Justify an F35 vs an FS7

net went out why I was posting so £5,599 = $9177.13 in the US so maybe that is the street price for the camera and lens combo... since some say the combo in the US would be $10,000...

So Steve is that with the lens...
 
Thanks Steve...

In the US thought it was $7,999 for the body only... haven't looked in a while... just did B & H still has it for that price...
 
FYI

My dealer says €7000,- official price tag from Sony, but I might get one for 6.000€ (4.717 BP/ 7.718I US$)
for body only (early bird price). They also say I won't get it before december, but almost certainly this year.
I'm No.6 on the preorder list...
 
FS7 will make you $$, F35 will not. I'd like to hear from any F35 owner who has paid their camera off through rentals, my guess would be Mac and JM, maybe. F35 is a passion project. FS7 is a swiss army knife, I will get one if I continue freelance work because it can be great in so many situations and easy to operate for hours. I have been an eclair/aaton enthusiast for years so it is great to see the form coming back. The F35 comes from the lineage of cameras that are big boxes and fly around on massive cranes and dollies. The FS7 is very appealing for it's physical form, if they had added a global shutter it would be be a winner on my list.

There is a minimum level of acceptable light to the F35 to make nice footage. If the light falls below these levels, it begins to get muddy and grainy fast. The F35 reveals it's age in "low light" situations, when there simply is not enough light for the F35 sensor. We run into these situations, when the lens is wide open, the gain is stretched a bit, and there still isn't enough light, usually because of budget reasons. If you shoot in situations where you can always light or have plenty of light, I would argue the F35 makes more pleasing grander images, and the 6k HD is stellar. But in the real world, where everyone is fighting to be the lowest bidder, lighting suffers first and the last 8 years of camera technology has made great leaps to make up for this "low light" situation of not taking time or money to light a scene.
 
yachacha said:
FS7 will make you $$, F35 will not. I'd like to hear from any F35 owner who has paid their camera off through rentals, my guess would be Mac and JM, maybe. F35 is a passion project. FS7 is a swiss army knife, I will get one if I continue freelance work because it can be great in so many situations and easy to operate for hours. I have been an eclair/aaton enthusiast for years so it is great to see the form coming back. The F35 comes from the lineage of cameras that are big boxes and fly around on massive cranes and dollies. The FS7 is very appealing for it's physical form, if they had added a global shutter it would be be a winner on my list.

There is a minimum level of acceptable light to the F35 to make nice footage. If the light falls below these levels, it begins to get muddy and grainy fast. The F35 reveals it's age in "low light" situations, when there simply is not enough light for the F35 sensor. We run into these situations, when the lens is wide open, the gain is stretched a bit, and there still isn't enough light, usually because of budget reasons. If you shoot in situations where you can always light or have plenty of light, I would argue the F35 makes more pleasing grander images, and the 6k HD is stellar. But in the real world, where everyone is fighting to be the lowest bidder, lighting suffers first and the last 8 years of camera technology has made great leaps to make up for this "low light" situation of not taking time or money to light a scene.
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I've been researching pricing and features on all sorts of 4k cameras lately, and quite frankly, I'm concerned that many of the are likely to depreciate quickly, the FS7 included. If you have big clients, Alexa, F65, F55, and Red Epic are the sorts of cameras you'll be using either as an owner operator, or on a rental basis, and the fees you charge should reflect this. But for the owner operators who are thinking to spend between $10k and 25k on a 4k camera package, and get commensurate rates... you'll need to be working very consistently to be more profitable than you would be using something like the Blackmagic URSA, when it finally ships in quantity. I'm not a Blackmagic lover by any means, but $6k for a 4k camera that can record directly to ProRes from a global shutter, using cheap EF or Nikon glass... when it comes down to dollars and cents, it's a price point winner.

If you pay $5k for an F35 (not unheard of now) you don't need the same amount of jobs as you do at $10k+ for a FS7. But I do concur that the F35 is for those who personally believe in it.
 
I don't think that the FS7 is a big "money-maker".

