The Sony F65, thoughts and feelings of an F35 Addict

Grug is correct. The camera's "V3.00" upgrade includes a new port, exactly the same as the one on the F5/55. You can use the DVF-EL100 and the larger 7" "Viewfinder", I believe the little LCD one would work too.

When I can, I'll do a review of this vs a C30WR. I also have the C30WR for sale if any of you guys want it - PM me.
 
I love my OLED as well, but wish at times I could flip up the diopter like you can on the LCD version for when you're just working framing and stuff. Otherwise it's a mighty fine viewfinder and looks like MAGIC when you do use it.
 
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JMtheDP said:
Grug is correct. The camera's "V3.00" upgrade includes a new port, exactly the same as the one on the F5/55. You can use the DVF-EL100 and the larger 7" "Viewfinder", I believe the little LCD one would work too.
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Any idea how this is wired? There's a slim chance the same hardware could be used to make those new EVF's usable with the F35...
 
so happy for your review of this camera - I am super excited to see some footage and I would love someone to do a side by side the Sony F65 vs Sony F55 to show people that they should go with the F65 - but even so its cheaper at this point than the F55 - so that's the number one reason to use the big guy. MONEY MONEY MONEY. Money is everything.
 
Nate Weaver said:
No go. The upgrade replaced a board inside the F65 to drive the EVF.
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To be clear, I'm talking serious mod territory here. It really depends on what inputs the board in question takes. If the inputs are 1080p, it's conceivable. If the input is a raw stream, then it's not.
 
Viddovation said:
Any idea how this is wired? There's a slim chance the same hardware could be used to make those new EVF's usable with the F35...
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Zacuto's new OLED EVF will be out in the not too distant future, and it'll have the advantage of simply being SDI (like the new Sony ones probably should have been).
 
The little Sony viewfinder adapter I think just nicks the feed from an SDI output - you have to mirror the SDI1 or SDI2 output, it can't be independent unlike the analog VF port.

The board that is the "mod" is tiny - about an inch and a bit long, half an inch wide.
 
So at home I have an old, knackered, Panasonic Varicam (the original tape one). I, like many of you, think the F65 is quite large. Out of curiosity, I put the two next to each other. The Varicam is exactly the same length as the F65. Not much in it height wise, either. The F65 is wider, for sure, but I never had any problems with the width of a camera.
 
Chapter Five - Some Perspective

So, I've been using the F65 on a super low-budget shoot all week. It's not the sort of thing I'd normally do, but when I have a new camera I don't like to jump straight into a high-paying gig with untested or unproven kit.

So far, I have been very, very impressed. Before I go into more detail about that, though, I would like to share some hard numbers, some opinions, about the F65 and its direct competitors. Some of this will be information I've already written about, but I feel it is nice to summarise once in a while. Hopefully this will give some helpful ammunition to us chosen few who choose to support Sony cameras when the mainstream goes the other way. Anyway...

"It's too big!"

Is it, is it really? I won't try and persuade anyone that this is a small camera, but I don't think it is really any larger than any other camera with the same capabilties. How do you define "large"? Well, it is going to be a combination of size and weight. For my money, I am not that fussed about having something tiny, or ultra-lightweight. I want it to be the right size, to have all the controls I need, all the functionality in one and the weight in the right place. I preferred handheld with my F900 over my 5D Mark II because the F900 was considerably better balanced, and designed. Let's address the two issues separately and look at size first.

Let's have a look at a 4K RAW camera which I would call quite small - the Canon C500.

27zc2mf.jpg

(Image source - Canon USA)

Now, that doesn't look small to me. Of course, it would be quite easy for me to pic a photograph showing the C500 in a ludicrously large setup, wouldn't it?

Here's the basic C500 body.

fyjogj.jpg

(Image source - Adam J Wilt)

Much smaller, right? Wrong. Aside from the fact it is a stupid shape, there's one key problem here which non-users of the C500 (myself included) won't recognise.

