Crash/Low Cost B Cam?

C

CaptainSKA

Active member
I was thinking of picking up a lower cost camera (non POV/Action/HERO) to intercut with the F35 - something that can be used/abused - but would match up fairly well.

I was thinking something BMD - the Production with the global shutter S35 setup, but possibly even the Pocket. Then of course there's the Sony A7s that actually has SLOG2.

Has anyone looked at intercutting one of these lower cost cams? If so, have you had any luck?
 
The BMP4K would be the best B-cam match for the F35.
Global Shutter is the key aspect for action and POV shots.
Handheld/dynamic footage looks much better on the production 4K than the pocket.
The pocket needs to be on a tripod/slider/stabilizer for heavy motion.

I'd rate the base iso @: ~800 Pocket, ~640 BMP4K (raw), ~450 F35.

Raw BMD footage from both cameras can be graded to look close to the F35, but the F35 still holds an edge in capturing subtle skin tones, and secondary colors like cyan & orange.
The F35 is capturing real color data at the sensor level for each pixel, while the BMD cams are interpolating much of the color data.
I wouldn't go for an A7s for capturing motion because the image skew/rolling shutter is fairly bad. Great for stills, not my first choice as a video camera dedicated to heavy motion.

Below is a video where I inter-cut a Pocket (60%), BMP4k (10%) pre-pattern noise fix, and an F35 (30%).
http://vimeo.com/100611441
 
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The BM 4K I have been looking at cutting with some F65 footage. The motion is nice, it is sharp enough, but its handling of highlights is not very good and the noise pattern is quite different
 
Thanks for the info FS and JM. James, do the issues of highlight handling and noise make it a non-starter for you? Obviously there's not much out there, let alone lower-cost, that handles highlights like the F35/65.
 
For me I would say yes, but I am in the luxurious position of having an F65 as my main camera. I should point out we were shooting to ProRes, but as most people will do that it is still OK.

It is still vastly better than the cameras that used to be available to low budget productions five or six years ago, but you have to be very careful with how you use it if you want really good looking results.

I am interested to see if shooting it in RAW fixes anything, but if my experience with the F65 is anything to go by, lightly compressed 4K RAW will cost more in hard drives than the 4K camera does!

James
 
Mac will hate me but I think the Sony F3 is the best b-cam to the F35, Just did a shoot where they cut almost perfectly together color-wise, Motion Cadence on the other hand isn't as good on the F3- F35 motion is practically perfect IMO.
 
Yeah the F3 falls apart pretty quickly, but then most things do after an F35 (including the F65 with the rotary shutter off)

Certainly a good option though. Although the sad bit is F3 and F35 prices are not far apart!
 
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