F3: A tough one... Amira or F3/FS7

VinceinLA said:
I do think the F35 can produce the most film-like images out there but I worry about it being practical on a doc shoot, even a mostly controlled one like this project. Mainly the weight, lack of ND's, power draw, evf needs (is the stock one any good?) and mainly iso limits. It's tough to find one to test out, even in LA. I like to find ways to not light interviews and have done it over and over again after a ton of tweaking the technique but I'm often pushing the other Sony's 800 asa limit. What is the realistic rating of the F35? 500?

Also, Nate, how have you found the weight and size of the Amira works for you compared to the F55/F3 on shoots where you are going from tripod to shoulder to car and back again often? I am very attracted to a real, one-piece system like that where one battery powers everything and its built like a tank but that weight worries me after going solo for a whole day with no AC or even PA around. My sound guy wont help!

I think I am going to have an A7s for a b-cam/jib/interior car mount camera to make jumping around easy when needed. I
have found that I often need to grab a road-side shot and even using the F3 was too much last time, plus when you consider the tripod needs. A monopod and little camera are great for that kind of thing.
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F35 eats up batteries so does Amira and the weight is the same.
Power draw on Amira - is 55W@24V and 24fps. The F35 is 56W

My F35 rig weighs with odyssey 7q and 15mm zacuto baseplate and handlebars and 140 WH battery - about 13lbs. Amira - 12 lbs.

I rate the F35 at 500 ASA, Amira at 500 ASA. I don't like the noise in the shadows of the Alexa sensor at 800 ASA.
MacGregor has the F35 - he's in LA.

Amira has less jankiness though - with F35 you'll have to have a Odyssey 7Q+ = Amira straight in camera - so it wins there.

But the F35 is like 9k on ebay Amira is 70k and I don't really see that much of a difference honestly. I actually don't like any of the projects I've shot on Alexa - I only shot three but all three - I kind of blew it on all three of them.
 
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Amira is the easiest sell- for the next series of jobs. Many times the price, but will have the longest market relevant life.
 
I think the Alexa Mini will eat the Amira's sales. It's a miracle the Alexa has lasted this long. But even now the prices have dropped about 20k in the used market. Lenses - have barely dropped and some older ones have gone up in cost - like Super Speeds. Owning gear, especially a camera that costs more than 20k is a very risky investment. That's just from what I've studied in the past 10 years.

You aren't going to get a full day rate on the Amira - maybe if you are lucky. but basically trying to make back on 70k investment at 850 a day - that will take 82 days of rental.

On F35 with odyssey 7q+ rental - say it's 15k and you rent for 500 a day - that's 38 rental days.

And the F35 is unique - it's CCD - it's specialty - it can handle strobes and flashes - it has very interesting color representation - it's a unique weird beast that not many other people have and will be curious about it for many more years. 4k is not the future, it's just a gimmick like 3d tv was. The future is mobile devices - watching films and content on your iphone. 4k tv is not going to take off and if it does, f35 has such a large image sensor I don't think anyone will not think it's 4k. But tv is mostly for crappy looking sports and TV shows where people watch them at weird 120 HZ and they look terrible. So it doesn't matter if you are going for tv. You could shoot stuff on your Sony Z1 and no one would notice the image wasn't as good as the Alexa. :)

The Amira is in a crowded playing field.
And like I said, I am for sure going to rent an Alexa Mini over an Amira if I have the choice because I can do more with the Alexa Mini.

With one test video that Mac shot - you can show the producer how similar it is - and you are saving him or her $350 a day.

I'm not a math major, but that's just my angle.
No offense to Amira owners - I still think the Amira is a much better investment than the sony f55. But like I said, what I just wrote I tell every producer I work with and they always go with the f35. And many of them keep requesting it.

On the jobs I did on the Alexa, three of those guys never called me back because I blew it, and I blew it on "the best camera".

Or just buy a used Alexa EV for $35k and call it a day. Not too much weight difference on alexa vs amira.
 
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Osslund said:
From the owner/users perspective the FS7 is hard to beat. All three cameras gives great IQ but the FS7 is small and easy to haul all over the world.
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Almost apples and oranges but for me, in a doc situation, while the Amira is a wonderful machine, it is also a beast of a box. If ProRes is important, seems to me the FS7 would be better suited for run and gun doc. To me it's all about lensing and ergonomocs. The Amira might have the edge but again weight and cost have to be considered. Picture quality of the aforementioned cameras will be on pretty equal footing.
 
VinceinLA said:
And that is where I differ from the majority of film/camera guys I know; I often get involved in projects where "It's not perfect but it gets the job done" isn't close to being good enough.

