PMW-350 was in town

[Paul Cronin]

Thank you Alister, look forward to and appreciate your input. I know you will setup for the widest latitude profile. Happy to discuss it here and on your site. And to do what ever testing is needed to help in any way. Will start putting the camera to work 10 days after arrival so that give some time for me to help dial this in.

David you beat me to it on the difference in chip size making the focal lengths the same. For the price the stock lens is worth it IMHO. But nice glass will make the camera shine.

Stephan this is one of the great features with the 2/3" camera the wide angle, long lens, stability lens, scope lens options are huge. So if you do need a wide lens for most of your shooting you will have a chance to rent for the job an pick the right one prior to purchase if you need to purchase. At 1100 vertical lines you do not want to use a cheap lens. Nice glass is always expensive and with HD-SDI out to the Nano you should not skimp on the glass.

[Alister Chapman]

I really was surprised by how well the kit lens performed. We briefly compared it against a Canon HJ11. I could not see any real difference in contrast or resolution, however it was not a proper test, just a quick lens swap. If you get the digital extender option on the PMW-350 then the 16x8 kit lens will cover most bases. A decent wide like the HJ11 would be nice to have, but they don't come cheap.

[Paul Cronin]

I am with you Thierry what is the Digital Extender options?

[Thierry Humeau]

Digital extender option??? I thought it was part of the standard features set on the PMW-350.

Thierry.

[Gabor Heeres]

Creative Video Canon Authorised Dealers > USED Canon J9AX5.2B4 IRS SD broadcast Super Wide Angle B4 mount zoom lens with 2X extender

What about this SD lens on the PMW-350? Stupid idea? How will it perform on the PMW-350 as long as running it in SD-mode? How will it perform if you run in HD occesionally? Although it is second hand, it's a not too expensive allround workhorse in ENG-work.

[Stephan Hubenthal]

Originally Posted by David Heath

They did (for all practical purposes). Are you making allowance for the differing chip sizes? An 8mm focal length with 2/3" chips corresponds very closely with 5.8mm and 1/2" chips..

If I was wrong - great!

Anybody out there who can approve (by looking through the VF/LCD) that the kit-lens is about as wide as the EX1-lens?

That would be realy good news!

Stephan

[Alister Chapman]

The Digital Extender will come as an upgrade option via the 50 pin expansion slot in Autumn 2010. It is not a standard item.

SD lenses will be fine for SD and in many cases acceptable for occasional HD use. Actual lens performance is difficult to predict and will vary from lens to lens even within the same product line. I've found that some top end SD lenses will often out perform a low end HD lens, best thing is to try before you buy. To take advantage of the ALAC (auto lens aberration correction) you will need a recent model HD lens.

The kit lens is 8mm fully wide which is the 35mm equivalent to a 31.5mm lens. The EX is 5.3mm fully wide which is equivalent to 31.4mm. So the short answer is pretty much the same at the wide end.

[Stephan Hubenthal]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

The kit lens is 8mm fully wide which is the 35mm equivalent to a 31.5mm lens. The EX is 5.3mm fully wide which is equivalent to 31.4mm. So the short answer is pretty much the same at the wide end.

Thank you Alister,

do you then then see any reason not to trade in a PDW-330 with the Fujinon 18x5.5 lens for a PMW-350 with the kit lens?

Do you have an idea in terms of a price, that I could ask for my camera?

Thanks

Stephan

[Alister Chapman]

There are three things to consider before you trade in an F330.

1: Do you need to hand clients rushes directly from the camera?
2: Do you shoot under strobe lightning or flash photography regularly?
3: Have you considered the initial outlay on SxS cards etc and looked at your end to end workflow.

1 can be got around, possibly by shooting on Memory sticks, but some clients will want to walk away with a disc.
2 flash band/Partial frame brightening can be a problem, you can sort most problematic clips out in clip browser, but you do need to be aware of the issue.
3 has to be considered, but over 2 years of using EX's I have saved money on recording media. My end to end workflow is fast and efficient and backups are just a regular part of my workflow.


Other than that I don't think you will look back. It is a quite considerable leap in picture quality, sensitivity and usability from a F330 to PMW-350. You'll love the viewfinder, the light weight and low power consumption too.

[Stephan Hubenthal]

Thanks a lot Alister,

now I know that you are NOT (sorry - that was a typo!) "owned and run by Sony" ;-)

It is as you said, after becoming friends with EX1 I developped an archival method proving to be quite efficient. (working for XDCAM HD too) And indeed, I have spend lots of bucks (Euros) on XDCAM-Disks.

And I did spend another two tons of Euro on an additional 2" 16/9 VF for my PDW-330.

I don't need to rush my disks to my clients.

I did not have flash-problems in the past. But I thought those were cured by the recent Sony clip bowser anyhow? (Of course this might lead to a time problem, if you were working as an ENG-team)

May I dare to repeat my question: Do see a chance that I can sell my PDW-gear for a reasonable price?

Stephan

And: Does the Fujinon-zoom-remote for broadcast lenses work on the PMW-350-kit-lens?

[Paul Cronin]

Alister did I read you archive your EX to Blu-Ray? I read Blu-Ray has a short shelf life 7-9 years. Why don't you archive to Sony Optical Disk since you use it on your 700? I am going to start this method since I will have the option to delivery a XDCAM 422 50Mbps timeline on the disk and also use Clip Browser to load Nano files. The disk are similar price to two hard drives which we know is not the way to go.

[Alister Chapman]

I use a mix of medium for archive. Initially everything goes on to a pair of USB hard drives and most of the footage stays on hard drives which I beleive should in most cases be good for 4 or 5 years. Anything that I need to keep for longer goes on Blu-ray discs and the footage that goes in to my stock footage library or I consider valuable or need to keep for a long period goes on to Sony Professional Disc (XDCAM discs).
Good quality Bluray discs should last for 10 years or more, the key is to finding a good brand.

In the UK it is difficult to get good money for PDW-F330/F335 etc. Many dealers still have stock of these cameras which they are selling for as little as 8,000 euros, used F330's are being sold for as little as 4,500 euros. F350/F355's get around 10,000 euros new and 6,000 used.

[Paul Cronin]

Thanks Alister makes sense the footage that counts is on the Sony Optical disk. I have had three Blu-Ray disk fail i the last two years so I don't trust them. They were Verbatim 25GB 4x.

[Uli Mors]

I´ll have a face-to-face date with the pmw350 tomorrow. Hope not to fall too much in love, my bank account will not like a new love affair... ;-)

Uli