a worry that this may be malfunctioning.

There does seem to be something slgihtly unusual about how this camera does white balance. The factor default preset is 3200K, doesn't seem to be anyway to change that and it bugs me as I avoid using tungsten lighting like the plague, so that preset is worse than useless to me. I could change that under the maintenance menu but there's more than just one parameter to adjust and that freaks me out.

And yes, some the values I get from the readout seem off the mark. I could dial in CT by the numbers in the profiles but the manual says the results might not be accurate!! So as I see it there's no drop dead simple way to get to a daylight WB, I've just got to be missing something here.

Bob.

How I've done it is... If my preset is in picture profile I can set the white balance manually which is great but if not its set to 3200K
A switch set to 5500K
B switch Im using to white balance through a card.
4th user assignable button I've set for ATW.

Just a little disconcerting the ATW is so wrong.

Does this camera have XLR audio imputs?

Sherman. Yes and phantom power.