F3: Ebay Scam or Price Drop?

Adamsenoj said:
While that really looks too good to be true, the reality in the current market as of today is that anything which is not a Canon C-series of a BMCC is going for the price of a couple of bananas. The FS100 is basically "free" already. The F3 is going for the price of two bananas and a tomato. Saw some bodies going for the price of this one (although without the lenses) and even "older" bigger full sized high-end cameras are going for less than a new C300. Lots of REDs, specially Scarlet and RED ONE going for cheap too. It's the market reality we live in today. RED came and kicked the door wide open on the cheapness. Others had to play catch and drop their prices. Then RED releases more updates to sensors than teenagers change their minds about what they want to be when the grow up. So the other manufacturers had to again play catch up and release more frequent updates. The result is quicker depreciation of prior models. We get it cheaper and faster, but we also lose more money on the sale later. Can't have it both ways. And it will only get worse, much worse.
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starcentral said:
Guys, buy those used F3's now while you can... the new F's will not be fully functional in feature set until around September and even later for 4k S&Q functions, LUTS,

The F3 may very well be back from the dead!
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Or wait a year and buy the f5 for 5-6k when it is inevitably dumped.
 
Why is everybody so surprised at the F3 price drop?
Look at what happened to the F35, now that's a price drop!
I'm afraid that is the reality now.
You have to keep that in mind when looking at your return on investment.
Two years should do it.
But its difficult at the moment.
Glass would be a smart thing to buy, but over here its difficult to charge to the customer.
A lot of producers see glass as an accessory that comes with the camera.
I think there is a huge market for affordable PL glass.
One mount, one world Come on Glass people!
 
Thomas Kist said:
Why is everybody so surprised at the F3 price drop?
Look at what happened to the F35, now that's a price drop!
I'm afraid that is the reality now.
You have to keep that in mind when looking at your return on investment.
Two years should do it.
But its difficult at the moment.
Glass would be a smart thing to buy, but over here its difficult to charge to the customer.
A lot of producers see glass as an accessory that comes with the camera.
I think there is a huge market for affordable PL glass.
One mount, one world Come on Glass people!
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I have to agree totally with you here Thomas, the days when our newly purchased gear would retain value long enough to repay the capital investment are probably behind us. Almost two years in I think I've barely covered the cost of my F3, but that's the body only, it's not including the lenses or the camera's accessories that add up to at least half of the cost of the camera alone.

Back in the day when I bought my film gear I managed to pay that equipment off entirely in about two years, but those were different times and different budgets we worked under. Digital moves and "improves" far too fast for that to happen now. For me and I would suspect many of us too, the "upgrade " pressure is hard to resist, but I have learned to do so.

Personally the prime reason to own camera gear now is to cover projects that I embark on for myself, or long term doc's and shorts that would not be able to afford the costs of gear rental for the entire project. Here my F3 covers those needs perfectly and I couldn't care less now at it's real or diminished value. Just to have it always available is value enough.......and as we keep saying, and well know, it produces great images. Certainly more than good enough for 80% of the work I can foresee in the next few years. If I need more quality, there's always my film gear or there's rental on a project by project basis.

Glass? Here too you have a good point and perhaps now there's little reason why many lens makers cannot produce good optics in PL mount, or at least have them easily adaptable to PL, but I think that's happening. We will always lust for the Cooke, Zeiss, Ang', and other cinema glass I am sure, but again the high cost of those premium products is very hard to justify at many levels when to be honest less expensive options that are out there already and others now starting to appear on the market really do cover the work extremely well. I say this as an owner of Cooke, Canon and Fuji cinema zooms, Zeiss Superspeeds and Standard Primes, but I am also more than happy with my 6x CP-2 set of lenses, the Sony 18-254 zoom, a Red 18-50 and some PL converted Nikkors.

I feel that the "two year payback" on newly acquired gear is pretty much a thing of the past for most of us given the way production budgets have shrunk considerably. With used gear that may be a different kettle of fish. If one has to own one's gear I think there's little wrong with having some patience and waiting until a camera system has been out there for at least a year or two then buying at a vastly reduced cost as owners dump their gear for the next newest thing.......like what's happening now with the F3, there's some great bargains around now for that camera, as I believe there will be for the F5 / F55 two years down the road. Maybe then I'll trade up from my F3, maybe not.
 
