Who's thinking about NOT upgrading

Abelcine has the price of the FS700 at about $10K. That's twice the price of the FS100. and without any 4K options. It makes sense if you don't own an FS100, but I am going to hold onto my FS100 until I know more about the 4K option. Lots of choices now and in the near future. I don't really expect to see a flood of used FS100's - at least not because of the 700 alone.
 
If you buy the FS700, buy it for what it is today, not what Sony is promising.

Sounds exciting as presented, but they have given no date for fulfilling their promises, and no prices, which really determines if any of us will be able to afford to buy their promises.

Who can say they will even be technically able to pull it off to everyone's expectations?

By the time they pull it off, technology may have advanced to the next step. There is no contract with the current customers, they are under no obligation to fulfill their promises to the current customers.

This is a bizarre way to market a product.
 
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Well Paul, I am there with you in terms of trying to decide what I want to do. I'll say first and foremost, if the price is around $8k then I'll be considering. If the price is around $10k I will not. Right now, there is just a lot of unknowns for me that I am trying to find out about.

I will say the 4k is really the last on my list, I am happy with the resolution of the FS100. The obvious pluses for me are:

+ ND built in
+ SDI
+ Slo-mo (I use 60p VERY much)

What I am not fully sure of, but am very hopeful not an issue:

? Better HL handling in CINE4 gamma reported but not fully vetted
? Better red linearity in response
? Battery Life
? Rolling shutter performance
? Dynamic Range, does it beat 10.5 on the FS100

Some negatives, not all huge, but need to be considered

- Heavier. I use the FS100 on a Blackbird.
- Slightly less low-light performance.

And some negative for BOTH cameras that I wish had been addressed:

- No dual card slots on back
- No mono internal microphone for reference sound (I don't always want the mic attached to it)
- No gain/Iso selection dial for more than 3 settings at a time.

So it's really a tough call. Those ? items above, they will make a difference to me. With a 4k image, if you denoise that BEFORE you downsample to 1080p, you might get some AWESOME results. Given the sensor is the same physical size, it's still going to have mostly the same area. Slightly less because of the separation between pixels, but I've heard it doesn't loose that much. At $10k, it just won't be worth the upgrade.
 
Rick Burnett said:
Well Paul, I am there with you in terms of trying to decide what I want to do. I'll say first and foremost, if the price is around $8k then I'll be considering. If the price is around $10k I will not. Right now, there is just a lot of unknowns for me that I am trying to find out about.
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Couldn't agree more. There are some ball park amounts of £7200 inc tax for body only which places it at $11.5k body only (but that's assuming 20% tax which i'm sure you wouldn't end up paying, around $9.5k without the tax). I think Felix pre ordered at 7900 euros? So i think £6k ex tax is perhaps about right. The 100 is £4.2K ex.

What i've not seen yet is whether the noise or sensitivity is very different. If the 700 is a lot less sensitive, or noisy that would put me off.
And i'd really like to see how the cinegammas work compared to the 100. And i'd like to see side by side resolution examples to see if the end result is worth it. I have some amazingly detailed FS100 footage and don't really have a complaint about the resolution.

You know, if they'd just put 10bit out on HDMI my money would be waiting.

And where was the information at NAB on the 4K recorder or a timeline? Are we talking 2013? or this year?

But to trade in or sell the 100 you're going to loose a lot right now, is it really worth it today? £2k more, but after trade in that's probably £4k more...

I can see after the firmware on the 100 that the 700 seems to offer more control with the LA-EA2, that's a plus point for me.

cheers
paul
 
paulcurtis said:
Couldn't agree more. There are some ball park amounts of £7200 inc tax for body only which places it at $11.5k body only (but that's assuming 20% tax which i'm sure you wouldn't end up paying, around $9.5k without the tax). I think Felix pre ordered at 7900 euros? So i think £6k ex tax is perhaps about right. The 100 is £4.2K ex.

What i've not seen yet is whether the noise or sensitivity is very different. If the 700 is a lot less sensitive, or noisy that would put me off.
And i'd really like to see how the cinegammas work compared to the 100. And i'd like to see side by side resolution examples to see if the end result is worth it. I have some amazingly detailed FS100 footage and don't really have a complaint about the resolution.

You know, if they'd just put 10bit out on HDMI my money would be waiting.

And where was the information at NAB on the 4K recorder or a timeline? Are we talking 2013? or this year?

But to trade in or sell the 100 you're going to loose a lot right now, is it really worth it today? £2k more, but after trade in that's probably £4k more...

I can see after the firmware on the 100 that the 700 seems to offer more control with the LA-EA2, that's a plus point for me.

cheers
paul
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I agree. After working with firmware 2 last night and using Frank's settings, I am getting a picture out of the FS100 that I like a *LOT* more than I have in quite awhile. I also feel like they tweaked the Cinemagammas a bit as well.

What I am struggling with is, if the BM camera ends up being a great camera, I am wondering if the money spent on that as a second camera might not be a better option at this time given how much I'd lose on selling the FS100, and I'd have to do that to have the FS700. I'd keep the FS100 for 1080p60 and wide shots. It's just really tough. Unrelated, a sub-woofer in my studio stopped working and now I need to replace it, which is going to pull away funds (I have expensive monitors so it's quite a chunk of change).
 
