F5: Poor Man's F5/F55

GaryinCalifornia

GaryinCalifornia

Veteran
I believe I was reading on a closed thread... that some one was thinking of using the small hd 7.7 monitor instead of getting the evf to save money for now... of course I've always liked an evf because it seems to me it closed off the rest of the world while shooting...

But thought it be good to start a thread where all the information could sorta be collected together...

I thought of going F5 and 1080p for now... but I like the idea of the global shutter... F65 color and 4k to card with the F55...

The other thing is workflow.

So what is the best way to kit out an F5 or F55 for a poorman... same with memory cards etc.
 
I had posted something somewhere about using the 7.7" OLED from SmallHD instead of the VF, not so much to save money, but more so because I am use to it.

As for poorman, if you're really looking to go cheap you can buy any third party VF or LCD monitor but will have to use HDMI or SDI and then power it separately.

Ned S. was telling me that the power plate on the F5/F55 has two Hirose DC power outputs, a Hirose to d-tap cable is around $90. If you're using after market v-mount batteries like the Comer on ebay they have a d-tap port on them so you can just plug into that.

As for memory cards you can stick with the cheap orange/silver SR-1 SXS media cards for the basic mpeg 422 codec, but after that you will need to step it up with PRO or +1 media. Surely someone will try the SHDC adapters and class 1 billion micro memory cards. perhaps it will work.

Back to power for a second, if the new Olivine batteries and separate charger are out of your wallet comfort zone you can use AB, IDX, or really any third party v-mount batteries that perhaps you own already..
 
GaryinCalifornia said:
I believe I was reading on a closed thread... that some one was thinking of using the small hd 7.7 monitor instead of getting the evf to save money for now... of course I've always liked an evf because it seems to me it closed off the rest of the world while shooting...

But thought it be good to start a thread where all the information could sorta be collected together...

I thought of going F5 and 1080p for now... but I like the idea of the global shutter... F65 color and 4k to card with the F55...

The other thing is workflow.

So what is the best way to kit out an F5 or F55 for a poorman... same with memory cards etc.
Click to expand...

I would say that the poor mans F5 is an F3. I have one for sale if you are interested.
 
starcentral said:
I had posted something somewhere about using the 7.7" OLED from SmallHD instead of the VF, not so much to save money, but more so because I am use to it.

As for poorman, if you're really looking to go cheap you can buy any third party VF or LCD monitor but will have to use HDMI or SDI and then power it separately.

Ned S. was telling me that the power plate on the F5/F55 has two Hirose DC power outputs, a Hirose to d-tap cable is around $90. If you're using after market v-mount batteries like the Comer on ebay they have a d-tap port on them so you can just plug into that.

As for memory cards you can stick with the cheap orange/silver SR-1 SXS media cards for the basic mpeg 422 codec, but after that you will need to step it up with PRO or +1 media. Surely someone will try the SHDC adapters and class 1 billion micro memory cards. perhaps it will work.

Back to power for a second, if the new Olivine batteries and separate charger are out of your wallet comfort zone you can use AB, IDX, or really any third party v-mount batteries that perhaps you own already..
Click to expand...

lol I don't have any equipment I rent... looking to do some smaller jobs in between film work... also on a project for myself I can see where owning the equipment can help me out...

As per an F35... if its going to cost 15k or more to get it ready... rather put that 15k towards the F5 or F55... and I learn to shoot (not that I shoot anymore) on film... for myself... I seem to be able to keep a bigger camera steadier than a smaller one...

Same for the F3... now I did see one listed 10k... with the 3 Sony primes... that might be interesting... but I'm one of those guys who wants to send in the camera to camera house... have it checked out... and then purchase the camera... don't want any surprises later... maybe that's why I like buying things new...
 
GaryinCalifornia said:
As per an F35... if its going to cost 15k or more to get it ready... rather put that 15k towards the F5 or F55... and I learn to shoot (not that I shoot anymore) on film... for myself... I seem to be able to keep a bigger camera steadier than a smaller one...
Click to expand...

Depends on what you consider 'kitted', but I've seen F35 bodies go as low at $7,000.
 
GaryinCalifornia said:
lol I don't have any equipment I rent... looking to do some smaller jobs in between film work... also on a project for myself I can see where owning the equipment can help me out...