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Thomas Kist said:
Why is everybody so surprised at the F3 price drop?
Look at what happened to the F35, now that's a price drop!
I'm afraid that is the reality now.
You have to keep that in mind when looking at your return on investment.
Two years should do it.
But its difficult at the moment.
Glass would be a smart thing to buy, but over here its difficult to charge to the customer.
A lot of producers see glass as an accessory that comes with the camera.
I think there is a huge market for affordable PL glass.
One mount, one world Come on Glass people!
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The sale I linked in the first post included PL glass, follow focus, baseplate, media, full sized batteries, charger, oh, and a camera. That's what is surprising. The whole package selling for considerably less than 1DX body with no extras. I find that pretty shocking.

Yes, there's a huge market for affordable PL glass, that's what Rokkinon has tapped into, equally though, the first manufacturer to produce a large sensor camera with electronic control of focus, aperture and zoom from easy to use controls on the body is going to sell lots of cameras.

petermullett said:
the days when our newly purchased gear would retain value long enough to repay the capital investment are probably behind us. Almost two years in I think I've barely covered the cost of my F3, but that's the body only, it's not including the lenses or the camera's accessories that add up to at least half of the cost of the camera alone.
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I agree. If I can't get a 2% ROI on a piece of equipment then I rent it and wait for it to drop in value. New Camera Syndrome can be intoxicating, but is best avoided, particularly in this day and age.
 
Gary Huff said:
Just to be picky, Rokinon has cinemat-ized still lenses in EF and Nikon mounts. Not PL.
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Yes, sorry I didn't make that clear.

For further clarity: Rokkinon have tapped into the cine lens market at an affordable level by not adding PL mounts, metal housings or matched coatings - all of which add significantly to the cost of the lens.
 
Yes very tempting to buy a F3. But can it make another look other than Sony look? I know it is a sony camera but I got really tired of the sony look when I had my EX1. They all look the same. EX1, EX3, FS100, FS700, F3. Can anybody point to F3 footage which has not the sony look? Better if it is a movie or drama and not sports, corporate or documentaries.
 
Oh yes this site. I was looking at this site a little bit ago but didnt look everything. Because some movies you can't find footage and many look like video or have sony look. Do you know of any particular footage that look different? Maybe your favorite?
 
Ok I just looked.

These all have Sony look:

The awakened
Conspiracy 365
Spike Lee movie- looks horrible and has sony look.
The Down Home Alien Blues
Bad Parents
Doug Stabs Betty- bad sony look
Officer Down- has sony look, ugly video look and many problems.

The only one which is ok is Safety Not Guaranteed. But the look is still there too. Is this yellowish skin tone and everybody’s hair seem to have a red cast or look brownish and this harsh look to images too. It looks much like video this sony look.
 
Sttratos said:
Ok I just looked.

These all have Sony look:

The awakened
Conspiracy 365
Spike Lee movie- looks horrible and has sony look.
The Down Home Alien Blues
Bad Parents
Doug Stabs Betty- bad sony look
Officer Down- has sony look, ugly video look and many problems.

The only one which is ok is Safety Not Guaranteed. But the look is still there too. Is this yellowish skin tone and everybody’s hair seem to have a red cast or look brownish and this harsh look to images too. It looks much like video this sony look.
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The way that you keep repeating the phrase "sony look" its seems that perhaps you should steer clear of anything that says "Sony" on it.
 
I do a lot of my own color correction and grading and the non-SLOG footage seems to always have too much red tones which I'm forever reducing in post. SLOG footage offers better tones and I suspect most of these films were shot when the F3 was first released and SLOG was not available. Even then, it took a while before people shooting SLOG knew how to expose it properly.

For me the best cinematography and images from the F3 I've seen to date are from the film "Plan 9 from outer space." Look for the thread by Sweeny in the F3 footage section.
 
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It's important to remember that most of those films/shows were shot before SLOG was available as an option. The F3 in stock gamma modes, looks like what it is - a large sensor Sony video camera. It can look really nice - but you'd never call it breathtaking. With SLOG however, the F3 is a different camera, one that you could sometimes mistake for film or an Alexa.

So yes, it's a fantastic camera - but only with SLOG and a 10-bit recorder IMO.
 
I also think these movies were shot before s-log. They all look like video. Where can I see good cinematic s-log footages with no sony look? Any links?
 
Are all the clips on the key and peele channel F3? Because the first says Alexa and the rest says nothing. Also clips are low resolution. I hate when people put 1080p footage online and don't make it 1080p. What is the point? Can't judge it.

I saw the plan 9 grabs. Most of them look nice. But they also have the sony look. The difference is they still look nice even with the sony look because the DP is probably professional. But that was also not s-log I think.
I want to see cinematic s-log footage from F3. If I like I will buy one.
 
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