Just got a new camera - Sony F35

Going into production on my new featurette in a couple of months (as in a short feature film, not behind-the-scenes documentary).
Torn between the F35 and the Epic, as many important scenes will be shot in low-light conditions. Not that we won't do controlled lighting, but the locations are simply so huge that some areas will be pretty deep in shadow (which is also a part of our style).
I greatly prefer the look of the F35, but I'm afraid of losing the sensitivity of the Epic. Has anyone pushed their F35s far in low-light yet? I'd do some tests myself, but my camera is currently in a storage facility. I remember seeing Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and marvelling at the images, but i know they made extensive use of balloon lighting on that film.
 
Push any camera in post and you effectively decrease the signal to noise ratio and therefore increase noise.

Some cameras are better than others, but usually it always becomes most noticeable in the darker tonal ranges where things can get muddy.

You can also consider post noise cleaners if necessary.
 
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Thanks. It's the native ISO of the Mysterium X sensor that draws me towards the Epic, as such. The grain of the F35 does look more "natural", though. I hate fixed pattern noise.
 
I realize I probably didn't say anything you didn't know already. But yes you will have to decide which noise looks more noticeable or natural for your liking.

Are you actually shooting at night, or day time indoors where the location is just very dark? In the back ground if you can have even some sun light spilling on a wall from a window it will be better then gapping black hole. then you can light your foreground as needed.
 
Personally I'd choose the F35 over the epic, although the F65 would be probably better than either of those.

I would shoot comfortably with the F35 in any situation where you'd be happy with film. Bear in mind also the F35 will be a lot happier under tungsten light than the epic (in my experience from the M-X). I found the Red ONE's 800 rating to be a bit optimistic in night shooting. Just my two cents...
 
I've tried various personal tests trying to see what I can do with my F35 shooting s-Log at the fixed ISO 450 in low light. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it handled things. It's just a different kind of image than you get with a camera that is more known for being a great low-light tool like a C100/300 or Epic. Instead of worrying about details in shadows I've been happy to let the image go black where it's dark, a lot like film would. My personal taste in lighting is to embrace contrasts and work with pools of light. The noise cleans up nicely in post (I am using Neat Video's noise cleaner), but I only take about half of it out most of the time. As mentioned it is not the same as film, but it's a similarly pleasing noise. Most of my tests have been in natural light interiors on dreary rainy days with no electric lights, night time interiors with nothing but practical lighting (normal house lighting fixtures, 40-75 watt bulbs, etc.). And I also have shot some nighttime exteriors with no additional lighting other than practicals and ambient. Basically shooting all kinds of situations that are technically "wrong" for this film-set camera, just to see what I can get out of it (figuring once I start throwing tungsten lights on things it only gets better). I've had shots where most of the frame is just black and surprisingly it ends up feeling fine to me (mind you, I'm not a pixel peeper or a tech snob- I just know what I like in an image). Looks scary bad at first in sLog, but once I grade it with a LUT it ends up working. The darker areas don't have great detail but I don't usually care- it's not where I want the eye to go anyhow. I'll try and post some stills after I get home from work tonight.
 
The Epic MX is what? 800ISO according to red? It's a very clean 800ISO but once you measure against your lightmeter you'll find out that there's 1stop and a quarter discrepancy between the two. That leaves the Epic MX around real ISO 320 if you match your lightmeter to a nicely exposed rec709 signal out of the camera. At 800ISO, you'll have way less headroom in the highlights than the F35 and much more shadow detail.
Now, if you're shooting at night you're probably using Tungsten. The F35 is 3200K native while the Red is aprox 5000K, so you'll need to add a 80C filter to compensate for that. Which of course will take at least 1 stop of light reaching the sensor. Now you're at ISO 125-160. Versus the F35 being 450 in Slog.
Of course you can increas the ISO setting on the Epic (basically a metadata settings remapping the mid grey into a lower zone, trading shadow detail for highlights) making mid grey brighter while increasing noise. So setting the Epic MX at 1600ISO will yield a final ISO (once you fix the lightmeter issue and add 80C filter) of aproximately 250-320. Still lower than the F35. And ISO1600 is as high as I'd go in the Epic.

Now what's cleaner, F35 at 450ISO 3200 or Epic MX at 1600ISO is up to you. I think they'd be about the same to be honest in terms of noise levels. But the look... not that close.
 
Wow, you gave me a new perspective on things there, mac. I should probably bring both cameras out for some testing.
And I'd certainly love to see some stills, Keith!

