New Sony F23

H

helweg

Active member
Hello all,

Thank you for the useful contributions you have posted to this board over time.

I am now the excited owner of an F23.

The 2/3" format is not really desired these days but it fits in comfortably with the work I am currently doing (documentary, event etc) and I'm still very pleased to own it, even if it is just as a hobby camera.
I've always been attracted to the F23 after first seeing it so many years ago, and it's been fun getting it up to speed as a non-tethered and non SRW-1 camera.
Currently I'm recording via a BM 5" Video Assist and an AJA Lut Box for Dual Link to progressive.
This gives me the handy option of putting the BMVA's twin inputs (hdmi and SDI) to use, one being the overlayed monitor out SDI and the dual link 10bit output from AJA via HDMI.

It's hard to beat the prices on offer for lenses right now, so I picked up a HD-EC cine zoom and would like to get my hands on some sharper digiprimes at some point (the 3.9mm in particular).

The image quality is impressive and and I'm happy with the 50fps footage that it puts out through the AJA lut box.
After working with all matter of newer cameras I'm still amazed that the footage from this thing can look so good, and it's a nice change to go back to the world of CCD and 1080 RGB.

I have had to RPN a few pixels since owning it though which was great fun, and the rotary encoder needed some contact cleaner.
Hopefully I can push a few more years of use out of her before things start failing or going bad.

Should anyone find it useful, I plan to post samples of the video and any projects that I can share, as there is a real lack of footage online from these.

Also, may I ask if anyone out there has a copy of Mac's F35 cineon LUT? All his old links on here have expired.

If you ever had experience back in the day using these (good or bad) I'd love to hear about it.

SonyF23.jpg

Cheers,

- Ben
 
Here is a link to some very poor general test footage that I shot.
Mostly looking at dynamic range, colour and motion. I plan to do some proper studio tests with a subject when possible.

The HJ21 isn't the sharpest lens but it can render a decent image.
There is a super basic correction applied based on conversion of the slog to cineon and then I've used a the Arri LogC-709 as a basis for the output.

[video]https://vimeo.com/benhelweg/review/311588994/cd717538f3[/video]
 
Heya Ben!

Pat from footscray city films here. Nice to see more sony love in Melbourne. Here's a link to most of the LUTs referenced on this forum - https://we.tl/t-jop4JnQi90

If you ever want to play with an F35, hit me up on facey. Or buy it off me :p

Have fun!
 
Hi Pat, thanks for chiming in and great to chat to you!
I much appreciate you sharing those LUTs, it'll be great doing some more testing with them.

I've followed some of your posts on here about your F35 but wasn't sure if you were still active on here.
Shame you're wanting to let it go but I'm sure you've got bigger and better projects to put your time into!
I'm actually curious to see how different the cameras handle light and DR when put side by side, perhaps I'll get in touch at some point. Could be good to have a mess around!

Cheerio,
 
Congrats on the new camera. I am also a big fan of the 2/3" format! Working with a panavised F900.. the F23 is the F900 on steroids! The 4:4:4 and DR must be amazing! Enjoy it and share more footage when you can!
 
Just wanted to know did your F23 come with the external interface box, or did you buy it separately. I ask since someone selling their F23, though it doesn't come with it.
 
Mike Krumlauf said:
Congrats on the new camera. I am also a big fan of the 2/3" format! Working with a panavised F900.. the F23 is the F900 on steroids! The 4:4:4 and DR must be amazing! Enjoy it and share more footage when you can!
Click to expand...

Hey Mike, thanks!
I've followed your F900 videos on youtube for a little while now and I have to say I was very impressed with the look derived from your camera.
That football game at dusk was beautiful.

The F23 has some impressive colour information and slog is great, but I can't say I've fully leveraged that 4:4:4 12bit yet.
Next time I can get my hands on an odyssey for a job I'll make sure to do some recording with it and share the results!
 
03recon said:
Just wanted to know did your F23 come with the external interface box, or did you buy it separately. I ask since someone selling their F23, though it doesn't come with it.
Click to expand...

At the time I got this F23 there was a bunch of units for sale online and I think they may have been from Clairmont camera. All didn't come with the IF box.
It was more expensive to get my camera from Japan compared to the other US based ones on ebay but - 1.) it came with the IF box, 2.)it was in better condition and the Japanese tend to treat camera gear with respect 3.)It hadn't been modified or hacked at.

I've read that the IF box is expensive to get separately and can be very difficult to find.
You can most certainly get away without an IF box but to me it lessens the camera's value and limits what you can do with it.
That means no 50fps, no 4:4:4, no audio input, and most importantly in my case, no XLR power input.
Without that convenient XLR power input you have to either source a really expensive anton bauer power supply with the correct (giant) 8 pin connector or find/buy/make a connector or other pre-made battery plate etc..
The SDI out of the camera is very clean and usable but it will always be 10bit PSF @ the system frequency.

