basspig
Veteran
I recently returned from a trip to Japan. As much as I wanted to bring one of my Sony FS7s, I didn't want the problem of TSA damaging something or dealing with carnets (Japan's import threshold is Y20,000), nor the physical burden of carrying around a heavy rig all day.
So I did my research and found the Sony RX10 mk III. I dry run tested it on a trip to Ellis Island and was impressed with the results. It's a different look than what I get out of my FS7, but it's a good 'reality capture' camera with a very sharp lens that is relatively free of distortions that bother the eye. I wanted a camera that could record at least UHD, and this model does that well.
Testimony to the development of CODECs, the internal recording on this camera is unexpectedly good. I am amazed at how well it handles complex detail, foliage and abutting contrasting colors. When I was in Akihabara, there were a lot of colorful signage (like Times Square on steroids) with bright primary colors and the RX10 mk III kept the edges of lettering razor sharp.
The look is a bit different. I didn't shoot S-Log because my Adobe CS6 can't handle LUTs, so I used the CINE2 gamma and color mode "movie" which based on my testing, gave reasonable dynamic range and a sensible color gamut that I could work with in CS6. Oh, and speaking of CODECs, oddly enough, CS6 imports it with no complaints, even though it cannot import the older FS7 footage.
I carried this camera around with me for 15 hours a day. Some days we walked around maybe 25 miles. I had my backpack with a high powered gaming laptop (for editing and taking advantage of the 1000/1000mb connection our rental apartment in Kamata has) and several extra batteries and other supplies.. total weight about 20lbs for the pack. I walked from Asakusa to Skytree Tower. Earlier in the day, I got off the train at Ueno. That camera was no burden to me at all. Every 3 hours or so, I needed to pop in a new battery, but otherwise with the 64GB cards, I could shoot all day, sometimes two days on a single card.
From the fumerolic vents at Hakone, to the altitudes at Mt. Fuji, the camera never skipped a beat.
From my apartment (12th floor) in Kamata, I was able to zoom in on some people gathered in front of the Kamata train station about 2/3 km away. I got some amazing zoomed in shots, hand held, which I could never have gotten with a big rig like my FS7 with the 600mm Sigma lens. And do to the 20MP sensor, clear image zoom takes you out to 1000mm with no obvious loss of detail. So I did a lot of Andy Warhole style shooting, just letting the city tells it's story, as viewed from my balcony. And then on the go, from street corners in Akihabara, to the boardwalks of Odaiba and Yokohama, to the mountainous terrain of Hakone and Kanagawa, the camera just kept capturing everything as I saw it.
Another surprising thing about the RX 10 mk III... it's got a decent audio system. Flatter frequency response than the FS7, and nearly as noise free. I used a Tascam TM-2X X-Y stereo mic, perched on the hot shoe. I remember the Japanese stewardess on our JAL flight from LA to Haneda saying it was "kawaii" (cute) with it's dead cat wind filter, so I started referring to it as "kawaii neko" or cute cat whenever a Japanese commented on it. That mic, with a little EQ in post, got some surprisingly good audio.
I edited my dailies while 'running on fumes' in my apartment each night, and uploaded about a 5GB file in a couple of minutes or less. The editing was a bit rushed, so I kept it 'cuts only' and simple, as I was nodding off at my desk after 15 hours on my feet each day. But I wanted to use the high speed connection there (which apparently wasn't the fastest available--the TV was on and an ad came on for NTT Docomo's 2Gb internet service, as if taunting me, who was already hard drive read speed-limited on the uploads!) There's no way I could have uploaded this on my 0.8mb connection back east. But I kept an aggressive schedule and uploaded my day's footage every night.
Here is the playlist with all of the Japan video that I shot and produced during June and July. It's ungraded, because I didn't have a color calibrated monitor with me, only a laptop screen, so it lacks a bit of contrast and punch, but the image quality is there:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOKm0N4TcQdW_B-6NqqrYja5m4RhiUYy0
The weather was cloudy much of the time (rainy season is June) and the temperatures were about 28°C most days until July, when it got hot. I kept 4 64GB cards and 3 batteries with me and used a Watson dual charger in the apartment. I had the foresight to research the electric outlets and learned that many are not polarized, so I brought an outlet strip with the ground pin removed so it would work in outlets in the apartment. We plugged everything into that, phone chargers, tablet chargers, laptop, battery charger, etc., as there would not have been enough outlets in the room otherwise.
The nice thing about this camera is that it gets 90% of the picture quality and sound, for only 10% or less of the weight and size. The lens is phenomenal for the size, giving 24-600mm equivalent focal range, optically, with nary any CA or other distortions, and is sharp, as you can tell from the footage of buildings.