As per an F35... if its going to cost 15k or more to get it ready... rather put that 15k towards the F5 or F55... and I learn to shoot (not that I shoot anymore) on film... for myself... I seem to be able to keep a bigger camera steadier than a smaller one...

Same for the F3... now I did see one listed 10k... with the 3 Sony primes... that might be interesting... but I'm one of those guys who wants to send in the camera to camera house... have it checked out... and then purchase the camera... don't want any surprises later... maybe that's why I like buying things new...
Click to expand...

oh sorry I didn't catch that from your earlier post, my mistake,, my mistake....

Well Gary if you're interested I have a F3 body with all original accessories available for sale and can make you a good price since I need the money to fund a new camera purchase. I can meet up near Michigan or Ohio if you want to see it, or you can buy it and I'll include 5-day inspection period and full refund if it's not as claimed at the time of sale. I'm ready to make a deal, fire sale deal, so if its of any remote interest please PM me.

As for F35 - I agree with anyone its some of the best footage I ever seen, more so I mean the gentle and smooth highlight roll offs... and if i had the $15k to drop and not really care about how hard it might be to sell in 1-2 years heck I might give it a go.
 
Viddovation said:
Depends on what you consider 'kitted', but I've seen F35 bodies go as low at $7,000.
Click to expand...

I think its gone... there was one on ebay... 8,999, power, cables, evf... plus I know the house in LA who owns it...

So 7k + 6k for a gemini that works with the camera at 444, 50p & can't remember the bit rate... not sure about the other recorders yet...

So 13k...
 
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Really depends on how you shop. Personally, I'm never scared to cold call companies and make an offer on something I want. I personally followed one sale on ebay that included a F35 body and color Sony viewfinder that closed UNDER $7000. And the deal I got on mine was... better.

My momma taught me to never pay retail...
 
Viddovation said:
Really depends on how you shop. Personally, I'm never scared to cold call companies and make an offer on something I want. I personally followed one sale on ebay that included a F35 body and color Sony viewfinder that closed UNDER $7000. And the deal I got on mine was... better.

My momma taught me to never pay retail...
Click to expand...

maybe that's why I ended up producing... lol
 
Back to ways to kit out the F5/55, I had suggested to Dennis that for about the same price as the LCD EVF, you could buy a third party EVF like the Zacuto (yes, HDMI, I know, but we're talking cheap here) and the SmallHD DP7 OLED monitor.

This defeats some of the advantage of the F5/55 with a modular design not needing to hang a bunch of things off of it.

Used F35 will unquestionably look better. But not a one-man show kind of camera. And super expensive to repair.

Ned
 
As I've mentioned a few times on here, I've been a little confused by people insisting the "full cost" of the cameras included the price of the Sony OLED or LCD viewfinders etc.

All of the basic accessories for the cameras - monitors, EVFs, batteries, shoulder pads etc. can be sourced "affordably" from 3rd parties, at substantially lower cost than Sony's specific accessories.

I've even got a little announcement myself on the baseplate/shoulder-pad front, which I'll share as soon as I get back from the interstate shoot I'm on at the moment.
 
It's true that many of the basic accessories for the F5/55 can be sourced at better prices and often better quality from 3rd parties... but after using the DVF-L350 viewfinder, I'd say it was far in advance of anything you could currently buy elsewhere. The quality of the picture combined with the F5's peaking, zebra control is just superb. Easily the best electronic viewfinder I've ever used and a perfect match to the F5. But then I didn't buy the OLED?
 
PaulReam said:
It's true that many of the basic accessories for the F5/55 can be sourced at better prices and often better quality from 3rd parties... but after using the DVF-L350 viewfinder, I'd say it was far in advance of anything you could currently buy elsewhere. The quality of the picture combined with the F5's peaking, zebra control is just superb. Easily the best electronic viewfinder I've ever used and a perfect match to the F5. But then I didn't buy the OLED?
Click to expand...

After putting my eye to both of them, I can't imagine making do with a Zacuto (which I owned, and hated) or even an Alphatron. But everybody's different. It's one of those beg borrow or steal things for me, because a bad finder can impact your footage if you don't take care.
 
Viddovation said:
Depends on what you consider 'kitted', but I've seen F35 bodies go as low at $7,000.
Click to expand...

They are no longer going for that cheap anymore. They seem to be stabilizing at $12-14K.
Maybe the DVXuser hype is already driving the prices up. Around 9-10 people here at DVXuser bought used F35s in just a couple of weeks time.
 
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