Quieting down... Something special

[G.P.]

Nobody in his right mind would buy an Alexa but rent it.

I have so many rebuttals to that I dont know where to start...

Alexa out of the box is about $54,000 Ready to go, slap on a battery and lens. At this level you already own the lenses and batteries so please dont factor those into the prices. I know 2 DPs who own an Alexa... so where are you coming from? I would seriously consider owning an Alexa if I didn't know that theres going to be some great stuff coming from RED down the line that will compete. Namely the Scarlet S35. The Alexa is not a camera you just buy and then sell in 2-3 years time its a longer term investment. But you do realize that you're saying 50k is ridiculous to own, and yet All those ENG guys buying varicams and Sony F900's at the same price are not in their right mind?? Youve got to be kidding me. They are the same price.

The only reason to rent a camera is if you wouldn't make a living using it. If you'd make a living at using that camera then you buy, because you'd spend more money renting it every week than owning it out right within a few years. When you do finally grow out of that camera and want to upgrade to the next "ALEXA II" you sell your first Alexa and get back 65% or more of the money that you paid for it. The money doesn't just dissapear. You use that to upgrade along the way.

It seems like you think 50k is a large amount of money to spend on gear, but yet I don't believe you have any idea how many professionals own gear thats 50k or more just in one device.. You know what a normal price for a HIGH quality HD ENG zoom is?? You're looking at bottom $20k and up from there on 1 lens.

I paid $23,000 for my HPX500 kit, not including all the extras I've added on since... I also own a Varicam... so you're saying im crazy if id sell both of those cameras and bought 1 Alexa? I have a feeling you're not used to the prices of gear because you don't own other expensive gear like this. But that gives you no right to simply say someone shouldn't buy a camera. Its their money, If I sold all my gear I'd be able to afford an Alexa and get some cheap PL lenses as extras. But Id like to KEEP my cameras that I have now I'd sell the hpx500 and keep the varicam so that I still have an ENG ability down the road.

....and if I had $15k to spend I would rent a Red or Alexa and put money towards other support gear. Because I don't believe the finished project (film, video, etc) is going to justify the money thrown towards the F3 when you can get a great product with the AF100 and use the extra money (if you have it) for making your shots/locatons/lighting etc look better. Thats something people are going to notice appreciate more than the finite amount of less noise or slighty sharper image you might have, provided they have an expensive enough monitor to detect it on.

But I think you are thinking on the short term here. And yet again you're comparing the AF100 as if its the same as the F3 but its not. If you literally plan to only spend that 15k for a camera for 1 shoot then this is not the right discussion for you. No one here is talking about for 1 film shoot that you can up the lighting for. Its to own a higher quality product that can give you access to a better look and higher end client. And who needs an expensive monitor to tell sharpness?? I can tell the difference right on my laptop... Any computer monitor now in days is an HD resolution monitor... This isn't the day of tube tv's anymore either... The standard TV is 720p HD... You can tell off of the cheapest of tvs the difference in resolution. And again if you cant tell then the camera is not for you and don't argue about it.

 

[vagarob]

Renting so far has always been a nightmare. I didnt shoot but directed and edited on a rented red one. when sending it overseas they wanted us to pay import duties and we coudn't prove we owned the camera, the rental house didn't have any tax forms that was just a mess but could have been avoided.

then we had issues on location and had to delay production by a week that became a huge issue. our rental form allowed us to rent over the period of time, but they had already scheduled it for that time as well. so the rental company was asking us to send the camera back ASAP. was not worth the hassle for $500 a day.

the sony F3 is perfect. If you need a main camera, I have no idea why you would rent the F3. I can understand if you already own a good camera, but it has a street price of $14K I mean seriously... if you can't invest that into your business something seems to be wrong. The AF100 is another good buyable camera.

Rent the aaton penelope

 

[G.P.]

Renting so far has always been a nightmare. I didnt shoot but directed and edited on a rented red one. when sending it overseas they wanted us to pay import duties and we coudn't prove we owned the camera, the rental house didn't have any tax forms that was just a mess but could have been avoided.

then we had issues on location and had to delay production by a week that became a huge issue. our rental form allowed us to rent over the period of time, but they had already scheduled it for that time as well. so the rental company was asking us to send the camera back ASAP. was not worth the hassle for $500 a day.

the sony F3 is perfect. If you need a main camera, I have no idea why you would rent the F3. I can understand if you already own a good camera, but it has a street price of $14K I mean seriously... if you can't invest that into your business something seems to be wrong. The AF100 is another good buyable camera.

