Do you really want this camera?

It’s Christmas Eve and most of us have a Hi Def camera on the list.  Which one do you want now? I really dig…and want under my tree either the Contour or the GoProHD.  But that’s just pure fun. You may already be working some of the freelance workhorses, F900, Panny HDX900.  How’s that VariCam these days?  Not as many calls as in years past.

I have talked with lots of freelancers, many already have an HD camera they bank on.  Here we are to prove we actually get together and talk with one another.

freelancer get-together before Christmas

So really, we like to get together when we’re not busy at this time of year and see each other to just say hi.  Years past have been dominated by format discussions, client wants and needs, and just our general eagerness to talk shop.  We didn’t really, collectively, care that a small group of us gathered earlier to check out the Sony PMW350.  Great potential camera.  Most of us are tired of talking and guessing about what the clients are going to want.  In the room were gathered owners of Sony EX1, Panasonic HDX900, Panasonic HPX2000, Sony XDCam F350HD, Panny HPX300, Sony F900, Panny HVX200, 170, and VariCam.  No Reds.  Some had bought and sold the Red One, but we’re not the cinema crowd and our clients don’t really understand or want what the Red One offers.  We do own a smattering of Canon 5DM2 and 7Ds.  Again, only fun cams since the clients haven’t reached the level of needing those cameras.  So you can gather we’re a practical bunch.

Here’s what Sony is making available very soon, taking orders and shipping.  The Sony PMW350.  VunderCam.

Seven freelancers eyeballed the Sony PMW350 with equal mixes of eagerness and weariness. (That’s weariness, not wariness.  Many are tired of seeing yet another camera being introduced.) Since I already shoot quite a bit with the EX1, I am sold on the SxS media and the quality of the image from these CineAlta factory cameras.  Others wanted to be convinced.  The Panasonic 17″ monitor sat in the dark of the equipment room and we fed the HD-SDI from the cameras.  There will be many technical articles on the web, this is just to give a general first impression from us guys in the field.  The verdict was an underwhelming acceptance.  We expected it to look good compared to the F900, and it did.  We expected it to look better than the EX1, and surprisingly, the EX1 looked better than we thought it would.  The bottom line to all of us was acceptance by the client.  This camera, we all seemed to agree, will create wonderful video, will give us the shoulder form factor we like and clients like to see, and will give us a digital end product the client will dump into their NLE of choice.

That last bit about the digital end product has become the tipping point for a couple of the tape-based freelancers.  The smaller clients jumped on board early, but the big guys have been heavily invested in tape technology. Not sure what caused the light bulb to go off in the major player world, but someone finally told them it’s easier to take the file based media than spend hours digitizing tape.  They finally got it.  Maybe the amortization tables on the HDCam and DVCProHD tape decks finally pointed to retiring them. Some major golf coverage will be done digitally next year, according to one freelancer working many dates with this client.  ESPN is in the whisper stages of changing to digital.  All pointing to a way to easily capture on a digital format for client after client. The PMW350 will probably not work for every client and every situation, but looks like a camera that will allow the freelancer to satisfy a wide range of clients.

The supplied lens was merely adequate.  Not wide enough, not long enough.  But only adding about $1500 to the base price of the camera, some of us thought it was a bargain backup lens.  Of course you know the camera uses a 2/3″ mount, so put on your B4 mount lens of choice.  The viewfinder is big and bright, and bulky.  That’s a pretty big hunk of plastic sticking out there and we wondered how robust they will make the final production model.  There are a couple of plastic hinges that look like weak links.  Go easy.  We also noticed the two viewfinder ports.  The supplied vf plugs in near the operator and the cable could be hanging in your way when you throw your left hand in there to access the zoom rocker. You’re going to have to tuck that away. And we’d like to see what another viewfinder looks like with this model.  The manual sites about three options for other viewfinders, so if you’re inclined to slim down, that’s a possibility.  The menu system accesses in a couple of ways and has soooo many options.  You can fine tune the look in an infinite amount of ways.  The camera we received is only one of two bouncing around the country, so many hands had “doctored” the settings and it took a moment to find the default settings so we could look at a “clean” picture.  The lcd readout is clean and simple and placed properly so the sound tech can easily see the audio meters.  The media slots are on the operator’s opposite side.  No issue there, but we wondered why only two slots?  I know it’s plenty when I use the EX1, getting about an hour from a single 16GB card, but Panasonic provides multiple slots on their larger production cameras and I just assumed it wouldn’t be a big deal to add a couple more to the PMW350.  With 4 slots, you could most likely shoot the whole day and not dump data.  Would have been a nice touch.  The rolling shutter issue came up and those of us using the EX1/3s agreed it hasn’t been an issue at all.  We don’t really whip the camera back and forth during regular shooting, but I acknowledge flashes or police lights might create undesirable moments.  Again, it just hasn’t been an issue for us in our daily shooting and not a single client has said, “we’re going to require numerous swish pans of insane intensity in flash filled environments, so stay the hell away from those CMOS cameras!”

Overall, this looks to be a robust and operator-friendly camera.  One that any freelancer can hop on and go.  And our most important concern, it looks like it will be client-friendly.  This may still take some time, as the producers continue to ask for different formats and sometimes shrug when I ask their format of choice.  A P2 based client just asked me to shoot interviews and give him the video so he can plug it into his laptop and begin the rough cut.  No question of format.  Just wanted something that worked for him.  Converting the native EX1 files to Quicktime .MOV files is a snap, so I can leave the producer to his Final Cut Pro and laptop in his hotel room.  We’re all happy.

The PMW350 will deliver those files, give you the ability to create great images without compromising on depth of field or quality, and be a sturdy, daily workhorse camera.  I’m looking forward to seeing it in the field.

Tagged as: EX1, freelance, PMW-350, Sony, Tampa, video, video production, videography