This article (below) brings up some serious issues with the rolling shutters used by CMOS cameras. Does anyone know whether the EX1 uses a rolling shutter?

http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/

Juan Martinez of Sony said the electronics behind the CMOS chip scan it top to bottom rather than across eliminating any rolling shutter (maybe really minimizing it's likelihood). Apparently it's being done differently in the EX1 than in say the V1.

I think the EX does use a rolling shutter, but there is a great deal of variation between rolling shutter implementations on differing cameras. The article puts the principles well, but a lot depends (like any shutter) on the speed at which it operates - a handheld still camera may show bad camera shake at 1/12s, but little at 1/125s, for example, and the same principle holds true here. By and large, the speed will be proportional to price.

Hence, the issues may well be serious with some CMOS cameras, but don't seem to be with others - Red also uses a rolling shutter.

Juan Martinez of Sony said the electronics behind the CMOS chip scan it top to bottom rather than across eliminating any rolling shutter (maybe really minimizing it's likelihood). Apparently it's being done differently in the EX1 than in say the V1.

Craig, can you expand this? Does this mean the EX1 CMOS scans a whole line at a time, or other method? If Sony is improving on a known issue with CMOS, rolling shutter, this is a good thing. Craig, thank you.

I'd hate to misqoute him but he didn't even need to wait for the question. Some of his presentation was specifically addressed at some criticism they've been getting about the technology ranging from 4:2:0 to CMOS rolling shutter. He had a Power Point slide at may have been referring to the speed at which the AD converters moves through the lines compared to the CMOS gathering info.

Basically he said you shouldn't see any skewing.

Seeing would be believing though. One might consider shooting out the window of a high speed train as it passes trees.

Thanks Craig. Questions and answers. Not long now, and the footage will start to flow...

I shot a police car at a traffic stop tonight with the EX1, and noted the same strobe light rolling shutter issue that has been spotted in Red One footage.

http://www.freshdv.com/2007/12/xdcam-ex1-cmos-rolling-shutter-strobe-artifacts.html

Will post some rolling shutter skew tests soon.

Hi Matt.

I just posted in another thread http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=111217
that switching the shutter off seems to stop the effect (at least with flash guns). Could you not just turn off the shutter for that type of shot?

regards

Paul.

Thank you for that heads up, Paul. I'll test that out with a DSLR flash. Hopefully I can find another traffic stop as well for comparison.

I've tested the EX with a consumer still camera, and it still catches some of the flashes in all the modes with the shutter turned off. I updated my above-linked post on the topic with example framegrabs.