FS7: New Sony PXW-FX9 with venice features and 6k full frame

cyvideo said:
Very true. It's not the price of the cameras reflecting what the camera is capable of but it is the media and everything else associated with the F65 that adds big costs to a cheap camera head purchase. From an Indy perspective the added cost of a used Sony SR-R4 Dockable Memory Recorder, around $3-5K plus the media, a new 1TB Blue costs $6000. A 1TB card hold 59 minutes of F65raw. An average price for used 26GB Sony SR-256S55 SRMemory Cards is around $500.00. Not many indies want to spend that sort of money on 15 minutes of recording media. I know I wouldn't when there are cheaper options out there. All in all they are not a cheap system to run. Sure you may buy a head at a reasonable price but just make sure you know what the ongoing membership fees are in "Club 65."

Chris Young
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I have actually never seen a F65 for sale without the R4 recorder. I don't even think they sold new without the recorder. The $8K kit I came across included the camera, EVF, recorder, the large card reader and 2 cards. That's actually cheaper than what a F35 with 7Q was when people here started buying the camera by the bucket. I think the reason for no indie adoption of the F65 is more the image. It was never praised here like the F35 still is.
 
Couldn't agree more. Give me an FX9 over either of the above. In their day both the 35 and the 65 were desirable units to shoot with but today... nah, not for me. F65 was used very successfully on one of FOX Australia's top rating TV shows, "A Place to Call Home" and I for one liked the look of the production and the grade. The great thing about shooting RAW is the ability to develop a look you like.

A Place to Call Home behind the scenes but includes a wide range of shots from the F65 in it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hva-EXqvo9M

There again look at today and the other end of the spectrum. Not my type of film but it's all about the story and treatment not the camera. Sony Pictures, shot on Sony A7SII, The Possession of Hannah Grace.

According to DP Lennert Hillege things like dynamic range, color science, skin tone rendition, detailed blacks, natural highlight roll off and the ability to shoot and output Sony LOG were critical aspects that were considered.

The biggest downside of the a7S II’s capabilities was the lack of 10 bit recording. It’s only 8 bit but Hillege puts it like this:

If you’re not too dirty, and you keep to certain rules about exposure and color, you can shoot really beautiful, monumental images with it.

Since the camera itself isn’t that expensive, the crew was able to avoid lens swapping just by using not one camera but one camera per lens. Vantage helped with adapting the PL Hawk 65 lenses to the E-mount of the a7S II. Three focal lengths were available at the time of production: 40mm, 60mm and 95mm all with a 1.3x squeeze factor, resulting in a 2.40:1 widescreen image when used with a 16:9 sensor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=RHAgri92JP8

Chris Young
 
J.Brown said:
I can't see the point of going for a F65 or F35 for that matter. Both are old and cumbersome to use in an efficient way compared to something like F55, Venice or FX9. As a cine camera enthusiast sure it can be an experience to own one but for actual work I can't see the point.
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I bet you are not in the market bracket both cameras were made for? Cinema, drama, commercials and other artistic stuff. Sure. For corporate and other works it's totally overkill and cumbersome. But if shooting more artistic stuff, why not? The same point could be made for the old Alexa. Yet several people here have one and seem to have no problems using it. For the jobs the Alexa is overkill you can use cheaper cameras or DSLRs.

Again, if looks is not the main thing and practicality is, I totally agree with you. FS7 or even FX9. But if looks is the main thing, the FS7, F55 etc just won't get you where the F35 will. Very special. The Venice OK. Let's see. Jury i still out. The FX9 already has complains of bad rolling shutter. We will have to see. But the images so far are not any more impressive than the FS7 IMO. It seems like basically a FF FS7. I sold my FS7 and bought an Alexa because I was tired to fight its looks. F55 never did anything for me.

It's a matter of what you do. For people shooting indie stuff and other artistic things, the most attractive cameras at the moment are the Alexa and F35. Not talking about NO budget stuff though. That you have to make do with a DSLR or something. But nothing gets you the look as the Alexa or F35 at this point. The F65 is the odd duck. The look is just not that special compared to the F55 IMO and it's very cumbersome. But if you want pristine and real 4K RAW, 120fps, 14 stops of DR, don't want a rolling shutter etc, can afford to run it, you are not shooting corporate and other one man band stuff, you are shooting artistic stuff, and like the F65 look, it's getting hard to beat a F65 for the prices they are going now. Where can you get all that for $8-10K now?

