F35 - I just joined the club

skital said:
For most people this analogy may be correct, but I would figure it out relatively quickly no doubt. I am a very quick learner.

Again, not directed at you in particular as I have no idea of your experience. But holding the T2i as a frame of reference does imply that this is where your experience is. Otherwise you would ask how the low light compares to say an Alexa or Genesis instead of a T2i.
I understand how it could appear, but I was merely trying to gauge the low light sensitivity, so I'd know what to expect (ie; step up or step down). I do not have much experience shooting with high end cameras to be honest, but that's not to be mistaken for someone with the inability to use one. I am a quick learner and love to soak up knowledge in this field. I have worked with BMCC RAW footage with ease. If I had the camera there is not one shred of doubt I'd figure it out and make great footage with it. It's not rocket science by any means.

The reasons why I asked how the low light compares to the T2i instead of a higher end camera like the Alexa or hell, even the lower end FS100U is because it's a bit of an older cinema camera and I wasn't sure how the low light of an older model cinema camera would compare to the expected low light of today's cameras, even consumer wise. Just needed a frame of reference, that's all really. I already assumed it was no match for the Alexa in low light.

Thanks for the replies.
Click to expand...

Why don't you look at a Sony F3? I think it may be better suited for you and the F3 is no slouch. It even beats the F35 in some areas like dynamic range and low light. Yes, it doesn't do 12 bit 4:4:4, but honestly unless you are doing features or very high end stuff you don't need it. It's much smaller than the F35 and easier to handle. Besides have you seen how much they are going for? One sold for 3,000 Dollars on Ebay a couple of weeks ago and another sold for $6,900, including the 3x PL primes and S-log upgrade. This is just insane what's happening to the F3. It took a bigger hit than any camera under $15k. There are like 100,000 F3s on Ebay. At the moment there's only one single FS700 on Ebay for example. And the FS700 is still selling for 7 grand and over. More than the F3. But yet, it's only half the camera IMO. Crazy times.
If I was upgrading from a T2i I would definitely check the F3 at the moment. Then if your BMCC ever comes out of the assembling line you can decide to pass or get it. By then your F3 will have probably already paid for itself, specially at these prices. Besides, a 4:4:4 S-logged F3 is much more camera than a BMCC IMO. RAW is overrated, specially on a small sensor box with a lens.
 
Adamsenoj said:
If I was upgrading from a T2i I would definitely check the F3 at the moment. Then if your BMCC ever comes out of the assembling line you can decide to pass or get it. By then your F3 will have probably already paid for itself, specially at these prices. Besides, a 4:4:4 S-logged F3 is much more camera than a BMCC IMO. RAW is overrated, specially on a small sensor box with a lens.
Click to expand...

It also shoots ProRes, and box with a lens or not, I would not choose an F3 over Blackmagic+Prores it in any situation, ever.

Coming from actually having USED the camera for a while now.
 
The colorimtry and sharpness is very exciting from the BMC . I'm still excited for it.

Still waiting for a PL lens to use on the f35 besides the super 16mm glass I have.

So far only did two tests in my poorly lit shitty overhead flourescent studio.

Want to have a real go at it soon.

Right now trying to figure out best settings to minimize noise in the shadows.

Wondering if it's Pro Res or Avid DNXHD's fault, or its just the camera - and then if its the camera playing with CINE mode and CINE extended mode and custom mode or jus the cables going into the Samurai.

Also I am completely underexposured in my studio and I'm too busy to throw up some real lights- my light meter is mad at me.
 
Adamsenoj said:
Why don't you look at a Sony F3? ...... One sold for 3,000 Dollars on Ebay a couple of weeks ago and another sold for $6,900, including the 3x PL primes and S-log upgrade. This is just insane what's happening to the F3. It took a bigger hit than any camera under $15k. There are like 100,000 F3s on Ebay.
Click to expand...

Just a note so we're not spreading FUD that not all the deals you see closed on ebay are legit and many "cheap F3's" that appeared as "too good to be true" were scams. A few of them were tracked here on DVX late last year, one of which by a seller on ebay "Wendy Beans" who sold an F3 with lenses for a whopping $7000.

Is it possible they can go for cheap? Yes.
Is it rare? Yes.

The range of prices for F3's on ebay go from $7000-$10,000 with and without Sony lenses. There are occassional ones listed for less for sure, and then there are some listed for more.

