F5: F5 vs F3 - what are the differences

I should have included high frame rate in my list.

And I agree that selling an F3 right now for a decent price is virtually impossible.
 
Hey did you see that RED sold one of it's battle tested Red One MX cameras for $4k? Wow, there's a price drop. $4k on an F3 and I'll by a second camera. :)
 
Yes you're right - the f3 is going to go for $4000 used right now - the whole 2nd hand market is going kind of crazy . :) And to make things hurt for me, I'm really honestly I'm digging the look from the Black Magic Camera. It has a whole new beauty that I'm not used to seeing in such a cheap camera.

I decided against preordering the F5. Even though its a better camera than the F3 I feel like its more a purchase for people who didn't pick up the F3. It's a C300 killer, a camera I am not a fan of at all in terms of how its motion looks and overall its c log just doesn't do it for me.

Frame rates being higher than 30p in 1080p would really be huge reason to go F5 but I went the Red MX One BT $4000 route (which turned into 11k) instead to get up to around 100 FPS in 2k mode besides its other niceties like beautiful resolution and great motion. And yes the Red One still is not the super-amazing doc camera that the Sony F3 is and the Sony F5 definitely will be but yes - it's going to cost around 20k to get to the F5 and selling a F3 for 4-6k - ouch that hurts to get an image that may or may not look 15,000 dollars better than the F3 with a Samurai.

Oh man its a tough decision.

I'm so happy more of you are all in a similar position.

God I wish the test videos put online of the F55 were more impressive. I was really rooting for the videos to look amazing and different than the F3 footage I have seen and I have shot.

I really am feeling more blown away by some of the Black Magic footage than the F55 clips. Oh the BMC saturation is so beautiful, the motion and the sharpness. The m4/3 size sensor seems like a pain in the butt but OH THOSE COLORS and saturation - and now I've seen some great looking stuff shot to log in pro res mode, I'm getting more and more excited for it :) Of course I have heard it has rolling shutter issues that I want to look into.

And the camera that is making me drool is 3,000 dollars. How can poor Sony compete at this point? What a brutal camera world we are currently living in.
 
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I havent been paying attention to the used F3 market recently, are you guys saying F3's are consistently selling used for only 4-6k these days, or was it a couple isolated sales? If this does become the going used rate it would make no sense for me to sell mine, it's to good of a camera/image to give up for that kind of chump change.
 
The underpriced market for the F3 will settle down. Those are the owner operators that will be moving up to the F5 mostly.

The BMCC camera is great, BUT there is rolling shutter on par with a 5D, moire and aliasing due to a lack of an OLPF, difficult crop factor and most importantly, you need to shoot RAW. In regards to the latter that seems like a great idea, but the data rates of cinema DNG will soon have people reverting to prores 422 HQ on it. The quantity of data is far more than the RED for instance. Once people are in prores mode, I think the F3 + SLOG will look pretty good by comparison, probably better. P. Bloom who has shot both and owns an F3, feels the image coming from the F3 is still better. At least this is what he told me.
 
RAW is awesome and can be pushed around to most any look that you want (as long as exposures are decent--still no reward for lackies).
I'd suspect that most BMC users will soon find-out that shooting RAW is great until you hit the wall in post.

Yes, the F3 image is still top-tier. I shoot Epic as well, but often favor my F3 image over it--with a faster/easier path to completion.
 
recent successful sales on ebay look closer to $8k.

not as bad as $4k, but that's got to be some kinda record for depreciation.
 
I haven't seen any F3s selling for $4K, closer to 9 - 10K which isn't all that bad in this market if you've gotten a year or more of great work out of it.
 
I don't see used F3 go for something as low as $4000. Heck I sold my AF100 three months ago for $3300.

Actually I was being sarcastic. I've also seen them going for the $7k to $10k depending on condition and accessories.

That Red One MX was sold for $4k though. Most Red One's seem to go for $6k to $11k depending on condition and accessories. Man those Red accessories are expensive.
 
The sensors are different between all three cameras: F3, F5 and F55. The CFA between the F3 and F5 are similar if not the same, and geared towards REC709 while the F55 is geared towards exceeding film color gamut.

At a very high level the benefits of the F5 over the F3 are:

• F5 will do higher bitrate recording internally for HD unlike the F3
• F5 will do 4k RAW with AXS recorder
• F5 does high frame rates
• F5 does 2k XAVC in 10-bit in high bitrate

If you currently own RED, then I don't see the point of the F5 - especially if you already own a F3.

Star,
You seem to be really immersed in the features, science of all of this. How do you visualize the F55 vs Epic bullet list?
Thanks.

I posted this on the Sony Community forum, and a few other threads on DVX:

Some of the biggest differences between the F5 and F55 are:

• Global shutter on the F55
• The F55 can record 4k internally with high bit-rate codec (you may not need RAW for your application)
• The F5 can record 2k internally with high bit-rate codec.
• Both will obviously record 4k RAW with add-on AXS 4k Recorder
• The F5 uses a Color Filter Array designed for REC709 color gamut
• The F55 uses a Color Filter Array similar to the F65 which extends its color gamut even further than film
• F55 ISO 1250. F5 ISO 2000 (confirmed that this is in SLOG2 mode)
• F55 is 500 ISO. F5 is 800 ISO. (standard gamma mode)

As for RED EPIC/Scarlet VS. F5/F55

• RED shoots 2k in windowed mode - not rescaled and super-sampled like the F5/F55.
• The latest RED sensor are said to resolve 3.2k lines of resolution in 4k mode. We need to see the F5/F55 on the charts before we can properly compare but Sony is known for its image sharpness and reports so far have been that the 4k from Sony is very very detailed on 4k screen monitors. Not to mention Sony is doing processing in camera for XAVC and lower codecs.
• RED is rated by its users as ISO 800, 1600 max usable and most RED DP's will not go over 500-800 for a clean image. Again, no results or tests are available yet for the F5/F55 but I guess we will see very clean images at very high ISO's similar to the F3, F65, C300 and C500.
 
Can anyone point me in the direction of info regarding what the FS700/F5/F55 all do with the recording box attached. I'm interested in frame rates and color depth comparison.
 
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