F23: Just Got A New Camera - Sony F23

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Viddovation

Veteran
So, about a month ago I got two Sony F23 cameras... shortly thereafter bought a Odyssey 7Q+, and yesterday I finally got glass. Hope to do some sharing here soon.

My testing in the past 24 hours has been very limited - but I'm already finding the 4:4:4 DPX files to be incredible.

Zeiss DigiPrimes-small.jpgf23-with-digi.jpg
 
Well THAT sure looks like one fine situation you got goin' there!

The F23 hasn't been as common here at the forum as the F35 has been - but my understanding is that the F23 is very much a "little brother" to the F35, sharing a lot in the workings and the IQ.

I'll be VERY interested to see what you're able to share with us here.


BTW: Your portfolio and reel are RIDONKULOUS. Wow.
I was curious - how much post you do on things you've shot?
Thanks James.
 
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DPStewart said:
Well THAT sure looks like one fine situation you got goin' there!

The F23 hasn't been as common here at the forum as the F35 has been - but my understanding is that the F23 is very much a "little brother" to the F35, sharing a lot in the workings and the IQ.

I'll be VERY interested to see what you're able to share with us here.


BTW: Your portfolio and reel are RIDONKULOUS. Wow.
I was curious - how much post you do on things you've shot?
Thanks James.
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Thanks. I'm flattered that you think so. Like all of us, I have to fight for every client and every shoot, and I'm no where near where I want to be. But I've learned to incredibly selective when it comes to demo reels. I actually don't do post on most of my shoots - and much of what's in my reel was color graded by others. I'd love to do more post, but the simplicity of log workflows is that if you light and expose properly they can take it wherever they want.

I'd love to start posting some F23 stuff. But I'm a bit busy in another forum posting mystery camera shots in 3840x2160.
 
Film Scientist said:
Hi James,

Does the F22 send out 12bit or 10bit 4:4:4 into the Odyssey 7Q?

Thanks,
M
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10bit 4:4:4 appears to be the max. I'm suspecting the hardware may be 12bit capable, but that demand fell off and Sony never prioritized offering such in a firmware upgrade. Sony only had 10bit recorders for it, so there was little push for 12bit output.

That said, the 10bit works great, and clearly was used on both large and small screen productions that are household names.
 
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Beautiful Lenses. I've already used my F23 on 3 projects since I purchased it, mostly for projects where the above stabilized lens can beat out lens options on 35mm format.

Have you updated your firmware? I found an interesting flaw in the old firmware, the 7Q would not see the 30P correctly, i think it is firmware at least, my F35 does not have the same 30P issue. I waited to update firmware after I had tested the camera for a few shoots.
Yes I posted incorrectly the F23 was 12 -bit capable. I am loving the 60P of the F23.
 
Firmware for the F23? I forget if I've checked versions.

I've only had the glass for two days, so I've had limited testing opportunities.

It's only 10bit, but honestly, it's incredible. I think I'm actually more excited about the F23 than I was or am about the F35.
 
you can tell if the firmware was updated if it has cine-ei mode. If you older firmware, try the 30P or 29.97P to the 7Q, i was getting lots of visual artifacts in these modes.

The new dual recording mode on the 7Q is going to be killer for dual camera coverage.
 
The F23 sensor block has the best prism and color definition of any camera I've ever seen. It may not have the expanded color gamet of newer cameras, but the purity is like no other.
 
Mitch Gross said:
The F23 sensor block has the best prism and color definition of any camera I've ever seen. It may not have the expanded color gamet of newer cameras, but the purity is like no other.
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Thanks for chiming in Mitch. I'm really excited to be playing with the very best digital cinema equipment money can buy - even if I'm doing it 8 years late. I know in this forum there's been some non-sense discussion of blowing the F35 up to 4k, but I've done some simple comparison between the FS7 at UHD and the F23 blown up to the same - and the FS7 confers virtually no advantage in true resolution on that test.

The tests I'm doing on color response from the F23 paired with DigiPrimes... without a doubt, the best combination I've ever had my hands on.

And I'm pleased to be pairing it with your company's O7Q+.

Mitch - I'm having some trouble googling original cost on DigiPrimes. Was it like $30k per each lens? And what about the F23? Sans SRW-1? $400k with SRW1?

Thanks!

Also... I'm enjoying 4:4:4 DPX, but what's the timeline on 4:4:4 ProRes?
 
Viddovation said:
I know in this forum there's been some non-sense discussion of blowing the F35 up to 4k, but I've done some simple comparison between the FS7 at UHD and the F23 blown up to the same - and the FS7 confers virtually no advantage in true resolution on that test.
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Not sure I understand you but you are saying blowing up F35 to 4K is nonsense but F23 is not? If this what you say I don't understand why and don't agree.
 
SJX said:
Not sure I understand you but you are saying blowing up F35 to 4K is nonsense but F23 is not? If this what you say I don't understand why and don't agree.
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It's a bit more nuanced than that - but at the root both are 1080p cameras, albeit accomplished in different manners. Upping either camera to 4k is essentially interpolating and guessing at information that simply wasn't recorded. However, if you look at the way the F23 prism block works as a sensor versus the F35 RGB stripe sensor, it becomes clear that the color accuracy (on the pixel level) of the F23 is greater than that of the F35.

But, here's the thing - once upon a time, "4k" meant a film scan done at 4096 lines red, 4096 lines blue, and 4096 lines green - essentially, RGB 4:4:4 at 4k. But Red came in and touted a single chip bayer sensor at 4096 lines as "4k" and the definition got altered. So, the very best in 1080p that the F23 and F35 produce can be blown up to 3840x2160 in Photoshop and can then be difficult to delineate from bayer sensor UHD 4:2:2 acquired images.
 
why photoshop? care to share the process? can the same type of conversion be applied to F35 footage?
 
I think James just used PS because he had stills to show in the Sony look thread. It would be the same as starting a 4K project and scaling up 200%

james, now that you have your digiprimes, how would you rate them compared to your ultras (and masters if you've tried them) ?
 
Wrong James I know but digiprimes are very nice. From a handling perspective I prefer the form factor to ultras, but they don't have cams like Masters.
 
Viddovation said:
I'd love to start posting some F23 stuff. But I'm a bit busy in another forum posting mystery camera shots in 3840x2160.
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hahaha, I can already guess what that "mystery camera" is! ;-) Starts with "F" and ends with "23".

Could you post links here to where else you're sharing this? Am curious to read others' responses!
 
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