Sony F23 vs Panasonic hpx3700

I wish I could offer some good advice and info, in regards to image quality comparison, but I never personally shot with the F3.
 
boo said:
Run, would you say the Sony F3 1080p(external HD-SDI out to recorder) image quality would be an upgrade to the 720p of HDC27H(external HD-SDI out to recorder)? Conflicted if I should pick up an F3 in addition to my HDC27H...but only if the image quality will be significant going from external 720p CCD to external 1080p CMOS.
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F3 is a step up from the HDC27H.

Very different looks though. The OG varicam has a sort of warm mojo, imho, and the F3 is rather Sony cool. Both cameras clip a little funny. Not sure if that was ever resolved, but the F3 is sharper and has more latitude.

Shot the F3 next to the 1DC, and felt they were comparable in some ways. Similar in latitude, but the Sony had 10bit, and the Canon had better colour.

Things shot on Sony F3:
'Safety Not Guaranteed'
'Kee and Peele' (shot by the venerable Charles Papert)

'Safety Not Guaranteed' was an early days F3, so it kind of shows the flaws a bit more. Charles Papert and Grug here got better results. Check to Charle's Key and Peele stuff and Grug's film "Colony" was shot on F3, I believe. Check out his website.

I am sure there are a few '30 for 30' episodes shot with some F3 footy. Was pretty common to see some F3 action before Amira took the top end and Canon and Fs7 took the mid tier for sidelines doc shooting.

Mike seems to be one of the few people here that has used all these cameras in the last 4years.

Going back to the F23, it can be stripped down and get very light. Rick B, Yachacha, and I all got our F35's really light. Mike's F23 setup was the heaviest looking thing I have ever seen in digital. But My F35 rig was light than my typical Red configurations. That isn't to say the Red can't be lighter, as they can, but just that the F23 stripped down is not "heavy". Especially if you have a battery belt.

Some of the best looking HDC27 footage. There are plenty of amazing works shot on the original Varicam, but this one is nice as demo footage shot on the fly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5FAkD2GVB0

however, if you look at Sony F3 footage, there are noticeable advancements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7-SRR0etG8
 
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Thank you guys for all of your feedback. Run can I ask why you think the 2700 sold better than the 3700? The difference between 1080p and 720 is pretty significant.

James, that footage from the 2700 is fantastic. Skin tones are really something. 3700 is definitely at the top of my list. Very excited to move forward once the world and Hollywood comes back to life.
 
If you ever needed reassurances that the original Vari was a capable camera, remember that a lot of the original Planet Earth was shot on it.

It's hard to believe that the original original VariCam was introduced in 2001 and the 2700/3700 in 2008(!). And I was at the 2014 NAB where the V35 dropped. Where does the time go..?
 
David Matillo said:
Thank you guys for all of your feedback. Run can I ask why you think the 2700 sold better than the 3700? The difference between 1080p and 720 is pretty significant.

James, that footage from the 2700 is fantastic. Skin tones are really something. 3700 is definitely at the top of my list. Very excited to move forward once the world and Hollywood comes back to life.
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Price and features/capabilities. If I remember correctly, the 3700 was about $20K more than its little brother, coming in around $60K at introduction(and Panasonic eventually offered "trade-ins" on the 2700 getting it to a crazy sub $20K). And the 3700 just didn't have the flexibility that the 2700 had. Remember, this is over a decade ago and 720p really still reigned supreme, especially in the sports world. The 3700 was a 1080 ONLY camera and topped out at 30fps. The 2700 was native 720p, but could internally up-rez to 1080, could shoot 60fps and could output an analog SD signal, if necessary. I was still shooting SD live shots into at least 2012(!), but I did end up using my Decimator DUCC mostly, because the internal analog D/C was pretty bad. The HDX-900 could give you an SD-SDI feed if you needed it. I don't know why the 2700 was limited to analog only.

Granted, this is 60P with a scene file/look I created for broadcast(and not "film"/24P) on the original VariCam 13-14 years ago and then hand ported over to the 2700's after getting my first one. I still run it today and lot's of guys I shoot with have taken it and still run it for their broadcast work, too.

Acc.jpg
 
David Matillo said:
James, that footage from the 2700 is fantastic. Skin tones are really something. 3700 is definitely at the top of my list. Very excited to move forward once the world and Hollywood comes back to life.
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That was the original Varicam HDC27

The 2700 is likely cleaner and more defined colors and more latitude.
 
Run&Gun said:
If you ever needed reassurances that the original Vari was a capable camera, remember that a lot of the original Planet Earth was shot on it.

It's hard to believe that the original original VariCam was introduced in 2001 and the 2700/3700 in 2008(!). And I was at the 2014 NAB where the V35 dropped. Where does the time go..?
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So true. Also this one was HDX or Vari. Think they used some DoF adapters, so was cool for the time, when docs shot on video didn't look like this. I suppose we still don't do a lot of tilt shift. They talked about fast turn around, I wonder if the deadlines were tight by today's standards? mostly shot by a tiny crew though.

https://www.pbs.org/e2/design.html
Director of Photography: Robert Humphreys
 
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James0b57 said:
Mike seems to be one of the few people here that has used all these cameras in the last 4years.

Mike's F23 setup was the heaviest looking thing I have ever seen in digital.
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Yes, I have used all of those cameras within the last decade for sure and yes, the f23 was a goddamn hummer on my shoulder. lol
 
James0b57 said:
So true. Also this one was HDX or Vari. Think they used some DoF adapters, so was cool for the time, when docs shot on video didn't look like this. I suppose we still don't do a lot of tilt shift. They talked about fast turn around, I wonder if the deadlines were tight by today's standards? mostly shot by a tiny crew though.

https://www.pbs.org/e2/design.html
Director of Photography: Robert Humphreys
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They used the HDC27F Tape Varicam with the Pro35 and Zeiss Super Speeds and tilt shift canon glass. I know this because A friend of mine worked on it on the Chicago unit back in the day. I remember when they were there getting shots.
 
I really was inspired by their innovation and hustle. Especially for a relatively small team on such big scope.
 
Mike Krumlauf said:
I graded it in dav. shot film rec at 600%
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Looks great! Only reason i didn’t share your workninstead, was i was trying to show the straight from camera look. But i really like what you did. You have a good mood. Saw some other posts of yours and really like the tone.
 
James0b57 said:
Looks great! Only reason i didn’t share your workninstead, was i was trying to show the straight from camera look. But i really like what you did. You have a good mood. Saw some other posts of yours and really like the tone.
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Thanks for the kind words man :)
 
The Film Trollhunter is now streaming on amazon prime. It was shot with the Panasonic hpx3700 if anyone is interested in seeing more of what the camera can do :) Not a bad little film
 
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