When I looked at all those little caveats I decided I wanted the IF.

I just read your other post and I think for US dollars that's a bit too expensive.
The F23 already doesn't have much going for it these days and unless you really are interested in it or have actual uses for it / lenses at your disposal it's probably money better spent somewhere else or on an F35.
 
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helweg said:
I just read your other post and I think for US dollars that's a bit too expensive.
The F23 already doesn't have much going for it these days and unless you really are interested in it or have actual uses for it / lenses at your disposal it's probably money better spent somewhere else or on an F35.
Click to expand...

I was asking myself that question since I came across a bunch of F35's for around $4500 - $5500 and one of them is a F23-F35 conversion. I was chatting with the chap who has the F23 and says its perfectly functioning, has some nicks, posted some pics and he's right, it looks almost new. He gave me instructions how to use it without the box if I get it. I'm thinking it over, perhaps I might just save some cash and go for the F35.
 
If you don't have an IF box you will have to record via an external recorder using the monitor port which wont do 444 you will be limited to 10 bit 422 if I recall correctly, I am not sure if you will be able to do 50p either. I wouldn't count on being able to find one later on since they are very rare and will probably be expensive if you do ever find one.
 
From my understanding the F23 for me seems like it combines all that i like in the 900 and the tape varicam with the in camera speed ramping. Wish I had the money to invest in a 23 but its not like im not in a hindrance with my panavised 900.. love that camera to pieces and those Kodak gamma curves which i used on that football video you speak of gives a really beautiful image to work with. It limits your DR though as its basically telling the camera to treat the curve like 250D Stock.
 
helweg said:
The SDI out of the camera is very clean and usable but it will always be 10bit PSF @ the system frequency.
Click to expand...

dhessel said:
If you don't have an IF box you will have to record via an external recorder using the monitor port which wont do 444 you will be limited to 10 bit 422 if I recall correctly, I am not sure if you will be able to do 50p either. I wouldn't count on being able to find one later on since they are very rare and will probably be expensive if you do ever find one.
Click to expand...

From what I read, and correct me if I'm wrong, if go for the F23 w/o the IF box and use a typical external recorder, I'll be only shooting @24fps on 4.2.2 10bit. From what I'm going to be doing with it I should be fine with 10 bit 4.2.2.

BTW helweg just watched your test footage from your F23, its looks really nice. It's a pity most camera companies didn't continue using the CCD format.
 
Mike Krumlauf said:
Congrats on the new camera. I am also a big fan of the 2/3" format! Working with a panavised F900.. the F23 is the F900 on steroids!
Click to expand...

Not at all actually. As far as I'm concerned it's a totally different camera. Different sensor, different everything. The only thing which is the same is the sensor size. It's pretty clear when you look at the image. The F23 makes a MUCH better image than the F900, which is not even full raster HD and is highly compressed. The F900 was a news camera moded to be used in cinema. The F23 is a cinema camera from the ground up, like the F35. If you want to talk camera on steroids, it's the F900 which is the the F750 news camera on steroids.
 
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Sttratos said:
Not at all actually. As far as I'm concerned it's a totally different camera. Different sensor, different everything. The only thing which is the same is the sensor size. It's pretty clear when you look at the image. The F23 makes a MUCH better image than the F900, which is not even full raster HD and is highly compressed. The F900 was a news camera moded to be used in cinema. The F23 is a cinema camera from the ground up, like the F35. If you want to talk camera on steroids, it's the F900 which is the the F750 news camera on steroids.
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I've kind of forgotten all the details, but I recall that the Panavised F900 had a few differences from the stock standard Sony one that first came out.
From what I've seen I still think it looks really awesome.
There's some footage on vimeo from the Oceans documentary where they show ungraded + graded underwater footage shot on both F23 and F900 and I remember thinking wow the F900 looks fantastic if not better than the F23 footage they shot.
But obviously that's not a very scientific way of evaluating it.

03recon said:
From what I read, and correct me if I'm wrong, if go for the F23 w/o the IF box and use a typical external recorder, I'll be only shooting @24fps on 4.2.2 10bit. From what I'm going to be doing with it I should be fine with 10 bit 4.2.2.

BTW helweg just watched your test footage from your F23, its looks really nice. It's a pity most camera companies didn't continue using the CCD format.
Click to expand...

