F65: F65 - Ask me anything

Total weight of that rig I would guess at maybe 12-15KG? I haven't put it on a scales. It is pretty well balanced. I just moved the shoulder pad forward. Also, a V-lock on the back helps matters greatly.

The matte box is all Carbon Fibre, only weighs 600g or so.
 
James,

Three questions.

1: What evf do you recommend with the F65? The F55 OLED? Others? I imagine this is not a camera specific questions since PPI is important, but I figured you might know of something that plays well with menus and other considerations.

2: I think I remember you saying you never used the Cookes on the F65. Is this still the case? If so, why? Im curious about the pairing of F65 and Cooke, so wanted to get an idea from someone with experience...although this could be anyone on the forum, as well.

3: Have you figured out any way to separate the recorder from the body...say, via a wire?This could be helpful for steadicam work.

Lastly, thanks for creating this thread and taking time out of your day to answer questions.
-All the best, Rafael
 
abreu-canedo said:
I think I remember you saying you never used the Cookes on the F65. Is this still the case? If so, why? Im curious about the pairing of F65 and Cooke, so wanted to get an idea from someone with experience...although this could be anyone on the forum, as well. -All the best, Rafael
Click to expand...


We used Cookes on our last F65 commercial shoot, but I can't show any footage.

The director wanted to use the combo after seeing the movie "Belle".

If you get a chance watch the movie. it is a really good example.

All the best!

Dave
 
abreu-canedo said:
James,

Three questions.

1: What evf do you recommend with the F65? The F55 OLED? Others? I imagine this is not a camera specific questions since PPI is important, but I figured you might know of something that plays well with menus and other considerations.

2: I think I remember you saying you never used the Cookes on the F65. Is this still the case? If so, why? Im curious about the pairing of F65 and Cooke, so wanted to get an idea from someone with experience...although this could be anyone on the forum, as well.

3: Have you figured out any way to separate the recorder from the body...say, via a wire?This could be helpful for steadicam work.

Lastly, thanks for creating this thread and taking time out of your day to answer questions.
-All the best, Rafael
Click to expand...

Hi Rafael

I personally use the F55 OLED, it provides a great picture. My main complaint is the fact the viewfinder socket is in a stupid place... but it isn't in a great place on the F5/55 either.

The older C30WR is excellent too, but the picture isn't quite as nice. The upside is that it has much better controls on the finder though.

I never used my Cookes on my camera because I had them for about 48 hours before selling them on - this was not anything to do with the Cookes, it just so happened that I had another deal come through and I realised if I sold the Cookes I could afford to get some Master Primes. I would happily use Cookes with the F65 any day and I can't think of any reason that wouldn't be an excellent combination.

The connection between the recorder and camera is fibre optic. It is not a simple wire connection. However, Sony did develop an adapter for this kind of work. I don't think it probably saves much weight though. If you were really pushed to get something lighter, I would have an F55 on standby. Otherwise the F65 isn't much heavier than a "lightweight" 35mm camera.

Happy to help.
 
DLD said:
F65 is very different from the sensor perspective than F55 - more pixels for a more accurate color reproduction and a different (slanted) Bayer filter. It's not 8K, which is ~ 33 MPX with the standard Bayer pattern, but it's arguably the best looking 4K camera there is.
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They share a lot of the same technology. The F55 uses the same CFA as the F65 and both capture a much wider color gamut than rec709 (F3/F5). that is more like rec2020. Obviously the F55 is not 8k and getting 'full color' without interpolation like the F65. Both are global shutter cameras. The F55 does not use a cut down F65 sensor, but it has more in common with the F65, than the F3/F5 sensor.
 
Harry Lime said:
They share a lot of the same technology. The F55 uses the same CFA as the F65 and both capture a much wider color gamut than rec709 (F3/F5). that is more like rec2020. Obviously the F55 is not 8k and getting 'full color' without interpolation like the F65. Both are global shutter cameras. The F55 does not use a cut down F65 sensor, but it has more in common with the F65, than the F3/F5 sensor.
Click to expand...

My understanding is that the 55 uses a very similar CFA(same dyes?), but not the exact same one(I may be splitting hairs). It does give you a wider color gamut, etc. like the 65 and one of the reasons I went with the 55 over the 5(I'd say my decision was based 25% on CFA and 75% on global shutter). It seems to handle daylight very well. I did a shoot in an office building last week with lots of windows and overhead flo's. Two of our interviews were set-up with windows partially in the background. Shot preset 43 for the flo's and never even worried about the light coming in. Everything looked fine on the calibrated OLED monitors(Sony and smallHD) and the producer was happy.

Also, the 65 does not have a global shutter. At least not electronically. The 65 has a spinning mirror, but I believe you can also shoot with an electronic shutter instead, BUT then you will be shooting with a rolling shutter.
 
