Looks like the DP’s of TV’s hit drama “24″ are shopping for film camera replacements.

“In stage one of their test to see if 1/3in chip HD cameras are good enough for high-end TV drama, DPs Rodney Charters and Taylor Wigton take the Sony Z1 and JVC HD100 on to the set of 24.”

This is the first in a three stage test. They will also be testing the Canon XL H1, Panasonic HVX200, possibly the GVG Infinity, and the P+S Technik Mini35. And when all is said and done, they will evaluate NLE’s and workflows to see if a purely digital workflow can replace the film camera and editing workflows they have in place at this time.

Last year (Season 4) they tested the Panavision Genesis camera with an 10bit uncompressed workflow, and decided against the camera simply because there would not be enough of the camera bodies available for the tight shooting schedule. When re-evaluating the Genesis for Season 5, they determined several other reasons that the camera wasn’t suitable, one of those reasons was low light sensitivity.

Further into the article I ran across a few statements that caught my eye:
(In reference to other camera options) “I am particularly interested in the Canon XL H1 because in theory you can record to 10bit uncompressed, thus eliminating the horizontal artifacting associated with the Mpeg GOP. But this remains to be seen. What you would record too – Flash Ram?

It appears that while the recorded HDV signal is good quality, question marks remain over how robust the signal is – how well does it hold up to the various post processes that have to be applied to it? And how much of any fragility is down to the signal or the way the few supporting post systems are handling it?”

Tons of info in this article, here are a few notes:
“Ergonomically, if you are accustomed to handheld DVX100-sized cameras, the Z1U will feel like home. On sticks, the length of the JVC is an issue, in that you need to step up to a head that reaches above $1000. A Bogen 501 is fine for the lightweight Z1U.”

“As expected, the JVC stock lens was loaded with chromatic aberration. This was a non-issue, as the lens was interchangeable and we were anticipating that for high-end drama work we would be using something akin to the Mini35 with cine lenses anyway. The fixed Z1 lens does not ‘breathe’ but it too exhibits some CA, but less so than the stock JVC.”

“Sony’s Z1 is an excellent camera as a replacement for the PD150, plus it does HDV.”

Read all about it here.

(Via HD For Indies)