F5: F5 successor revealing (really a F65 successor)

Donny 123 said:
Ok well Im totally confused now.. may your god go with you sir..
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What's to be confused about? Unless you skipped my long post. Then, no wonder.

Goes like this:

Was tired of fighting the FS7 image so I sold it.

Trying the other Sony cameras such as F55 and F65 they all still looked too digital.

So I bought an Arri and couldn't be happier.

Pretty simple and straight forward to understand. Unless of course, you don't want to...
 
Seems pretty clear.

Sttratos is not loving the Sony images and is happy with the Arri look. That is his experience and opinion. Nothing wrong with that. Most DPs working in narrative and high-end commercial work agree with him or her (sorry, your name is not 100% gender specific to me, although I think you may be male). Specially folks who were used to working with film. And if you are enjoying the look you are getting with the Sony cameras, that's cool too! I see great work coming from folks using the Sony camera...Rob Hardy killing it with the F65. Testament of Youth was incredibly shot, in my opinion. So was Ex Machina.

Nobody has to agree about which cameras they think are good or not.

But in my personal opinion, I'm excited about what Sony do in this next development. I wish they would do something like Light Iron is doing with the DXL. It is essentially what Arri also did by bringing their Telecine experience to the Alexa. Although I guess ACES has really opened up Sony to a color management system that is film industry standard so maybe that is that.

I also hope you can fully customize file naming structure, and that proxy workflow with LUTs can be done in-camera.

Oh, this may seem crazy, but can we get a camera with customizable internal filter wheels? Say, three filter wheels that you can unscrew a body plate and change them at will. So one tray can be your NDs, one tray can be polarizers, and another tray can be your combination of filters that you'll need for that project...glimmer glass, pro mist, digital diffusion, etc.

Lastly, can we have false color and parade in-camera? The side monitor can be switched to display camera data or exposure tools.
 
Rafael, I took a year vacation from DVX and haven't been following things much... do you still have the F65? Have you shot any films with it and any footage or frame grabs online or to share?

regarding custom filters, they could do it with loading trays similar to how I believe Craft Camera's was planning on doing it. Could be interesting and I'd definitely be the one to put a 1/8 diffusion behind the lens.
 
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I'm definitely looking forward to this new Sony sensor and camera.

Light Iron now belongs to Panavision right? Panavision know their stuff. Many people seem to think they are the reason the F35 looks so good. But now that they are working with Red no chance of a Sony partnership again. Maybe Sony should try to hook up with Kodak or something. They sure need a new business model now that film is in its last legs. Sony could benefit too from their color expertise.
 
starcentral said:
Rafael, I took a year vacation from DVX and haven't been following things much... do you still have the F65? Have you shot any films with it and any footage or frame grabs online or to share?

regarding custom filters, they could do it with loading trays similar to how I believe Craft Camera's was planning on doing it. Could be interesting and I'd definitely be the one to put a 1/8 diffusion behind the lens.
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Hi Dennis,

Yep, still have a F65. But not interested in the Arri vs F65 argument...not suggesting you are.

I've shot a feature that is still in post, a few shorts, still in post, as well as a bit of commercial work. Most of my Instagram is F65, but I'll post some frames below.

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starcentral said:
Looks nice, thanks for sharing. What/how do you record to?

Cheers,
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Thanks! All pretty low budget work, so I can't say that I have explored the full potential of the camera, nor my own full potential. So still learning.

But on the F65 I record mostly RAW Lite (6:1 compression), to SRMemory cards. I usually have a camera hop from Sound Recordist/Mixer, and I love the MXF files that the F65 creates. Synced sound, high quality wrapper, and ACES workflow really tailored to the S-Gamut color space. Other than that, it is all in the grade.

Here are some more
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cake1.jpg

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starcentral said:
@rafael great stuff thanks again for sharing - gonna have to keep my eyes open for used F65

@bern - sorry what, I beg your pardon !? :)
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Dennis, are you serious about a used F65? I may know of a great deal on one. The one I passed on when I bought my Arri. Last time I checked it was still for sale a couple of months ago. So you might be able to get it for even a better price. It's been sitting for a while now. If you are serious I would try to reach out and see if it's still there. But I don't want to do it if you are not really wanting to buy it. I don't want them to think I'm interested and just trying to push the price down or is some sort of negotiating strategy that I said I bought an Arri instead.
 
Depends on price, but PM me for more details. I have the F55 so not like I "need" the F65 in a hurry or anything , it might be smartest to wait until the F9 is out.. then F65 ought to really sink to bottom low :beer:
 
Sttratos said:
What's to be confused about? Unless you skipped my long post. Then, no wonder.

Goes like this:

Was tired of fighting the FS7 image so I sold it.

Trying the other Sony cameras such as F55 and F65 they all still looked too digital.

So I bought an Arri and couldn't be happier.

Pretty simple and straight forward to understand. Unless of course, you don't want to...
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Ok got it.. just was wondering what "too digital " I believe your words ..means.. if it was based on some technical point from the F3 to the F65..maybe you are an engineer ..I think another postered asked the same question.. not just me.. personal preference .. sure I think I said before.. why would anyone argue about that.. I dont have shares in Sony.. just something you hear alot but Ive never heard any actual technical reasons to back it up.. i.e. Arri is also digital .. maybe because they have less pixels .. or just the color science .. but then that can be matched (given time and skill of the grader).. thats all.. also very simple no..?
 
dony

I could give you some technical explanations that I believe make the sony look - here I will talk Vs Arri.

