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XDCAM EX1 Hands-On – Gamma and Color Matrix Presets

10 Comments Published by Matthew Jeppsen January 7th, 2008 in Cameras, FreshDV, News, Research, Tutorials

This article is part of a series of tests FreshDV conducted with the Sony XDCAM PMW-EX1. Thanks to Miami rental house and Sony dealer Midtown Video for providing a XDCAM EX camera. And thanks to DSC Labs for providing test chart patterns. You can read more about ours and others experiences with this camera here.

FreshDV tests factory preset modes for Gamma and Color Matrix using DSC’s ChromaDuMonde Color Test PatternFor this color reproduction comparison the XDCAM EX was shot in a studio environment using a DSC Labs ChromaDuMonde chart. The test pattern was evenly lit at 45-degree angles by two soft light sources, aperture on the EX1 was adjusted on each shot to ensure the center gray chips were exposed at 50%. Picture Profile Matrix and Gamma presets were shot individually, and then mixed in typical configurations (Cinema Matrix + Cine1 Gamma, etc). All footage was shot at 1080/24p HQ-mode. Other Picture Profile settings like Black levels and Detail enhancement were at 0 or factory defaults. The following 40MB zip archive contains 16 full-resolution uncompressed TIF frames exported directly from the FCP 6.0.2 timeline.
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Thanks again to both DSC Labs and Midtown Video for making this EX1 test series possible. Stay tuned here or at our EX1 link page for more test results.

10 Responses to “XDCAM EX1 Hands-On – Gamma and Color Matrix Presets”  

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  1. 1 Sebastian Jan 7th, 2008 at 7:36 am

    Hello, i have to say your webpage is just great,

    i just wanted to ask you if you have allready been able of checking the ISO/ASA of this cam,
    Can you check as well the ISO/ASA with a 35mm adapter? lets say like the letus extreme for example.

    this would be very cool…thx a lot and keep with the cool work.-..
    sebastian

  2. 2 Matthew Jeppsen Jan 7th, 2008 at 7:46 am

    Thanks Sebastian. Sorry to say that I did not have a light meter available for this test, and therefore could not rate the camcorder’s native ISO.

    -Matt Jeppsen

  3. 3 Sebastian Jan 7th, 2008 at 7:54 am

    oh, ok no problem, but thx for your answer anyway.-… if you have the chance to do it someday that would be cool.

    thx again.
    sebastian

  4. 4 Christopher Barry Jan 7th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

    Matt, very helpful information. With so many other adjustable settings in camera, it should provide endless hours of tweaking/exploring. Thanks for the files, exactly what I wanted to do myself with the Kodak Color Seperation Guide and Gray scale strips. DSC Labs charts, nice!

  5. 5 corky miller Jan 8th, 2008 at 8:39 am

    Thanks for this very helpful testing Matt. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind posting some conclusions about the resolution and color testing
    results for those of us that don’t quite have the technical knowledge to interpret the results.

    Thanks,

    corky miller

  6. 6 pingu2k Jan 8th, 2008 at 9:40 am

    I agree, an interpretation would be quite good… :)

  7. 7 Kendal Miller Jan 8th, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    I believe, correct me if I’m wrong Matt, but we will be publishing a comprehensive written review of the camera which will feature Matt’s thoughts and comclusions at that time so stay tuned.

  8. 8 Matthew Jeppsen Jan 8th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    You are correct.

    -Matt Jeppsen

  9. 9 pingu2k Jan 9th, 2008 at 8:19 am

    fine – i’ll be patient :)

  10. 10 Kendal Miller Jan 9th, 2008 at 9:12 am

    We also just recorded a pretty comprehensive podcast last night covering the ins and outs of the Sony EX1 so we should have that up here shortly.