Jason Adams
Section Moderator
Just a few thoughts. I took the FS-100 with kit lens out for a week and shot 3 very different projects and thought I would share my thoughts.
Initial impressions, just my opinions nothing scientific.
Ergonomics,
Like most Sony cams its a bit of a n ergo disaster, but I have to say it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I actually found the hand grip comfortable. The only real ergo problem is using the EVF attachment of the LCD. Its a bit too heavy and does not hold its position. Also there is no lock to prevent LCD swivel so its very easy to swivel the LCD when you bring your eye up to it.
That being said the LCD is useless if you take the cam over your head and can be a challenge if you are not vertically inclined. I am 5'9 and I had to grab a 1/2 apple box to comfortably shoot talent that was 6 ft tall. I would say an external monitor or Zacuto EVF a must have.
Image,
This is by far one of the sharpest and cleanest cams I have ever worked with. It messes with your paradigm a bit. Shooting 21db gain is as clean as the HPX170 at 0db. Very sharp very clean. I do find this and all Sony cams cold natured in the image out-of-the-box. That being said the range of tweak-able options in the picture profile will let you dial the cam to your favorite image but if your coming from a panny cam be prepared to spend some time cooking up a pannyish profile on cam. Codec held up nicely and better-than-expected dynamic range for an AVCHD cam.
Kit lens,
Nice but not very fast. keep in mind the cam is so sensitive you might not notice unless you want really shallow DOF. You will have to work for those shallow DOF shots a bit more. If you do any kind of docu work or talking heads this lens is great. Pulling focus is a nightmare. If you hire a fist AC please hire 2 because one will likely quit. The infinite focus ring is really not good. The only saving grace was a numeric readout on EVF that we used to hit numeric focus marks.
All that being said. If I bought this cam tomorrow I would get the kit lens. This is what I see as the FS-100 advantage. It can play both roles as an ENG/Events/Docu cam or it can be rigged with nice manual glass and be the poor mans F3.
Menus,
This cam has a ton of great options. None of them are intuitive but I never cracked the manual. I played with the cam for about an hour in the menu and could not stop uncovering cool things. There are a lot of options for menu nav. Touch screen, side controls, top controls. There are a lot of different ways to get from point A to point B.
Audio,
Ohh how I have missed you here in DSLR exile. Nice clean mic pres. Ran mics direct and also had an audio mixer and opp on one of the projects. It was so great to have nice clean audio on the cam. With no work arounds, attenuater cables, split systems. The audio engineer loved it.
1080 60P
Just sexy. This cam is so sharp and to watch your overcranked footage in the field is so sweet. Not to mention any re-conform or cinema tools in post. Just overcranked shots.
Sex appeal,
Ok this is a silly category, but I have to say the odd look of this camera had all my clients notice it and they all remarked how cool it was.
Overall this is a sold cam. If you have an HVX, 5D, 7d etc, this cam would be the perfect middle road to add to your collection. I will purchase this this month.
Initial impressions, just my opinions nothing scientific.
Ergonomics,
Like most Sony cams its a bit of a n ergo disaster, but I have to say it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I actually found the hand grip comfortable. The only real ergo problem is using the EVF attachment of the LCD. Its a bit too heavy and does not hold its position. Also there is no lock to prevent LCD swivel so its very easy to swivel the LCD when you bring your eye up to it.
That being said the LCD is useless if you take the cam over your head and can be a challenge if you are not vertically inclined. I am 5'9 and I had to grab a 1/2 apple box to comfortably shoot talent that was 6 ft tall. I would say an external monitor or Zacuto EVF a must have.
Image,
This is by far one of the sharpest and cleanest cams I have ever worked with. It messes with your paradigm a bit. Shooting 21db gain is as clean as the HPX170 at 0db. Very sharp very clean. I do find this and all Sony cams cold natured in the image out-of-the-box. That being said the range of tweak-able options in the picture profile will let you dial the cam to your favorite image but if your coming from a panny cam be prepared to spend some time cooking up a pannyish profile on cam. Codec held up nicely and better-than-expected dynamic range for an AVCHD cam.
Kit lens,
Nice but not very fast. keep in mind the cam is so sensitive you might not notice unless you want really shallow DOF. You will have to work for those shallow DOF shots a bit more. If you do any kind of docu work or talking heads this lens is great. Pulling focus is a nightmare. If you hire a fist AC please hire 2 because one will likely quit. The infinite focus ring is really not good. The only saving grace was a numeric readout on EVF that we used to hit numeric focus marks.
All that being said. If I bought this cam tomorrow I would get the kit lens. This is what I see as the FS-100 advantage. It can play both roles as an ENG/Events/Docu cam or it can be rigged with nice manual glass and be the poor mans F3.
Menus,
This cam has a ton of great options. None of them are intuitive but I never cracked the manual. I played with the cam for about an hour in the menu and could not stop uncovering cool things. There are a lot of options for menu nav. Touch screen, side controls, top controls. There are a lot of different ways to get from point A to point B.
Audio,
Ohh how I have missed you here in DSLR exile. Nice clean mic pres. Ran mics direct and also had an audio mixer and opp on one of the projects. It was so great to have nice clean audio on the cam. With no work arounds, attenuater cables, split systems. The audio engineer loved it.
1080 60P
Just sexy. This cam is so sharp and to watch your overcranked footage in the field is so sweet. Not to mention any re-conform or cinema tools in post. Just overcranked shots.
Sex appeal,
Ok this is a silly category, but I have to say the odd look of this camera had all my clients notice it and they all remarked how cool it was.
Overall this is a sold cam. If you have an HVX, 5D, 7d etc, this cam would be the perfect middle road to add to your collection. I will purchase this this month.