This setup cannot record 4K.

Not at all, not even a little bit, not even compressed. Which is something the much cheaper 1DC can do (albeit with an ancient, inefficient codec). So what you have above is a very expensive C300. So, let me guide you to the first picture I posted. Two of the three BNCs that disappear off the picture will be going to an outboard recorder. So, an "all-in-one" C500 solution looks a bit like this:

2uizy38.jpg



I don't know about you guys, but this solution just looks awkward to me. Note there isn't even a handle to pick this lot up by. There is no way I would choose this setup over the F65, or the many F35 rigs we have all built.

In fact, for another perspective, here is the F65, built up (missing a prime lens, but they fit in the gap), versus an old Panasonic Varicam. Apologies for the hideous carpet.

2w5tx1g.jpg
 

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...continued from above

I do want to provide a balanced and honest perspective here. I've taken the C500 above as an example of how even a camera that appears small can quickly get a bit out of hand if you want to try and even approach the quality possible with things like the F65.

RED's system, although I am not a fan, is considerably better. The useful people at Reference frame in New York (no association with me) have put some pictures on their site of common RED EPIC setups, for comparison.

Epic-X_1895_Jughead-4433_700w.jpg

(Image source - Reference Frame LLC)

This is the kind of picture people love to band about with the EPIC. Now, this is potentially a "ready-to-shoot" package, I suppose. There's a battery hidden in the side handle, although I think it won't last long. But as compact, 4K-capable setups go this is pretty hard to beat. I would never want to do much work with a setup like the above, because I find it basically impossible to hold something like that steady. And I would have to pull focus myself, because there's no proper accessories on here. Add those and you're going to need a shoulder rig, whether you like it or not.

That gives you...

2nqa2dw.jpg

(Image Source - Reference Frame LLC)

This is the EPIC, with the RED CLUTCH. I have no experience of it but it doesn't look very comfortable to me and I know one RED owner-operator who emits very strange sounds whenever anyone mentions them. That and the fact you have now added another 4KG to the weight of the system, somewhat defeats the point. By comparison, all I need to add to the F65 to make it "handheld-ready" is handlebars. The same with an ALEXA.

Of course, one must also bear in mind that the above setup is ONLY capable of recording RAW. There is no HD or super-sampled 2K option here. In my mind, that stuffs you for certain applications but as REDs appear everywhere I seem to be wrong on that front.
 
"But it's soooo heavy"

Okay, so in the last month I have been doing a lot of work with 16 and 35mm cameras. The only digital camera which comes close to weighing the same as a film camera is either an F35 with the SRW-1 deck onboard, or the D-21.

For comparison, the ARRICAM LT - a pretty lightweight 35mm camera - weighs basically the same as the F65 body with a finder. The F65's "magazine" weighs around 1.5KG. 400ft of film weighs approximately 800g, without a magazine. That's another 1kg at least - add another 2/3kg in total for a 1000' load. All in, an F65 could be up to 5KG lighter than an equivalent 35mm setup (with 1000' mag).

Comparing weights with other digital cameras is very tricky because, as we've seen in the posts before, setups can vary wildly. Perhaps the only camera that it is fair to compare with is the ALEXA. After all, no other camera offers raw and HD recording.

Assuming the manufacturers are quoting honest, accurate weights, an F65 "with accessories" (I take this as meaning viewfinder and SR-R4) weighs in at 6.5KG.

ARRI quote for an ALEXA Classic 7.7KG including viewfinder and handle. That's over a kilo more. Bear in mind the "classic" is not raw capable without an added recorder. The Alexa XT is 8KG. The only ALEXA with a rotary shutter, the Studio, weighs in at over 10.5KG - 4KG more than an F65! I am not sure how comfortable I feel comparing the F65 with the ALEXA studio - the studio is carrying a lot of that weight in the optical viewfinder, but seeing as no other ALEXA camera has a global or mechanical shutter, if rolling shutter is a consideration then this is the camera you must compare against.