Image "perfection" = Amira
Usability (and weight) = F55
Price vs. what you get = FS7

I think it's time to lift some weights.
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Picture quality can be subjective to be sure. The Amira may have the edge cinema graphically speaking but in slog you can pretty much emulate the look you demand. The Amira will probs ly have a better after life, particularly if you are willing to put it in the rental market but here again. It's kind of a power hungry beast.
 
The non-film look on sony cameras is such nonsense. Throw a diffusion filter in front of the lens and bam, you have your film look. Sony just wants a super clean image from the get go for people like wildlife shooters. Film look is easy on these cameras.
 
no the alexa has a better skintone rendition with its color matrix - and has a motion and sharpness that is more "meatier" - the alexa handles greens better than sony f55 and in general blues as well in my eyes. The Sony F65 - that's a nice image but that guy is not doc-friendly.
 
DendriteStudios said:
The non-film look on sony cameras is such nonsense. Throw a diffusion filter in front of the lens and bam, you have your film look. Sony just wants a super clean image from the get go for people like wildlife shooters. Film look is easy on these cameras.
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Sorry but that is simply laughable and as wrong as anyone could be. Show me ONE, just one piece of TV or cinema shot on any Sony (besides the F35 and maybe F65) that consistantly looks like film and I'll give you a $1000. Will never happen. I know this is a Sony forum so it's 100% biased but I have used just about every brand (and owned three Sonys) and these cameras are great for anything but matching film, which is why you dont see any top DP's using them outside of sitcoms and crappy studio comedies.
 
Thanks Ed, that gives me more to consider. I do love that CCD. What about noise on the F35? I have seen some tests that look worse than the F3's slog noise but of course that was over the internet. I saw Real Steal recently on a big THX TV and it was amazing looking for a digital camera, and I never say that!

Also, couldn't you just use a smaller unit like a Blade just for the sake of saving bulk? What about that stock EVF?

Oh and the Amira isn't close to $70K. The basic (non-log, 100fps "only") is more like $35k now from Abel.
 
Its very clean as long as you expose middle grey at 35 ire or use a hypergammshypergamma. amira and alexa mini same price but alexa mini is 5 lb vs 12 lbs. Wouldnt you wait for mini? I think the mini is going to sell like hotcakes.
 
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Problem solved. F3 with Small HD 502 - comparable in size and wheight with the body of an flamingo (the golden standard)
 
VinceinLA said:
Sorry but that is simply laughable and as wrong as anyone could be. Show me ONE, just one piece of TV or cinema shot on any Sony (besides the F35 and maybe F65) that consistantly looks like film and I'll give you a $1000. Will never happen. I know this is a Sony forum so it's 100% biased but I have used just about every brand (and owned three Sonys) and these cameras are great for anything but matching film, which is why you dont see any top DP's using them outside of sitcoms and crappy studio comedies.
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Well "film look" is entirely subjective to different people. But here are a few things that could have been shot on many different "top end" cameras and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

https://vimeo.com/112636022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWZ7O-RrATY
https://vimeo.com/113405177
 
DendriteStudios said:
The non-film look on sony cameras is such nonsense. Throw a diffusion filter in front of the lens and bam, you have your film look. Sony just wants a super clean image from the get go for people like wildlife shooters. Film look is easy on these cameras.
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As an F3 owner and someone who has worked with footage from pretty much every Sony Cinealta camera out there I can tell you for certain that this is very far from the truth.

I recently completed a project on my F3 and it took a considerable amount of post 'voodoo' to remove the majority of the 'Sony look' from the footage and still, anyone with an experienced eye can see traces of it. It's a lot more complicated than simply throwing a little diffusion in front of the lens.

IMO the F35 was the most film like camera Sony ever made and that is probably due to the CCD and global shutter. It still doesn't seem to desaturate the highlights like the Alexa (and film), but it does produce a very organic image. I think the worst thing I can say about the F35 is that it tops out at about 10-11 stops vs +14 for the Alexa with it's smooth highlight roll-off.

Sony makes superb cameras, but they are always struggling with their broadcast heritage and their obsession with resolution and image cleanliness. I hope they are getting the message and the 'Alexa Emulation LUT' for the F55 may be a sign of this.

PS: Aside from he Alexa the most organic looking camera currently in production may be the Digital Bolex D16 that is powered by a Kodak/Truesense developed CCD. Most of the footage you see from the camera is plagued by improper handling of its colorspace in post, which results in a strange magenta-yellow cast and looks like hell. But if the footage is properly imported in to Davinci it is incredibly good. I have one of these cameras and it's something of an eyeopener.

I've seen some very impressive results out of the F55, but I think it takes a willingness to dirty up and soften the image, because out of camera it's just too damn sharp, clean and perfect.
 
