B&H currently has the PMW-EX1 and PMW-EX3 in stock for $6,099 and $8,320, respectively.

Digital video guru Adam Wilt has finished his review of the production XDCAM PMW-EX1. It was well worth the wait…Adam thoroughly covers all aspects of the camera system in his six-page article. He also addresses a number of areas that FreshDV wasn’t able to test in our own EX1 coverage, namely the native ISO rating and dynamic range of the camera. The ISO was determined to be ISO 400 in 1080p, ISO 800 in 1080i, and ISO 500 in 720p. Impressive numbers. Furthermore, Adam has rated the EX1 at 10 stops of latitude. T-E-N. This review confirms many of the findings in last fall’s pre-production prototype review (which we previously covered in this podcast interview). The camera is an amazing tool at this pricepoint. Here are a few short excerpts from Adam’s extensive review that caught my eye:

On resolution:
“This is one sharp camera. There’s nothing sharper in its class. Heck, there’s nothing equal to it in its class. In 1080p, that 1000 lines is visible in both H & V directions. In interlace, vertical detail drops to “only” 800 lines, since dual-row summation is used to avoid frame-rate twitter (a distracting flicker of thin lines that appear in only one field). In 720p modes, resolution drops to roughly 700 TVl/ph in both H & V, as it should. Sony’s downsampling to 720p effectively squashes any aliasing at the smaller frame size.”

On rolling shutter:
“I measured the delay between reading out the top of the image and the bottom at about 1/60 sec in 60Hz mode, and 1/50 in 50Hz mode, regardless of frame rate. Thus 25p frames suffer a 1/50 sec top-to-bottom delay, and 24p frames take 1/60 sec. Thus “rolling shutter” artifacts are no worse at film frame rates than at the maximum frame rate for the camera’s country mode.”

On full-raster imagers:
“…the EX1 captures and records a true, square-pixel 1920×1080 image, with no single-sensor (Bayer mask) artifacts. There are two other camcorders that can make the same claim: the $48,000 Panasonic HPX3000, and the $180,000 Sony F23. True, both of those camcorders offer better lens options, less compression, 10-bit recording, and 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color sampling, but they do cost a wee bit more than the $7790 (list price) EX1, and besides, the EX1 comes with a lens at no additional cost.”

You’ll want to read on for many many more details and Adam’s final conclusions. This is an excellent review of the EX1 by one of the most respected names in the industry.

B&H currently has the PMW-EX1 and PMW-EX3 in stock for $6,099 and $8,320, respectively. Purchases made via those links help support this site.