Feature films shot on Sony FS700 with RAW?

Zack Birlew

Zack Birlew

Veteran
Hey, everybody, I was looking at the possibility of adding an FS700 as a B-camera to my RED One MX and was wondering if anybody had any references for feature films made with the Sony FS700 in 4K RAW mode? Looking around, all I see is forum threads talking about the RAW mode but not too much about feature films being shot with it. Could it simply be the RAW mode was ultimately released too late with all the competition around? Any information and insights would be greatly appreciated!
 
While I haven't done any research, the one example that comes to mind is a feature film by a forum contributor named Essami...I think. It was really one of the best examples I have seen to date, of a feature film done on the FS700. The name of the feature slips my mind at the moment, but search him on this forum and you'll likely run into a thread or two with a link.

I've used the FS700 as a B-camera on two UUULB features (haha) and a few shorts as well. It can work decently well, but it has its limitations too. But never had to match it to the MX sensor myself, so I can't necessarily speak to that. There are definitely better cameras out there. But assuming you have other reasons for using an FS700, it can look very nice as long as you stay within its limits.

The O7Q 4K RAW is limited to 3:1, at around 50mins per TB. It's a lot of data, but if only used as a B-Cam then it may not be a big issue. It's likely you'd shoot Expanded Gamut, which till this day I haven't heard a concrete spec of what it is relative to Sony's other gamuts, which leaves me guessing in post a little bit. It's not quite as big of a gamut as the flagship S-Gamut, but it's supposed to be larger than rec-709 gamut. You'd also likely be recording in S-Log 2 gamma, which carries over to the RAW signal in the O7Q (I believe Atomos as well). So as long as you understand the compression changes throughout the S-Log 2 gamma curve, then you can determine if it's appropriate for what you need to shoot. After all, not all lighting styles or scenarios are best served by the same gamma curves. I'd love to re-allocate bit-depth and compression ratios to a custom gamma curve on an ad-hoc basis. That's why I prefer to shoot linear whenever possible... but that's a whole different topic! haha
 
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Nice to see you again Zack.. idk if you remember me from the early years, we've been on here for about the same time. Hope you are well :)
 
Zack Birlew said:
Hey, everybody, I was looking at the possibility of adding an FS700 as a B-camera to my RED One MX and was wondering if anybody had any references for feature films made with the Sony FS700 in 4K RAW mode? Looking around, all I see is forum threads talking about the RAW mode but not too much about feature films being shot with it. Could it simply be the RAW mode was ultimately released too late with all the competition around? Any information and insights would be greatly appreciated!
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It was not a case of being "too late", not at all, the FS700 was still one of the earliest cameras to do 4K raw.

Rather the problem is where the FS700 was positioned in the market place: it was a low/mid budget camera.

Thus you didn't hear about many feature films shot with it.

Because feature films costs tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Spending a few thousand more on a camera is nothing in the end, barely even a rounding error. Thus people would of course go with a Sony F35 / Arri Alexa / RED Epic / etc instead.

Even a low low budget film might still be a million dollars, and if you can swing a Sony F5 instead? Then you would. As a few hundreds here or there in extra rental fees per week means nothing when you've got a million dollar feature film at stake.

Thus you only see on the very very very ultra low budget feature films a Sony FS700 used as the main camera. And you run the risk of judging the image not on the basis of the camera itself, but judging instead the budget/skill/time/etc of the production.

So perhaps instead look at short films / music videos / camera shootout tests instead as a way to judge if the Sony FS700 is a good choice for you. Certainly I would myself much more prefer the Sony FS700 (especially once the Ninja V supports SDI! Please please Atomos. Even better if you add timecode to the SDI module as well...) over shooting with a RED ONE.

Personally I own a Sony PMW-F3 (plus a BMPCC for when a smaller camera is needed. And a few other cameras for other stuff, like my Panasonic G6 for YouTube vlogging with. Might upgrade the G6 in 2019 to a Panasonic G85), and I'm strongly considering picking up a second Sony PMW-F3!

