Any difference between F35 and Genesis

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kassim

Active member
Hey guys about to watch Grudge Match which was shot with the Genesis and Im just curious in terms of specs/aesthetics and image quality is there any difference between the two cameras?
 
kassim said:
Hey guys about to watch Grudge Match which was shot with the Genesis and Im just curious in terms of specs/aesthetics and image quality is there any difference between the two cameras?
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There are differences but the overall DNA is from the same family.

Sony and Panavision worked together to co-develop the RGB single chip design of the Genesis, and from memory I can't remember what happened, but Sony then went out and made the F35 on their own.

I seem to recall there was a little parental fight over the technology, but I can't seem to find anything about that.
 
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Genesis has Panalog and F35 has S-Log - so a different log gamma curve. I've never seen what Panalog looks like. I'm sure it's not that much off, but wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to cineon or log-c stuff.

And the F35 is newer - so possibly newer internals? Though I doubt they differ that much at that price point when they first came out.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
There are differences but the overall DNA is from the same family.

Sony and Panavision worked together to co-develop the RGB single chip design of the Genesis, and from memory I can't remember what happened, but Sony then went out and made the F35 on their own.

I seem to recall there was a little parental fight over the technology, but I can't seem to find anything about that.
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Hmm interesting!! I wonder are there any comparison videos out there?
 
skatajkid said:
Genesis has Panalog and F35 has S-Log - so a different log gamma curve. I've never seen what Panalog looks like. I'm sure it's not that much off, but wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to cineon or log-c stuff.

And the F35 is newer - so possibly newer internals? Though I doubt they differ that much at that price point when they first came out.
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I worked at Panavision from 2008-2009 area, so just a couple years after these cameras were made. In fact the Genesis was still insanely popular at the time, as there weren't many digital cinema systems in the world just yet. I think a Genesis camera would be sent back to us, checked in by the digital techs and then sent out either the same day or next day. You couldn't keep them in. Now-a-days, Panavision gives Genesis packages away to students for free, within their young-filmmaker-grant program, because nobody obviously wants them anymore, not with RED, Alexa and the bunch. Kinda sad for me to think about because when I started at Panavision, as a younger man just starting his journey, the Genesis was the most impressive and drool-worthy camera I had ever experienced.

The Genesis, of course, was never for sale (panavision doesn't sell) but both cameras were hundreds of thousands of dollars. I once asked what a Genesis was insured for (as that is the only way to guage value of an item at Panavision) and from memory I remember being told something like $300k or $350, which makes sense as the F35, I believe was $250,000 at the time.
 
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David W. Jones said:
Actually they do sell off gear once it's removed from rental inventory. There are a number of folks, myself included who own former Panavision rental gear.
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They really don't; it's against company policy.

I don't know if you got some sort of exception or if policy recently changed and I don't know about it, but Panavision routinely destroys decommissioned gear. It's actually devastatingly sad. I've seen more amazing items go off to be destroyed than I'd like to say.... even optics. (I think i almost threw up just now)

If you can show me just one link to any sort of Panavision gear sale, by Panavision, I would be surprised and shocked. Perhaps it was a different branch not following the parent's rules? Panavision London or some other branch?

Most Panavision items floating around the world are smaller accessory items that were either 'lost' or 'misplaced' by AC's... intentionally or not.

An AC once came into Panavision with an old 'Pana-Pod' a bowl-head set of sticks. Vintage as hell, he'd had them on indefinate loan (legacy gear) since the 70's-early 80's. He handed them to me (I just happened to be the first person he approached in the building,) saying he'd had them for 20+ years and wanted to return them and then he simply turned around and left.

We obviously didn't rent these out anymore, in fact that was my first time seeing a set! We had gone mostly Ronford-Baker mitchel sticks. I did the dumb and honest thing. Instead of just walking to my car and throwing them in my trunk. I sent a formal request to the proper department asking if I could have the set of tripod legs, clearly no longer useful to the company. They rejected my request took the tripod legs and promptly destroyed the inventory.

To my knowledge, anything you see floating around the world with Panavision's name on it is either novelty things they sell at the Panastore, or gear that has simply shaken loose from their 50+ years of worldwide inventory. I tend to think it's mostly stuff that is misplaced upon return to the rental house, produciton gets charged L&D for the missing items, and then the items later surface in an AC's gear bag, upon which it has now entered the domain of the world. Also, AC's could just have taken small items, like QRP plates and other items just to have.