Rent the aaton penelope

Yeah I have a lot of rental nightmare stories as well, also rentals get beat up, they have issues that delay your production. The camera isn't expensive enough to rent for a production, you'd blow more money renting the camera for 4 weeks than you would to own it... I think people dont realize that. Renting for a day might make sense to someone, but renting it for 4 weeks would cost the same amount of just buying the damn thing. Whats the point in that?

I've yet to see footage from the Penelope, I'm interested in more information about it but Aaton doesn't seem to be like ARRI, they dont have video showing everywhere of what it looks like. To be honest I never liked Aaton as a film camera company. A little stuffy to me. Maybe its just bad experiences with them. I like you can switch between film and digital, but not my cup of tea. Right now RED rentals are so cheap its what we do for specific music video or commercial shoots.

Now you got me thinking about penelope, I wanna see some footage haha, im now on the hunt.

 

[Rolf Silber]

The only reason to rent a camera is if you wouldn't make a living using it. .

From the about a dozen of DoP's I've worked directly with two owned a camera - one an old Arri 35 ST he used as second cam in ... let's say: complicated circumstances. The other owned a 16 mm Aaton because he worked mostly in documentaries. In the two companies I have been a partner we worked with at least another 40 DoP's over the last years and only one other owned an Arri 16mm and he was constantly shooting long-running TV-series.

Actually we would be rather nervous if a cameraman would bring his own gear - not that it is impossible, but we like to work with the newest product and not finance his personal investment. And we may be standing in the cold when his camera produces problems while we feel more secure with a cine rental house. Unless, of course, the DoP would be a second Haskell Wexler. But those are rare, at least here...

Also with digital cameras being in a state of developing much quicker than classical film cameras, we feel that ownership of a camera makes only sense if it's not a big investment and the camera can fill certain gaps. This is where the AG-AF comes in quite handy for us. But maybe on my side of the pond it's different to the situation in the States.

 

[G.P.]

But thats just the thing, there are hundreds of ENG guys out there that own their gear, and its in the same price range as Alexa. I think the line of work you're talking about is a bit more on the high end of things considering its dealing with 35mm film. I wouldn't trust an old 35mm film camera either. The mechanical problems that could happen are scary. But on the digital side of things, a TON of guys who shoot for Discovery own their varicam setups. And they are hired from all different companies as well.

My point that I'm trying to make is that the price of owning an Alexa is the same price and owning an F950 package or Varicam package. Its no different, and I know tons and tons of guys who own these packages, myself included. So I just can't for the life of me understand why someone would say that renting is the only way to go. If this is what you DO and only what you do, its financially more sound to buy than to rent. There is more return, and again you don't lose out on owning gear like you do in rental. You pay and pay and never get any of that money back. You can sell your gear to make back at the very least half of what you paid for it. And by the time you're at that point you've already made a few years living with it, if not more.

Film guys are different. I see less owners of Arri film cameras than of guys in the digital world.

Lets not forget all of these RED packages you see from DP's those all cost around $40,000 or more too... The camera body alone with minimum power and cf card and monitor puts you in the $20,000 mark before you even put a lens on there or rails or ANYTHING else. So again why the heck is this such a big shock to people? I think its just because you don't do it yourself and you never really realized that owning this gear is normal for professionals who work at that level of gear.

Guitarists dont rent an $8,000 guitar, they buy them. Its their paintbrush. Same as for cameras, if its our paintbrush, we like to own. Specially if its something we use every week.

And just to clarify the whole Film camera guys situation as well... The reason why a lot of film guys dont own their own Arri cam or movie cam, is simply because production is USED to paying for a film camera rental. When you're doing actual FILM it kinda goes without saying. The price of upkeep for owing a film camera is much more as well.

On a digital film shoot, its not the same mindset that you must rent. Because of RED prices alone, people consider red owner/dp's over the just regular DP's. I'm not saying its right, I'm saying thats what happens.

 

[Rolf Silber]

Film guys are different. I see less owners of Arri film cameras than of guys in the digital world.

That's where I come from. Since very recently, I have to admit, I really did hate video. For me everything changed with the big sensor cameras. We shot a film with a D20 about two years ago. Since then I am - reluctantly - hooked to digital video. And this is the reason I am around here - have to learn...

I understand that the actual situation for some - maybe a lot - of people in another work-field and country than mine is different. But coming from "classical" film and working most times in feature length TV-movies our company has no interest in ownership of top-notch gear. Yet. May change in the future. Honestly: The actual camera gear is one of the smaller factors cost-wise in a production.

