It’s been over 6 months since I last posted on SDHC solutions for the Sony EX1 and EX3. However recent events in an industry forum have prompted me to write once again to give assistance to people not familiar with the issues surrounding this acquisition method. We’re also now in a brave new world where SDHC is officially supported under the latest Sony firmware.

An SxS card and two MxM lockable adaptors with Class 6 and Class 10 ATP Pro Max 16gb SDHC cards.

Although the new firmware revisions allow reliable shooting on SDHC, not all SDHC media is born equal. I’ve heard alarming accounts of people just buying any media that comes to hand. I’m also still hearing reports of people using Transcend cards that are failing. Let me just re-iterate a few key points:

• Not all SDHC media is equal, despite what the class rating system might have you believe
• Transcend Class 6 16GB cards acquired after around May 2009 are not to be trusted no matter how long you have been using them for when used in the EX series.
• Only use recommended SDHC media or you will come to grief.
• Update your camera with the latest firmware.
• If possible, only buy the lockable SDHC adaptors. This prevents problems in the field.
• Buy one adaptor per card. Treat them as one combination.

Transcend 16gb cards are best avoided for EX cameras if produced after Spring 2009. The ATP cards seem to be reliable and are produced to a higher specification.

The Transcend Issue

These cards were once the darling of the Sony EX SDHC community. Cheap, easily obtainable and reliable. However something appears to have changed in the manufacturing process from Spring 2009 onwards. Corrupted clips and lost footage have caused problems for many users including myself. My advice is to avoid these cards. Just a day before writing this a cameraman on a forum I frequent had lost footage on a Transcend card,. He went on a reshoot with another Transcend card and lost that footage as well. The cards had been working fine before then. My own experience was less severe and only resulted in a few seconds of corrupted footage but it was enough to convince me there was a problem. While the cards are fine for lower bitrate consumer use, there does appear to be an issue with the EX series which uses a high bitrate.

Firmware

Get your camera onto the latest firmware as soon as possible. Its a fairly easy upgrade if you follow the instructions and improves SDHC handing in the cameras.

Media

SDHC cards are rated in terms of Class, and Class 6 and 10 are fine for the EX cameras. However this system only measures raw speed. Data retention, resistance to static discharge and a variety of other operating parameters are ignored. There is a reason why the ATP and Sandisk cards cost far more than other media and it’s simply that they are better. The ATP cards for example have high resistance to static discharge and are only produced from a single factory (not just sourced from the cheapest factory at a given time). These cards are what I choose to shoot on. Realistically, there is only ATP and Sandisk to choose from and although other cards may work they are mostly unproven.

16GB or 32GB

Tough one. Personally I’m happier just having 16GB cards just in case something did go wrong. I’m not necessarily talking failure, but what happens if a card gets stolen or lost? Less eggs in one basket.

Adaptors

The MxM lockable adaptors are ideal as the older open adaptors make it perfectly possible to accidentally eject a card when in the field. I just enjoy being able to use the combo exactly as I would an SxS card.

But SxS is better right?

Perhaps. But if you Google you’ll find many people having problems with SxS, not withstanding the fact that many SDHC and SxS problems are down to user error. For example, I was just reading a tale of someone trashing his SxS by fiddling with the cache record settings when the camera was live. Reports of SDHC problems are also distorted by people using the wrong types of card and user error. Take all the distortions out and, broadly speaking, both solutions are reliable. And remember, all flash memory can fail just as all hard disks can fail.

Media Choice

For my money the ATP cards in an MxM adaptor is the only option to consider. I’ve now been operating this combination since September of 2009 without any issues. The ATP cards are harder to get hold of but they seem to be worth it. There is now a transition to Class 10 cards which are even faster. While I only have one of these cards, so far it seems to be reliable and works fine. There are also the high end Sandisk class 10 cards to consider but I have not tested these to date. Others report good things but it wouldn’t be right for me to recommend something I haven’t used myself.

Other media can be used, but you must be sure it is fast enough and reliable enough. There is good reason why the ATP and Sandisk cards cost considerably more than standard class 6 and class 10 cards. A cheap card from a camera shop may get you out of a hole during a shoot, but just as in the days of shooting DV, would you be happy shooting on cheap consumer DV tape rather than Sony premium stock all of the time?

You can purchase the MxM adaptor and ATP class 10 cards here - MxM and ATP adaptor combo.

ProAV in the UK also have some Class 6 16gb ATP cards in stock.

Sandisk cards are widely available from a number of retailers including Amazon. I hear good things about these cards but have not tested one myself.

The usual caveats apply. You need to understand that you must have the right type of card and adaptor in the camera and that mishandling a card (for example turning the camera off while recording) is likely to result in data corruption no matter what media you use. If you have any doubts, use SxS. However I and many others have found the ATP cards stable and reliable when used in the MxM adaptor. Your own milage may vary and it is purely your own responsibility if you choose to shoot on SDHC.

Back when we were shooting SD, if we needed a small second camera on location then the Sony PDX-10 was ideal. Given enough light it would happily intercut with PD170 or even SD Z1 footage.

However with the move to HD and shooting primarily on the Sony EX1, our trusty PDX-10 hasn’t found much use. But the need for a small second camera hasn’t gone away. In fact our requirements have made it necessary to seek a camera that is much smaller than the PDX10, the ideal being something so small it could slip into the same bag as the EX1. It also needed to be inexpensive enough to put it into situations where a larger camera might be at risk, or for discreet shooting.

