A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to try out a new "high-end" pro camera from Sony called the PMW-500.  There would be only one of these cameras in the United States and after listening to a brief description of the camera's capabilities, I jumped at the opportunity.

The camera is the top end of Sony's Cine Alta line of XDCAM, memory card based cameras and a big brother to my EX1 and EX3 cameras.

I'll spare you a ton of technical detail about the camera except to say that it it is a full size shoulder mount with interchangeable lenses.  It uses a 2/3 CCD imaging chip and outputs 4:2:2 50 megabit files that can be recorded on an SxS data card.  Although I consider myself a fairly decent image maker, I'm not much of an electrical engineer, but like gravity, I can't explain it, but I know it works and how to use it. 

To learn more about the technical specs of this camera you can look right here.  Sony_PMW-500  

If like me, you've used a camera like the EX3, you know that 50 megabit recording and 4:2:2 color space is important and a big leap forward in quality.   I had recently purchased a NanoFlash recording device for just that reason.  To tap the superior quality that the HD-SDI output of the camera supplies, before it is "dumb-down" within the camera's recording process.

So here was the deal:
1) I would only have a weekend with the camera.
2) I could not tell anyone any details about the camera.
3) It was a pre-production model, so there might still be a bug or two in it that needs to be worked out.
4) I would report my impressions honestly, positive or negative.
5) I could film anything that I wanted.

Of course,  I pointed it towards New York.

The camera was supplied with a beautiful zoom lens from Canon with a 2x lever that allowed me to double the focal length of the lens at any time.  The lens was sharp with excellent contrast and it gave me a brilliant range of focal length options, from very wide to extreme telephoto.

It's funny how Canon and Sony might be fierce competitors in one arena and the perfect match in another.

The first day, I filmed from pre-dawn until midnight targeting the types of issues that plague my current camera which is mainly lack of deep blacks and digital noise in low light. I

From the first moment I looked through the monitor is like  "Damn!  My EX3 is dog compared to this!"

It's like, being really happy with your well tuned, little VW or Nissan and then you sit down in a Mercedes or a BMW and pffftttt... it's all over.

That's the feeling I got with the PMW-500.  So, I immediately took the camera out to the streets and tested it under the conditions that give me the most problems with my current equipment.

Shooting directly into the sun is a problem for most any camera, but an extreme issue for a video camera, so I started there.  In my previous blog I refer to three intensive days of shooting and I was slyly using the PMW-500 to get all of my images.  So, starting in Hoboken at first light,  I filmed the sun rising just to the left of the Chrysler Building.  The detail in the image was phenomenal.  The camera's imager held the subtle tones of the morning mist hanging over the city.  Breathtaking.

As a side note to this experiment: The zoom range of the Canon lens allowed me to pick off details while the subject remained far off in the distance.  Using a telephoto lens in such a way compresses the subject and its background, often pushing them together in a unique way.  The ship cruise ship below was still a mile or two away when I first shot it in front of the financial end district of lower Manhattan.  Even with the haze and contrasty early morning light, the camera delivered excellent tonal quality and blacks.

The camera is supplied without a lens and if you don't already own one, you might be in for some sticker shock when you first open the lens catalogs from a few different manufacturers out there, but like anything else in this business, you have to spend it to make it and a good lens will last for years to come.

The next morning I hopped into the city to get a few early morning shots of streets and buildings.  Normally, much of the filming that I am doing around New York City is for Getty Images and I may not see an immediate financial return on my images for a while, so I am careful to be prudent with my expenses.   Filming in the city before and after parking restriction hours has saved me hundreds of dollars and when I do have to pay for parking, a little advance research will find the cheapest parking lots in the areas that I intend to film in.  

Even with all its sophisticated electronics, the camera was very simple to operate.  All of the controls were found in their traditional locations.  White balance, gain, time code setting, all the same as a traditional Betacam setup.  That's one thing I really like about the Sony professional products that I've owned and used over the years.  When things are working right, they leave it alone and only make improvements of the things that really need it. 

My tests included extreme contrasts in lighting, deep shadows and camera response time.  All passed with flying colors.  Their was no noise in any of the images shot at -3db and 0db gain.  The blacks were deep and rich while still holding detail.  This was the same in bright light and very low light.  Very nice.   

Unlike the EX3, the camera was ready to use in seconds.  The black and white viewfinder was bright, contrasty and sharp making fine focusing a breeze, even at long lens settings.

This prototype PMW-500 was supplied with 3 nickel-metal hydride batteries and although I carried all three with me, I only used one in over 5 hours of having the camera on and shooting, so power consumption was very low.    

Back at home, I was able to download my clips as native .mxf files right off the card to use them in my Avid Media Composer and by using the XDCAM transfer software, it was easy to open them as .mov files for use in Final Cut Pro.    The 4:2:2 quality was immediately apparent in the deep blacks and color saturation of my images.  Furthermore, the images held up better to color correction, yielding much less noise than usual in both Avid and FCP.

Again, for more detailed information on the technical specifications of this camera, you'd only need to do a quick web search and you'll be flooded with information.

As for me, some people can fix guitars and some can play em'.  I can't do either, but with this camera in my hands, I was able to create some spectacular images.  I want one!

The Crazy Duck Website
Chuck's Photography Website
Chuck's interview with Sony
Chuck as a featured DP on Sony's VideOn Network