F65: F65 for sale in UK

[Aaveum]

In addition to what James said, the F35 is a different line of research from the F23 - a single RGB stripe sensor versus a 3 chip prism block. The F23 is the pinnacle of 3 chip prism block CCD tech. The F35 is something different, and has advantages and disadvantages. One thing that favors the F23's prism approach is the color accuracy. I would have to expect it's color sampling accuracy to be higher than that of the F35.

Sure. But remember to consider the whole chain as I mentioned. Processing, A/D everything plays a role. And you are absolutely right about the F23 being the pinnacle of 2/3". But like you said, 35mm is something else. Also, as solid and bullet proof as the F23 prism system is, prisms have their own set of problems, as I'm sure you know. In the end the images speak for themselves.

Try to dig up the test they did at Universal and see how the F35 outperforms basically all digital cameras tested, which included the RED One, Genesis, F23 and Varicam. Alexa was not available at the time.

But again there is no real need to defend the F23. It is indeed the best 2/3" HD camera made this far. I wasn't putting the F23 down. I was merely trying to have an objective discussion.

 

[Surf it Mike]

I find it interesting that we are discussing the"Sony look" on a thread for a camera that many see as not having it.

IMO the gun Sony cams are F65 & F35 and in that order.......everything else ....mmmmmm.

 

[JMtheDP]

And the SR-R3, 2K upgrade for the F35, yes I'm aware of it.

What you are saying is correct. What is not is the assumption that Sony held the F23 electronics in a closet waiting for when they could release the F35 and just used that. The F35 is improved even compared to the Genesis. The F35 has a better S/N ratio and and the Genesis is limited to 10-bit. The F35 also has the edge in dynamic range.

oh the F23/F35 are quite different from Genesis. It was the chip they had to wait for. The Sony cams are much better than Genesis IMHO. Unless you wear glasses.

little nugget of information, the chips in the genesis are "superior" to the F35 ones, for the reason the Genesis had extremely limited memory for Dead pixel correction - the F35 was much more tolerant. Same IQ.

 

[Viddovation]

Try to dig up the test they did at Universal and see how the F35 outperforms basically all digital cameras tested, which included the RED One, Genesis, F23 and Varicam. Alexa was not available at the time.

You dig it up and bring us the link.

Mind you, I am finding some sources saying the F35 has higher dynamic range than the F23. I remember the Zacuto shootout only gave the F35 11.3 stops though. So who knows. The F35 may well have a technical edge of dynamic range. That's fine. Honestly though - everyone's so crazy about dynamic range they lose sight of fact that when you do your job shaping and controlling light it's not an issue.

 

[JMtheDP]

Panavision only gave the Genesis 10 stops. 10 real stops are perfectly fine for great pictures.

 

[Aaveum]

See, misinformation. Sorry Aaveum, I respect you but I gotta call you out on this one. The F65's raw is not uncompressed, and never has been. The "SQ" setting is 3.6:1, and the "lite" setting (most popular) is 6:1.

Sony also added the SR-CODEC option which made a lot of sense because it would integrate well into any SR-tape based workflow (still a popular way of delivering material). You can go from SR card to SR tape without a transcode.

Is it a perfect camera? Nope, not at all. But it does have its fans. The F65 was ahead of its time and THAT was its downfall, in my opinion (the Thomson Viper suffered a similar fate, although the F65 has been a runaway success in comparison).

There is an area the F65 has been used that we all forget about and that is live TV. A lot of F65s covered things like the world cup, etc.... That SR-R4 comes off and you can put an IP pipe on the thing, or fibre optics.

You are, however, absolutely correct that SONY are utterly useless when it comes to listening to their markets. They don't even listen to the people they employ. I feel only the very top cameras (F35/F65) get even the slightest consideration of "artistic" not just technical requirements.

JMtheDP, I stand corrected. I should have said a compressed codec as opposed to compressed raw. I only got to shoot with the F65 in a real project once. After testing it for several jobs I finally managed to convince somebody to go with it. But guess what? We ended up shooting SR instead of 4K.

