AF100 + KIPRO mini VS Sony F3 (AND EVERYTHING ELSE)

R

robert bickers

New member
Hello everyone, just wondering how these 2 options would compare:


AF100 + KI PRO MINI ( 4.2.2 PRORES)

VS

SONY F3 AND 4.2.0 INTERNAL CODEC (RECORDING SXS CARDS)


MY INTEREST IS IMAGES QUALITY (NOT WORKFLOW ETC..)

ANY THOUGHTS ANYONE? BARRY?

THANKS!!
 
No way to know - the F3 isn't out yet, and the Ki Pro Mini isn't actually in any users' hands yet.

I would expect the F3 to be sharper, it costs 3x more and that price difference should show up in the footage. And I believe it puts out a full 10-bit on its SDI. But the internal codec isn't worthy of what the camera head can deliver; I think anyone who intends to buy an F3 would be shooting themselves in the foot (or in the head) to use XDCAM-EX as their actual recording format! That's like buying a Ferrari and then putting $40 used tires on it. Something like the Ki Pro Mini should be considered practically mandatory for the F3 -- at the bare minimum you'd be getting 10-bit color and 4:2:2 color sampling, in a robust intraframe codec, instead of 4:2:0 8-bit MPEG-2 at a barely-adequate bitrate in a long-GoP codec.

I strongly considered getting an F3, and I can tell you that I never, ever considered recording to onboard SxS -- it would be throwing away so much of what the F3 is capable of. An external recorder is mandatory to get the full performance of what an F3 can do -- whether that's a Ki Pro Mini, or Sony's own HDCAM-SR memory recorder unit.

The AF100 does benefit from using an external recorder, I've been playing with the Nano to find out where it really makes a difference, and the difference in 4:2:2 is substantial. I don't know that most users will find it absolutely necessary, but if you want the very best the AF100 camera head can deliver, an external 4:2:2 high-bitrate recorder can definitely do that. Whether the improvement is worth the expense, is a personal decision each user will have to evaluate on their own; I think most users of the AF100 will find that on a bang-for-the-buck basis, they'll be content with internal recording. It's a great fit at the price point. But if you already have a Nano, by all means, bolt it onto the AF100! I'm using it with Olof's excellent Nano bracket, and I just don't think I'll ever remove it now. Still, I doubt that it would truly match an F3, of course, but if you want to extract the very best from an AF100, the Nano can do that (and presumably the Ki Pro Mini would be as good).
 
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Barry_Green said:
I've been playing with the Nano to find out where it really makes a difference, and the difference in 4:2:2 is substantial.
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Please elaborate. Less banding? More elaborate detailed colors? Not just for greenscreen work but for live action footage as well?
 
Barry, I'm a fan of higher formats and getting the most out of one's equipment as well, but I think you're being overly-harsh here. People have been doing excellent work with EX1 & EX3 cameras for years using the same recording format as the F3. I agree that a KiPro Mini will make it shine, but it's hardly a sow's ear without it.
 
Steve Kahn said:
Please elaborate. Less banding? More elaborate detailed colors? Not just for greenscreen work but for live action footage as well?
Click to expand...
Color accuracy, and overall higher color resolution. Whether it'll show in real-world footage as making a substantial difference, I haven't explored yet. But in charts it makes a big difference.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Barry, I'm a fan of higher formats and getting the most out of one's equipment as well, but I think you're being overly-harsh here. People have been doing excellent work with EX1 & EX3 cameras for years using the same recording format as the F3. I agree that a KiPro Mini will make it shine, but it's hardly a sow's ear without it.
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I think in context with a $6,000 EX1, XDCAM-EX is acceptable. But with the F3, is it really what you'd want to aim for? When you're spending $13,300 for this camera head, with its sharpness and low noise and 10-bit image chain and all, do you really think it's advisable for someone to take all that and cram it onto XDCAM-EX? Just seems like a whole lot of wasted potential. If they'd at least have put in the 50mbps 4:2:2 I might not think that an external recorder is quite so necessary, but... I mean, this thing is designed to compete against the Red One. And it looks like it has the chops (within the granted 1080p restraints) that it could actually do it. But 35mbps long-GoP 8-bit 4:2:0 MPEG-2 is not comparable to RedCode, and it doesn't give you most of what the F3 head can deliver. The F3's a true 10-bit, and it's (presumably) true 4:2:2, and the low-noise sensor is low-enough noise that you should really be able to see the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit...