My credit card is just waiting for the day they wise up and start selling their old film gear. I used to skip my lunch break and stay in the building testing lenses, playing with gear and exploring the gigantically vast building. The things I found in old wooden crates in forgotten rooms at the old Panavision building were out of this world, and I'm afraid most of it has probably been destroyed when they cleared out those old forgotten rooms to move to the newer and smaller building.
 
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I know of Panaflex Gold, Millennium, 435, 535, which are all privately owned now. All of which have PL mounts, not PV mounts. I have shot with a former Panavision 435ES PL. I own lights and filters which were Panavision. As a matter of fact, there are a few former Panavision 435 & 535 cams for sale on ebay right now.
 
David W. Jones said:
I know of Panaflex Gold, Millennium, 435, 535, which are all privately owned now. All of which have PL mounts, not PV mounts. I have shot with a former Panavision 435ES PL. I own lights and filters which were Panavision. As a matter of fact, there are a few former Panavision 435 & 535 cams for sale on ebay right now.
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435's and 535's are Arri cameras, always been for sale. These are just pre-owned by Panavision (Panavision used to be (maybe still is?) Arri's #1 customer) In fact, DP's semi-commonly used to own their own Arri cameras and have them PV'd. Another example was, back in the day, I used to check-in Micheal Bay's personally owned 435ES that was PV'd when returning from the Transformers films. These were consinged items... so Panavision didn't really own them. .. they just maintained them and likely took a percentage of the rentals. From memory, we had quite a bit of consigned Arri camera bodies at PV WH. The consigned gear would have been barcoded and branded for our inventory as well.

I am surprised to hear of a privately owned Panaflex Gold and Millennium. Are you sure they own them outright? I know people who have Panavison cameras, but they are on a long term loan type of deal.

For instance, Leopold's Ice Cream shop in Savannah GA has an older Panavision camera in an old school blimp. Panavision has the camera basically on indefinate loan, since Leopold Stratton, the owner is a big hollywood producer. But to my knowledge, it was never purchased or changed ownership.

Anyway, Panavision makes exceptions for big DP's, Directors and producers. They also can't keep track of 50+ years of camera gear and make sure none of it slips out into the world economy.

The Arriflex cameras makes sense, as it's not PV gear. It was possibly never even owned by Panavision but simply consigned Arri gear from DP's. The Panavision cameras, not so much, unless a long term loan deal.

In any regard, as the rental business gets more competitive and as Panavision fails to innovate as fast as other companies, it wouldn't surprise me if one day we do see a complete reversal of their policy, and a great flood of film cameras will hit the market... the decline of film will certainly be a factor too.
 
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Yes, they own them now. As well as other rental and lease only items like Fisher dollies. You'd be surprised what some folks own!

I know one cat that has a warehouse full of tanks. From a WWII German Stug III to an M1 Abrams.

Another dude owns almost every important jersey you could think of.

Hell, my wife won't even let me keep around a small lint collection. :crybaby:
 

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I operated on a bunch of Genesis stuff starting with "Balls of Fury" in 2006 which was one of the early Genesis movies. We were all swapping lore and tips around to figure out how to manage this new gear that required a lot of problem solving. On "Fired Up" the next year we got the very first hard drive mags (which nostalgically resembled 400ft handheld Pana mags)--we only had two or three so we would reserve them for Steadicam and maybe handheld, and the loader would take them back to the truck and copy the footage to the SRW1 deck in real time, what a hassle!

Then we moved on to the F35, my first show with it was in 2008. Fortunately much of what we had learned with the Genesis was transferrable. It's pretty fuzzy in my mind what the image differences were, but I remember that we felt the F35 was a bit cleaner and perhaps more sensitive? I feel like we were rating the Genesis at 320 and the F35 at 500.

Certainly neither were great to operate with their legacy viewfinders, and onboard monitors were not nearly as good then either. Those cameras were power-hungry; monitor cable management was a brand new thing to deal with; with the deck onboard they were absolute beasts (I always insisted on the two-piece setup with an assistant carrying the backpack). It was an interesting time, but it was a lot of headaches too.
 
Wow this is interesting.
In South Africa, we have a panavision branch that owns a whole lot of Red epics, and some time back I was phoning around looking for a used epic. When I asked panavision if they'd be willing to sell me an epic, the promptly said no - and thats fine - but the guy went on to say "even if we had one we didn't need, we would rather destroy it and throw it in the trash, rather than selling it" WTH??? I thought this dude was on drugs.
We talking Red here, not even their own gear.
With hindsight, after reading this thread, I see this is actually some kind of weird company policy, that is maintained even in Africa Panavision :shocked:
 
He probably WAS on drugs, or confused about the panavision policy on their own gear vs the other Red gear. It makes absolutely no sense for them not sell the Red, destroying it is just losing money for no reason at all. That policy only works if like the genesis no single camera is sold in the world, not a red.

