Just got a new camera - Sony F35

1) Dear Sir, you rock; the first two shots, film vs F35, are spot on.

2) Those highlights are yellow... Probably because the windows are yellow! It didn't look bad to me at all. It would, if the windows were supposed to be white, but that's a church and it has colored windows all around.

3) There's an image reapeated several times over the film, of all the "colorful ladies" in the basement, looking towards the camera (as if it was a group picture); I couldn't find it on google images, but to me it looked absolutely gorgeous every time (probably more to do with lighting and talent and art department than with the camera). Can you post that capture?

4) Yes, that's Christian Bale, and he does a great job too. His character has a great arch which he makes totally believable (except for a single script issue I won't talk about here). The movie is heartbreaking: great story, very well told. I'm not ashamed to say I spent over 30 minutes weeping like a baby :.(
 
Sweet Jesus... Flowers of war was the F35 as well? I think this is the only camera that 5 years from now I'll still be surprised when I find out a film was shot on it.

So on Friday I hunted down a guy that was letting go of his F35 for 9K down in FL. I spent the entire night going over my finances making sure I could swing it + the hyperdeck, Nik conversion & accessories. By Saturday afternoon it was gone. I'd be lying if I said this camera isn't starting to keep me up at night. It's like a brick slowly hitting me over the head over the course of a few weeks... just realizing how INSANE of a deal this is. What really excites me is modifying the PL mount to use Nik lenses- to me this makes all the difference. I'm gonna go ahead and surmise that pairing the F35 w/ ZF glass would produce titillating footage.

At this point I'm strapped to the front of the hype train... I really want this camera.
 
Adamsenoj said:
In broad day light, absolutely. In low light such as available street lighting, the F3 beats the F35 hands down. Actually even a FS100 or AF100 do. See the Zacuto test for some reference.
The F35 is not a good low light camera. You need a "real" lighting package to shoot with the F35 at night and get great results. With a full grip truck, the F35 could beat the F3 in low too.
Click to expand...

I don't find a camera that produces poor color and motion good in any situation... especially lowlight. The only time I would use an F3 or FS100 would be to recreate a video camera in low light aesthetic, or a video camera "feel" but at 24. Like a found footage picture.

Still have to do some low low low light testing, which I'm sure we will very soon, but our quick tests yesterday shooting indoors with only overcast daylight were plenty promising.
 
Kholi said:
I don't find a camera that produces poor color and motion good in any situation... especially lowlight. The only time I would use an F3 or FS100 would be to recreate a video camera in low light aesthetic, or a video camera "feel" but at 24. Like a found footage picture.

Still have to do some low low low light testing, which I'm sure we will very soon, but our quick tests yesterday shooting indoors with only overcast daylight were plenty promising.
Click to expand...

Definitely agree with this. It's funny, I thought as well the FS100 and F3 would be perfect for the video camera aesthetic- when in movies they cut to what would essentially be footage taken by actors / found footage etc. I think it's perfect for that within narratives. Between the 2, one looks like film, the other HD video... no way around it. Lenses, lighting, grading all play their part, but at the end of the day they both have their individual aesthetic.
 
L1N3ARX said:
Yes! I'm trying to get a couple questions answered / serial # info. Want to make sure this isn't the same one I saw a while back from Seattle, that had some problems and isn't being resold.
Click to expand...
Thanks, good call. I am interested in one of those. really conflicted, since my next project would be better served with a hand held camera, but I can work with size and low light. Since image is always paramount. I had no idea this camera was capable of these things until mac started posting. A few key grips I have worked with praised the Genesis, but I thought they were just fan boys wanting to hate on Red.
 
Any F35 owner interested in seeing a plot of this camera's light response function?
It should look something like this, but wider (more DR, this is just a Canon DSLR):
flaat_3.jpg

I tried to calculate it using macgregor's test shots here but it didn't work well enough, plus I'd like to have it in thirds of a stop (as in the graph above), not in full stops.

Send me a PM if you have an F35 and can spare an hour to shoot some very specific clips and send them to me.

The reason I ask: I'm trying to develop a movie camera; I'm still in the very early stages (I wrote my first-ever working FPGA code this weekend; it gets two numbers, and calculates their sum and difference; that took me 2 days of work), my probability of success is very low (I'd still rate it at around 5%), and it's not going to be the best camera ever (probably by far, see this), so don't get your hopes up; but the F35 has the image I'd like to go for in many respects, so I'd like to know more about it.
 
Last edited:
James0b57 said:
Thanks, good call. I am interested in one of those. really conflicted, since my next project would be better served with a hand held camera, but I can work with size and low light. Since image is always paramount. I had no idea this camera was capable of these things until mac started posting. A few key grips I have worked with praised the Genesis, but I thought they were just fan boys wanting to hate on Red.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's been something of a revelation to myself as well. I was always aware of the panavision genesis and had also heard of the F35. It was only when Mac started posting in July that I realized it was essentially the same camera. But it wasn't until this past month I've realized just how much of a monster this thing is. The fact that some of the Genesis / F35 films were shot digitally when I thought they were for sure film, and seeing a bit of regular owner / operator F35 footage from Mac and others... has me floored and reconsidering where I want to spend my money. I'm not expecting a low light beast, but then again neither is the BMC or my GH2 or any other camera I'm interested in.

It would be awesome to have a camera that looks as good under tungsten studio lighting as it does outdoors with regular sunlight. That's where I just can't stand DSLRs and most other cameras... even the BMC is pretty hit or miss from what I've seen so far, although Kholi has an excellent example of the BMC in a well lit situation. Alexa, F35... they just have a totally solid image under many different types of light, and it somehow continues to look filmic throughout; this is simply not the case with other cameras like the C300, RED, DSRLs etc, where they can look positively stunning at times using sunlight, but then somehow not remain aesthetically pleasing in an indoor / studio lit environment.
 
^FPGA work is fun stuff. I had tried my hand at creating an Atari 2600 on fpga. Recreated the 6507 CPU using a old book at a used book store. Recreated part of the Tia chip (gpu) and actually got the start screen of pitfall to come up when sending the binary code into th fpga.

Very daunting though. Too many bugs. So moved on eventually. Got to get back into fpgas though. Really fun. Good luck on your camera! I had considered trying my hands at one too. But the sensor is everything. How do you even build one?

Anyway, all those 8k f35s on eBay seem to be gone for now. It seems like the pix 240i would be a great match for this camera. You could use it as a monitor and it would let you record prores 444 at 12 bit! That would get you the Real Steel look for sure! (J/k Adam).
 
So the F35 went up 1k... haha, no doubt seller raised the price once the first sold so quick. Crap... I wish this guy would respond to my questions, I'm getting really ancy.
 
haha, yeah that commercial with that sort of editing doesn't benefit from using any camera in particular, was definitely sub par.
 
Great thread, would be great to see some footage from the owner, already 4 bought the cam, in this thread, If not mistaken.
what is workflow with SRW 1 / SRPC-1 if used with the F35?
tape is pretty inexpensive, can it be played back and captured into computer, in 444 color space?

SRW 1 why not consider it while purchasing the cam?
 
Hdcam sr tape inexpensive????
And the recorder is a monster, it needs lots of power, it's heavy, bulky, then you need to capture the tapes... Ssd recorder is the way to go here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top