F3: Better F3 successor?

yoclay said:
Are you shooting internally or external Prores ?
Because I know that it's external4K output is a big issue for a lot of people.
Which means being stuck with an XAVC codec.
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I shoot only internal XAVC-I and all clients likes it very much so I see no need to go Prores or raw.
 
starcentral said:
Hands down for the money A7sii or A7rii.

Color science that my 4 year old can grade, less in price than FS5 which appears to be missing features from big brother FS7/F5 anyways, and with the A7rii only you get 4K with full frame lenses or APS-C sensor crop.
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I guess now you could add to that list the A6300 as well.

I hope to save up for the A6300 soon to add it in as a B cam / gimbal cam / stealth cam / etc for my F3
 
I moved from the F3 to the F5 a little under two years ago. At the time the F5 was still an HD/2K camera, and wasn't at all what I had in mind for my upgrade from the F3 (I'd assumed I'd move to a used Alexa), however a half dozen projects came up that demanded HFR work, and the F5 was the only option that fit the bill and budget for me at the time.

Personally, I find the images from the two cameras incredibly similar. Highlight rolloff, quality of skintones, rolling shutter readout - all very close to each other. So for me the upgrade had almost nothing to do with the image, and everything to do with feature-set (which the F5 blows the F3 out of the water on).

Further updates to the F5 (4k, Sgamut3.cine, quick menu) have brought it up another level again, and still to this day it's balance of price/performance/feature-set is pretty much unmatched. The F55 tops it with a global shutter, and better handling of extreme colours (for a price). However if you don't need the full feature-set, if raw isn't something you really want, and jam-syncing timecode isn't necessary for your productions, the FS7 gets you a lot of the same mojo for even less money.

However if you don't really NEED the added features, I'd suggest just sticking with your F3, and adding a newer recorder that can take both 4:4:4 and 60fps from the camera. It would be a vastly cheaper option, and you can wait for the next round of camera upgrades, which will no doubt take things even further than the current cameras.
 
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I am absolutely certain that the BM 4.6K Ursa Mini, is the next camera to own.
Everything I have seen shows me that they have stepped up a notch image wise.
Really just excellent dynamic range, great roll-off and you can reach deep into the blacks without too many artifacts.
This is a camera worth waiting for.
Will the camera body have it's issues ? Probably.
But at that price point - nothing else comes close.
 
Grug said:
I moved from the F3 to the F5 a little under two years ago.....
Personally, I find the images from the two cameras incredibly similar. Highlight rolloff, quality of skintones, rolling shutter readout - all very close to each other. So for me the upgrade had almost nothing to do with the image, and everything to do with feature-set (which the F5 blows the F3 out of the water on).
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From what I have read the F3 and F5 sensor share some technology (CFA?), so this would not surprise me.
 
yoclay said:
I am absolutely certain that the BM 4.6K Ursa Mini, is the next camera to own.
Everything I have seen shows me that they have stepped up a notch image wise.
Really just excellent dynamic range, great roll-off and you can reach deep into the blacks without too many artifacts.
This is a camera worth waiting for.
Will the camera body have it's issues ? Probably.
But at that price point - nothing else comes close.
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A lot of the footage does look spectacular and BM usually gets their cameras in a good place eventually, but I just can't understand why people would put so much stock in their cameras early on, before the dust has settled and we see what kind of issues it will likely have. If it's not your main/only camera, sure. Just seems risky to me.
 
DBP said:
A lot of the footage does look spectacular and BM usually gets their cameras in a good place eventually, but I just can't understand why people would put so much stock in their cameras early on, before the dust has settled and we see what kind of issues it will likely have. If it's not your main/only camera, sure. Just seems risky to me.
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I agree. Which is why I never pre-order and often wait a year or two after a camera has been released.
I know it will take time to iron out the bugs and find the workaround's.
In this way I think it is possible to obtain a rational perspective towards the pro's and con's before making a decision.
It also allows on occasion for the price to drop or to find a used one in good shape.
 
yoclay said:
All right. My 2 cents.
I prefer the look of the F3 to the F5/55.
The larger pixel makes a difference in my book. Something more organic about it.
There's a reason the Alexa has not really gone 4K yet, and in my opinion this is it.
These are the only two cams with pixel sizes above 5.5 microns (F3 - 12 Microns. Alex - 8.3 Microns)
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F35?
 
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