[MacDV] Sony HVRZ1U Impressions

[Richard Brown]

I just wrapped episode one of the new reality show "Shut Up and Model!" 
as director/d.p. where we used five Sony HVR-Z1U cameras (two on 
Sachtler DV14's, one on the Steadicam Flyer, two handheld) and, with 
five operators reporting, have found some serious issues with the 
camera:

1) The camera cannot find focus in autofocus properly... rather than 
weighting autofocus to the central area of the frame, the camera very 
often ONLY focuses on the area of brightest contrast... then, worse...

2) In manual focus, the focus drifts... this was terribly evident in 
certain studio situations with sit down talking head interviews... no 
subject nor camera motion, BUT the focus would just drift.

3) White Balancing: the camera can be truly messed up as the white 
balance memory gets easily boggled, where the camera cannot take a new 
white balance without resetting the camera first. It just stays stuck 
in a previous white balance "forever." In essence, it may be best to 
simply USE the defaults, being careful to set the color temperature 
(which is in a MENU rather than a switch!) when moving between daylight 
and tungsten, for example.

4) The MPEG compression adds granular noise to all things in all 
lighting conditions.

The next phase: POST, starts today... with only 15 terabytes on our FCP 
SAN, we will have to offline first as there is too much footage. We 
will use DV translation, then redigitize after the rough cut is done.  
The curious issue: can the HVR-Z1U's footage be post-corrected without 
image devastation? With known issues of camera color mismatches, we 
will be finding out the deal very soon.

Will report here.