F5: F5 successor revealing (really a F65 successor)

Donny 123 said:
The F65 digital motion picture camera line-up is scheduled to be available in January direct from Sony: The F65, with viewfinder for $65,000; the F65RS (Built in Rotary Shutter Model), with viewfinder for $77,000; and SR-R4 dockable recorder for $20,000. All will also be available through Sony authorized resellers.

RED
SONY
CAMERAS
4K
SONYF65
F65

Actually another $20,000 for the Raw recorder.. but your right it does include the VF.. thats pushing $100,000 for shutter and Raw recorder.. the Alexa was never this price.. looking at the pictures again the F65 is much wider than the Alexa ..and taller..
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You could only buy the F65RS . They announced the one without shutter but cancelled it early on because of lack of interest.

And you are quoting a press release. These were not the street prices.
 
Donny 123 said:
No way.. I know people who have worked with the F65 mechanical shutter.. I think it can be put in and taken out.. but it definitely exists in a F65 body.. your saying there has never been an F65 with mechanical shutter ..!! Wasn't Cafe Society F65 with mech shutter..
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Can you read??? I said you could only buy the F65RS. That's the model WITH the mechanical shutter. RS does not stand for rolling shutter, if that's what you are thinking.
 
Sttratos said:
Can you read??? I said you could only buy the F65RS. That's the model WITH the mechanical shutter. RS does not stand for rolling shutter, if that's what you are thinking.
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No wasn't thinking that.. hadn't even seen it.. !.. ok got it.. but fact remaining I do believe the F65 was more expensive than the Alexa.. esp the basic Alexa.. as opposed to the studio 4-3
 
Prices were pretty comparable. But unfortunately a large number of those who put their hard-earned into the Sony lost a lot of money. I suspect far less so with the Arri.

And I don't know of many who would rag on the F65's image quality either.

But with the Sony (at launch at least) you had a card reader the size of a small desktop PC, that required an ethernet connection and access theough an IP Address typed into a browser...

Compare that to ProRes4444 on SxS cards? Also the ease-of-use of the two cameras? The F65 was dead in the water before it even arrived. There's more to camera selection than just sheer imaging ability, the F65 proved that beyond a doubt.
 
Grug said:
Prices were pretty comparable. But unfortunately a large number of those who put their hard-earned into the Sony lost a lot of money. I suspect far less so with the Arri.

And I don't know of many who would rag on the F65's image quality either.

But with the Sony (at launch at least) you had a card reader the size of a small desktop PC, that required an ethernet connection and access theough an IP Address typed into a browser...

Compare that to ProRes4444 on SxS cards? Also the ease-of-use of the two cameras? The F65 was dead in the water before it even arrived. There's more to camera selection than just sheer imaging ability, the F65 proved that beyond a doubt.
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Exactly the point Ive been badly trying to make.. I dont think the unpopularity of the F65 ,compared to Alexa, is due to all the DP,s in features and high end commercials thinking the image was crap or " too digital.. "
 
Mark,

Your the first DP I know of who owns an Alexa Studio. What a beast! Are you using the mechanical shutter much?

Only used the Studio on one project, a multi-day commercial, & mostly with the shutter off, but when I did use it it was a trip to see the shutter spinning up to speed. Sort of felt nostalgic.

Are you using the optical viewfinder, or a EVF?
 
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Grug said:
Prices were pretty comparable. But unfortunately a large number of those who put their hard-earned into the Sony lost a lot of money. I suspect far less so with the Arri.

And I don't know of many who would rag on the F65's image quality either.

But with the Sony (at launch at least) you had a card reader the size of a small desktop PC, that required an ethernet connection and access theough an IP Address typed into a browser...

Compare that to ProRes4444 on SxS cards? Also the ease-of-use of the two cameras? The F65 was dead in the water before it even arrived. There's more to camera selection than just sheer imaging ability, the F65 proved that beyond a doubt.
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Sony thought that being a "true" 4K camera, it'd have superior market power over a 2.8K Alexa. But TV stayed with 1080p anyway and features were good enough with 2.8/2.5/up-rezzed 4, et cetera. Plus, ARRI kept adding mod after mod after mod.
 
Bern Caughey said:
Mark,

Your the first DP I know of who owns an Alexa Studio. What a beast! Are you using the mechanical shutter much?

Only used the Studio on one project, a multi-day commercial, & mostly with the shutter off, but when I did use it it was a trip to see the shutter spinning up to speed. Sort of felt nostalgic.

Are you using the optical viewfinder, or a EVF?
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I use the mechanical shutter constantly, for everything except high-speed shooting (it can't run over 60fps). It was my primary reason for getting the camera - doing away with rolling shutter artefacts, and having the immediacy of an optical viewfinder.