Thank you Charles for the information. Very helpful and enjoyable.
 
couldn't help but notice all those links are to cameras sold by our own JMtheDP. I wonder if he has any insight or if his F65 has gotten him too busy. Also noticed a D21 for sale JM, did you ever get to work with any footage from that cam?
 
I really don't want to keep arguing about it.

It is a general policy at Panavision to never sell their gear. It's just a fact.

What happens to get lost, stolen, or permanently borrowed and then later released into the public marketplace are obviously exceptions outside of Panavision's control.

Big directors, DP's, producers, and other people of favor at Panavision could also be exceptions to many policies... I know some Panavision gear used to be reserved specifically for big clients/DP's or loaned out on a long term basis as 'legacy' gear. It usually isn't full camera bodies though, as those are best sent back to Panavision after every production for proper services and cleaning.

Not sure why a couple of Ebay listings for non-panavision brand cameras is proof an entire policy isn't in place.

We should ask our DVXuser member selling those cameras, but in the meantime, I would simply guess that these were personally owned Arri cameras that were consigned to Panavison London. My best guess.

As I mentioned earlier, people used to buy Arriflex cameras, consign them to Panavision and Panavision would Panavise the cameras, barcode them and enter them into the rental inventory. Those cameras would of course be eventually up for sale.


In the future, I bet you will see Panavised Epic's, reverted back to factory and resold. I wouldn't know why on earth they wouldn't. Same thing with Panavised Arri cameras... and someday they may even sell Panavision brand cameras when film dies for good.

But until they do, if I ever see a Panavision-brand film camera for sale on Ebay, I'd first put a bid on it, and then I would contact my Panavision contacts and let them know.
 
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Policy isn't always adhered to. I would think Kim and the rest of the board can pretty much do as they please.
 

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... I'm not sure what your point is.

Just to recap by paraphrasing:

Me: Panavision never sold the Genesis; they do not sell their gear.
You: Yes they do, I have friends who have bought used gear.
Me: No they don't, it's a policy I've witnessed when working there.
You: I know people with Panavision gear.
Me: Awesome, it's still a policy and they must have gotten it by other means or were a rare exception.
You: Here's pictures of gear online for sale.
Me: That's probably personally past consigned gear now for sale, but hey, maybe. Still is a policy at the company.
You: Policy isn't always adhered to.


I guess we aren't arguing anymore? Can we agree that it's at least policy? I don't doubt what you say is true; that people do have some gear.

Panavision is a 50+ year old company that has purchased and aquired more smaller camera companies than I care to even list. They span multiple continents and service the needs of thousands of productions every year. Of course gear is going to get lost, stolen, gifted as legacy, or sometimes, maybe even sold in rare cases, although I still do not know of one ought right purchased Panavision film package purchased from Panavision. But that's not to say it hasn't happened, but simply to illustrate the rarity if it were to happen.

But, for the purpose of my original statement, Panavision does not currently sell their cameras to the public nor their inventory when it is decommissioned. My comment was mainly referring to Panavision created camera systems and lenses.

Panavision is a large company; it has many different divisions, such as Lee filters, different lighting and grip services/trucks around the world, and much more. Those companies have very different business models and I'm sure PanaLUX (lighting/grip Panavision company) isn't destroying Kino flo's and Joker bugs when they get old. Whole different thing we are talking about.

Panavision's policy that I am talking about, for better or for worse, is regarding their film equipment, primarily protecting their film cameras and lenses. Panavision brand, specifically since the policy is an older one when PV film cameras were more relevant.

By not selling their lenses or cameras, they not only control the quality of their product (and reputation) by guaranteeing the equipment will always in good and serviced shape, but to also keep competition away from being able to offer their cameras and lenses. This policy has led to many products being destroyed when replaced with newer designs or simply be decommissioned from age or wear. This policy gets gray when you start introducing semi-modern practices of Panavision digital camera packages after the Genesis, such as Red/Arri camera rentals. The policy does not serve these cameras the same way it was initially designed to, as these are available for anyone to pruchase. As the world changes, and Panavision's financial situation continues to flounder, I think we will see this policy eventually break. But not yet.
 
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