But I have to ask, are you sure it wasn't uncompressed only in the beginning?

I know the off board recording is a latter add-on. In the beginning you couldn't do that. But it will only work with the SR-R4 as far as I know, which was my point. Or am I mistaking?

But my point still stands. Despite Raw-lite being smaller it is still much larger than what most people would like or compared to XAVC. You have to admit that they are big files. Which is probably what led me to mistakenly use uncompressed when pulling from memory of the last time I used the camera, which was a couple of years ago. If it clouded somebody who shoots, can you really blame producers for being mislead?

And I know it shoots HD to SR as I have shot that with the F65. But it defeats the point of shooting on it if all you need is HD.

My biggest point though was the closed system. It is really the biggest thing that dragged it down. Imagine if the F65 had offered ProRes in HD instead of the esoteric SR and then ProRes in 4K on top of F65RAW. We can debate the real advantages vs disadvantages of each here the whole day. But we both know what the market would prefer. Even if it offered just XAVC it would already help the F65 cause.

To close, I don't think the F65's downfall was because it was ahead of it's time. I think it is because it seems more closed and harder work with than it's competitors. And even if it you don't agree it is harder to work with, this is the vibe the camera has and it's not caused by any conspiracy. It's Sony's own fault, which was my point in replying to your post.

 

[Aaveum]

I find it interesting that we are discussing the"Sony look" on a thread for a camera that many see as not having it.

IMO the gun Sony cams are F65 & F35 and in that order.......everything else ....mmmmmm.

I don't think we are really discussing any Sony look. I'm definitely not. It was merely mentioned.

 

[Aaveum]

You dig it up and bring us the link.

Mind you, I am finding some sources saying the F35 has higher dynamic range than the F23. I remember the Zacuto shootout only gave the F35 11.3 stops though. So who knows. The F35 may well have a technical edge of dynamic range. That's fine. Honestly though - everyone's so crazy about dynamic range they lose sight of fact that when you do your job shaping and controlling light it's not an issue.

The tests as far as I know are not online. They were never widely released for a few reasons. You need to know the right people. Ask around.

The Zacuto test produced some very interesting results, if I want to be kind. But mainly with the F35. Specially when compared to my experience with the camera. If I'm not wrong the F35 was handled by Sony engineers, right? I always thought they just set the camera on "standard" and shot. Maybe out of arrogance or over confidence. But it definitely handles more than just 11.3 stops. Sony actually had a demo when it released the camera showing a scene with the different levels printed and it was above 12-stops and the camera rendered everything just fine.

Totally agree with you on the dynamic range knee jerk reaction. Truth is if somebody can't do with 10-stops, he can't do it period.

 

[Aaveum]

Panavision only gave the Genesis 10 stops. 10 real stops are perfectly fine for great pictures.

So they deliberately limited the sensor? This I have never heard and doesn't make a lot of sense.

But I agree the Sony cameras are better than the Genesis. But the Genesis has the better support and infrastructure, which counts way more and is also the reason the Alexa cleans house compared to the Sony and even RED cameras.

 

[JMtheDP]

When I say Panavision "gave" the Genesis 10 stops I just mean that is what they rated it as. Just like with film stocks, how much dynamic range it has depends upon what the end user is willing to live with. Panavision are usually fairly low on BS.

To my knowledge when the F65 was released, it did the RAW-SQ mode only, then RAW-Lite and the SR-Codec came pretty quickly after. I agree completely they should have put a ProRes, and a ProRes 4K mode in there too. I have said this directly to my contacts at Sony.

We have to remember we live in a world where one of the more popular recording options is ProRes 4K upscaled from a 3.2K sensor... that's just all kinds of wrong.

I should point out also that if you were only shooting HD or RAW at normal frame rates you did not need to buy the high speed SR cards - there were much cheaper options. I remember people complaining like mad about the SxS cards when they came out, that was originally a very limited system. Pretty popular now.

I am interested to see what Sony do next, but as it is the F65 is actually becoming MORE popular right now, not less. Strange times.