EX3 Timelapse Lightning

[Alister Chapman]

Hello all. My adventures chasing storms in Arizona continues. We had some very good storms today with lots of lightning. I did a long timelapse session shooting at 1 frame per second using the 32 frame shutter and I'm really pleased with the results.

http://www.vimeo.com/1452056

[Steven Thomas]

Nice work Alister.

BTW, how's the AZ heat treating you. LOL.

[Alister Chapman]

Back home now but it was kind of like walking in to a blast furnace!

[Alister Chapman]

Having looked back through all my footage from Arizona I have come to the following conclusions.

The overall picture quality from the EX3 is very very good, especially when used with good quality HD lenses. The EX3 is not as portable as the EX1 but more portable than most traditional full size cameras. The colour LCD is a delight to use. The button and switch placement is an improvement over the EX1.

I used the EX3 in 110 degree hot sun in Arizona, on a rain soaked beach in 100% humidity in Florida, took 8 flights and travelled over 11,000 miles and it didn't miss a beat. While it is perhaps not the best camera for shooting lightning it did a pretty respectable job. Careful shutter speed selection helps to all but eliminate any split screen effects caused by the CMOS sensor. The effect is apparent on some of my lightning shots, but the vast majority are perfectly useable. The excellent low light performance compensates for the rolling shutter artifacts, in that I was able to get night time shots filmed under street lighting that I could not get with my F350.

There are things I would like to see, in particular a stronger tripod mount. If you start using bigger or heavier lenses your going to have to look at some sort of rail system with a beefy tripod mount as the single 1/4" screw mount is not really up to the job and the camera wobbles around a bit. It is a shame that Sony did not build in a small speaker into the cheek support for audio monitoring, but hat should be an easy mod for home-brewers.

It doesn't feel as robust as my EX1, but I didn't exactly treat it gently, throwing it in the back of cars, on and off planes, filmed in the rain and blowing dust, yet nothing broke.

Overall it represents amazing value for money, offering great flexibility and picture quality. I think paired with a flash XDR it will be hard to beat.

[Arild Pedersen]

I have tried the TLS-vct14 adapter plate. Very stable. Drawback is that the Sony VCT14 is a little bit heavy!
Got mine from
http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/publi..._vct14-adapter

[Alister Chapman]

The adapter plate is certainly something to be looked at, but the camera would still only be attached by the single 1/4 screw to the adapter plate so without some other additional support it would be no more stable. I'm having a plate made that will incorporate a sony style wedge and will attach to the EX3 via the 1/4 tripod screw and the 2 mounting bushes under the shoulder pad.