New varicam?

SJX

SJX

Veteran
What my fellow F35 users think of new varicam? I have mixed feeling for some reason. Do you like it? Many videos out already.
 
SJX said:
What my fellow F35 users think of new varicam? I have mixed feeling for some reason. Do you like it? Many videos out already.
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wait for the new sony's. the varicam isnt worth the money. panasonic waited too long. what do you think they are bringing to the table that other cameras arent doing?
 
I attended the Varicam demo at Panavision. The lowlight capability of this camera with its dual base ISO settings is pretty astounding, though skin tones were pretty plastic looking and unimpressive compared to the F35.
 
ISO 5000? I find 800 overkill for many situations.

I think the swappable heads seems like a nice idea but ultimately a gimmick. I always had a soft spot for Panasonic cameras though, but this is unlikely to tempt me away from my F65.
 
Baddgsx said:
wait for the new sony's. the varicam isnt worth the money. panasonic waited too long. what do you think they are bringing to the table that other cameras arent doing?
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Not thinking of buying it too much money. Only wanted opinion from F35 users. But what new sony?
 
Brandon Ruiz said:
I attended the Varicam demo at Panavision. The lowlight capability of this camera with its dual base ISO settings is pretty astounding, though skin tones were pretty plastic looking and unimpressive compared to the F35.
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I think this too. It looks like video but high iso is nice. But plastic skin and video look. Not like F35.
 
Baddgsx said:
what do you think they are bringing to the table that other cameras arent doing?
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A native, close to noiseless 5000 ISO. That's a big deal, it really is. Opens up a whole range of new possibilities for shooting - deeper depth of field in night exteriors, massively reduced lighting and electrical budgets for night exteriors and high-frame rate work. Those are significant developments.

I'm looking forward to testing it out, if it can deliver well-enough image-wise, I can think of a lot of situations where it would be the camera I'd opt for.
 
I just got to play with one, as well as a Cion. I don't know what you guys saw but the Varicam's image is not bad at all. In fact on one of the calibrated monitors we viewed footage on, it reminded me a lot of F35 footage. Skin, at least at this demo, had that nice, warmer pana look and highlights were very well controlled.

I played with the iso and you could clearly see a reduction in noise in the lower 15-20% of the image in the 800 mode compared to the 5000, but it wasn't massive and was cleaner than anything else that I have seen trying to get above even 2000iso. This demo model did not have any built in noise reduction, which is being added soon.

The camera is built really, really well. It felt like an Arri in some ways and has a lot of great features. For $50K it better.

The bad thing that stuck out to me was the $2000 card it needs for 4K. You could use an older P2 card apparently but only for HD. I asked about using it with an ext. recorder like the Odyssey and he said that was fine but you still have to have a card in it for it to work.

I personally still prefer the F35 look (or Amira) but I can see this fitting well into a ton of applications.


As far as the Cion.... I didn't get it, at all. 320asa, heavy wattage draw (for what it is), no EVF, 45sec. boot up time, 9 stops of DR, etc.
 
I have not had the chance to see one in the flesh yet. But from clips online it's on that side of cameras that look unapologetic digital. Nothing necessarily wrong with that.

The ISO is impressive and the night footage released is very clean. But as I love film grain I'm not one to be afraid of grain as long as it doesn't look like pronounced video noise. And when it comes to grain, just adding a grain layer to video doesn't look the same as a camera with a pleasing inherent "grain" structure such as the Alexa, F35 and F65.

Without having tried it myself I would only choose a Varicam for a project if I needed the 5000 ISO. But as I think ISO 800 is the sweet spot for digital looking "filmic" or rather the upper limit, I would rather use the Alexa, F65 and F35. Although I would probably choose the Varicam over a F55.

Everything is just conjecture till I can actually test one of course. But I don't agree with the people saying it's too little too late. It seems to be a very nice and well thought out camera.
 
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