F5: Sony F5 Rugged enough for documentary work?

My perfect true and tested doc. Combo:

Sony PMW-F3 (A camera)
Canon 5D MKII (B camera)

Variety of still (zoom and prime, Nikon mount) lenses, depending on project (read: how much producers want to pay for extra luggage on the plane...)...
 
I would argue that the F5 is the perfect doc camera. Okay, maybe not totally 100% perfect. But think about it. It's small. It's modular. It shoots really good looking images. Has fantastic lowlight (2000 native ISO????!!!!!). Has standard XLR inputs with Phantom. It's arguably the easiest camera on the market right now, other than possibly the Alexa, to put on your shoulder. All the major rig manufacturers make shoulder rigs that mount to a VCT plate. Easy as pie to move from tripod, slider, etc. to shoulder. The only camera I can think that would be better is an Arri Amira. However, those aren't available at this point, and chances are that camera will be in the F55 price range, and it's obviously designed to work best with the $40000 Cabrio lenses. So right there you'll be looking at $30,000 for the camera, $38,000 for lens. Granted, the shoulder mount is built in, the handle is built-in, mic holder is built in. That's still more expensive than $20,000 for a F5, and viewfinder, and no more than $4000 for a rig, and $20,000 for a compact Canon cine zoom, which would be an ideal doc set-up. Plus with the modularity of the F5, you could also use it for controlled narrative studio work as well. You also have the ability to expand to RAW capture, 4K capture, etc. If people would get over Red and their hype, I think the F5/55 would take over the camera world.
 
Back
Top