Small pixels (vs 2.5k) woould tend to have less DR - so Arri are 'clever' to have DR over resolution.

Lack of 444 codec (SR444 is awesome when used.. which is never!) .. that means 1000 levels of colour per channel vs 4000 levels of colour.. go figure

Most important..

Sony have a huge heritage in 'going live' and their picture profiles (and culture) are designed around cramming huge DR (say of a soccer stadium shadow and sun side) into a broadcast legal space.. this looks crap but allows you to sit back and with a beer on the sofa and watch the game.

So I guess it is the two cultures of highlight distribution. Of course Slog and raw change that a bit on the Sony front..
 
Fingers crossed they take a step backwards with this upcoming Vistavision camera (I reckon they should call it the Sony 'Vista'), and bring back their F35 colour science.

I'm just sitting down with a feature I shot on the F35 in Davinci, and it's pretty frigging gorgeous. Just noticeably easier to get a pleasing picture from than any of their newer machines.

I certainly prefer the greater highlight latitude of my Alexa Studio (and the greater ease of use by far). But in terms of rendering a pretty picture, if everything's within range on the F35, I couldn't say there's much in it. Both look superb.
 
morgan_moore said:
dony

I could give you some technical explanations that I believe make the sony look - here I will talk Vs Arri.

Small pixels (vs 2.5k) woould tend to have less DR - so Arri are 'clever' to have DR over resolution.

Lack of 444 codec (SR444 is awesome when used.. which is never!) .. that means 1000 levels of colour per channel vs 4000 levels of colour.. go figure

Most important..

Sony have a huge heritage in 'going live' and their picture profiles (and culture) are designed around cramming huge DR (say of a soccer stadium shadow and sun side) into a broadcast legal space.. this looks crap but allows you to sit back and with a beer on the sofa and watch the game.

So I guess it is the two cultures of highlight distribution. Of course Slog and raw change that a bit on the Sony front..
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I dont think Arri cameras have a greater DR than Sony.. . sorry don't think that holds water .. you have some documentation to back it up.. ?

Again dont get your second point .. "going live" ? .. cramming huge DR into broadcast legal.. Arri does this too right.. they have REC709 legal.. its a menu choice..

Again just sort of random comments TBH.. where is the technical info in the above comments .. I dont see it. I have to say.. DR is not the difference between Arri and Sony thats for sure.. or 444 codec,s.. next :)
 
I think - with no technical knowledge apart from playing with cameras since 1990 that it is about choices when building a look.

It is not neccesarily about DR.. in fact less DR can have positives.

You will be aware that a stop is a doubleing of light, 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096 (13 stops) 8192, 16384 (stops 14 and 15)

very quickly representing one stop (with technical perfection) can eat half of the 444 space.

Now if you have 15 stops sensor you gotta start making some serious compromises with how you gonna map those 16384 values into 1024 (10bit) or 4096 file container. (or 235 broadcast levels! ! !)

This mapping.. known as Arri Log, Slog Clog or whatever.. allows for huge choice in the engineering department.

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Going live with a 13 stop scene.. we you need huge set of compromises to map to 16-245 ! !

Hence the Sony knee function which takes stops 8-13 and crushes them into kind of the top 20% of the WFM - legal but looks like crap - and you can still just see the golf ball against the white sky while enjoying your beer.

Now if you design for lower DR scenes.. say ones where the lighting department restrict the scene to maybe 8-10 stops and build profiles that work on a cinema (lit) set.. well you are going to make compromises that look more sexy in that environment!

So yes they are al 709.. but what choices are made by the engineering department when getting from 16883 true levels of light through to 16-245 broadcast safe levels?

Now if you have two engineering deaprtments, one has been working on movie sets for a generation , the other at sports fields for a generation.. well who is gonna come up with a move set friendly solution???
 
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One observation I have made mainly when owning a 16 bit hasselblad.. is that sexy highlight roll off is more important than ultimate capture range for pleasing images.

Aka a 10stop sensor with perfect highlight rendition is more 'pleasing' than a 14 stop imager with a compressed image that jaggies hair againsta a blown background etc.

So DR is not all.

Examining those figures I know where I would start compressing my data as an engineer, those bright stops, now if Ive only got a 10bit 1000 level box Ive got to make some pretty serious compromises verses the engineer with a 4000 level toy box.

So.. Alexa 444 look better than Sony 422..? of course it does.

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Going back to those big pixels.. analogue devices as it happens.. well the mission of a pixel is to be able to pump out 16838 different voltages when different levels of light are applied.. now.. If I had to build a device capable of turning 16838 levels of light into 16838 different voltages well I would be a lot happier to for that device to be twice as large.

So big pixels better than small ones? of course they are


Who would therefore even think that a S354k10bit camera would be anything like a S352.5k12bit camera for colour fidelity?

Its like expecting your honda accord with a 1.1 engine to have the same acceleration as your 4.6litre muscle car.
 
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