Thanks 03recon, I'll try get around to doing some better test footage without such a crunchy grade on it!
Yes if you're happy with 24PsF in that fashion you'll be fine. Go for it if you wish.
When Macgregor shot Mauritania Railway on the F35 he was just piping straight out of the monitor out into a hyperdeck, so there's no shame in that.
I'm quite a fan of the clean and un-molested 50p that the F23 outputs so that was a drawcard for me.

- Ben
 
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Sttratos said:
Not at all actually. As far as I'm concerned it's a totally different camera. Different sensor, different everything. The only thing which is the same is the sensor size. It's pretty clear when you look at the image. The F23 makes a MUCH better image than the F900, which is not even full raster HD and is highly compressed. The F900 was a news camera moded to be used in cinema. The F23 is a cinema camera from the ground up, like the F35. If you want to talk camera on steroids, it's the F900 which is the the F750 news camera on steroids.
Click to expand...

Well this may be sorta arguing semantics... The F900 was/is a true 1920x1080 camera. BUT the HDCAM tape format was not. It was subsampled to 1440. And there was no F750. The 750 was not part of the Cine-Alta line, hence no “F” prefix and the F900 came before the HDW-750, so you could say the 750 was a watered down F900(even though the 750 had some things the F900 didn’t, because it was designed for the ENG market). ; )

All that aside, I shot with the F900 for several years and I thought it had a beautiful picture. And even though it’s commercially dead today, I’ve seen some of Mike’s Panavised footage and I like the image. It has some “weight” to it.
 
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Run&Gun said:
Well this may be sorta arguing semantics... The F900 was/is a true 1920x1080 camera. BUT the HDCAM tape format was not. It was subsampled to 1440. And there was no F750. The 750 was not part of the Cine-Alta line, hence no “F” prefix and the F900 came before the HDW-750, so you could say the 750 was a watered down F900(even though the 750 had some things the F900 didn’t, because it was designed for the ENG market). ; )

All that aside, I shot with the F900 for several years and I thought it had a beautiful picture. And even though it’s commercially dead today, I’ve seen some of Mike’s Panavised footage and I like the image. It has some “weight” to it.
Click to expand...

Ok I stand corrected about the 750. But the F900 was always a beefed news camera instead of a true cinema camera like the F23 and F35. About the image I guess is a matter of opinion. Pop a bluray of any movie shot on F900 and watch it and it looks dated as hell today. The image is really mushy and really shows the age. Appears very low quality compared to today's standards. But the movies shot on the F23 and F35 still look great today compared to the Alexa industry standard. Of course the F35 looks better. But the F23 is still night and day from the F900. So I don't think saying the F23 is a F900 on steroids is correct. It has basically nothing to do with each other. I think even the EX1 has an edge over the original F900 in many ways.
 
helweg said:
Thanks 03recon, I'll try get around to doing some better test footage without such a crunchy grade on it!
Yes if you're happy with 24PsF in that fashion you'll be fine. Go for it if you wish.
When Macgregor shot Mauritania Railway on the F35 he was just piping straight out of the monitor out into a hyperdeck, so there's no shame in that.
I'm quite a fan of the clean and un-molested 50p that the F23 outputs so that was a drawcard for me.

- Ben
Click to expand...

Sweet!

I didn't know that regarding Mauritania Railway. My draw towards F23/F35 is the CCD sensor. So having footage from either 4.2.2 or 4.4.4 flavor I'll be happy with. :)
 
helweg said:
I've kind of forgotten all the details, but I recall that the Panavised F900 had a few differences from the stock standard Sony one that first came out.
From what I've seen I still think it looks really awesome.
There's some footage on vimeo from the Oceans documentary where they show ungraded + graded underwater footage shot on both F23 and F900 and I remember thinking wow the F900 looks fantastic if not better than the F23 footage they shot.
But obviously that's not a very scientific way of evaluating it.
Click to expand...

The Panavision model is quite a bit different both inside and out. The outside modifications are very nice.. front plate is more rugid, prevents any back focus issues.. the handle is nicely built as well. internally its just the image block that was modified. Panavision adjusted the CCD gains and preamp board differently than Sony did in their ENG version and the pre optical filter is different as well, it helps the CCD block see the color red as true red and not the orange red most Sony CCD sensors had problems with, the overall image looking quite filmic right out of the gate. They seemed to have messed with another board somewhere that allowed more image detail out of the HD-SDI than in a normal F900 as it seems the images from the HD SDI on the panavision unit look quite more defined and sharper.
 
I'm joining the F23 family most likely tomorrow. Just waiting for my check to clear. I sent you a message on instagram. Does the IF Box allow power via XLR? Which XLR to gold mounts work with the camera. I was going to buy a fellow DVXusers AB plate but i would need to power via dtap and i dont really want to do that.. want to leave the Dtap on the battery open. Thanks :)
 
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