Sony and NBC had us stick to the basic menus throughout the Games, which let us concentrate on capturing the action. The menus are very simple to maneuver through. Without any training on this unit I was able to put the camera on my shoulder and start shooting. If you do run-and-gun work most of the time, as I do, you can’t go wrong with the basic menus. The maintenance menus are more extensive, of course, but out of the gate, you can do what you do best.

On my first assignment at the Olympics, there was a warning light flashing in my viewfinder. After the first 30 seconds it would go away. This kept happening and the disk recorder was making strange noises. When I stopped and contacted a Sony engineer, I asked him, "Why is the camera doing this?" He answered, "Do you have your cache turned on?" Of course, I did.

The cache in this camera is pretty cool. You can record up to 30 seconds of content before you press the record button. Therefore, if you are waiting for someone to walk into a room, as long as the camera is on you won’t miss the shot. Just press your record button and it will start buffering in the content you had in the cache.

The weather during the Olympics in China this summer was pretty extreme, and this camera had no trouble handling a variety of conditions, from heavy down-pours and very hot and humid outside venues to frigid studios indoors. Don’t be afraid to test this camera with your own punishing set of locations.

We also discovered during the Olympics that this rig is excellent in low’ light conditions. It may look a bit dark in the viewfinder, but trust me and your own abilities as a shooter: you’ll likely get exactly what you’re going for. I shot a lot of beauty shots in Beijing outside at night and I was blown away by the picture this camera produced.

During the Olympics, I used an early production model of the PDW-700. Because of this, there were a few features- many of which Sony plans to update in the next firmware release- that added another layer of frustration. For example, I found it very annoying to have to worry about what color temperature I was in all the time. The color temp button is a push button, near the viewfinder. When I used the camera, if the light is on, the camera was at 5600k. If the light was off, it was set at 3200 or whatever I’d set it to be. Though you also have four-color corrections settings via the menu, your filter wheel is only for your 4 ND filters.

I was always paranoid that this button might get pushed by accident, especially when holding the camera over my head or in a scrum, something I dealt with on a daily basis in Beijing. I always found myself double checking the pop-out monitor to see if the color was correct. Sony has since updated this feature to do the opposite of what I just mentioned. Now, if the button is on, it is set at 3200k; when it is off, it is 5600k. Either way, it still can be confusing. My best advice here is to familiarize yourself with these settings before you head out on location.

It was tempting for me to use the camera’s on’ board pop’ out monitor as a color reference monitor. Avoid the temptation- that’s not what it’s there for. It’s a great item to have on’ camera, but quite honestly, the color just doesn’t pop. It also isn’t too flexible, which I found out the hard way one time when I accidentally popped the monitor beyond its hinge limits. It didn’t break and I was able to gently pop it back into place without breaking any of the housing. I mentioned this to Sony on’ site in Beijing and we agreed that perhaps the monitor should have a break’ away feature, similar to a car’s side view mirror, where if it is pushed forward accidentally it can be pulled back into a normal operating position. Unfortunately, I wasn’t comfortable having the monitor so far back, though I know it’s there so the audio tech can see the VU meters at all times. If I needed to lift the camera over my head, the monitor was too far back for me to see it easily. Plus, I had to keep it on and open the entire time for my audio tech. But with the monitor on all the time, it uses about 5 percent of the camera’s 40′ watt draw. The better solution would be to have a separate VU meter toward the back of the camera for the audio tech, which would keep your primary monitor under your control. For now, learning to share is your only option. If the position of the monitor feels awkward to you, spend a little extra time familiarizing yourself with its position to give your normal shooting style a chance to adapt.

Perhaps the best part of this camera is its media format. The clips are easy to maneuver through and deleting unneeded content is a breeze. Beyond this, I love the fact that I can hand my client their content immediately, without any reservations. It is very hard to give a client a Panasonic P2, 16GB card or cards that costs nearly $900 each. For almost the cost of a 30-minute Beta SP, a 23GB disc cost under $30 each plus you get about 43 minutes of record time at the highest recording rate of 50 Mbps. With a 50GB disc, you have about 94 minutes of shooting time. I’m also not comfortable erasing my master, something you’ve got to do to be economical with other media formats.

Tools Used: Sony PDW-700 XDCAM HD, Sony XDCAM Professional Disc, Sony PDW-HD1500

Ken Cavalli has worked as an ENG cameraman for the past 25 years. He is currently the Director of Photography at PACSAT, a full-service broadcast production/mobile satellite truck company, in Sacramento, California. In his 17 years working for PACSAT, he has covered many major news, entertainment and sporting events.

Over the past five Olympics I have worked with four different Sony cameras: the DigiBeta, IMX, HDCAM and this year, the new Sony PDW-700, 2/3-inch XDCAM HD422 camera system. Lightweight at 13.4 lbs., it bulks up- with lens, Anton Bauer Hytron 140 battery and accessories- to a tolerable 22 lbs. I enjoyed using it for the month I was in Beijing and believe that this is finally a true replacement for Sony’s venerable Betacam. I was very impressed with this camera in the short period I used it and can’t wait to purchase one myself. One caveat, however: I was shooting in Beijing with an early production model, and encountered a few challenges because of it. The native 1080i camera, with MPEG-2 4:2:2 processor, shipped in November with a frame rate of 59.94i (50i in PAL), and 1080/25p. Several of my minor gripes will be solved when Sony ships, this month, a firmware and hardware update for the camera and its companion deck, the PDW-HD1500. These updates will enable 1080/29.97, 720/50p and 720/59.94p, as well as many other features that the original models shipping prior to November 1 did not have built in. A 24fps option, I’m told, will be coming in June’09.