Starting out

Jim_Beam said:
At the end of the day its about making images, not collecting hardware........
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No, unless pretty pictures are all that matters, "It's about telling stories"

Cameras are the new expendable. Like I said earlier, almost any modern camera is capable of delivering pretty pictures. Just pick the camera or cameras which are right for the task at hand within your given budget and forget all this malarkey about 16-bit this and Digiprime that, and concentrate on telling your story!

All the best!

Dave
 
You want to do a docu. You need to think practically. Forget about cinematic images or whatever. Yes F35 and Alexa are the ones to beat there. But they are cinema cameras. Go with the C200. Cheaper, smaller and a better fit for what you want to do. It will not give you Alexa or F35 footage. But in your case your footage will look better with the C200 because the camera is better for this type of thing. You won't have to drag a big cinema camera around. When you are on a movie set or doing a narrative project you can then go for the F35 and get your mojo images. But I think this is the wrong project to think about mojo.
 
Another wrench to consider Jim, since you were considering the F3, is to look at the FS5. In HD it will do 10-bit 422 internally to SD card and can access the newer color science (sgamut3 in slog3) found in the newest CineAlta's. No it's not 444, but is the F3 "really" 444… definitely not as real as the 444 on the F35.

The FS5 also can record in 4K but it is in a lower bit-depth and color sampling (8-bit 420 like the F3 in HD internally), but 4K can still be fun to have. High frame rates, auto focus option, auto ND option, XLR input, native e-mount which will be able to take practically any lens, last forever on a battery, small + compact, and probably a cheaper underwater housing as well. Base ISO is 2000 in slog mode as of the latest firmware. On the FS5 you can also dial in color temp or do white balance even in slog. This is something that the newer CineAlta's can't do (you are stuck with 3 preset WB). Lastly there is also a 12-bit RAW option but then you're looking at external recorder, etc.. perhaps ok for you since you were looking at an external recorder for the F3 anyways.

Something to consider. New for $5K, used they are usually under $4K USD. I have the big F55 and just picked up a FS5 and looking forward to doing more with it because of it's footprint and some features it has. I think of it as a mini F3, but better in so many ways.
 
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starcentral said:
Another wrench to consider Jim, since you were considering the F3, is to look at the FS5. In HD it will do 10-bit 422 internally to SD card and can access the newer color science (sgamut3 in slog3) found in the newest CineAlta's. No it's not 444, but is the F3 "really" 444… definitely not as real as the 444 on the F35.

The FS5 also can record in 4K but it is in a lower bit-depth and color sampling (8-bit 420 like the F3 in HD internally), but 4K can still be fun to have. High frame rates, auto focus option, auto ND option, XLR input, native e-mount which will be able to take practically any lens, last forever on a battery, small + compact, and probably a cheaper underwater housing as well. Base ISO is 2000 in slog mode as of the latest firmware. On the FS5 you can also dial in color temp or do white balance even in slog. This is something that the newer CineAlta's can't do (you are stuck with 3 preset WB). Lastly there is also a 12-bit RAW option but then you're looking at external recorder, etc.. perhaps ok for you since you were looking at an external recorder for the F3 anyways.

Something to consider. New for $5K, used they are usually under $4K USD. I have the big F55 and just picked up a FS5 and looking forward to doing more with it because of it's footprint and some features it has. I think of it as a mini F3, but better in so many ways.
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Great advice!

Jim_Beam, there are very few people around here as well versed as Starcentral when it comes to the Sony fleet. I would take his advice and run with it. By what you said you need the FS5 would indeed be a very good option.
 
I could see the attraction to the RAW lite but if that's your primary reason for getting the camera, make sure you research it a lot, and rent and test it yourself on high dynamic range scenes. 12-bit RAW does not offer enough data values to hold 13 stops from the C200, so no idea what you are really getting in terms of actual usable DR.

As for the internal codecs, both 4K and HD are 8-bit 420 - less then ideal for log footage.
 

Night shootin'

PS. Dennis, the Raw Light white paper hasn't been published to my knowledge. My hunch is that it's logarithmic rather than pure Raw. At ~ 500 GB/hr, it's a 5X compression and the file takes roughly the same space as ProRes 444.
 
Jim_Beam said:
I've been doing a deep dive into the C200.

The advice here is spot on. Hard to go past what the C200 is. The price new is the icing on top.

Hard to go past the C200 and take that step backwards into yesteryears tech.