Sure there are plenty of consumer cameras around, but lets face it most of them put out a fairly grotty image. Cheap lenses and build quality that wouldn’t stand up to the vigours of a professional environment.

I’d been hearing good things about some of the Canon Legria cameras (Vixia in the USA) and finally settled on the HFS11 after reading the opinions of some fellow professionals. I duly ordered up a unit for a shade over £900. Even at that price I wasn’t expecting much.

The first thing that strikes you is the size. The unit is tiny and weighs less than one of the batteries from our EX1. This means that even when placed in its own case it will slip in a camerabag with a larger camera with ease.

Size comparison of the Canon against a Sony EX1

The camera does have a fairly full compliment of manual controls, however only one of them can be controlled at a time via a custom wheel. So if you want to flip from exposure (which I’m pretty sure is actually gain rather than a proper iris) to focus then you find yourself using the joystick to a select the option before you can access it. In practice for run and gun work the best results seem to be achieved by leaving the focus on auto and having manual exposure control. For situations where the camera is on a tripod you can select manual focus and spend a few seconds setting it as it’s not as instinctive as a proper focus ring and can be on the fiddly side.

This shot has been downconverted to 720p in Final Cut Pro and then a minor amount of colour correction has been added. A polarizer was used on the camera. Click here for the full 720p shot.

Speaking of exposure there is a zebra of sorts. Only for 100% and it cannot be customised but this is still a godsend on a domestic unit. Combined with the manual exposure this grants you a great deal of control over your image.

There are other nice touches such as a 3 second pre-record, an automatic lens cap, a built in video light and a comprehensive menu system. You can also control the amount of gain the camera will automatically apply in darker locations or even turn the automatic gain off completely.

However one professional feature that is missing is the ability to swap between 50i and 60i. Your camera will be locked to the region it originated in. So you can’t “go native” if shooting in NTSC countries, but also means you will need to be wary of grey imports when buying the camera. I did speak to one supplier who was selling cameras that were significantly cheaper than other companies. When pushed his response was “but TV’s these days can play 60i so what’s the issue?”, which was astonishing frankly. So do check before purchasing.

The camera shoots onto SDHC media although it does come with 64gb of built in memory. Professionals will probably be more comfortable shooting onto their own SDHC media as you can simply plug it straight into your computer instead of messing around with USB cables. However the camera does have a facility that allows you to copy your footage from the internal memory onto SDHC which could be convenient for creating backups on location.

A section of image of a train passing the camera while in 1080p mode. Faint interlacing lines can be seen on the trains edges which betray the fact that something odd is going on. The image has not been resized.

One of the attractions of the camera was that it claimed to be able to shoot 1080p. The good news is that this is indeed the case, the bad news is that on closer inspection faint interlacing artefacts are visible on some edges. Investigation reveals that although the camera is indeed shooting progressive, it then inexplicably encodes it as an interlaced image. This in turn appears to be creating artefacts on the image. Why on earth Canon have designed the camera like this is anyones guess, but in effect it means you would be better off shooting 1080i and then doing a conversion in Compressor or your editing package. While the progressive output may impress the consumer, it is worse than useless for professionals.

The camera has a 3.5mm jack for a mic input. However be warned that the hotshoe is a non standard Canon type. Adaptors can be purchased from the splendid B Hague who will sell you a custom made adaptor that converts the Canon into something standard:

http://www.cameragrip.co.uk/acatalog/info_430.html

So what does the output look like? Well it’s surprisingly good given enough light. The camera is so small I’ve been able to take it on cycle rides and have been able to use it in a variety of situations. Yes the domestic lens lets it down and don’t expect to be able to use the zoom during shots, but in general it’s good. The AVCHD codec copes with challenging material such as a field of crops swaying in the wind without breaking up. The biggest giveaway on the footage is the fact the camera is so small it’s very hard to keep it steady when it is handheld. The image stabilisation is good at times and over enthusiastic at others but for the professional it can be counterintuitive and certainly needs to be fully turned off when on a tripod or you start to get some very odd looking results.

Shallow depth of field shots can be achieved with the camera. - Click here for full HD grab (has not been deinterlaced!)

Shallow depth of field shots can also be achieved which surprised me for such a small sensor. However the lack of an iris means that in practice you have little control over such shots.

In terms of mixing the output with other cameras although the camera shoots 1080i, it seems to look better when downconverted onto a 720p timeline. You can of course include it on 1080i or 1080p timelines but I feel the cameras shortcomings will be more evident. That said it depends on what kind of shot you have planned.

The AVCHD codec retains detail well, although as with all 4:2:0 codecs, blocking is evident on reds. Click here for full 1080p image (not de-interlaced so there are artefacts on the tractor)

This is not a camera to shoot an entire production on, but rather one that you will obtain one or two shots on that will be dropped into the timeline. As such it gives you the size of a discreet domestic camera, but with a picture quality that looks respectable. For the size it really is a marvel and I have to say I’ve found the camera extremely liberating. It opens up a number of shooting possibilities and with the addition of a wide angle adaptor this really is a useful little tool that we intend to put to good use here at Media2u.

Advantages:

• Tiny size
• Decent image quality
• Manual controls
• Zebra
• Removable SDHC media and generous internal memory

Disadvantages:

• Manual Controls can be fiddly
• Interlacing artefacts render the progressive shooting mode pointless.
• Narrow camcorder feel to lens
• Non standard hot shoe
• Need to make sure you can handle AVCHD
• Locked to either 50i or 60i regions. No option to swap.