Sony PMW EX1 vs Panasonic TM900

The purpose of this short clip is to show how the Panasonic TM900 stacks up against a professional camera in outdoor lighting. I admit, comparing the Panasonic TM900 to a Sony PMW EX1 is like comparing potatoes to oranges. Considering the two cameras are in completely different classes, I think the TM900 didn't do too bad keeping in mind the EX1 is 7x the cost.

That being said, the biggest complaint I have with the TM900 is the slight red color cast. If you manually white balance using a white card you get much better results. I selected the manual white balance/direct sunlight mode. The footage was shot at about 5 PM which may explain the red color cast. The other issue I have with the TM900 is the preset white balance settings.
The preset white balance modes seem to be slightly off. I would recommend carrying a piece of white paper in your pocket and manually white balancing when possible.

The other thing worth mentioning about the TM900 is it performs poorly in mixed lighting situations, but what camera doesn't? However, I think there is room for improvement.

The Sony footage was shot on a different day at about 2 PM with a custom picture profile and white balance set to 5600 k. The image quality was a lot better which was expected. In both cases, I wasn't overly fussy setting up either camera. My original intent was not an image comparison between 2 cameras. I just wanted to see how they would import into Premier CS4 on the same timeline.

If I were to give Panasonic a thumbs down for anything it would be the 1080/60p mode which I find to be basically useless because it is a pain to edit and I don't plan on watching all my video with the camera hooked up to my television. Converting 60p footage to 30p tosses out every other frame and produces a mediocre video with fast moving subjects. I would rather Panasonic did away with that in just offered up a native 30p instead. The TM900 does have a 24p mode and the 30p mode is converted 60i from what I can tell from the sparse technical specifications.

The other weak point of this camera is the poor audio quality, particularly if you use the camera in Intelligent Auto mode because it sets the internal mic to surround sound and turns on auto gain. If you are wearing headphones, you WILL hear the fan. In manual you have options of how the internal mic picks up sound (focus, zoom stereo, surround) and you can adjust the gain and bass response to cut down the fan noise.

Another note on audio; I hooked up high quality wireless lav and handheld omni mics and the sound was pretty good considering the VU meter isn't all that great. It was a little hard to set the level where I like it.

The bottom line is this is a very good consumer camera that doesn't quite cross the line into the prosumer category. If you are used to shooting in manual mode you have decent control over image quality. Manual operation is made simple with focus assist (peaking), zebras, luminosity measurement and histogram display once you get used to using the touch screen, function button and function ring.

Don't get me wrong, the TM900 is a great camera and my top pick in this price range.

I hope you find this helpful and if you have any questions I will be glad to give you my honest opinion.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Sony
• PMW
• EX1
• vs
• Panasonic
• TM900

[Yavor54]

If I didn't know better!.. Of course, the ex-1 shines at night.

[ecoguy30]

@Yavor54 yeah there is no comparison in low light ... but the TM900 does a nice job and is small enough to carry around and still deliver sgood results when I don't want to carry the EX-1 around.

[ecoguy30]

it's a pile of dirt next to the highway in Southern New Hampshire ... I wish it was someplace more exotic

[freestylerMaarten]

can you set this clips on your computer and just editing with it like sony vegas pro ? becaus i heart there where some problems with the files of the came?

[terrormax01]

The images of the Panasonic looks sharper to me....

So I like the Panasonic in this video more than the Sony..

[n6ooi]

The TM900 is a fantastic camera for the money, nothing else comes close to the picture quality in that price range, the EX1 footage can be inter cut with tm900 footage with no problem for day light or a well lit scene, i`m starting to see this more and more, for low light at 24p do not go above 9db gain and you will have a wonderful low noise image with little noise processing in post, I just got a hdc-sdt750 witch is the same camera but with the 3d lens, I`m a sony man, but can`t beat this.

[bubbah]

The TM99 appears to show scan lines? Did you film it in 50i or 60i rather than 50p or 60p?

[blitzkrieg969]

hey buddy great shots. Where is this place?