Dino
New member
Yesterday, a friend brought over his F5 for me to check out. He opted to buy an Alphatron VF over a Sony VF save money. This was a mistake, I fear. When I fired up the camera, it never went beyond the Sony splash screen on the body side status display. The HDMI out wasn't active, HD-SDI out 1 was active, but clean, HD-SDI 2 was not active. I naturally tried to get into the menus by pushing the menu button, with no luck. Spent time reading the manual and was stumped as to how to make the status screen active or see status overlay on an output. Happily, forum member Nate Weaver saw my Tweets looking for help and clued me into the need to address time/date, but the prompt can only be seen on a Sony VF or HD-SDI 3 sub out. I hadn't checked the latter, my bad. So, finally, I was able to get into the menus, see all on a display monitor and status display.
Problem is, I now realize that the F5 has no waveform at all, no zebra output on HDMI or HD-SDI, have to expand focus with EVF, not camera user button, unless using a Sony VF. So, using an Alphatron or similar EVF, I have no idea how one would expose an image properly.
The other issues I have with the camera(which I think looks fantastic in low noise, sensitivity, DR, resolution), is how difficult it is to do an auto white balance. I know you can change degrees Kelvin easily from the status display, but can't seem to do an auto white balance without going into menus. Am I missing something? I think the status display menu item access is great(much like an Alexa), but I've never had to jump through so many hoops to do an auto white.
As a C300 owner, I see all kinds of great features that the F5 offers over the Canon--love the paint box capability, especially that an RM-B170 is only $1500. Flare control, shading, better multi-matrix(but user matrix isn't enabled yet?), great gamma options, very thorough detail circuit that I would be unlikely to use at all. Of course much superior codec options and high speed frame rates(1080/60P now, 120fps over 24p in the fall), more lens mount flexibility, better VF, more HD-SDI outputs, zebras that go below 70IRE. But, lack of scopes, larger/heavier size, big, expensive batteries/chargers and proprietary media, plus high cost of all gives me pause. I think the F5 could have a good shelf life, whereas the C300 was limited out of the gate, but I like the simplicity of the C300, albeit with its many limitations. Great to have so many choices, NAB should be interesting. Sony looks like it has a couple of winners, and the cameras are the worst they will ever by right now.
Problem is, I now realize that the F5 has no waveform at all, no zebra output on HDMI or HD-SDI, have to expand focus with EVF, not camera user button, unless using a Sony VF. So, using an Alphatron or similar EVF, I have no idea how one would expose an image properly.
The other issues I have with the camera(which I think looks fantastic in low noise, sensitivity, DR, resolution), is how difficult it is to do an auto white balance. I know you can change degrees Kelvin easily from the status display, but can't seem to do an auto white balance without going into menus. Am I missing something? I think the status display menu item access is great(much like an Alexa), but I've never had to jump through so many hoops to do an auto white.
As a C300 owner, I see all kinds of great features that the F5 offers over the Canon--love the paint box capability, especially that an RM-B170 is only $1500. Flare control, shading, better multi-matrix(but user matrix isn't enabled yet?), great gamma options, very thorough detail circuit that I would be unlikely to use at all. Of course much superior codec options and high speed frame rates(1080/60P now, 120fps over 24p in the fall), more lens mount flexibility, better VF, more HD-SDI outputs, zebras that go below 70IRE. But, lack of scopes, larger/heavier size, big, expensive batteries/chargers and proprietary media, plus high cost of all gives me pause. I think the F5 could have a good shelf life, whereas the C300 was limited out of the gate, but I like the simplicity of the C300, albeit with its many limitations. Great to have so many choices, NAB should be interesting. Sony looks like it has a couple of winners, and the cameras are the worst they will ever by right now.