P.S. LOL at all the down votes on my F65 posts. Probably a sole F65 owner in the forums. Sorry if I have offended your precious. Just my opinion.
 
Sttratos said:
I bet you are not in the market bracket both cameras were made for? Cinema, drama, commercials and other artistic stuff. Sure. For corporate and other works it's totally overkill and cumbersome. But if shooting more artistic stuff, why not? The same point could be made for the old Alexa. Yet several people here have one and seem to have no problems using it. For the jobs the Alexa is overkill you can use cheaper cameras or DSLRs.

Again, if looks is not the main thing and practicality is, I totally agree with you. FS7 or even FX9. But if looks is the main thing, the FS7, F55 etc just won't get you where the F35 will. Very special. The Venice OK. Let's see. Jury i still out. The FX9 already has complains of bad rolling shutter. We will have to see. But the images so far are not any more impressive than the FS7 IMO. It seems like basically a FF FS7. I sold my FS7 and bought an Alexa because I was tired to fight its looks. F55 never did anything for me.

It's a matter of what you do. For people shooting indie stuff and other artistic things, the most attractive cameras at the moment are the Alexa and F35. Not talking about NO budget stuff though. That you have to make do with a DSLR or something. But nothing gets you the look as the Alexa or F35 at this point. The F65 is the odd duck. The look is just not that special compared to the F55 IMO and it's very cumbersome. But if you want pristine and real 4K RAW, 120fps, 14 stops of DR, don't want a rolling shutter etc, can afford to run it, you are not shooting corporate and other one man band stuff, you are shooting artistic stuff, and like the F65 look, it's getting hard to beat a F65 for the prices they are going now. Where can you get all that for $8-10K now?

P.S. LOL at all the down votes on my F65 posts. Probably a sole F65 owner in the forums. Sorry if I have offended your precious. Just my opinion.
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Honestly, if you are working in drama or cinema you rent what you need right? For commercial work to me at least F55 or Venice goes a long way.
 
While the auto-focus and face tracking is impressive for what it is, I'm going to throw some cold water on the real world implications. Shooting as depicted in the Stockholm video, on sticks, large f/stop openings (f/1.8-f/2.8) under street lit practicals, white faces against dark backgrounds is the exact opposite of what you would be doing at a wedding march with strong daylight behind white wedding dress, small lens iris opening, several stops of ND, your subject to be tracked isn't already in the frame and you don't dare fiddle with a joystick in the middle of such an important moment even if you could. Even manually tracking focus, the wedding march is one of the more difficult shots for an experienced cameraman; you don't always get it perfect, which involves hand holding or sometimes on sticks but always using a good manual focus ring, with the benefit of a little practice with the focus throw on the bridesmaids and groomsmen before the money shot on the bride and her father. Plus people jump into the aisle meaning you have to be prepared to change shooting angles quickly, dynamically. If you're incapable of easily, manually tracking focus on a staged demo scene, you have no business taking someone's money as a professional shooter where there are no mulligans. I don't mean that to be harsh, but face tracking auto focus is a gimmick. Like self driving, self parking cars, works sometimes but sure to fail when the pressure is on at the worst time.
 
I agree Tom.. with my A7III the first time filming a person of color .. the face detect really didnt work that well at all.. I even thought I had switched it off sone how.. latest firm ware .. maybe the fx9 is better.. but there will be times it won't work that well thats for sure.. it depends on your work.. I also shoot tons of interviews in controlled situations..some shoots are only interviews .. and it will be perfect for that.. I guess this is why Sony are coming out with these new lenses.. the higher end market buyers will buy these lenses that will give the best of both worlds .. still relatively cheap.. I think this 16-35 is about $5K or so.. hopefully next one is something like 50-100.. then maybe a stills lenses for anything long.. I think AF always has to be used with discretion .. but for many occasions it will be great.. and I was really a big anti AF person before using the A7III.. I see it as a great feature.. but not to be used all the time..

