Overview of F3 by Sony's Peter Crithary (Rule Boston Camera)

Lots of good info on S-log recording with the F3 and to be released the SR-R1 recorder. The most complete presentation on the F3 by far to date. Essential viewing.
 
Wow! Four LUTs in the camera. AND the s-log isn't a hyper gamma (though it does have hyper gammas). The s-log is RAW! No wonder Red fanbois are over reacting so much. Red is screwed by this camera.
 
Duke M. said:
The s-log is RAW! No wonder Red fanbois are over reacting so much. Red is screwed by this camera.
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I wouldn't call it RAW. I would call it most of the benefits of RAW, with very little of the downsides. RAW has always meant raw sensor data, unprocessed by gamma or matrix. S-Log is not that.

Apologies if you knew this and was just excited and wanted to type less. But you wouldn't want somebody getting the idea S-Log needs debayering in post, right?
 
Yes. Seems the audience kept saying 'raw' and he'd keep saying 'unprocessed'. Unprocessed does not = RAW, however they have similarities. However, Red isn't really true RAW anyhow, so there are many different definitions of RAW. :P

This video is pretty wonderful. I wish I had seen this before I tested the F3. It's about time there is a re-released SR-deck. It just better cost a lot less than it's predecessor!!!
 
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Nate Weaver said:
I would call it most of the benefits of RAW, with very little of the downsides.
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I'll accept that definition.

Nate Weaver said:
But you wouldn't want somebody getting the idea S-Log needs debayering in post, right?
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There are many definitions of RAW, even in the stills world. Sony's, Nikon's, Red's, etc are all different. Non-destructive color correction is key to the definition for me, especially when you have a LUT. In my mind its just another flavor of RAW. In this case one of the better flavors.
 
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Does it mean the SR-R1 will be the only recorder capable of recording the S-LOG ?
If the NXcam s35 has HDSDI 10bits 422 output, it will means that S-LOG will be the only one big F3's advantage over NXCAM (about image quality).
So that makes the F3 very very pricy if you want to get the "reel F3". For S-log and SR-R1, I'm sure you can add at least 6000$...
 
No one knows what the NXCam 35 will have yet. I hope not, but depending on how the low noise floor was obtained on the F3 the NXCam may not have the SNR.

Of course the AVCHD codec it more computer intensive.

The NXCam may not support LUTs. Could be a lot of things and any one of them could turn off a large segment of the market.
 
Matttrebor said:
If the NXcam s35 has HDSDI 10bits 422 output, it will means that S-LOG will be the only one big F3's advantage over NXCAM (about image quality).
So that makes the F3 very very pricy if you want to get the "reel F3". For S-log and SR-R1, I'm sure you can add at least 6000$...
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As awesome as 10bit would be, the NXCam may only do 8bit to stay competitive with the AF100 price-wise.
 
I remember the nxcam will doing only ntsc or pal . Heard it on Philip Bloom's Interview . Which to me is silly !
 
Gabrobot said:
As awesome as 10bit would be, the NXCam may only do 8bit to stay competitive with the AF100 price-wise.
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I was told by a Sony rep that it would be 10 bit 4:2:2 as the NX5 is considered lower on the food chain and already offers that. Seems to make sense.

I think the main differences will be Dual Link, 3G, LUTs, 3D Link, S-Log and XDCAM EX vs AVCHD. The mount will likely be different as well, but that can be adapted.
 
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About NXcam s35 sensor, I think Sony will tell us as late as possible its nature.
If we are sure the sensor will be the same than F3 today(DR, noise...), it could make some people waiting the NXcam over F3.
 
I'm sure the NXCam 35 will be crippled in some other way besides the codec. They aren't going to gut their brand new camera sales. If its only Dual Link, 3G, LUTs, 3D Link, S-Log and XDCAM EX vs AVCHD a lot of people will be happy.
 
It seems that 60P and S-Log will only be possible with very expensive equipment. Shame.

And this video brings me some questions:

I thought S-Log was just a flat gamma curve. I was surprised it can only be recorded to external devices and not to SxS. Is it really so?

Recording on S-Log makes the camera sensitivity go to ISO 1600? Is that so? How come?
 
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With the paid S-Log upgrade you will be able to record the flat S-Log look to SxS if you like, but you will be doing so in XDCAM-EX at 35Mbps VBR 4:2:0. The degree of compression is far too high for the amount of manipulation one would generally want to do with S-Log footage in post.

So, you could do it... but except as an offline proxy, it serves little practical purpose.

I suspect the ISO change is because they're opening up and pulling the darker data from the chip that is ignored in the camcorder (cine/std gamma) mode.

60p is available in 720p standard to internal recording. 60p 1080 ought to be available to external recorders like the Nanoflash, but I'm not sure what firmware you have to have enabled.
 
Hi Viddovation,

The nanoFlash is NOT capable of issuing a 1080p60 signal. It is in fact impossible to get a 1080p60 signal out of a single HD-SDI port. The spec won't allow for that kind of bandwidth. As well, the support people from Convergent Design have said repeatedly that their unit cannot do this. You can only get 1080p60 out of a dual-link HD-SDI port where the bandwidth will support it. I don't think even the 3G HD-SDI spec will support 1080p60 but I may be incorrect here.
 
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