Fireworks look great, even on this compressed Vimeo clip. No sign of rolling shutter that I could spot in a casual viewing.
For even better sound, try turning off the AGC. Even better, try a good external stereo mic.
'Can't wait for the forth of July to try my EX1 on some fireworks!

Audio Select on Manual which I would think turns off AGC. The Mic is Sony 680s external Stereo (not the internal camera stereo mic) although mounted on the camera. Set to stereo no roll off on the mic. Wind Filters off. I may have had Mic sensitivity down to -20ish from the "default" of -41 since the wind was overdriving the camera's preamp.

BTW if you look carefully you can see some banding in the sky due to Vimeo compression.

Ah, I was fooled! I could have sworn that was internal mics with AGC on. The gain pumping was extreme. Looks like the fireworks were a lot louder than they are around here. You may have needed to go to -11dBv setting, or.. set line level and use a battery to power the mic. High 20s would still be too hot. I'd reckon low teens for the atten setting. The sound was buried into the limiters.
Yup, banding is a fact of internet video. (And some budget LCD TVs).

I'm wondering if going through two rounds of compression (H264 for upload and On2VP6 by Vimeo) added aggressive gain reduction.

I had set sensitivity to -20 or so based on the low frequency in the wind overdriving the limiter. Of course the low frequencies in the fireworks were likely louder.

It might be interesting if you were to run some tests on the EX1 regarding overdriving the preamp as well as whether the AGC is every really completely "defeated."

Great bridge, great fireworks.
Filming firework is one of the more dificult things to get right. I have done this already a few times, and once you know the best settings it seems easy and rewarding.
Well done Craig.

Thanks Pierre. This was my 2nd attempt shooting fireworks. I learned a lot from my first round of mistakes.

fantastic footage! what res was this shot at sp or hq? you might also be able to answer this question, is the ex1 hdv or hd? hdv is suposed to give blocky footage on overloads like the z1 for example. Thanks Daz

Shot with HQ. 35mbps VBR XDCAM HD/EX. It's MPEG2 Long GOP but it's NOT HDV.

SP=HDV. I'd never use it. EX1 can shoot that but one would have to have a "good" reason to do so. I can't EVER think of a good reason to do so. HDV is a crippled format IMHO. There's too much it can't handle given the limits of 25mbps CBR.

Craig, very nice footage! Do you remember what shutter speed you used, or did you run shutter Off ??

Thanks Scott.
Shutter at 180° (equal to 1/60 in this case).

Thanks for the shutter info Craig.

awesome!