"It draws way too much power!"

Again, if you're coming from a DSLR, any big camera will seem like a power hog. The F35 body itself was not exceedingly hungry, but the recording deck attached to it drew basically the same again, if not more.

The F65's body actually draws slightly MORE than the F35, but the SR-R4 is considerably improved over the SRW-1, hardly a surprise. All told, the F65 combo draws approx 105-109w when recording.

To compare with that gold standard, the ALEXA - here are the numbers. An ALEXA Classic draws around 85w under the same conditions. So, a 20w difference. Noticeable, for sure, but really enough to cause issue? I think not.

Things get a little muddier with the fruitier ALEXA combos. An ALEXA XT with the XR module draws approx 96w, but if you had to go the older route of an ALEXA + CODEX, the Codex recorder takes around 30w. So you're up to 115w, give or take.

The ALEXA Studio is hard to find numbers on, with numbers being quoted from 100w to 130w - so probably higher than the F65.

At the end of the day, block batteries are cheap and lithium ion V-Loks are getting cheaper too. With the F65, there are so many options to power the thing from an on-board or a block, I can't imagine power requirements really putting you off it.
 
"The Files are too big!"

There's a theme developing here. As I've had a fair bit of text above, I'm going to let Sony's own chart do the talking. Bear in mind the RED numbers are for 5K, not 6K dragon footage, which I expect to be a fair bit larger.

2d8g7ir.png

(Image Source - Sony)
 
"But the drives are so expensive!!"

I'll admit I nearly fell off my seat when I first saw the price of a Sony memory card!

Just to clarify, there are THREE levels of memory card you can use with the F65:

ORANGE - 1.5Gbps - Records up to 29.97 FPS @ RAW-Lite
BLUE - 2.5Gbps - Records up to 29.97 FPS @ RAW-Lite or 25FPS @ RAW-SQ
BLACK - 5.5Gbps - Records all frame rates from the F65 (up to 60fps in SQ or 120fps in HFR mode)

All SRMemory cards have built-in RAID 5 protection.

Right now, at BH Photo Video, the prices are:

Orange 256 GB - $1400
Blue 512 GB - $4,000
Black 512 GB - $5,700

A 512 GB RED Mini-Mag is $2,500 by way of comparison.

A 512 GB XR Capture Drive for the ALEXA is approx $4,000.

A 120GB Cfast card is $1200 too, making it one of the most expensive memory types available now.

For most people, I would suggest keeping a mixture of cards. You only need the black cards for high speed recording, so I would not really spend too much on those. In fact, RAW-Lite is a great codec and that works with the orange cards, so I may well be investing in some of those soon.
 
Hi Star

That will come in good time. There's a few issues with giving out footage, namely rights clearances and the sheer size of the thing.

I will see what I can do, when I have the time

In the meantime, I recommend using the Open source link someone put up, http://tearsofsteel.org/ - they have a lot of F65 footage available to download
 
It was star himself that gave link to the blender movie. But I think is not good example of F65. Probably worst I ever see. I see more filmic from F3. I think best F65 example is still oblivion. Probably only good example till now.
 
To be honest I would still have a hard time putting up anything more than a frame grab of what I'd call good F35 footage. There is so much to it.

I have a feature film lined up in October and they are very keen on not just shooting 4K, but posting and completing in it too. I may be able to get some footage from them for you.
 
JMtheDP said:
To be honest I would still have a hard time putting up anything more than a frame grab of what I'd call good F35 footage.
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Well mac has no problem putting lots great F35 images. Looks like all he shoots look great and make it look easy like you only need point F35 and record and boom great images.

LOL I know is mac and not only camera.
 
To be honest I meant more the fact that good quality F35 stuff is still very large, and most of the stuff I have shot (not just on F35) I am not allowed to post anything more than a frame grab.
 
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