But next on my list of considerations is buying the Sony FS700 now they're down around US$1.5K ish each. Ideally my "dream" would be to buy a Sony PMW-F5 (they've fallen down in prices to similar as a Sony FS7 secondhand!! :-o If you're lucky) or a Kinefinity Tera 4K. (I've also worked on a lot of shoots, including as DoP, with RED ONE cameras. But I am glad I chose going with a Sony PMW-F3 instead to own!)

One last camera to mention as a consideration is the FS5, it is on eBay roughly double the price of the FS700, but that is still only low US$3K ish! A total steal.

However by this point, you're starting to creep up in pricing (once you factor in a 4K recorder as well) to be within a stone's throw distance of the FS7 itself. And personally I'd prefer the FS7 over a FS5+recorder (although I have a friend who prefers the reverse, because he needs back surgery and thus prefers the ultra compact FS5! But when on a tripod he can rig out the FS5 camera with a recorder for that 4K ProRes)

S.Blanchardon said:
In my humble opinion, FS7 would be a better choice to record FS RAW.
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If I had the FS7 I'd skip the hassle of raw (especially as some people seemed to find the raw might have even been worse out of the FS7 than the FS700. The fsraw was never a strong point of the FS7) and just stick with doing 4K DCI 10bit internal.
 
Mike Krumlauf said:
Nice to see you again Zack.. idk if you remember me from the early years, we've been on here for about the same time. Hope you are well :)
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Hi, Mike, doing very well! It’s nice to see some of the old guard on here as well! I’ve posted less and less over time as the social media boom took over and I’ve actually been dabbling in 3D animation for quite a while as well so juggling forums is a new pass time, lol! For camera stuff I’ve been primarily on REDUser and, like this thread, here occasionally. :)

To note, I have looked primarily at the FS700, FS5, and FS7 as options and, as was mentioned, the F5 with 4K. They all seem like good candidates but the price of an FS700 these days is really enticing as, again, I have an Atomos Shogun recording setup already to get the RAW signal. Surprisingly, the Cinealta F65 is plummeting on the used market and after a bit of research I can see why but it too seems like a great option, albeit more as another A-camera choice than a B-camera. Still, for the price of the higher end options, a used Epic MX (and soon Dragon) would be more appealing as I have media and rig parts all set to go. For now, I’ll look into the movie choices posted and there’s one that’s available on Blu-ray that I’ll check out too and hopefully get a better idea of the camera’s look. If there’s any more out there, please share!
 
Zack Birlew said:
Hey, everybody, I was looking at the possibility of adding an FS700 as a B-camera to my RED One MX and was wondering if anybody had any references for feature films made with the Sony FS700 in 4K RAW mode? Looking around, all I see is forum threads talking about the RAW mode but not too much about feature films being shot with it. Could it simply be the RAW mode was ultimately released too late with all the competition around? Any information and insights would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

I shot a feature martial arts film with mine, I posted some screens in the cinematography thread. I shot in slog2 pro-res 4k which some may scoff at, but I think it was last year an academy award nominee was alexa mini shot in pro-res ... Anyway my package was the 7Q, fs700 and Canon CN-E primes. It's currently in editing purgatory and from what I understand there are other un-related problems but anyway

here is the thread:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?356235-The-Before-And-After-Lighting-thread/page2

it's just stills so it's hard to appreciate, but all I can say is that everyone was pleased looking at the footage including me and that if it were to screen somewhere, there is a fat chance anyone would guess it was a 'lesser cine camera' ... people would probably assume it was shot on a red or something (if it were to even cross their minds which it woudn't) .... the point is the image wouldn't be 'noticeable' from a quality perspective.

If I had a bug budget would i have shot it on ARRI - YES! - BUT, was I disappointed...NO!
 
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