But we are highly excited about having now the possibility to work - as we say over here: "out of the wrist" - for preparation, casting, back-ground shots and as a backup and 2nd or 3rd cam on set with the AG-AF. And we will probably do some micro-budget stuff with it - all because finally we (hope) to have a small price big sensor cam. It's just what we will invest for that. The F3 - a great camera, no doubt and I have been a sony-addict since betamax times - for me is just on another level.

But sure if you use your "guitar" on a nearly daily bases, everything can be very different I guess. Am no a brand name aficionado: If it fits my needs and my budget and produces what I want I take it... for now it's Panasonic...

 

[Hywel]

It just depends on your business model, and whose kit people in your part of the industry are used to using. If your business model is spending six weeks shooting a film as part of a two year production process for your final product, it probably makes sense to hire (and hire expertise to go with it). If your business is being the guy that production hires for six weeks, then you find another production company to work for, it may make more sense to own your own kit.

We produce web based episodes on a weekly schedule. We spend maybe a day a week shooting, averaged over the year (but tend to shoot in concentrated bursts then catch up on editing and pre-production for the next big shoot). It is not obvious to us whether hiring or buying is the optimum solution. On the plus side for hiring, our purchased kit is languishing unused in the storeroom six days a week, and for the price of (say) an AF100 we could hire a Red One to do all our shoots next year. But... we'd not have the familiarity with the hired kit, and the kit room would be empty at the end of the year, even though we might have significantly superior footage.

To date we've purchased all our kit, with occasional hire days to try before we buy. It means the Alexa, Red One and new Sony are probably out of our price range right now, but given that our delivery is the web rather than cinema screens, getting something that looks suitably filmic and impressive at 2 Mbps 720p final product means we're probably better off buying low end kit and figuring out how to do the best job we can on it. Plus the cameras do hold their value, I sold my DVX100 earlier this year for a significant chunk of cash.

So I'm thinking that a more coherent investment in video kit is the way to go, buying kit with an eye to swapping out the camera in future- so PL lenses, rail system, really good follow focus, good monitoring etc. and assume that we'll switch out the "brain" for something better if sales pick up or as technology develops.

Cheers, Hywel.

 

[EndCredits]

I'm curious, whats the chance, considering we don't know every thing for certain, that the AF100 could be just as good as the F3??
They both have rather similar specs, so aside from the more shallow depth of field and no crop factor, could the AF 100 deliver just as good or better images?

 

[Duke M.]

I'm curious, whats the chance, considering we don't know every thing for certain, that the AF100 could be just as good as the F3??
They both have rather similar specs, so aside from the more shallow depth of field and no crop factor, could the AF 100 deliver just as good or better images?

The cameras aren't meant to compete with each other, as they are are entirely different price points.

No tests yet, but the F3 has hyper gammas and a 63db noise figure using both standard gammas and hyper gammas, vs the 54db nf on an EX1. According to Alister Chapman the hyper gammas "increase the dynamic range to 460%". Alister runs XDCAMuser.com and generally is in the know about Sony info.

But increased dynamic range, while allowing for more flexible shooting, wouldn't be noticed much in a controlled lighting situation. So there can be situations when for practical purposes the images will look practically the same. (I didn't say identical.)

Its like using the Nano. In many situations you don't notice any difference when using the nano, but once you have those certain circumstances (like certain motions, green screen, etc) then it immediately becomes apparent.

If the noise level and resolution approaches the EX1 I'll be happy.

 

[RyanDeFranco]

If the noise level and resolution approaches the EX1 I'll be happy.

Couldn't agree more. I would bet that 8 times out of 10, your standard audience could never tell the difference between the two. On set this weekend, I showed a client the faintest hint of aliasing in an extreme closeup of a chain getting buried in a sandstorm. I wanted to clear it with her before going through the arduous process of switching to the EX-1 for that shot. She laughed and said she would "never notice that," "no one I know would ever notice either," and "isn't it funny how you camera guys see all these things the rest of us can barely notice when you point them out to us?"

When you factor out heavy effects work, projection, and cinema screen size, the image chain shrinks, most "pixel peeping" becomes a bit of a joke, there are fewer numbers to worry about. Things quiet down. You get to create without worrying about how much your camera costs, the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit, etc etc etc. Lets take advantage of our relative insignificance in the industry--as long as the camera gets the job done, why spend three times as much?

 

[Barry_Green]

I'm curious, whats the chance, considering we don't know every thing for certain, that the AF100 could be just as good as the F3??
They both have rather similar specs, so aside from the more shallow depth of field and no crop factor, could the AF 100 deliver just as good or better images?

I would doubt it. The F3 costs almost 4x as much. I would expect better imagery from it.