EDIT: @Dennis, it's an indoors warehouse, so no sunlight sadly
 
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Here's another vid I did with the F35 that I'm allowed to show.





http://www.vimeo.com/77681008


F35, BM Hypershuttle for 25p, Gemini for 50p
Strangely enough, I graded it all in PP CC, and even more strange, I figured the "lumetri" plugin allowed loading of LUTs.
So I tried loading in Macs slog to cineon LUT, it worked, then applied another "lumetri" and loaded any of the other luts we all been talking about. Amazing it all works just fine right inside PP CC.


also good to note that if u have the "film convert" plugin, applying the slog to cineon LUT first, then filmconvert ,U can then choose "Arri Alexa LogC" as camera profile in filmconvert (since the Slog is now cineon) and it looks good, as there is no current cam profile for F35.
 
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Hey Mylsbakken,
OK, some frame grabs. Again, these are just my personal stress tests meant to explore the further reaches of what the camera can do with absolutely crap lighting conditions. All these were LUT'd up and color graded in Resolve, with noise reduction done using Magic Bullet DeNoiser at 45-50%. I'm including links to higher quality PNGs on my Flickr stream so you can go check out the noise structure without the JPEG artifacting- which is VERY bad here on the forum pages.

The first is by far the worst of the bunch. Just a single 60 watt bulb on a ceiling fixture a good 8 feet away from the area of focus. Crap image, but the noise structure is decent. See nicer PNG of this on my Flickr page.
Sequence _0400.jpg

This one is a night interior with just your typical fluorescent 18 watt overhead ceiling pig-tail bulbs in recessed cans for illumination. Higher quality Flickr here.
Sequence_010.jpg

Gloomy, rotten rainy day interior. No indoor illumination at all on the subject, just tiny slice of daylight squeaking around furniture. Another one that really pushes things. High quality Flickr version here.
Sequence_020.jpg

Another night interior, same scene as the cooking one above. Higher quality Flickr can be found here.
Sequence_030.jpg

I'm slightly embarrassed throwing these up here since they're not even close to quality images, but I hope you find them helpful in seeing how the F35 footage holds up to garbage lighting conditions. Personally these tests have given me a sense of confidence in what the camera can handle, knowing that once I get my tungsten lamps turned on and I'm painting light that things will be even stronger.
 
Jusgorilla said:
Here's another vid I did with the F35 that I'm allowed to show.





http://www.vimeo.com/77681008


F35, BM Hypershuttle for 25p, Gemini for 50p
Strangely enough, I graded it all in PP CC, and even more strange, I figured the "lumetri" plugin allowed loading of LUTs.
So I tried loading in Macs slog to cineon LUT, it worked, then applied another "lumetri" and loaded any of the other luts we all been talking about. Amazing it all works just fine right inside PP CC.


also good to note that if u have the "film convert" plugin, applying the slog to cineon LUT first, then filmconvert ,U can then choose "Arri Alexa LogC" as camera profile in filmconvert (since the Slog is now cineon) and it looks good, as there is no current cam profile for F35.
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Lovely stuff Justin! I loved the lighting in the bar, beautifully pulled out the patrons from the space without being overlit. Care to share your lighting plan?
 
Grug said:
Lovely stuff Justin! I loved the lighting in the bar, beautifully pulled out the patrons from the space without being overlit. Care to share your lighting plan?
Click to expand...

Thanks Grug. I dont have a sketch of the plan, but an easy setup:

4 x 2.4K space lights (very soft top lights with silk skirts) for Key light
3 x 2k Arri tungstens with chimera (soft box cases) at a distance, for fill.
Thats it.
 
Keith what that shows me is that with careful planning and use - as long as you don't mind a slightly graining/noisy image - the F35 works pretty stinking good with lighting it was never intended to work with. The two cooking shots especially showcase what can be done with it.

What glass were you using and F/T stop were you at?
 
Glad you guys found the grabs informative. I used an older Nikon 35-70 at f2.8 for these tests. I don't have any fast primes yet because I like the ease, speed and flexibility of working with zooms as variable primes. But I do plan on picking up a some fast Nikkors. A 50mm f1.2 would have been plenty fast enough to make these scenarios workable.
 
Just shot a project on mine a week ago- also saw some stuff Ed shot- looks super awesome 10000%.

It goes like this for me "damn why am I shooting on this huge camera"- then in post "OMG- thats why"
 
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