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My Morning
Originally uploaded by charlesdyer

A snapshot of my life at the moment. Please visit my Flickr account for more examples of my photographic skills.

I'm a Soundman

I've been lucky enough to be presented with the opportunity to be the sound-recordist for an independent documentary to be filmed at Cheltenham Town Hall. Yes, I've been known to record and edit some pretty good soundtracks in the past. That's all I'm going to say at the moment. Cheers for reading!

Sony XDCAM Range

After attending a 'Sony Experience', I'm now very pleased to reassure any prospective employers that I know how to use pretty much any Sony camera. As I suspected, the controls for all Sony cameras are laid out in pretty much the same way across the range. The controls of the Sony HDV-Z1E that I've used, pretty much match those on the PMW-EX1 and PMW-EX3.

However, for anyone that might have found my website looking for details of XDCAM range of cameras, I'll divulge you with the notes that I took from the event.

The entry level Sony PMW-EX1

• Fitted with a traditional manual iris ring, which can then be slid from the full manual position to the power-assisted and camera controlled position.
• 3x1.5 inch CMOS sensors.
• Very light (just as, if not lighter than the HDV-Z1E I've used). So light, in fact, that it's apparently possible to mount it on the end of a microphone boom pole.
• Records in MP4 format onto solid-state SxS flash memory cards, that closely resemble consumer compact flash cards (generally used in stills photography). The data compression rate allows you to get roughly 112mins of full HD footage onto a 32GB card.
• The obvious advantages of recording onto memory cards are that they are considerably more robust than traditional digital tape and, because there are no moving parts, parts do not wear out (saving considerable amounts on camera servicing). But perhaps the most influential advantage is that there is no need to capture footage in the post-production stage, as with traditional film and tape. Footage can literally be dragged and dropped into editing packages.
• SxS cards have particularly fast read/write speeds and have the VERY neat feature of being able to close active files, should there be some kind of system failure. They also fit standard ExpressCard slots, like those found on the Apple MacBook Pro. Capturing through an ExpressCard slot, you can import footage at roughly 8x real time.
• The camera also features a standard USB interface, which allows transfers at roughly 5x real time.
• Footage can be recalled and played back on the camera via a DVD menu style interface.
• Image peaking can be set to highlight in different colours than just the regular black and white.

In addition to all of the features of the EX1, The Sony PMW-EX3

• Features a monocular attachment to fit to the LCD display and an adjustable shoulder pad.
• Removable lenses with VERY short back-focus, allowing virtually any lens to be fitted with adapters.
• Similar in size to the Canon XL1.
• Gen lock.
• More connections (although I didn't pick up on all of them).

Both use the same Lithium Ion batteries as found in the HDV range, the standard battery offering recording times of roughly two hours and the optional PB60 offering four hours.

Both are fitted with high resolution LCD displays.

Both the Discovery Channel and National Geographic have already approved the PMW-EX1 and EX3 for broadcasting on their channels. Unfortunately, the BBC has more stringent requirements;

Whilst the BBC requires cameras to record HD footage at 50mbps, the EX1 only records at 35mpbs. However, by connecting a Nanoflash unit to the uncompressed video out socket, you can record at up to 100mbps, meaning that you can get a full HD broadcast-quality camera for as little as £6000.

The possibility of recording onto SD cards instead of SxS was also raised at the conference. Indeed, with unofficial adapters you can record onto SD cards, but they are apparently not nearly as reliable as the SxS cards. SD cards are likely to corrupt, whereas the SxS cards have the aforementioned built-in file recovery system. That said, some people might still opt for using SD cards just for the savings; an 8GB SxS card will set you back around £150 (although prices are apparently falling). An fairly decent SD card of the same capacity might only set you back as little as £10 (according to prices on Amazon at the time of writing).