F3: Feature Requests for Firmware Upgrade on the Sony PMW-F3

We are not going to get anything mate.... I just watched press conference, everything is 4K and F55 based.... I get the feeling it will only be a matter of time before we will have to upgrade to a 4K camera.
 
I talked to US F3 Rep Mel Medina at NAB 2 years ago - its not gonna happen. They have limited R&D resources and put them where the new products are.
 
I was working for Sony at NAB, but mostly in the XDCAM area of the booth. Are you wondering about new firmware for the F3, is that your question? I haven't been following this thread. If so, I highly doubt you'll see anything new in that area. Not only wasn't there an F3 anywhere in the Sony booth, there wasn't even one there last year either. The camera is never even discussed or mentioned among Sony people. So love your F3 for what it is and milk it for everything it's got, because what you see is what it is. Personally, I think the F3 with a 3rd party EVF and a 10-bit recorder is one of the best production tools out there.
 
Thanks Doug, I think that pretty much sums it all up...even though we didn't hear it from Sony directly but what you described tells a lot. Agreed, the f3 is still a formidable camera regardless.
 
I talked to a few people at the Sony booth. It wasn't going anywhere. As some have mentioned there was no presence of the F3 and the refrain about limited R&D/programming resources was issued.

Yes it is a formidable camera indeed. Wish I had better news.
 
BHphotovideo no longer stocks the Sony F3. It is available by special order only, with 2-4 weeks delivery. I could be wrong but I believe this means that Sony is no longer manufacturing this camera and only allowing retailers to draw on what stock might be available.

This is speculative on my part.
 
Doug Jensen said:
I was working for Sony at NAB, but mostly in the XDCAM area of the booth. Are you wondering about new firmware for the F3, is that your question? I haven't been following this thread. If so, I highly doubt you'll see anything new in that area. Not only wasn't there an F3 anywhere in the Sony booth, there wasn't even one there last year either. The camera is never even discussed or mentioned among Sony people. So love your F3 for what it is and milk it for everything it's got, because what you see is what it is. Personally, I think the F3 with a 3rd party EVF and a 10-bit recorder is one of the best production tools out there.
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I agree. I see no real reason to upgrade to an F5 either aside from better framerates. The F55 yes, the F5 no. For the money a used F3 looks terrific and is of great value.
Amazing how corporations have a deaf ears once you have spent a buck on their product though.
 
starcentral said:
BHphotovideo no longer stocks the Sony F3. It is available by special order only, with 2-4 weeks delivery. I could be wrong but I believe this means that Sony is no longer manufacturing this camera and only allowing retailers to draw on what stock might be available.

This is speculative on my part.
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Yes no F3 listed at either CVP or ProAV in the U.K. It is the end of the line.

yoclay said:
I agree. I see no real reason to upgrade to an F5 either aside from better framerates.
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How about being able to record internally to HDCAM SR 444, 2K XAVC, XDCAM422, (2K ProRes in the future). An option to film in 4K RAW. An option to upgrade to a F55 at a latter date. These are just a few things that have sold me on the F5, but I will be keeping my F3 too, in a rotating glass case on my desk :D
 
JackCarter said:
Yes no F3 listed at either CVP or ProAV in the U.K. It is the end of the line.



How about being able to record internally to HDCAM SR 444, 2K XAVC, XDCAM422, (2K ProRes in the future). An option to film in 4K RAW. An option to upgrade to a F55 at a latter date. These are just a few things that have sold me on the F5, but I will be keeping my F3 too, in a rotating glass case on my desk :D
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All of those things require expensive proprietary media, or a very expensive extra module and push the price point to 4x the cost of a used F3 today. Frankly however, the image quality remains only nominally better in my opinion. I don't know why so many folks have a problem using a recorder on the F3. They usually end up hanging a monitor on the camera anyway. Or they will end up buying a CD 7Q. If we were talking broadcast, OK I can understand recording internally etc. But frankly a Samurai Blade on an F3 gets me there in terms of quality as a monitor/recorder anyway.
 