The f65 rolling shutter is only as intrusive as the Alexa or red's. He mechanical shutter is noisy but I normally use it in noisy situations anyway.

i do not know if the technology existed to give the f65 a natively global shutter but there is definitely a trade off for it. The f55 is less sensitive than the F5 - ISO 1250 vs 2000, nearly a stop loss. I believe that is partly due to the extra electronics required to achieve a global shutter.

this is pure speculation but I believe this is why the Bm4k suffers compared to the 2.5k - a lot is sacrificed to get that global shutter.
 
JMtheDP said:
... this is pure speculation but I believe this is why the Bm4k suffers compared to the 2.5k - a lot is sacrificed to get that global shutter.
Click to expand...
There is a lot of R&D going on on how to make the RS closer to GS. The "easiest" one is the faster sensor readout. Other are attempting to go halfsies and produce half a sensor in RS and the other half in GS. I wonder if the new URSA Mini sensor has that feature, since it is switchable with (... a 2 stop?) loss.
 
I don't think the speed was the issue with a rolling shutter so much, but it fundamentally reads in sequence - which CCDs didn't.

I think Sony made the best choice available to them with the F65's rotary shutter - it works very well.
 
Hello Jim,

For exposure do you treat the F65 as a film camera (light meter) or use other methods? I was also curious when in RAW mode if WB, EI and Gamma settings are baked in the bit stream or are merely meta data.

Thanks,
 
Hi Sina

If I have the luxury of time I light with a meter, but more often than not I rely on a good monitor and a LUT. I use the camera's "hi-lo" check quite frequently, it is an invaluable tool.

Exposure Index and gamma are not baked into the F65RAW stream, they are metadata. White balance is mostly metadata, however I have been told the camera does adjust gain in-camera when shooting under a tungsten balance - for a better picture. This is something not many cameras do for raw shooting.

James
 
what is the highest quality signal you can get over the SDI of the F65? 1080 12-bit or 10-bit? Or is it possible to send 2k over the SDI line.
 
Just 1080P 4:2:2. It really should be considered a "monitoring" signal.... albeit a ludicrously high quality one. No 2K mode in the camera, at all. In truth, 2K is a bit of an oddball.
 
So, what does it roughly cost to put together a basic used F65 setup that is capable or recording RAW at 4k? Minimal setup here with eyepiece, recorder and the other necessities.

Are there different flavors of 4k RAW output and does this have an impact on your recording media?
(derived from 8k or straight output to 4k?)

Are SR-Memory cards the only option for recording RAW?

Is the Odyssey 7Q+ a viable option as a RAW recorder or do you need a Sony recorder?

Is the mechanical shutter an option that can be added to any F65 or does it have to come like that from the factory?


thanks in advance
 
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Hi Harry

Every F65 should come with the recorder. I have seen them go from $20,000 to $50,000 used - they all come with varying degrees of accessories.

The viewfinder is the same as the F35, or if you have the camera updated to V4 you can also use an F5/F55 viewfinder.

There is only one recording option for the camera, which is the SR-R4 recorder. It was built specifically for the F65. It takes "SR Memory" cards. There are three flavours - orange,blue and black.

All of those cards can record any of the SR Codec (1080P) flavours - from "SR-Lite" 220mbps 4:2:2 10-bit, to "SR-HQ" 880mbps 4:4:4 12-bit.

RAW from the camera is ALWAYS the full signal, ie "8K". There are two choices - SQ (3.6:1 compression) or lite (6:1 compression). I always shoot lite and have never noticed any compression artifacts.

The orange SR memory card will record raw "lite" up to 25fps, the blue memory cards will record lite or sq up to 30fps and the black memory cards will record all frame rates.

The F65 has a high speed mode which uses half of the sensors resolution and shoots up to 120fps. It uses a dedicated OLPF to avoid artifacts. It does not crop the sensor, you get the full S35 frame.

The mechanical shutter was originally intended to be an option, however I have not heard of any camera that left the factory without one. Sony quietly discontinued the non-rotary F65 a while ago.

I hope that helps.

James
 
No problem. The camera is full of both big and little things which underline the difference between it and the F55. Why a Hollywood production would ever choose the F55 as an A-Cam, I do not know.

I am shooting on Tuesday and Wednesday with the Master Primes for the first time, and I hope to be able to use the Alura too if it is convenient. I will be shooting a day of test footage just for us camera geeks later this month or early next month - so I have footage that can be easily and freely shared.
 
This may seem to defeat the purpose of the F65, but I'm wondering if you can bake-in LUTs into SR lite 220Mbps 10bit footage. I know the F65 is meant to really shine at 16bit raw, but I'm wondering if in a pinch you might be able to bake in a LUT.

I ask because when you bring your 10bit footage into Resolve, you wouldn't have to push the image too much, since the LUT already puts the compressed footage in the ballpark. Therefore you wouldn't have to push this limited codec beyond its limits.

Anyone have experience with this? I believe it's possible but I also understand that if you're working with the F65, chances are you aren't recording SR lite.
 
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