When I got back to CT, I color graded the footage and put it all together into a 4 hour continuous movie and watched it on my 12' projection screen with the big sound system and Sonic Holography. This produced an immersive experience both visually and sonically. I could hardly believe this was shot with a tiny little SLR style bridge camera.
So I did my research and found the Sony RX10 mk III. I dry run tested it on a trip to Ellis Island and was impressed with the results. It's a different look than what I get out of my FS7, but it's a good 'reality capture' camera with a very sharp lens that is relatively free of distortions that bother the eye. I wanted a camera that could record at least UHD, and this model does that well.
Testimony to the development of CODECs, the internal recording on this camera is unexpectedly good. I am amazed at how well it handles complex detail, foliage and abutting contrasting colors. When I was in Akihabara, there were a lot of colorful signage (like Times Square on steroids) with bright primary colors and the RX10 mk III kept the edges of lettering razor sharp.
The look is a bit different. I didn't shoot S-Log because my Adobe CS6 can't handle LUTs, so I used the CINE2 gamma and color mode "movie" which based on my testing, gave reasonable dynamic range and a sensible color gamut that I could work with in CS6. Oh, and speaking of CODECs, oddly enough, CS6 imports it with no complaints, even though it cannot import the older FS7 footage.
I carried this camera around with me for 15 hours a day. Some days we walked around maybe 25 miles. I had my backpack with a high powered gaming laptop (for editing and taking advantage of the 1000/1000mb connection our rental apartment in Kamata has) and several extra batteries and other supplies.. total weight about 20lbs for the pack. I walked from Asakusa to Skytree Tower. Earlier in the day, I got off the train at Ueno. That camera was no burden to me at all. Every 3 hours or so, I needed to pop in a new battery, but otherwise with the 64GB cards, I could shoot all day, sometimes two days on a single card.
From the fumerolic vents at Hakone, to the altitudes at Mt. Fuji, the camera never skipped a beat.
From my apartment (12th floor) in Kamata, I was able to zoom in on some people gathered in front of the Kamata train station about 2/3 km away. I got some amazing zoomed in shots, hand held, which I could never have gotten with a big rig like my FS7 with the 600mm Sigma lens. And do to the 20MP sensor, clear image zoom takes you out to 1000mm with no obvious loss of detail. So I did a lot of Andy Warhole style shooting, just letting the city tells it's story, as viewed from my balcony. And then on the go, from street corners in Akihabara, to the boardwalks of Odaiba and Yokohama, to the mountainous terrain of Hakone and Kanagawa, the camera just kept capturing everything as I saw it.
Another surprising thing about the RX 10 mk III... it's got a decent audio system. Flatter frequency response than the FS7, and nearly as noise free. I used a Tascam TM-2X X-Y stereo mic, perched on the hot shoe. I remember the Japanese stewardess on our JAL flight from LA to Haneda saying it was "kawaii" (cute) with it's dead cat wind filter, so I started referring to it as "kawaii neko" or cute cat whenever a Japanese commented on it. That mic, with a little EQ in post, got some surprisingly good audio.
I edited my dailies while 'running on fumes' in my apartment each night, and uploaded about a 5GB file in a couple of minutes or less. The editing was a bit rushed, so I kept it 'cuts only' and simple, as I was nodding off at my desk after 15 hours on my feet each day. But I wanted to use the high speed connection there (which apparently wasn't the fastest available--the TV was on and an ad came on for NTT Docomo's 2Gb internet service, as if taunting me, who was already hard drive read speed-limited on the uploads!) There's no way I could have uploaded this on my 0.8mb connection back east. But I kept an aggressive schedule and uploaded my day's footage every night.
Here is the playlist with all of the Japan video that I shot and produced during June and July. It's ungraded, because I didn't have a color calibrated monitor with me, only a laptop screen, so it lacks a bit of contrast and punch, but the image quality is there:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOKm0N4TcQdW_B-6NqqrYja5m4RhiUYy0
The weather was cloudy much of the time (rainy season is June) and the temperatures were about 28°C most days until July, when it got hot. I kept 4 64GB cards and 3 batteries with me and used a Watson dual charger in the apartment. I had the foresight to research the electric outlets and learned that many are not polarized, so I brought an outlet strip with the ground pin removed so it would work in outlets in the apartment. We plugged everything into that, phone chargers, tablet chargers, laptop, battery charger, etc., as there would not have been enough outlets in the room otherwise.
The nice thing about this camera is that it gets 90% of the picture quality and sound, for only 10% or less of the weight and size. The lens is phenomenal for the size, giving 24-600mm equivalent focal range, optically, with nary any CA or other distortions, and is sharp, as you can tell from the footage of buildings.
When I got back to CT, I color graded the footage and put it all together into a 4 hour continuous movie and watched it on my 12' projection screen with the big sound system and Sonic Holography. This produced an immersive experience both visually and sonically. I could hardly believe this was shot with a tiny little SLR style bridge camera.