Its hard to imagine why anyone would want the F23 then these days. I guess everyone knows , just not me. Well I see the light. I guess the only thing the F23 has going for it then is the Digiprimes. Problem with that is, what else do you use the digiprimes on? Oh sure .....adaptors to fit them to a larger size sensor. But no matter what anyone says, shooting through yet more glass only weakens the image from those lenses. As was said in this thread earlier....the Digiprimes are a dead end. No wonder the price for these super expensive lenses are rock bottom these days.

Lots to consider here.

So Long Sony.
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It has nothing to do with yesteryears tech. The Alexa is 8 years old and will kick the C200's little behind to the curb without much effort. It has more dynamic range and looks infinitely better than the C200. Ditto for the 9 years old F35.

It's about your goals. You want to shoot a docu. This is the only reason the C200 is a better fit. If I was shooting a feature film you would have to take a gun to my first born's head to make me choose a C200 over the Alexa or F35. Because if you put it to mine I would probably say pull the trigger but I ain't going with a C200 for this.

This has become a long thread and you have been given great advice by the likes of Starcentral, David Jones etc. Focus on your goals and leave the fanboy stuff on the side.

For the record the more I think about Starcentral's suggestion of the FS5 over the C200 the more I think it makes more sense. Because will auto focus even be much help down there? This is basically the only advantage I see of the C200 over the FS5 for you application. You could put the price difference towards the water housing for example.
 
Final thoughts from someone who has done this for a living for a very long time..... Forget all this cinema camera hype that you have read online. You don't need an F23 and a set of Zeiss Digiprime lenses to accomplish your end goal. Unless your end goal is the purchase of said camera and lenses. Since you have never used any of the cameras you are considering, my advice would be to "start small". There is an abundance of cameras available which are more suited to your work at hand than a full blown cinema package. Including the small GoPro style cameras which I suggested as a starting point for an underwater video novice. FWIW I could post 6 shots from 6 different cameras and there is no way that you could tell me which camera shot which. Last word... If you ignore all my camera advice, please don't ignore this... Never dive alone! The last thing I want is for you to never post again because you drowned after being too tired to get your F65 camera out of the water and into your boat while alone.

Good luck with your project!

Dave
 
DLD said:

Night shootin'

PS. Dennis, the Raw Light white paper hasn't been published to my knowledge. My hunch is that it's logarithmic rather than pure Raw. At ~ 500 GB/hr, it's a 5X compression and the file takes roughly the same space as ProRes 444.
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Yeah I might have to eat my hat. Looking through McGregor's C200 post there is some really nice stuff posted there. Gotta give it to Canon for image with little fuss.

And it seems I was wrong about log on c200, it's not a matter that 8-bit isn't enough for log, apparently the c200 can not record in log. Is that correct?

Also the HFR seems locked to 120p only.
 
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starcentral said:
Yeah I might have to eat my hat. Looking through McGregor's C200 post there is some really nice stuff posted there. Gotta give it to Canon for image with little fuss.

And it seems I was wrong about slog on c200, it's not a matter that 8-bit isn't enough for log, apparently the c200 can not record in log. Is that correct? .
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The non-Raw Light codec is limited to 4:2:0 8-bit. It still looks good if exposed properly but people have been pretty peeved off about it only being in 8-bit. Some have even started a petition for Canon to add 10-bit but it was obviously a corporate decision not to go with the existing codecs and bit rates (XF AVC @ 305 Mbps from XC-10).

Raw Light is 12-bit with Canon claiming 15 stops.
 
starcentral said:
And it seems I was wrong about slog on c200, it's not a matter that 8-bit isn't enough for log, apparently the c200 can not record in log. Is that correct?
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S-Log is Sony's. Of course the camera can record LOG, and it can do C-Log and C-Log 3 normally, but C-Log 2 is reserved for Cinema RAW Light where you later convert to it with Canon's post software.

DLD said:
The non-Raw Light codec is limited to 4:2:0 8-bit. It still looks good if exposed properly but people have been pretty peeved off about it only being in 8-bit. Some have even started a petition for Canon to add 10-bit but it was obviously a corporate decision not to go with the existing codecs and bit rates (XF AVC @ 305 Mbps from XC-10).

Raw Light is 12-bit with Canon claiming 15 stops.
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Canon is now claiming 13 stops with RAW Light. At some point from the initial announcement, it was changed in all of the documentation. Maybe another corporate decision to separate it in favor of C300 Mark II's 15.
 
C-Log2 is included, but it's only available when shooting RAW.

But I'm not sure why Canon decided to make it unavailable when not shooting RAW (like with their other cameras).
 
No problem. Didn't know your experience or crew size. Most folks have never worked with a 140lb camera rig but I see you have it covered.
 
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