I use the optical viewfinder by default, because for me personally (since I also operate the camera most of the time) having that immediacy of feedback when you're engaging with actors in a scene makes a big difference. The modern EVFs are great, and they don't have a lot of lag. But they do still lag. And timing your pans and tilts precisely, and responding to an actor's movements does suffer for it. It may only be a 5% percent kinda issue, but it's enough of an issue that when I first tested the Studio for a feature last year, I had my moment of awakening. I just went 'wow, THIS is how I want to operate'.

The flicker can be quite startling at first, but your eye adjusts to and accepts it very quickly. And I think it's a pretty small tradeoff for the ability to truly operate in realtime, and to see the scene directly through the lens.

That said I do always carry an EVF with me, a Zacuto Gratical Eye, for those times when we either have to jump to high-speed, or if we're outdoors with the sun constantly popping in and out of the clouds - in which case, having the waveform/false-colour directly in the EVF makes riding the iris for a consistent exposure much easier.

On 'Choir Girl', the feature I just finished, we were shooting Black and White, with a really graphic look I came up with by pushing the colour channels hard. However the only way to monitor and compose for such an extreme look (where you couldn't judge luminance conventionally), was to feed 3D LUTs into the Gratical Eye (and have the same LUTs fed to video village via the Teradek Bolt receivers). That would have been a nightmare with the optical viewfinder or the regular Alexa EVF, so in that situation, having the Zacuto was a lifesaver. So it's certainly good to have both options.
 
I never used the Alexa Studio. But I always wondered, how does the optical viewfinder affect exposure? An optical viewfinder obviously eats light. This is one of the disadvantages. Is the Alexa Studio rated lower than the EVF Alexas? Another advantage of turning the shutter off and using an EVF besides waveform is, it should give you some extra stops when you need in low light. Although in a film camera shutter off normally means black. I'm guessing with the Studio it stays open?

And were you able to get a deal on the Studio? It seems they don't rent out as much as the other Alexas and I always thought you could use that as a bargaining chip if buying an used one.
 
Sttratos said:
I never used the Alexa Studio. But I always wondered, how does the optical viewfinder affect exposure? An optical viewfinder obviously eats light. This is one of the disadvantages. Is the Alexa Studio rated lower than the EVF Alexas? Another advantage of turning the shutter off and using an EVF besides waveform is, it should give you some extra stops when you need in low light. Although in a film camera shutter off normally means black. I'm guessing with the Studio it stays open?

And were you able to get a deal on the Studio? It seems they don't rent out as much as the other Alexas and I always thought you could use that as a bargaining chip if buying an used one.
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It's just different style of shutter, there's no inherent light loss to it. If you've got the mirror spinning at 180 degrees, you'll have the exact same exposure as turning it off and having the electronic shutter on the sensor expose at 180 degrees.

Using particularly funky shutter angles is another time when swithing to an EVF can help. But it's very rare for me to go to longer shutter angles than 180 degrees (things start to look 'digital' when you do that), I use short angles somewhat frequently, but rarely longer ones. Plus the camera's great up to 1600 ISO and very usable up to about 2000 ISO (at which point you can light things with the screen from your iPhone) so I don't really need more sensitivity.

Price-wise you pay a premium for the camera (I certainly did), but I think the feature set makes it worthwhile. It's also the only big Alexa with internal ND, which is super handy.
 
Someone on Facebook F5/F55 users group asked if anyone knew which DP's would be providing input to Sony for the development of this new camera.

I have my opinions but wanted to throw it out there:

1) Should Sony turn to DP's again for the development of the new F camera? What kind of DP's?

2) Sony claims they got feedback when they developed the new F CineAlta's - so was that success or a failure then?

3) What should Sony do differently this time if they are collecting feedback, and from who?
 
To be honest, given just how well they've done developing and maturing the F5(5), in usability, in the quick-menu design, in the workflow component (particularly shooting raw with proxies).

I think 2017 CineAlta is far more likely to deliver a camera people are going to want to use from the get-go, than they've ever been before.

I doubt we're going to get a proper ProRes feature-set and workflow from them, but I think the important elements that they need to get right are:

A) Recording:
- Global shutter! Do what you did with the F55 please!

- Dual-native ISO! Pannie are on to a good thing here, steal from the best!

- More white balance options in SLOG modes

- A proper proxy version of XAVC, that's low bitrate (like 35Mbps), 2k/HD, and can support every framerate that the Raw/XOCN recordings are capable of. The current proxy system on the F5(5) is terrific, probably the best on the market, allowing you to burn your show LUT into the 2k XAVC files, and record proxies for every framerate possible - but the 100Mbps (or so) codec is more data heavy than it needs to be for a proxy file.