JackCarter said:
How about being able to record internally to HDCAM SR 444, 2K XAVC, XDCAM422, (2K ProRes in the future). An option to film in 4K RAW. An option to upgrade to a F55 at a latter date. These are just a few things that have sold me on the F5, but I will be keeping my F3 too, in a rotating glass case on my desk :D
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Those benefits are really only worth paying money for if your clients need those features, and are willing to pay for them.

As for the benefits you list that are "in the future"... I'd be wary of making a hardware purchase today based on what may be enabled later, for several key reasons:
1. As we've seen, companies like Sony are willing to abandon hardware and not finish announced feature sets in firmware - ala the F3 - should they move to a newer model.
2. Everything comes down in price over time, including firmware and hardware extras. Sony went from charging nearly $4 for S-Log on the F3 to including it for free when a competitor offered the equivalent for less.

Buy what your business and your clients can support today. Buying today for tomorrow's client is a losing game.

By the way, I have a simple upgrade path from the Sony PMW-F3 to the Sony F55. It involves eBay, VISA, and possibly EC Pro or B&H Photo.
 
yoclay said:
All of those things require expensive proprietary media, or a very expensive extra module and push the price point to 4x the cost of a used F3 today. Frankly however, the image quality remains only nominally better in my opinion. I don't know why so many folks have a problem using a recorder on the F3. They usually end up hanging a monitor on the camera anyway. Or they will end up buying a CD 7Q. If we were talking broadcast, OK I can understand recording internally etc. But frankly a Samurai Blade on an F3 gets me there in terms of quality as a monitor/recorder anyway.
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Hi,

I thought a similar thing, but you can use the same SxS cards on the F5 as the F3 for most things. I use the older SxS Pro (blue and silver) cards, you can use them for everything apart from the high frame rates, you can even record HDCAM SR in 444 to those old blue cards which is the reason I'm going the F5 route in the near future. I was going to go for the PIX 240i, but I feel that this money would be better put towards the F5. I still love the F3, but I will continue to use it with the internal codec, and I'd rather not have the hassle of having an Ipad attached to my camera :smile:
 
Honestly what the F3 user base needs is a hacker. Same as is being done on the DSLR's... same as was done on the DVX100 back in 2003 to record 14-bit uncompressed images from it... then later same thing planned for the HVX200.

Don't mock it or laugh, it was so viable that it actually competed with RED in 2007 so much so that Jim J bought the company that was commercially offering the modification service. (Yes that's what lead to the demise of Reel-Stream who developed and was selling the Andromeda hack)

You guys should contact ML or the new Nikon hacker. You could pull 12 or 14-bit straight off the sensor ADC and with intermediate device record to a myriad of external recorders.
 
Viddovation said:
By the way, I have a simple upgrade path from the Sony PMW-F3 to the Sony F55. It involves eBay, VISA, and possibly EC Pro or B&H Photo.
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Hi, I agree with all you say, but what is the point of selling the F3 when it's worth nothing? The sale of my F3 wouldn't even pay for the EVF for the F5, I'd rather keep mine thanks.

So are you telling me to wait and buy used? I have considered this, but I thought if I bought the camera new, at a latter date I would buy all the extras on the used market. It's not the price of the camera that concerns me, it's the price of everything else.

Dennis, as much as I would love some miracle for the F3, we all know it's not going to happen :cry: Imagine that camera with HDCAM SR on board, I wouldn't need a new camera! I was amazed that only about 5 people came forward about going to Sony and demanding some hardware upgrade or firmware. If they were a few more people involved, we could shoot interviews of ourselves, venting our disgust at Sony for dropping the F3 and using us as some kind of experiment! One of us (me :smile:) could cut them all together and post it online. I think this would be fun as I do actually like conflict! Nobody likes bad press, LOL. But part of me thinks it might be best to just move on to the next one and hope for better.
 