When you say "no crop factor", be careful with that. The "crop factor" is typically applied to "full frame" 35mm cameras as the 1.0 standard, and by that terms the F3 is about a 1.5x crop. And regarding "more shallow depth of field", that should be "barely more shallow DOF", because the difference between the AF100 and the Sony F3 will probably be about 1/2 of one f-stop.

 

[Yak]

Barry it will be great if you could do a head to head test when they both come out, I remember a head to head HD camera test that included a HVX200, but they did not know how to set up the HVX 200's gamma curves right so it ended up looking like crap. Having some one like yourself who understands Panasonic's set up will be very important in getting a true test of what the AF100 can do compared to the F3. Given F3's older codex on internal recording the AF100 may be closer to the F3 than the price difference may imply.

 

[Barry_Green]

I'm actually pretty interested in the F3; it's the first Sony that they've made since... well, since the PD150, that I've found myself seriously considering buying. And only then, because I do expect it will be a substantial step up from the AF100. I mean, it has to be... it's 4x the price. But I'm withholding judgement on it until I see it in a proper configuration (i.e., what is it going to cost to have it with s-log, with 4:4:4 output, all that stuff that justifies it being more?) Because frankly if I had to use it as-is, recording to XDCAM-EX, then no thanks, I'd buy four AF100's before spending for that.

I expect that it will be Red-priced, for Red-style performance. And I'd be quite interested in seeing how that compares to the Red. But I don't see the F3 as competition to the AF100, any more than the HV20 was competition to the HVX200. They're just a whole different class entirely.

 

[Yak]

I miss the low light capability that my PD150 and PD170 gave me If the AF100 and do that well in low light great. I was never impressed with the look of HDV and XDCAM-EX is almost the same codex as HDV. I am very surprised how much Sony wants to charge for a XDCAM-EX camera like the F3, I am interested in seeing if it is really that much better than the AF100. What I really want is a AF100 with AVC-Intra and P2 cards, but until that camera comes out I may get the AF100 witch can become a B cam when the AF200 comes out. Then again....

 

[TwinCitiesShooter]

I'm not so sure that the F3 and AF100 won't be comparable in many respects, or at least have a whole lot of overlapping territory. The footage I've seen from both cameras, shot to external recorders, has been fantastic. For me, the huge separation is the F3's promised 4:4:4 S-Log potential. A software upgrade, but is it for certain it will be free? And then will only Sony's upcoming digital recorder be able to capture it, and how much will that be? Other variables in comparing the cameras, in my mind, are will the F3 be noticeably sharper? Noticeably better in lowlight? Put the same glass on both cameras and what does the quality, color and texture difference look like? Indeed, as Barry said, it would be a huge screw up for Sony to charge 3x the amount of an AF100 for a camera that, in many situations, yields similar quality. Yet the AF100 images have been great, so that just might be the case. Maybe that's why Sony has already come down a few thousand from their initial price point? I have to disagree with those who have said these cameras are not in competition, because for many people they are. I'm certainly torn between them, and I imagine so are many other shooters who, like me, have a budget that falls in between the two cams but could make it work either way, and are waiting for the eventual shoot-out to see which way to go. I could certainly use the AF100 with most of my current clients and be just fine with it. But to move on to more challenging work at a higher level... I'm wondering if the F3 will be the camera in demand there.

 

[Nick Harris]

As I'm pretty thick into the P2 investment, I'm looking to pick up an HPG20 with my F3. I think AVC-intra will be a fantastic pairing with this camera. Anyone else thinking of going this route?

 

[BobbyMurcerFan]

I miss the low light capability that my PD150 and PD170 gave me If the AF100 and do that well in low light great. I was never impressed with the look of HDV and XDCAM-EX is almost the same codex as HDV. I am very surprised how much Sony wants to charge for a XDCAM-EX camera like the F3, I am interested in seeing if it is really that much better than the AF100. What I really want is a AF100 with AVC-Intra and P2 cards, but until that camera comes out I may get the AF100 witch can become a B cam when the AF200 comes out. Then again....

I love the PD170 so much it's not even funny.

 

[Yak]

I love the PD170 so much it's not even funny.

+1

if any of the new cameras can become the equivalent of a HD version of Sony's PD170 then I will once again have found my true love until then I will just "Love the one I am with"

 

[Justyn]

Not sure it's been mentioned, but didn't they also drop the price to 13K? More than likely you'll see an AF200 in a similar pricepoint.

 

[bgundu]

I have no doubt Panasonic is working on a P2 version of the AF100. Is seems like a no-brainer to make a beefier version to compete with the F3.