- Push XAVC to it's full spec, and deliver a 12-bit 4:4:4 high bitrate recording option. Their new XOCN codec offers all this and more, but it would be good to have ProRes4444 matching quality in a codec that post houses are more familiar with at this point.

B) Monitoring:
- Allow monitoring tools like LUTs, false colour and waveforms to all function as they should in the EVF (i.e. they should be accessible at all times, and in all recording modes, and it should be possible to monitor with LUT on, whilst getting waveform and false colour readings from the underlying log signal).

- We SHOULD NOT have to switch in and out of LUT modes on the camera just to get accurate exposure tools in the EVF (as it is with the F5(5) currently), that's madness.

- SENSIBLE EVF CABLE LAYOUT

C) Menus:
- The current quick menus on the F5(5) are TERRIFIC. That's how the new camera should function (though with the onboard buttons better mapped to them of course - though the button layout is of course a legacy of the cameras not being designed that way in the first place).

- They need to take the simplicity and intuitiveness of the quick menus, and apply that same approach to UI, to the entire menu system on the cameras.

D) Extra Features:
- The fancy new variable ND system from the FS5/FS7ii would be GREAT

- An FZ mount or an equivalent that's slightly more recessed to allow for things like speedboosters to be developed

- Partner up with a crowd like C-Motion to develop built-in wireless FIZ capability (like the Plus module on the Alexa/Alexa Mini), if this can be a streamlined module that can bolt on to the camera seamlessly, but is an optional extra for cost and weight reasons, that'd be great.

- Partner up with wireless video and audio companies to develop integrated wireless capabilities (ideally in module form like the R5, so that they could be stack onto the back of the camera when desired, but function as an optional extra).

- Be camera-assistant friendly, offering camera control on the assistant's side of the camera too.



Frankly, if this camera is aimed at the high-end that it appears to be, then I would hope they design it with that in mind. Productions that can afford fancy cameras like this, have basic, essential crew members in place. There will be at least an AC or two, on the jobs a camera like this goes out to, so I hope they design it for that, and don't make design concessions to the kinds of shooting that can never afford these sorts of cameras anyway.

And most importantly - learn from Arri - SIMPLICITY IS KING!
 
Sttratos said:
I never used the Alexa Studio. But I always wondered, how does the optical viewfinder affect exposure? An optical viewfinder obviously eats light. This is one of the disadvantages. Is the Alexa Studio rated lower than the EVF Alexas? Another advantage of turning the shutter off and using an EVF besides waveform is, it should give you some extra stops when you need in low light. Although in a film camera shutter off normally means black. I'm guessing with the Studio it stays open?

And were you able to get a deal on the Studio? It seems they don't rent out as much as the other Alexas and I always thought you could use that as a bargaining chip if buying an used one.
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The Alexa Studio does not use a pellicle mirror system, but a spinning butterfly mirror which has no loss of light.
 
Great write-up!

I would add:
Make your log-curve and ISO work togheter like ARRI are doing. Changing ISO should just map midgrey so you can choose how much range you want in shadows vs highlights. I really like how ISO 1600 on the arri gives you another stop in the highlights.
 
Sttratos said:
But the price for the F65 includes the EVF right? While the Alexa doesn't. I don`t think an Alexa with EVF was only $45k. And where did you see $77K for the F65? I'm quite sure street price was around $60K. Maybe Rafael will know.

But I don't think the reason the Alexa ate the F65's lunch was because of price and size. It was because DPs looked at it and didn't see anything they wanted.

F55 is what, a year newer than the F65? After a year you could use the F55 EVF. Not a lot of time. The EVF was not an excuse.
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The 65 didn't catch on because of the convoluted post workflow and if I remember correctly the recoding system wasn't fully available and very expensive. Mitch Gross posted something a while back detailing why things went off the rails. If may be in the F35/F65 section... or on CML.

By comparison the Alexa offered an idiot proof direct-to-edit Prores workflow for commercials / TV and a pretty straightforward ArriRAW pipeline. Also the data footprint is a lot more manageable from the Alexa when shooting RAW. Remember that it's been about 6-7 years and hard drive space etc was lot more expensive than today. Also the Gemini444 that allowed you to record ArriRAW was tiny in comparison to the Sony rig and cheaper.

I really haven't heard a lot of complaints about F65 IQ. If anything I've heard people say it's too sharp and perfect, but I was blown away by the RAW files I got to handle a few years back.
 
stokstad said:
Great write-up!

I would add:
Make your log-curve and ISO work togheter like ARRI are doing. Changing ISO should just map midgrey so you can choose how much range you want in shadows vs highlights. I really like how ISO 1600 on the arri gives you another stop in the highlights.
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And formulate the color science so you no longer increase saturation after a certain luminance level is reached. I think its .4 on the Alexa.
 
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