I think any professional user will not be relying on AF for all their shoots.. or shots.. but in many situations it really will be a nice option ..
 
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One of the things that had me excited about buying the Sony FS5 was the addition of face detection auto focus. But in the first sit down interview I used the feature the man turned his head and the camera decided to focus on the wall behind him instead. Totally unacceptable for a professional shoot, right?

The auto focus on the A7iii is so much better than the FS5, and I actually have used it for a sit down interview before. But I stopped using auto focus on my sit down interviews with the A7iii because, while the camera remained locked on to the face for focus, there was subtle breathing as the lens focused that was noticeable to me if I paid attention to the edges of the frame. Is this passable for others? Possibly. But it made me uncomfortable and I ended up warp stabilizing the breathing out of the shot.

So will I use the auto focus of the FX9 a lot on professional shoots? Likely not. But I imagine it will be a lot of fun to use for B-Roll, tracking animals or cars, or other shots where I won't suffer from trust issues.
 
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Donny 123 said:
I also shoot tons of interviews in controlled situations..some shoots are only interviews .. and it will be perfect for that.. I guess this is why Sony are coming out with these new lenses..
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I agree Donny but you have to be really careful in interviews too, because if the subject is moving around in a stationary shot as they often do, the tracking benefit can also be accompanied by focus breathing. It's an area where these great new sensors can be problem solvers, permitting a low noise, stopped-down DOF where the focus doesn't need to track. It was also the best wedding tip I ever got, for receptions where you are moving around in dim light getting video of everybody, having low noise sensitivity you can choose an adequate DOF to "focus by distance." As long as you keep your distance to the subjects approximately 5-8 feet for example, you don't need AF and don't even need to manual focus. Focus hunting, whether caused by the camera or you, is distracting.
 
At first with the C200 I used face tracking but it had issues and I stopped using it after a few shoots.
 
The C200 has terrible face-tracking. A massive disappointment.

FX9 users will be very fortunate to have a7R IV auto-focus, but the fact of the matter is that stills and cinema hardware comes from two different departments. You'd hope that they would share the same technology but it doesn't always work that way as we have seen time and time again with various systems and their features over the years, and sometimes the people in each department aren't even aware what's going on in the other one.

The a7R IV's is practically flawless. On a scale of 1-10 on how much better it is than an a7III, it's 10.

In most conditions - no hunting, no pulsing, NO confusion.

It doesn't matter if it's at f/.95 or f/22; you shoot whatever you need to shoot and it's 99% accurate. If you have multiple faces in the frame, it's best to change to a point/box AF method that will focus on the subjects as they come into the frame because the software can't possibly know which face to focus on...yet. Or you can tap the screen, tap the faces.

This is a major advancement in technology that we are living through and any and all AF precedents determining the state of usable AF should be abandoned immediately.

Hope...just hope the FX9 has this AF implemented the right way...an unstoppable machine it will be if so.
 
I've been using my Nikon Z6 with Ninja V in interviews lately instead of setting up the heavy and bulky Sony F5. The 35mm and 50mm Z lenses have worked great in AF for interviews. This video was shot on the Nikon Z6 with auto-focus (except for some drone and a couple of stock shots). It's a quick cheapie for a business award winner, so I didn't want to drag a lot of production gear along.


My plan would be to get the FE 28-135mm for everyday shooting and some Zeiss primes that also have decent manual focus. I think the FX-9 is a game changer for shooters like me who do a lot of commercials and corporate work. I often work without an AC and have to track focus on an actor doing a piece to camera while walking towards me. Tricky to do manually. Of course it's doable, but I'm expecting to speed my workflow up in these situations and keep the talent happier.

The AF is only one feature of this camera and people shouldn't just get hung up on the pros and cons of AF. The dual ISO, electronic variable ND, extra audio features, enhanced 4K image quality and expandability are probably more important.
 
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NorBro said:
The C200 has terrible face-tracking. A massive disappointment.
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Yes, the C200 face tracking feat is an
Absolute joke. Really completely unusable in
Most situations. Object tracking works well enough. In general, the auto focus features on the C200 do fall short of where most think they will succeed.
 
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