Just got a new camera - Sony F35

F35 - natural light, no bounce/fill. Has been graded down, and made slightly warmer and softer in post. Original camera neg has more detail still.

SOTD_Sunse5558.jpg
 
Guys, some big news coming up this week. I'm upgrading to 4K. Hunter convinced me to make the switch.

And nope, I didn't get an F65.
 
Traded your F35 for his Red One MX?

I doubt this. Mac always said he didn't like Reds because of skin and high lights etc. I also don't think he exchange global shutter real RBG for rolling shutter bayer only because of more pixels. Must be something different.
 
I second the vote saying Mac's defected to the Varicam camp.

Looks like Panasonic has been listening. If only they had used SSD and not P2 cards, which have always been obscenely overpriced.

Even CFast would've been WONDERFUL! Or XQD!! But not P2
 
Like I said in the other thread, the F35 spoils you and makes it really hard to replace it. When the Varicam 35 was announced I thought for a minute we may finally have something. But when you start to size it up reality sets in.

I personally can't get past the rolling shutter. This is a very important aspect for me. I find a rolling shutter more limiting than the stop or so less of dynamic range the F35 has in comparison to the Alexa. Rolling shutter artifacts are always there is some capacity. Having a global shutter is so liberating. And it’s also a matter of how motion is captured and rendered.

So with the rolling shutter, the Varicam 35 became substantially less attractive to me and that lessened the impact of the rest of its features as well. The 5000 ISO is more of a good to have thing than a must. It’s also quite noisy. I don’t mind grain. I actually like it. But the noise is not as pleasing as in the F35. It's the typical CMOS more fixed type of noise. Not as random as the F35. I wouldn't use the 5000 ISO for a feature. Without the 5000 ISO and with a rolling shutter, the biggest solid characteristic it has over the F35 is the 4K, because its raw workflow is not very attractive either. But it’s not even real 4K.

The raw support with the Varicam 35 it’s an expensive Codex workflow. You probably can buy a used F65 for the price of the codex system for the Varicam 35. Or for not much more. For the Varicam LT raw is still up in the air. And I have learned not to trust manufactures on future promises. If it uses the same Codex workflow it will probably cost as much as the camera body. So I suspect we will be left with third party options, which I really dislike. The F55 raw workflow is much more elegant.

Without raw the camera is even less attractive. Yes, the F35 is Log and Log is a “type of raw” and the Varicams have V-log. But the point is to improve over the F35. Otherwise I might as well stay with the F35. I would already be letting go of the 444 RGB sensor, the CCD aesthetics I like and other "goodies" we will never see again in another camera. At least not in the near future. So the replacement has to be a substantial upgrade.

Then there is the personal issue of look. I have not seen anything from the Varicam yet which awed me. It doesn’t help that all the tests seem to be focusing on the low light and ISO 5000. It’s understandable as this is the Varicam 35 main and possibly only claim to fame over its competitors. But it’s still a bit bizarre as the camera is marketed as a cinema camera. You normally would light for cinema, so ISO 800 is plenty. ISO 5000 would be more useful for news and other uncontrollable situations.

What I would like to see are shots done midday with an “unpowdered” sweaty forehead and see some harsh lighting with some blown highlights. This is where most cameras regardless of the published dynamic range numbers fail, and the F35 so excels.
 
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