Just got a new camera - Sony F35

James, that shot was taken with nikon 10-24mm, probably set around 12mm, which after lots of testing I found it to be the sharpest ultrawide angle lens available. It shows however great vignetting at all f stops on the F35 for some reason. This does not happen however on my DSLRs. It mught have something to do with the sensor photosites design? Not sure, I could do more testings but I sold most of my nikon lenses anyway.
The longer shots were taken with the 70-200 f2.8II and 300mm f4. And most of the portraits were shot with Walimex cine lenses.

Recorder was the hyperdeck shuttle, so 10bit 422. No denoise. The only noisy shot was the one where you can see the mic boom, which was shot very late and probably underexposed by ~2 stops, but as you can see, it doesn't look terrible in terms of noise.

The heat was tremendous, +40 C. I was afraid that the footage would be very noisy both because of the camera and the recorder being too hot. But it looks fine on my laptop. We'll see on the big screen when the whole docummentary is finished...
 
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macgregor said:
James, that shot was taken with nikon 10-24mm, probably set around 12mm, which after lots of testing I found it to be the sharpest ultrawide angle lens available. It shows however great vignetting at all f stops on the F35 for some reason. This does not happen however on my DSLRs. It mught have something to do with the sensor photosites design? Not sure, I could do more testings but I sold most of my nikon lenses anyway.
The longer shots were taken with the 70-200 f2.8II and 300mm f4. And most of the portraits were shot with Walimex cine lenses.

Recorder was the hyperdeck shuttle, so 10bit 422. No denoise. The only noisy shot was the one where you can see the mic boom, which was shot very late and probably underexposed by ~2 stops, but as you can see, it doesn't look terrible in terms of noise.

The heat was tremendous, +40 C. I was afraid that the footage would be very noisy both because of the camera and the recorder being too hot. But it looks fine on my laptop. We'll see on the big screen when the whole docummentary is finished...
Click to expand...

Thank you.
 
Mac - Thanks for sharing! What application did you use to add the grain? It's very subtle but creates that magic feel. I am starting a project on my F35 next week so hopefully I will have more footage to share. I've been messing around with the hardware too much and not focusing on creating images. That being said...

Can anyone enlighten me on back focus adjustments on the f35, on longer lenses wide open, my nikon mount seems to fall a bit short of infinity. I have adjusted the back focus screw quite a few turns either way while looking at a 17 inch monitor with peaking turn on and the focus distance does not budge. Because I have a modified Nikon mount does it render this adjustment screw useless and I need to adjust another way? Or did I put my plate back on wrong and I need to take it apart to see why the screw isn't changing infinity focus as it should. I thought the screw went all the way back to the ccd and was making slight adjustments so the lens mount shouldn't matter. I am not opposed to bringing it to a professional to do this check if that's what is necessary, I just like to know as much as possible how these things work and how I can solve issues myself that I run into.

On the nikon mount in general, I think it is a brilliant solution for us to experiment with this camera and the milling job was very professional by Barrett. However, this camera was not designed for these lenses and getting to the iris control can be hard for anyone without tiny fingers. biggest issue I have with the deep mount is it's impossible to get an iris motor on any lens if I wanted to mount the camera on the jib. I am still trying to get the seller on ebay to come down a bit on the spare CCD blocks, but I am really leaning towards getting a spare PL block that can be switched out in minutes instead of a 1/2 hour to change the front plate. I don't regret the nikon mount at all, but if I was going to rent the camera or bring it to a professional job with others operating it, I would definitely want the PL mount and it's definitely worth renting the glass to get the smooth iris control. Curious to see how that Canon mount is working out as well.

I have all but given up on finding a 15mm plate to hold the 15mm rods at the correct distance from the lens, I thought the red epic shared the same distance but you need that extra plate on the F35 and with that plate the screw mount holes are offset to the side. I found a good deal on a used Arri 19mm plate and am just going to go with a 19mm to 15mm step up adapter to put the 15mm matte box and accessories I already have on. It also is kind of nice having one set of rods that go along the bottom of the camera.
 
This camera certainly seems to like a 19mm rod setup more. It always felt kinda ungainly and a bit off balance on a Tilta or Lanparte v-lock shoulder mount thing. The 15 seems just a wee bit too narrow to properly balance the body. I got a 19mm Arri-style plate/rods/dovetail mounting set up and now it feels solid. I was out shooting much of the day today and I was much happier with the 19 set up over the 15. The 19mm system definitely inspired greater confidence in handling.

I've had similar challenges with handling the aperture ring with it being sunken so far into the Nikon mount. It's the single biggest trade off in going that route, IMHO.

If I have tome tomorrow I'll double check the backfocus for my long lens.
 
