New Owner's First Impressions: Phil Rogers
submitted by e-mail -- reprinted with permission

After leaving the coccoon of industrial television and returning to the freelance world, the first thing I needed was a camera.  Unfortunately neither my beautiful old Bolex and Nagra recorder, nor the trusty Ikegami (Beta) would do, and I never much liked the industrial grade S-VHS camcorder inherited from an associate.

Since the market dictated prudence, my interest was much piqued by reports of small digital units which seemed perfect for my customer base.  Efforts to rent, beg, borrow or steal a Sony VX-1000 were fruitless and after a couple calls went unanswered, annoyance with the marketing group rose in direct proportion to the lengthening amount of time taken to return calls.

Panasonic proved more customer friendly, so I rented an AG-EZ1 and ran a hard test of cameras that I knew against the EZ1 by taping a mid-summer crew regatta with all three units.  Lots of glare off the water, extreme contrasts, plenty of motion (aluminum judges boats rank near the perigee of stability) in lots of different directions tested me and the cameras.

The EZ1 outperformed the S-VHS camcorder in every way imaginable, and was far more convenient to use than the old Ikegami prompting an immediate an order for one, and I have not been disappointed.  The EZ1 has been run hard for over 2 years, there are a lot of hours on the heads, it has been dropped a couple times, the power supply went into the pool, and once that dried out it worked just like new.

Somewhat later I had occasion to field test a VX-1000 and simply liked my EZ1 better. The EZ1 lacks the firewire option, but so few places have that capability that I find you pay a premium for that feature.  Furthermore working in the industrial world, my programs are long and non-linear editing is not efficient.  I still need to make time-code windows, shot logs, paper edits and compile EDLs before I ever go into the edit room; functions that do not require the IEEE 1394 protocol. For me, it falls into the "it might be nice to have category" but you can live without it!

The EZ1 and VX have electronic image stabilization and both are unsatisfactory especially on long elements.  You would do better to train yourself to use a Steadicam Jr., or get a decent body brace for the camera and prepare to work hard to stabilize the shots. An even better strategy is to plan your shots, instead of using EIS and "hosing down" the picture field with boring pans and wide shots.

The larger viewfinder on the Sony is more convenient most of the time, but not if you are outside and need to pull your eye away from the viewfinder. The EZ1 is far superior in that situation, and the viewfinder can be tilted almost 180 degrees so you can hold the camera overhead, or work extreme low angle shots more conveniently.

The IEEE 1394 protocol permits the Sony to be used as a recorder, and it also makes the unit extremely susceptible to ground loops if you are running off the AC power grid.  Add an outboard monitor so that your cameraman does not have to stay glued to the eyepiece for hours on end and you have the makings of an audio disaster because AC "hum" will run up the AC cord or through the composite video cable and into the audio track.  That hard lesson was learned by a major medical research firm that bought several Sonys for large meeting and did not bother to do a test record after hooking everything up. Tip #1: Use LCD monitors that run on a DC power supply.

To change functions, Panasonic has a lot of buttons that are annoyingly small while Sony uses a lot of menus.  Pick your poison, there are upsides and downsides to both methods. Audio monitoring could be better on the EZ1, but the camera was not designed for shooting features or broadcast "spots".  It is possible to get a small onboard mixer for either unit to record two channels of audio, but then you need a lot more hands or an audio man, and you have more wires hanging off the unit - a recipe for trouble if you are moving around.

Doing industrial video gives one an interesting perspective, the most common program is "The VP gets Interactive!".  This is familiar to all who have worked in industrial video. The program is designed to show the executive in a good light, some opening cheery "upbeat" music, a grand entrance with an elaborately produced slide or video show,  he or she then makes a presentation complete with a series of visuals, and finally takes  questions from the audience to complete his "connection".  Unfortunately the big wig usually arrives late, complains about the lights and the mics and make sure that eveyone knows how busy he really is.  Tip #2: Always hang extra lights that don't do much so you can shut a couple off when the client demands that you do.

He then finds a place out of the lights and whips out the viewgraphs.   When not leaning over the overhead projector and pointing at some unreadable text for emphasis (called "the Boy Scout Telling Horror Stories with a Flashlight Effect), he is turned to the screen to admire his work like an artist surveying a mural.  Invariably he does not have enough time to answer more than a couple (canned) questions.  Getting  audience or remote site audio into your camera is test of ingenuity and diligence. Tip #3: bring a mixer, cables and a couple "pads" no matter what the client says.  Besides, you get to bill them for that service!

For this kind of work you need a camera that handles extreme contrasts well, and since the subjects walk from light to dark and you are constantly moving the camera and changing aperture, you need a good auto focus.  The EZ1 autofocus works very well even when you pan from the guy in the shadows to the Power Point slides of charts that no one can read, and it handles extreme contrast far better than any low end unit and at least as well as most middle range analog cameras.  The only caveat is that the EZ1 will focus on a centered foreground object, making distant subjects "soft".  Tip #4: Ensure that you do not have someone centered in your sightline to the main speaker if you are in autofocus, and forget about EIS if you are operating in low light level.

How does the EZ1 perform in contrast to the XL1 ? After taking a spill during a construction shoot, the EZ1 had to be returned to the Service Center.  Before returning a couple weeks later I rented an XL1 because I wanted to stay in the mini-DV format, and I needed an extreme long shot from a nearby tower to frame the construction site. The shot had been captured with the EZ1 but the 20:1 electronic zoom was just not up to the task, and the 10:1 regular zoom did not provide enough detail.

Obviously Canon makes lenses, and while the large glass adds some weight, the trade-off for picture quality is worth every penny,  as is the small effort needed to carry this camera.  The 16:1 Canon zoom was far superior to the EZ1 10:1 zoom in clarity and detail, and just for my own curiosity I clicked in the 32:1 electronic zoom.  I got a significantly tighter shot, but was disappointed in the lower quality picture.  The lesson here is that there is no free ride. If you want to include long element shots, you need to get the correct lens settings, and there are still no adequate electronic substitutes for good glass and proper technique.

I found the various function buttons on the XL1 to be far more user friendly than the EZ1 and to be ergonomically correct. Someone did a lot of thinking about where the buttons needed to be placed!  The little shoulder pad that comes with the unit was a surprising disappointment given the care for industrial design shown on the camera body, and regretably the XL1 does not fit comfortably on my portabrace unit.

The ability to use different Neutral Density filters is a great advantage assuming that you are in a place where you can perform that sort of function easily and not drop a very expensive lens onto the concrete or into the water.  However, hitting a button on the XL1 and getting instant "ND" is a lot easier than trying to screw on a very finely threaded ND lens in the middle of a filthy and dusty construction site.  On the one hand, a choice of filters is nice if you have time; if you don't, then quickly do another white balance and correct the aperture and shutter speed.  Tip #6: Those "cliche" camermaman's vests are  very handy, and mini-DV cassettes fit nicely into those small pockets (get one with velcro tabs)!

The real question is do I like it enough to buy one? The answer is yes, my associate and I have placed an order and the EZ1 will be relegated to back-up work.

Phil Rogers
Tidewater Video
Digital Video Acquisition and
Digital Speech to Text Transcription Services

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Written by Phil Rogers
Thrown together by Chris Hurd