Regardless, the F3 is a great camera and should not be ruled out as a high quality HD super 35mm camera.
 
Last edited:
Kholi said:
It also shoots ProRes, and box with a lens or not, I would not choose an F3 over Blackmagic+Prores it in any situation, ever.

Coming from actually having USED the camera for a while now.
Click to expand...

To each his own. If you're the kind who can put up with a DSLR as your main camera, then you certainly can put up with the BMCC. For me it just doesn't cut it.
 
starcentral said:
Just a note so we're not spreading FUD that not all the deals you see closed on ebay are legit and many "cheap F3's" that appeared as "too good to be true" were scams. A few of them were tracked here on DVX late last year, one of which by a seller on ebay "Wendy Beans" who sold an F3 with lenses for a whopping $7000.

Is it possible they can go for cheap? Yes.
Is it rare? Yes.

The range of prices for F3's on ebay go from $7000-$10,000 with and without Sony lenses. There are occassional ones listed for less for sure, and then there are some listed for more.

Regardless, the F3 is a great camera and should not be ruled out as a high quality HD super 35mm camera.
Click to expand...

Well, at 3,000 it may even be a scam, although not impossible to be legit. Surely deals are out there. But $7000-$10,000 for a F3 these days? Sorry, but anybody who pays that much is just out of touch with the current market. The average F3 bodies are selling for $5000-$7,000 on Ebay. Just hit "completed lists" and check it out. It seems only F3s with the paid S-log are selling for much more than that. And before you say the ones selling for $5000-$7,000 are a scam, think again. There can't be that many scams. I know F3 owners must be disappointed and in denial that their camera has been left out in the cold like that, but this is the harsh reality. Heck, my AF100 is also going for peanuts and I would smash it with a sledge-hammer before I let it go for the prices they have been selling now. But I can't change the market sensibilities. But the hit the F3 took from $16,000 to $5000-$7,000 in a year is much bigger than the hit the AF100 took from $4995 to $2,100.
Sure there are F3 listed for more on Ebay. Some people will always try or be in denial. But none of them listed for much more than $5000-$7,000 are selling at all. They get re-listed and re-listed every week. I've been watching. There's this one crazy guy asking $25k for a F3 package with an external recorder and a zacuto viewfinder. I mean, who will pay that for a F3? You can get a great F5 package and have spare change for lenses.
 
Adam I still don't understand with all your knowledge of all these cameras according to your signature and such you still have the Af100? I sold mine a long time ago. The noise in the shadows and how it handled high lights made it pretty much undesirable for me. Also the color matrix on that thing was really weird overall - I couldn't really find a setting that gave a natural colormitry. It was very fluorescent-like - violet overall look for skin tones.

Same with the EX3 - I sold that puppy a very long time ago. The look of the camera with the stock lens was pretty unflattering. With a 35mm adapter on it, it was nice - but all the added noise and the super low ISO - that's when I originally switched over eventually to the Sony F3.

Whether or not the F3 is going for cheap, the look of them with s log is really still quite nice.

Oh well.
 
I know David. Things is, I adopted a stance a while ago to no longer buy any camera with a cost of over $10k. This was even before this craziness which is the current market. I felt like it was just not worth it. Most of the jobs I do have the budget to rent. So if a job calls for an Alexa, I just get one. If it has a shot where a Phantom would be useful, I get one. If budget is tight for a high-speed camera I get a FS700 then. Does the job in a pinch. Not much call for 35mm or even 16mm anymore these days. But I have done my share of shooting on a F900, original Varicam and others as well. But it's not worth it for me to own higher priced cameras nowadays. I decided to invest in glass instead since I can use it with any camera. But even that, if I shoot with an Alexa for example, I normally go with better rented lenses over my personal set.

But I still like to have a "personal" camera if you will. I just don't like to be without a camera and also for those jobs that can't afford rental or something better. But I drew the line at $10K. At the time I bought my AF100 the only large sensor cameras that fell under $10K were the AF100, the FS100 and the FS700. The F3 was $16k and so was the C300. There was no C100 and even if there was I would not have bought it. Between the AF100 and FS100 it was a non contest. The FS100 has no NDs, no SDI, no syncroscan and no 24psf output, which I absolutely needed since I knew I would use a Hyperdeck. Not to mention the very awkward shape, bad positioned LCD, lack of top handle and horrible ergonomics. The FS700 was pretty much the same, just bigger, fatter and with NDs, SDI and slomo. I didn't feel it was twice as good as the AF100 and coming from an EX3 I was not looking forward to another camera with that same look.