Okay, it's 4k and a lot of clients, especially those who don't know to much about video, will love this.
But the FS7 doesn'T deliver anything special in terms of colour and codec/bitrate.
I mean, it's 10bit 4k out of the box with the ability to use cheap memory, batteries and most important:
Cheapo lenses without PL.

That's what counts for me. Great one-man-band camera for R+G.
That's something, the F35 is clearly not made for, even if you can rig it up for this purpose.

The F35 plays in another league for me as it was never in my radar of owning one. The FS7 will be a workhorse
for all kind of stuff. It's just that people won't pay premium prices for such a camera...
I think this will be one of the cheapest rental cameras out there in a few month.
 
Razz16mm said:
Panavision is very picky about IQ on their rental cameras. It is telling that the only Sony's they inventory are the global shutter CCD ones, except for the F55. F35, F23, F900 and the Genesis version of the F35.
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Panavision was stocking a lot of F3's actually.
 
yachacha said:
FS7 will make you $$, F35 will not.
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Certainly a good point - though I don't agree with it totally. I'm sure there are many situations where a user might pay off the camera. I know I could use it jobs that I do and a get a few hundred £ a day for it. These would be jobs where at the moment I'd be using a Varicam, and would be able to bring in an SRW9000 to do a similar job but at much higher quality level - admittedly with a couple of (manageable) trade-offs, like some extra weight and lack of long zoom lenses.
Steve
 
Viddovation said:
you'll need to be working very consistently to be more profitable than you would be using something like the Blackmagic URSA, when it finally ships in quantity. I'm not a Blackmagic lover by any means, but $6k for a 4k camera that can record directly to ProRes from a global shutter, using cheap EF or Nikon glass... when it comes down to dollars and cents, it's a price point winner.
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The URSA is not a single user camera. Its designed as a crew camera and by the time you rig it up it will cost more than the FS7. Buying and EVF and media cost difference alone will make the URSA a more epensive camera to use. Not to mention its weight. Dollars and sense of ownership its hard to beat the FS7 price point.

The magic sauce for me is 422 10bit compreesed internal 4K & HD. That is all I need and my clients neend for the majority of what I do. Anything more and I'm adding $$ in media costs and storage with no appreciable quality gains for my clients. Being able to carry everything I need to get the camera up and go in a carryon bag is important to me.
 
...although as Mitch commented, just because it has some components in common with the F5 doesn't mean it will perform as well - hopefully it will, or better, but we won't know until they're out there and shooting / being edited / broadcast.
Steve
 
RatLabProductions said:
The URSA is not a single user camera. Its designed as a crew camera and by the time you rig it up it will cost more than the FS7. Buying and EVF and media cost difference alone will make the URSA a more epensive camera to use. Not to mention its weight. Dollars and sense of ownership its hard to beat the FS7 price point.

The magic sauce for me is 422 10bit compreesed internal 4K & HD. That is all I need and my clients neend for the majority of what I do. Anything more and I'm adding $$ in media costs and storage with no appreciable quality gains for my clients. Being able to carry everything I need to get the camera up and go in a carryon bag is important to me.
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If you rely on shoulder mount handheld work, then yes, the FS7 is cheaper and better purpose built than the Blackmagic URSA. However, if you primarily do interview work and tripod based b-roll, the URSA should handle just fine with one user. For instance, I do a good deal of industrial plant shoots. Welding, in particular, is quite frustrating to record with a CMOS sensor, as it looks nasty on a rolling shutter. The URSA should handle it neatly.

But everyone should get the camera they think is best for their situation. Considering at $6k the URSA ships with an EF mount and ProRes recording at HD and 4k, it's competitive. The FS7 media only comes out cheaper when you're assuming exclusive use of the XQD internal cards. To get raw or ProRes out of the box requires buying additional hardware, and for raw, a second set of far more expensive media. Secondly, the CFAST media may be expensive now, but because it is a general consumer standard, it will go down in price over time. Further, if one starts out primarily shooting the URSA in 1080, the slower CFAST cards are in the same general price range as the XQD cards.
 
boo said:
Which is more cinematic, the F35 or the FS7?
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They're both cinematic, take a look at some footage and see if you can feel a difference. Most audiences won't.

It becomes a preference, and a choice...which brush will the artist use?
 
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