Well, I've only seen some demo footage. It was enough to convince me that recording to onboard is just a silly idea. You've actually worked with it more, and if you think an external recorder isn't necessary, then okay, I guess we'll just agree to disagree, which is fine. But if someone bought an F3 and then had a choice of either buying a $28,000 lens for it and recording SxS, or using a $10,000 lens and a $2,000 external recorder and pocketing the change, I think the images would be better served by going with the lesser lens and the better recorder. I just don't think that XDCAM-EX is an adequate codec to handle what the F3 is capable of producing. And I think Sony agrees, the workflow slides I've seen them use have all positioned the onboard recording as used for "offline" purposes, not final master-quality recording.

It's not a complete sow's ear, no. But I do think using XDCAM-EX on an F3 is putting handcuffs on the camera, and I don't understand why someone would buy a fairly premium head and then handcuff it.

(and in that context -- its offline files are probably the best-quality offline files any camera has ever produced).
 
Barry_Green said:
Color accuracy, and overall higher color resolution. Whether it'll show in real-world footage as making a substantial difference, I haven't explored yet. But in charts it makes a big difference.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the quick reply, Barry.

Would it also help in movements... when doing fast pans, etc..??

Thanks
 
Well, in terms of rendering the motion, no, it wouldn't be any different. But if you put it in a scenario where there was just too much going on for the codec to be able to accurately record it all (like spraying water, lots of zooming, lots of fast motion, billions of tree leaves, and shifting color throughout) then yes, an external recorder with a much higher bitrate (like the Nano at 180mbps long-GoP or 280mbps I-frame) would be able to record those scenarios more accurately.
 
Barry relax, don't let your passion give you agita! ;-)

I do agree that a higher level recorder such as the KiPro Mini will significantly aid the camera's output, I just don't think that without it the thing is a piece o' crap. I think there's a nice somewhere in between land here.
 
I agree, it is likely going to deliver the best XDCAM-EX footage ever.

I just don't think that's what people who are buying an F3 are looking for, that's all. I think the codec is wildly mismatched to the camera head, and I think Sony's plan of releasing an HDCAM-SR-caliber codec makes a lot more sense. Seems to me that a Ki Pro or HDCAM-SR or comparable recorder can really take advantage of what the F3 could do, whereas XDCAM-EX is nowhere near up to the task. Good for proxies, and -- frankly, I think it'll probably beat the pants off of any SLR codec... but ... I dunno, that's not really what I'd be looking for from an F3, I'd be looking for it to really fulfill its potential. I don't think 35mbps 8-bit MPEG-2 is gonna come close to doing that. It won't inordinately suck, of course, it'll probably look a lot like a large-sensor EX1. But I think it could be a lot more than that, and that's always been the appeal of the F3. I initially scratched my head about the F3, wondering who on earth would want it, until I made one mental leap and disassociated XDCAM-EX entirely from it. Just pretended the recording format wasn't there at all, and looked at it as strictly a camera head, and -- wow, it became much more appealing!
 
I agree Barry. Sony is protecting their higher end cameras, just as they did limiting the PMW-350 at $18,900 w/low-end lens to XDCAM EX codec. The Panasonic HPX3100 at $19,950 plus finder and lens would seem to be a better approach, and now there's a Sony PMW-500 at $27,900. Why couldn't Sony have put XDCAM 422 into the 350 and the F3 instead of handicapping them? Market protection is the only conclusion--the difference in price couldn't be that much between codecs, Panasonic offers a 10-bit, 100Mbps codec for much less money in the HPX370.

The F3 with built-in XDCAM 422 would have been very compelling. I don't like external recording when the manufacturer has superior internal codec options that shouldn't affect the price that much. This is the same as Sony sitting on their hands for years instead of offering 24 fps in anything other than the F900, while Panasonic showed the way with Varicam, DVX100, SDX900. I think the EX3 is already too expensive for XDCAM EX, the F3 for $5K more than it just doesn't do it for me.
 
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