I kept my EX3 for those jobs where a shallow DOF is undesirable or a servo zoom lens is useful, since all my other lenses are primes. But it doesn't get much use these days.

If I was in the market for a camera today, at the prices the F3s are selling for used, I would definitely get a F3. No doubt. But honestly, I haven't decided if I want to buy another 1080p camera at this stage. I will wait for NAB, see what it brings and then decide what to get for my "personal" camera. Maybe I will even wait till next year. I really don't miss a better camera because in the mean time I keep renting when the AF100 wont cut it.
 
If it was me, I'd sell your AF100, GH2, and EX3 asap before they are worth $25.
I could do more with a Canon 5D Mark III than all of those combined.
 
Adamsenoj said:
But $7000-$10,000 for a F3 these days? Sorry, but anybody who pays that much is just out of touch with the current market. The average F3 bodies are selling for $5000-$7,000 on Ebay. Just hit "completed lists" and check it out.
Click to expand...

starcentral said:
$7000-$10,000 with and without Sony lenses.
Click to expand...

I did specify the range of $7000-$10,000 [size=+1]with and without[/size] the lenses. Did you miss that part?

Of course there have been some exceptions, such as Alan Gordon's rental house who sold a few F3's for $6300 & $6500 but rental houses have already made their money back in rentals and can afford to sell for much less, those deals are rare and folks who were able to snatch them up were lucky.

As for "actual" prices of F3's sold on ebay for Jan-Feb 2013:
Jan-Feb-F3-sales.jpg
 
starcentral said:
I did specify the range of $7000-$10,000 [size=+1]with and without[/size] the lenses. Did you miss that part?

Of course there have been some exceptions, such as Alan Gordon's rental house who sold a few F3's for $6300 & $6500 but rental houses have already made their money back in rentals and can afford to sell for much less, those deals are rare and folks who were able to snatch them up were lucky.

As for "actual" prices of F3's sold on ebay for Jan-Feb 2013:
View attachment 66745
Click to expand...

Sure. The ones much over $7k include the paid 4:4:4 upgrade or the 3x prime lenses. Regardless, there were ten F3 cameras listed on Ebay in February so far and only the ones way bellow $7K sold. The other ones are all still there unsold. I think the Alan Gordon price is not as much of a bargain as becoming the market price already.
Now it's a great time to get a F3.
 
eddavid said:
If it was me, I'd sell your AF100, GH2, and EX3 asap before they are worth $25.
I could do more with a Canon 5D Mark III than all of those combined.
Click to expand...

Hehehe, fishing for an argument? I'm not sentimental about gear. It's just plastic, metal and circuit boards. Even when technically your comment makes no sense and is a clear and poor attempt at flaming.

But you know the old saying, it's not the gear. Sure you can do more with a 5D than I with a AF100, EX3 and GH2 combined (specially if by more you mean you like low dynamic range, soft, low resolution, aliased, moire crazy footage) because you're that much better than me. But on the other hand, I'm sure that Roger Deakins could certainly do more with an iPhone than you could with your 2 x Red One MX, 1 x Sony F35, 2 x Sony F3, 1 x Arri SRII, 1 x Canon 7D, 1 x Go Pro 3 Black combined as well. It's not the gear. If fancy gear would make the professional, every fancy pants with fancy gear would be shooting high-end features like Deakins and winning the academy award for best cinematography. That would be just too easy. Even I with all my incompetence would be able to win one, hehehe.

Thanks for the advice about selling the cameras, but as I said before, I will smash them with a sledge hammer (or donate to a film school) before I sell them for peanuts. I don't care for the sale. They can go on to be worth nothing. I'm not hurting for the money at the moment. Neither am I in the business of running after the latest and newest. I shoot, that's what I do.
 
This video shows very well the differences between Alexa, F3 and 7D. Damn I'm happy that I sold my AF100 after 2 months already, and I want an F3 now.

Edit: the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L1zUVA3dgk

Tell me what you think guys. You'll find poor F3 videos on Youtube but those are the ones that weren't shot in slog. All the graded slog stuff looks awesome. This makes the 5D/7D look as $1500 cams. Still good but not as good as a $10,000 F3. By the way am still considering buying a used F35 as well because it doesn't seem to be more expensive than an F3.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top