Doug Jensen said:
What features on the F3 are you referring to?
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Does this question really need a list? The very title of the thread we're all reading and commenting on is "Feature Requests for Firmware Upgrade on the Sony PMW-F3".

And perhaps more to the point is that Sony themselves announced that firmware v1.5 was coming for the Sony PMW-F3, then released v1.45 instead, and now appear to have abandoned the Sony PMW-F3 entirely, in favor of newer cameras.
That story is documented here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?295817-Sony-F3-Firmware-v1-5/page8

Certainly, Sony completed all promised features on the Sony PMW-F3, but that said, they also are on record having declared intent to improve upon that feature set, and then fell short.

My larger point here Doug was simply that one shouldn't buy cameras today based on the work one hopes or expects to be doing a year or two from now, as the equipment quickly becomes obselete and worth a fraction of what you paid for it. These market properties should be fairly self evident, and I hardly expect them to suddenly stop now that we are at 4k with cameras. If not more pixels, they'll offer us better DR, global shutters, higher frame rates, or better low light. There will always be a new feature to sell.

But yes - Sony had intended to give us firmware v1.5 for the Sony PMW-F3, and gave us 1.45 instead. They gave us a control box for the zoom lenses, when speculation is they were looking at overhauling any number of other things including possibly the markers, metadata, additional wifi or XMPilot support, more LUT support... etc.

But for the record - I'm not saying the F3 wasn't a mature product. It was and is. But the debacle I refer to above *is* evidence that Sony is willing to abandon a product line if they don't think the sales numbers justify it.

On a related note, ever heard of the SR-R3? Sound only vaguely familiar? That's because Sony does sell an SR-R1 recorder (1080p for the F3) and an SR-R4 recorder (for the F65), and at one point in time planned on releasing an SR-R3 for the Sony F35, with docking mechanism and all. Want to guess why they didn't end up doing it? The sales numbers weren't there. So they abandoned the product.
 
Viddovation said:
Does this question really need a list? The very title of the thread we're all reading and commenting on is "Feature Requests for Firmware Upgrade on the Sony PMW-F3".

And perhaps more to the point is that Sony themselves announced that firmware v1.5 was coming for the Sony PMW-F3, then released v1.45 instead, and now appear to have abandoned the Sony PMW-F3 entirely, in favor of newer cameras.
That story is documented here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?295817-Sony-F3-Firmware-v1-5/page8

Certainly, Sony completed all promised features on the Sony PMW-F3, but that said, they also are on record having declared intent to improve upon that feature set, and then fell short.

My larger point here Doug was simply that one shouldn't buy cameras today based on the work one hopes or expects to be doing a year or two from now, as the equipment quickly becomes obselete and worth a fraction of what you paid for it. These market properties should be fairly self evident, and I hardly expect them to suddenly stop now that we are at 4k with cameras. If not more pixels, they'll offer us better DR, global shutters, higher frame rates, or better low light. There will always be a new feature to sell.

But yes - Sony had intended to give us firmware v1.5 for the Sony PMW-F3, and gave us 1.45 instead. They gave us a control box for the zoom lenses, when speculation is they were looking at overhauling any number of other things including possibly the markers, metadata, additional wifi or XMPilot support, more LUT support... etc.

But for the record - I'm not saying the F3 wasn't a mature product. It was and is. But the debacle I refer to above *is* evidence that Sony is willing to abandon a product line if they don't think the sales numbers justify it.

On a related note, ever heard of the SR-R3? Sound only vaguely familiar? That's because Sony does sell an SR-R1 recorder (1080p for the F3) and an SR-R4 recorder (for the F65), and at one point in time planned on releasing an SR-R3 for the Sony F35, with docking mechanism and all. Want to guess why they didn't end up doing it? The sales numbers weren't there. So they abandoned the product.
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Yes and let's not forget the poor people who invested big bucks on a SRW-9000PL. Oh and Sony also announced a digital recorder for it and never released it. I would be really pissed off if I had dumped that amount of cash on a camera just to be left dead on the water.
 
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