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I think as a dp who has used all of these cameras ninus db16....the alexa is not a 14 stop camera unless you want noisy shadows and below grey and the f35 has the best motion. The alexa has also almost no image control except plus or minus green which as a technical dp drives me a little bonkers.. The db16 i cant comment on until i use it but i an excited to do a test against f35.
 
VinceinLA said:
Sorry but that is simply laughable and as wrong as anyone could be. Show me ONE, just one piece of TV or cinema shot on any Sony (besides the F35 and maybe F65) that consistantly looks like film and I'll give you a $1000. Will never happen. I know this is a Sony forum so it's 100% biased but I have used just about every brand (and owned three Sonys) and these cameras are great for anything but matching film, which is why you dont see any top DP's using them outside of sitcoms and crappy studio comedies.
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Vince, you endlessly troll this forum voicing your disdain for the FS7 and whatever other Sony you dislike. Why even bother with a Sony since you dislike the image so much? Please get an Amira and stop trolling. You've mentioned many times how much you dislike the FS7 because it's video, for crappy TV, etc... so why even consider it? Just to hear yourself talk?
 
Harry Lime said:
I've seen some very impressive results out of the F55, but I think it takes a willingness to dirty up and soften the image, because out of camera it's just too damn sharp, clean and perfect.
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Basically that is all I mean by diffusion filter. Old lenses, diffusion, hazing, whatever you can do to dirty the image that is the key for Sony's. Out of the box they obviously don't give that feel.
 
DendriteStudios said:
Well "film look" is entirely subjective...
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Well, not really. I mean, come on man, if you think that kid's grey skin in "Boo", for example, looks anything like 35mm Kodak stocks then you are showing your lack of image/film education or maybe you have vision issues. Sorry to sound like an ass but I don't know how else to say it. I have shot an entire feature on film and sat through the whole CC process and I can tell you that NONE of these toy cameras match the industry standard, not really close. And to get them remotely close takes more time in post than it takes to shoot the movie! Film (and to some degree high-end dig. cameras) have the elusive look built in. I love how people think TOP working directors who make everything from Star Wars to Cinderella, to Interstellar to Superman, Budapest Hotel and The Hateful Eight should have just used an F55. Lol. Give me a break.

A good DP or even Director is much like a museum curator. They know art and what is and is not appropriate for their museum (or film). Is "good art" subjective? Kinda. Sometimes a crappy camera might be just the thing a certain scene or even film needs but its rare and we are talking the top-end here. Those who know what looks best, know, those who think they know get to argue and stay an amateur for life.

People love to say "subjective" but in the end, show me any cinema DP that tests cameras and thinks an F5 or whatever matches film or an Alexa or F35. Not one will say that, thus proving how it's really NOT subjective because these guys and their work are what we measure quality with. Judging such a thing is and should be handled by experienced professionals, not people who hang out on internet forums or get emotionally attached to some brand or how they spent their money.

I'd shoot this project on S16mm in a second if we had the processing budget and I'd buy the new Blackmagic film scanner that's coming out soon.. speaking of the only thing at NAB that got me excited!



EDIT: We made the decision to go with the Arri Mini! Damnit, after Ed's comment it hit me like a ton of bricks. Thanks again! lol. I was checking it out at NAB but it didnt sink in that it was coming out so soon and that it had built in ND's! Team this body up with Arri's EVF, adapt the lemo for xlr and BAM, compact, lightweight Alexa for $40k
 
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Uh, kiddo, I never considered the FS7 for anything. Where did you see that exactly? Please read the posts and don't just chime in. The FS7 has been assigned to me and I was paid well to use it a few times but I'd not use it for something I was in complete control of unless it was an emergency. And using the word troll makes you sound like a kid and it's a tiresome, stupid word. Just read posts first next time. You also didn't see how I HAVE OWNED THREE SONYS and still OWN AN F3. Jesus I really hate these forums sometimes for reasons like your post.
 
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Anyway, to sum up- the Amira kicks ass but starts at $35-40K and is heavy for today's standards but isnt comparable to anything, anywhere. The F35 wins the film-look game but is bulky and more ideal for features but could work. DR is more important in the highlight roll-off and is another reason F35 looks so good. The Alexa is the current king next to Kodak which still wins by far. The other cameras are great for students, corporate stuff and so on. The F3 still looks as good as a cameras costing $20K but sucks with no evf, needs a recorder etc.. Cool. I'm done here. Thanks Ed.
 
By the sound of most recent posters in this thread I hear that the only virtue of a camera is if it looks like film. Sure film looks nice but I've seen so many fantastic documentaries shot on the whole range of cameras from real film to DV camcorders. It's time to stop comparing every modern digital camera to film. They are not the same and never will be.
 
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