Wow.

Yeah, I know, one-word-reviews just don’t cut it. But honestly, after a few days with Sony’s PMW-EX1 camera, that’s what I was left with. It’s not perfect- little in this business ever is- but what it does right, it does incredibly right.

The PMW-EX1 is something new at this price point- a camcorder that is unashamedly HD in every way. While it does feature 13 shooting formats, none of them is SD. There isn’t a broadcast HD format the EX1 hasn’t got covered, from high-quality 1920 x 1080 interlaced or progressive down to 1280 x 720p. The progressive modes feature either 29.97 or 23.98 framerates for those more "filmic" looks. It will even record in five PAL formats, with the requisite 50 or 25 fps.

The first thing any shooter used to 1/3-inch chip camcorders will notice is the return of the long-missing depth of field control. You wouldn’t think that the EX1’s 1/2-inch Exmor CMOS chips could possibly create that luscious sharp/soft contrast you see in bigger cameras, but they do, in conjunction with the Fujinon 5.8 to 81.2mm, f1.9 lens. This is the best non-removeable glass lens I have ever seen in any camera, period. And it is just about the equal of some much more expensive broadcast camera lenses. (There is even a graph in the viewfinder that approximates the current depth of field based on zoom and iris settings.) Shooters will applaud the return of actual, physical, non-computer-linked dials for focus, zoom and iris, and as an added bonus, the servo zoom pod/handle has a feature that’s rare, even on its big brother lenses: it rotates through a 120-degree arc to give your wrist a little relief. And your wrist is going to need it- but more on that later.

The EX1 is a new development for Sony. Over the past few years Sony left the "record-to-solid-state-memory" business to Panasonic’s P2 system. Those days are over, as the EX1 has no tape drive in it at all. It records to the inscrutably named "SxS" memory card (The company pronounces it "S-by-S." What does that mean?), which is based on the new ExpressCard standard for file transfers at up to 800 Mbps. The EX1 features two SxS card slots that, when filled with 8 GB cards, can hold 25 minutes of HQ-res footage per card. The capacity of the card increases at the lower quality levels or frame rates. Sony reps note that "altering the frame rate does not change the bit rate; in Variable Bit Rate mode, this is tied to the image complexity." For the record, the street price of the 8 GB card is $500, and larger capacities are on the way. Just as with the Panasonic P2, I have trouble with the whole idea of recording to media which you cannot affordably take out of the camera and leave on a shelf. I’ve talked this over with many colleagues, from fellow shooters to media librarians, and the reactions have ranged from "We have to archive EVERY FIELD TAPE FOREVER!" to "Once it’s edited, it’s done; who cares where the original goes?" I can’t quite get over my unease about saving to my hard drive (although you can always back it up to an inexpensive dual-layer DVD-R disc).

The rotating handgrip should be standard equipment on all cameras. Unfortunately, on the PMW-EX1, it doesn’t do much to make handheld operation any easier.

One nice- and very surprising- thing about the PMW-EX1 is the clean, uncluttered control layout. The swing-out LCD panel is remarkably bright and sharp.

The audio level control knobs are accessible without being too easy to turn inadvertently (although you really ought to cover them up with a piece of gaffers tape to be sure).

But, happily, a camera like the EX1 can help me rethink my fears. Other than some pronounced noise at the higher gain settings, I saw nothing in the EX1’s picture that I didn’t like. I shot test footage of my jet-black dog Zorro against our prodigious midwestern Winter 2008 snow under blinding sunlight, and with almost no tweaking I could get pictures that balanced the details of the dog’s curly fur and the grain of the snowbank behind him. More test footage at a bowling alley under mixed light showed a tendency towards warm tones- a rarity with a Sony camera, in my experience- and the under-lit situation (and large, sharp flip-out LCD monitor) allowed me to rack-focus back and forth with ease. Finally, footage at a skating rink (while on skates myself) captured vivid colors in a high-contrast, high-motion situation, with no visible motion artifacts.

Still, the camera has some issues. I mentioned earlier that your wrist will need relief. Well, for all its charms, the EX1 is one of the worst handheld cameras, in terms of balance, that I’ve ever used. It’s not particularly lightweight (the surprisingly thin manual pegs the weight at 6.3 pounds, fully loaded) and it has a pronounced tendency to tip forward and roll to the left. For all the complaining people have done about the weight and balance of the Canon XL series, at least with those cameras you can get some support from your shoulder. With the EX1, it is all on your right wrist, which will scream for a tripod before too long (maybe that’s good news for tripod manufacturers). I may be spoiled by the outstanding Canon optical stabilizer on the XL-series, but the EX1’s SteadyShot seems to be barely active even when switched on. Compared to just about any other Sony camcorder, battery life with the supplied BP-U30 is astonishingly short, especially when you consider the EX1 has no tape drive with its juice-hungry motors. And fairly useless features, such as built-in shot transitions, just clutter up what is as professional a camera as you can get for around $6,500 street price.

That said, on the whole Sony has a big winner in the EX1. Any shooter or organization that needs a way to create great-looking HD content can find what they need here, and at a price that is neck-snappingly low. If I can get past my footage-archiving concerns, I might just have to get on the bandwagon.