Yes keeping the abilty to go back to PL has made it fiddly to change iris.
Tink is has an idea for an easier iris control and when we both back from holiday we will see how that goes and I will report back. I'm also thinking of getting the F35 optical block as an easy swop out solution for bigger shoots with cam assists and operators but got our one man operations with stills lenses we need better iris control.

i haven't had any back focus issues with focus on infinity, but Tink did collminate and adjust as necessary.
 
yachacha said:
Mac - Thanks for sharing! What application did you use to add the grain? It's very subtle but creates that magic feel. I am starting a project on my F35 next week so hopefully I will have more footage to share. I've been messing around with the hardware too much and not focusing on creating images. That being said...

Can anyone enlighten me on back focus adjustments on the f35, on longer lenses wide open, my nikon mount seems to fall a bit short of infinity.
Click to expand...

I think I used filmconvert but I often use Indiscans 35mm film grain and results are pretty much the same anyway.
Regaring back focus, you could try checking it a wide angle lens instead of a telephoto. But if turning the back focus screw is not helping much, I'd take it to a collimator first to see how far you are off. A collimator would nail it in 5 minutes.
My nikon mount has a big leveler so accessing the iris is not hard at all. Try that. Or buy mine! lol
 
Regarding what some others have said, I do also agree that the camera is very much better on 19mm rods than 15. There was never official support for 15mm lightweight supports.

The bridge plates that work with this camera are from either the ARRI 435 or the 535 - so that should really tell you how Sony saw you using it.

Panavision helped develop it and I would wager a lot of people shooting with Panavision cameras just get a 3:1 zoom, a pee wee and be done with it.
 
If anybody also wants a free "filter" on their F35, I have fairly successfully recreated old cine film look by shooting S-LOG, at a very high stop (16/22), a handful of gain (6/12db) and at 18fps. Really quite convincing!
 
Calling Ed!

i read somewhere that u have a 7Q in your possession?
Have you tested it with the F35 perhaps?
if so have you tested 50p recording? (Albeit no prores/dnxHD as yet)
 
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I noticed that the ramp feature will work but it can't go above the frame rate the camera is set at. Go to the ramp menu, select a start and stop frame rate and down at the bottom below dir click on the ramp. Once you click ramp, it will run through the speed ramp so you could click this then turn off the display quickly and record a shot that started at 2 fps and then sped back up to normal speed of 24 over a given time. It also has the ability to compensate for gain or shutter as it adjusts.
 
yachacha said:
I noticed that the ramp feature will work but it can't go above the frame rate the camera is set at. Go to the ramp menu, select a start and stop frame rate and down at the bottom below dir click on the ramp. Once you click ramp, it will run through the speed ramp so you could click this then turn off the display quickly and record a shot that started at 2 fps and then sped back up to normal speed of 24 over a given time. It also has the ability to compensate for gain or shutter as it adjusts.
Click to expand...

That is correct, the ramping speed of the camera is limited by the format, make sure you choose a "Select" FPS format in the format menu.

For example....

S25P will let you ramp up to 25fps.

S50p will let you ramp up to 50fps

_24P will be locked at 24p (no ramping possible)
 
The 7Q with the F35.... to record the 12bit 444, will you still need something like the AJA unit to output 3G, or can you duel into the 7Q and it pick up the 444? Anyone have any info on this?
 
TheWakePlace.com said:
The 7Q with the F35.... to record the 12bit 444, will you still need something like the AJA unit to output 3G, or can you duel into the 7Q and it pick up the 444? Anyone have any info on this?
Click to expand...

The 7Q had dual HD SDI input, so theoretically no need for multiplexer. Up to 30p 12bit 444 Should just work.
50P 10bit 422 should theoretically work too, but Mitch from CD is yet to confirm this.
and the beast 50p 12bit 444 out the F35 needs quad HD SDI, so 2 multiplexers to get dual 3G HD SDI, and that my friends is the biggest wonder.
 
I also hope CD has implemented new firmware that allows for 12bit from the F35.
I have the convergent designs gemini and have struggled with recording a 12bit signal from the F35 as the gemini doesn't seem to fully recognize Sony's particular flavor of PSf segmentation in the 12 bit modes.
Would love to finally record in 12bit, but can't really complain about it because F35 @ 10bit looks pretty awesome. :)
 
The 7Q has quad 3G-SDI inputs, so I think (in theory) you should be able to feed the 12-bit 4:4:4 50p directly into it using the dual-link outputs on the camera, in tandem with the dual-link outputs on the interface box (assuming the recorder can 'read' the 12-bit signal properly).
 
Finally decided to list my F35 package. Will give the crowd here first dibs on it. It includes: low-hours F35 Body (appx 900 hours), interface box,V-mount battery plate, top handle, bottom cheese plate, assist panel, Sony HDVF0C30W ColorViewfinder, and CineDeck-EX with a 64GB and 256GB SSD.

Works great, no issues at all, just been sitting. On a long-term gig that doesn't justify using it.

PM for more pix and price (tons of references here and industry--not the worries on eBay).
assist_side_zpsdfbd30bd.jpg


cinedeck_kit_zps0e06a6c5.jpg
 
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