F65: Glorious 4K Master Race (F65 screenshots and footage)

[JMtheDP]

Hi Guys

Been promising for a while to put up some F65 stuff. I am still working out the best way to deliver 4K material (ludicrously hard), but getting there.

In the meantime, I have some screenshots from a few projects to dissect and I should be able to post some 1080P footage too.

This first batch is from a trailer shoot for a super-low budget gangster flick, called "Narrow Line" - I mean super low budget, I was called in at the last minute as a favour to a friend. No lighting at all - pulled my own focus.

F65 & Illumina S35s, shot in 1080P SR Codec, MPEG 4 SStP SQ, S-Log3.Cine with the LC709A LUT Applied. For those who don't know, that LUT is designed to give a more "Alexa-like" look.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Looks sweet.

 

[yachacha]

Thanks for sharing. It's nice to start seeing more F65 footage in various situations to start getting a feel for this camera. F65 footage I hope will grow beyond the million dollar sound stages so we can all start to appreciate this camera the way we did the F35 when Mac first ran out in the streets of LA.

In earlier discussions, I feel I wrote off the F65 due to it's CMOS sensor in nature. I do LOVE whatever magic is happening in the F35 CCD. That being said, from the last few still JM has posted, the F65 has a beautiful fine grain and texture. It is not the perfect clean image I was expecting. I have not felt this way about the F55 which was my fear that the F65 was too similar in nature.

The resolution of the F65 is clearly ahead of the F35 also.

What are the problems of the F65 4k workflow? Hard drive space and processing power? It seems to me that everyone wants to "future-proof" in 4k but still wants to deliver in 1080P in most cases.

 

[JMtheDP]

I would not say the workflow of the F65 is any more difficult than the RED workflow, the added benefit of course is if you want to just shoot 1080P you have options for doing that. I believe RED are introducing a ProRes mode on Weapon but I do not know much about it.

When I can I will post some high res video, you will see the F65, like the F35, is not pristine and grain-free at all. It is a bit cleaner than the F35, but not much.

The sensor tech in the F65 was way ahead of anything of the time and really, I think it still is - Sony did an amazing job creating a 6K sensor (that's what it really is) and keeping it within the accepted S35 3-perf area - unlike RED. There are many lenses which suffer badly in the edges of S35, let alone the extended area of the Dragon sensor.

 

[JMtheDP]

Here's a couple of more screenshots. These are from 4K material.

The first one is to show a bit more of the noise/grain which is present in F65 material. The shot's a bit soft because the camera was on the move. ISO 800 - I try never to deviate from that. I've left the LUT off for this one.

http://pixady.com/image/4iq/

This next one is just to show a bit more of the resolution. LUT is on - LC709-A. Lenses for both these shots were my Illuminas.

http://pixady.com/image/4ir/

I will soon upload a couple of movie clips from the trailer I posted screenshots from in my first post.

 

[CaptainHook]

Hi, hope you don't mind but i had a quick play grading your JPGs in Resolve 12 on my laptop. If it's not obvious, i like dark/moody images. Thanks for posting.

 

[JMtheDP]

Really nice stuff Cap'n - everyone is welcome to much about with these images as much as they like, I just ask they keep it within this forum or offline - as these are shots from people's projects (I have permission to use, but don't want the images seen out of context)

It is nice to see you can get a fantastic look, even with the starting footage having the LUTs applied. JPEG is also a very imperfect thing, but what you've done looks awesome IMHO.

Here are two clips to play with from the same project, I have left these almost as they came out of the camera (they have just been shortened). The codec is what we shot in, SR Codec 444 SQ. That is the best mode for comparing with F35 footage I believe. On these clips I have left the LUTs off so you can get a feel for what is possible in terms of grading from 1080P 10-bit (you can also record 12-bit at the higher bitrate). The codec used is the same one Sony used in their SR tape decks.

https://www.hightail.com/download/bXBiS3dxZy9oeWJyZHNUQw

https://www.hightail.com/download/bXBiS3dxZy9OMUFYRHNUQw

 

[JMtheDP]

Another 4K one. Illumina S35, LC709-A. No lighting at all - real stately home with real expensive wooden floors and no budget.

 

[JMtheDP]

And from another 4K shoot. This location we were tight on time, we needed to fake night but it was late afternoon. So I set the camera for tungsten white balance and played the remaining daylight outside as "moonlight". We had no time to do a full blackout etc...

 

[marvinhello]

F65 has the best colour separation among all digital cameras, but overall colour science, especially skintone is not that great (little too much magenta in skin).

 

[JMtheDP]

The two moody shots above are under very warm lighting, I have personally always found Sony skintones to be quite faithful for my needs.

I am interested to see how different glass affects the camera (so far all the shots have been from my Illuminas)

 

[JMtheDP]

First day's work with the Master Primes. Footage is deliberately warm and moody, light is mostly two 2.5 HMIs out the windows, with Rosco straw tint to give "evening" effect. Shot mostly around T2.

Permission for shots granted very courteously by our director and producer, Mark Owen.

 

[JMtheDP]

If any of you fancy a play with the above stills, let me know and I will PM you a non-LUTed version.

 

[yoclay]

Personally I think the F65 is really terrific. I think people wrote this camera off too soon. I hope this camera has a second life.
The magenta skin tones someone mentioned seem easy enough to correct out, not sure why people expect perfection from an ungraded clip...

 

[JMtheDP]

Apparently in Europe they have been very popular since Luc Besson fell in love with them. Also hard drives are much cheaper than when it was introduced, recording ARRIRAW is pretty common now versus four/five years ago, so the data rate isn't so scary anymore.

 

[Grug]

God I love working with 16-bit linear raw! So easy to mould the image where you want it. Thanks for sending through those grabs James, here's my first little go-round in Resolve:

 

[JMtheDP]

Grug likes it dark

For anyone interested I sent Grug links to one-frame MXF files, which were trimmed from the camera master. So he was playing with footage as it would come out... just one frame though.

 

[JMtheDP]

I should have some more things I can share from the F65 soon. I have this one frame I wanted to show you, as it shows for me one of the reasons I love the F65. A flashgun, pointed directly down the barrel. Beautiful roll-off, no rolling shutter artifacts (mechanical shutter on). The F35 would have failed this test (it does weird things when flashguns go off directly at it). Shot in SStP 1080P. Lens was one of my Aluras.

 

[SJX]

The F35 would have failed this test (it does weird things when flashguns go off directly at it).

Ok. F65 is good camera. But what you mean??? F35 is real global shutter so no problem with flash. You speak of smear? This is not weird things. Is known CCD thing.CMOS has problems too. So what weird things? But F65 fail many more tests compared to F35. F65 fail skin tone test, fail motion test, fail 35mm film look test, fail no sony look test because F65 look like all other sony cameras, fail weight test, fail size test, fail power hunger test.

Don't think it will be as bad as you say with flash straight on lens. But never did this test. Maybe I will do it and see. Smear maybe but then I pan to a person and...beautiful film skin tones and forget smear. Better than CMOS no smear and after flash is gone then...hello sony look. No?

 

[JMtheDP]

I will try and find an example of what I am referring to, it isn't a CCD smear that I saw on the F35. There were some odd artifacts and things in some of the frames. I don't think I have the footage anymore but I'll see if I can hunt it down.