Which PP is that Rick?

The thing for me... especially after my shoot this past weekend, is I'm asking myself will my client's notice the difference. And to be honest, I don't think they will. They won't notice that extra little bit of resolution. I rarely shoot above 60fps, and if I need it, it's something that can be twixtored easily to 120/240. I have a mattebox with 4x4 filters and I have zero need for 4k. Depending what this new firmware did with highlight handling the the gamma settings, that might also take away some of the lustre on the fs700 as well.

I'm starting to realize that lighting/lenses are making a far better investment then camera bodies. If a client needs more, they probably have the budget to rent the higher end body. At least that's what I've personally experienced. There's no need for me to keep buying more and more expensive cameras.
 
It's over in the knee thread, look for postmaster's settings.

And yep, I agree. I am not paying for ND alone, that is for sure. And 4K is in addition to what you are spending on the FS700 body, so not a slam dunk decision at all.
 
interesting thread so i'll chime in...

...i very much like my fs100.

i like it's image quality.
i like it's size.
i like it's portability.

i shoot interviews with the fs100, i can bring a smaller light kit.

i shoot out in public with the fs100, i am nearly invisible.

i shoot with the fs100, and i can transport the entire camera package in two small kit bags.

i have no need for the promise of 4k.

i'll keep working with my fs100.

ymmv

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions
 
I still haven't had a chance to go through the V2 firmware, i'm holding off so i can shoot something before and after. May end up being the weekend.

The BM camera looks great, if only it had a universal lens mount, or even m43s. They got so much right (and you can tell how popular by the size of the thread) yet made such an odd decision on that mount. Getting wide angle on it without m43 lenses will be really difficult. Hopefully another version will bring that.

I like slow mo (but never even used it on the FS100 in the real world), but i'm not paying just for that. From a production viewpoint you'd perhaps be better off getting a 2nd FS100 secondhand, that might open up more options.

I would like to know more about the 4K upgrade and the *12bit* RAW output before making a decision i think.

I hope the gammas have been tweaked, although i would have expected sony to actually promote that!

I've invested quite heavily in Sony Zeiss glass and perhaps i'll just see if i can get that 135 f1.8 instead... That might make more long term sense.



cheers
Paul
 
Have just read through a good chunk of this thread and I'm with you guys. Well reasoned, good thread. I find myself just mostly nodding. Y'all said it! I'd just ass if I were to buy today - I would prob not buy the 700. At 10K everything changes and I start looking at the F3 or the Canon. but unless I had a specific project that required 4K, I'd just stick with the very solid FS100 in HD.
cams are coming *down* in price, I'm waiting for them to remember that. We have a hype cycle going on right now with, it's a bubble because you can see the manufacturers can supply us with better tools but are intentionally crippling. I'm waiting for the next company that loads up on a camera and puts in most of what they are capable of. I'd give it a year and I have plenty of ND to make it thru.
 
I feel like the FS100 is the last camera where a company said lets show em what we can do for a price.
Nice going on the FS, I really like it. I'm looking forward to shooting tonight and I'm stacked up through the summer
and fall shooting HD. (Anti jinx field UP. )
 
I will wait as long as possible, in hopes that the next version of the FS700 will be out by that time. Obviously this is a platform in transition that Sony is spending a lot of resources on, and there's more that can be done.
 
When they first announced it I was originally thinking that I would do it. But now that the BMC is available for such a cheap price I'll be going that way. However if Sony would announce what's going to be happening with the 4k recorder it could sway me over to the FS700. But right now its the FS100 for doc/corporate work, the BMC for narrative (assuming it live up to the hype)!

What would everyone be willing to pay for the 4k recorder?
 
I'd like to get the FS700, but it just doesn't fit in where I need it, I plan on getting an EX1r and quite possibly the BMC. The FS100/FS700s are just not that optimized for shooting sport, and I don't see how the BMC can be beaten for narrative shooting at the $3500 price point.

I think the thing I look forward to the most with the EX1r is having an internal mic :D, just getting excited thinking about it!!
 
Rick Burnett said:
Yeah, this one become more of a pain then I realized. I am building a tiny mic for it though :)
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Hey Rick, what is your plan for a tiny mic? I plan on getting the FS700, but I shoot a lot of MOS type stuff where only reference sound is needed, so I would HATE the giant microphone on all the time.

Is there / or will there be a 1/8" jack? Maybe then you can just plug in one of those tiny iPhone 1/8" jack mics? Or is it possible to maybe use a small 1/8" mic with an RCA adaptor into the RCA jack?

Or is the XLR the only sound input on these cameras? Can you use the headphone jack as a mic input?

Like I said, lots of time I just need a basic reference sound, and would rather have the lighter, quicker setup than the big mic on top.
 
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I plan on waiting at least another year before I move to a new camera. I've been doing camera/production work for a while but this is the first camera I've owned as a freelancer. I just don't see it worth investment yet
 
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