F3: Why I Bought an F3

Welcome to the F3 club, Sam. You definately did your homework.
That "corporate codec" has allowed me to pay for the camera many, many times over, including a couple of national commercials.
I'll admit to having a secret crush on the F5, but may skip the current F's to see what comes next. 4K just isn't on any of my client's radar right now so I'm very lucky there.

Have fun and enjoy.
 
Very well thought out sensible process. Also a perfect illustration of why the big guys are all just missing the boat with corporate marketing bling driven rather than practical working pro driven designs.

Hope Panasonic takes a lesson from this with their new models coming next year.
 
J

The F5, Im not sure you will get a better image if you deliver 1080 and record onboard

Add a recorder and you have a cinema camera!

Also the form factor (excluding the HFjack) is better which could swing it - the 3 is fast becoming a beast with recorder onboard.

Razz

Ive never heard you approve of a non raw camera before!

Fundamentally I think non raw is a bit crappy too and thats why I wasn't prepared to spend £10,000 and not get raw (F5, C300)

I had to climb down and conclude that the cheapest practical usable raw camera was £17000 and beyond me

Having got the F3 for a song I can maybe buy a raw BMC, BMCP or suchlike with the 'savings'

S
 
I see you found good use for the VF located on the back of the F3, good choice. :)

Just some notes incase you want to clarify it for other readers of your blog,

- the SR codec does not need any special sxs cards to be recorded. It's only 350mbps @ 24p for 444 and of course much lower if you chose 422. For example I can record 4k 60p XAVC 600mbps to old 32GB sxs $300 cards. The difference to the newer pro plus cards is I probably can not record XAVC and MPEG proxy at the same time to the same card unless I invest in the newer pro plus or XQD cards.

- also F5/F55 uses slog2 and although I am still tinkering with it myself so far I am feeling that slog2 is a bit "thicker" than slog, but again still evaluating. Here Abelcine's chart comparing the two:
Slog1_Slog2_zps6e03217d.jpg



Regarding the F3 offerings:

- auto exposure using TLCS
- interval recording awesome for time lapse
- spot meter, very great tool for using grey or white card for exposure determining
- has zoom rocker
- comes with mic
- comes with mic holder
- comes with carry strap

:)
 
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- the SR codec does not need any special sxs cards to be recorded.

My comment was aimed at
-the paucity of information ref XQD cards
-the fact that if one bought a raw recorder one can only record raw to it so one has to own two set of media.
- the fact (or not fact) that you current media may/maynot work at as yet unreleased HFR modes.

Media for my calculations were priced as per the CVP website - nothing near $300, $1200 more like in the UK http://cvp.com/index.php?t=product/sony_sbp-128b
At the F5 workshop AChapman told me the (8gb!) cards from my EX1 would 'not work'


Im used to shooting to CF card raw and jpg on the same or multiple cards.

- comes with carry strap

In my build it needs it!

And yep im really liking the headphone cable store - I might formalise that.

S
 
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morgan_moore said:
J

The F5, Im not sure you will get a better image if you deliver 1080 and record onboard

Add a recorder and you have a cinema camera!

Also the form factor (excluding the HFjack) is better which could swing it - the 3 is fast becoming a beast with recorder onboard.

Razz

Ive never heard you approve of a non raw camera before!

Fundamentally I think non raw is a bit crappy too and thats why I wasn't prepared to spend £10,000 and not get raw (F5, C300)

I had to climb down and conclude that the cheapest practical usable raw camera was £17000 and beyond me

Having got the F3 for a song I can maybe buy a raw BMC, BMCP or suchlike with the 'savings'

S
Click to expand...

For my own personal creative hobby use raw is it. I don't need video. But I was a pro shooter in decades past and fully understand that market demands and practical considerations often dictate choices that may be less than one's perfect ideal, even if such a camera did exist.

I think you made a rational choice based on in depth evaluation of the available options. Your pros and cons list for each camera perfectly illustrate the compromises that camera designers make that many of us find frustrating in one way or another.
 
Razz16mm said:
For my own personal creative hobby use raw is it. I don't need video. But I was a pro shooter in decades past and fully understand that market demands and practical considerations often dictate choices that may be less than one's perfect ideal, even if such a camera did exist.

I think you made a rational choice based on in depth evaluation of the available options. Your pros and cons list for each camera perfectly illustrate the compromises that camera designers make that many of us find frustrating in one way or another.
Click to expand...

I somewhat forgot to write a conclusion.

I guess I wanted a really good camera for $10,000 US. Sony is too expensive right now (I think the 55 is a good camera) and the indies are under-speccing and coming in under price.

That leaves a hole for the taking.

Simply BMC with XLR and ND where are you?

S
 
  • Functioning LUTs with Slog – punch between log and look just like an Alexa
  • Sorry, but not buying this. I have owned an F3 for 2 years. I also now own an Alexa. I shoot both cameras depending on clients needs.
  • Although the F3 can look very good in log , it simply does not compare to Alexa.
  • The F3 right now is a very good value on the used market, and there is a reason for this.
 
NAHA41 said:
  • Functioning LUTs with Slog – punch between log and look just like an Alexa
  • Sorry, but not buying this. I have owned an F3 for 2 years. I also now own an Alexa. I shoot both cameras depending on clients needs.
Click to expand...

Im not commenting on the image quality I was commenting on the monitor options.

With an alexa, when recording log, you can select a user button to punch between log and 709 on your monitor,

The same is true with the F3.

With the F5 (or FS700, etc) the image you view is what is recorded to card, (subject to future firmware) meaning if you are internally recording log you (and your director) must view in log on set - not pretty and in fact another reason the F5 is not yet really ready for professional use

S
 
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Great blog post. I think you made a good choice based on your research. The F5 is a lot of dough for an owner/operator and if I could swing it I'd like that camera too. I've always loved the images from the F3. The used ones are definitely a great bargain.

On the BMCC missing features, besides what you mentioned, I would add the OLPF.

Great shooting with your new rig.
 
I find the lut's for monitoring on the F3 to be unusable. They certainly do not look like a delogged rec 709 image. They simply bring down the gamma a bit and do not add chroma.
More often than not, i bang back and forth between log and a picture profile to put my clients at ease. Clunky
 
Interesting. You obviously have a lot more experience than me - I still think the Luts are a step up from the F5 - which has none :)

(I guess I cant load my own or have a PP as a LUT?)

Ive been trying to work out how to monitor (evaluate exposure), using minimal tools

P1 LUT takes a log signal of 68* to about 100 which activates a zebra on my monitor. This seems to be a start, but I am still scratching my head how to best expose for Slog without a WFM or being able to see the histo without doing my neck in.

Maybe you would be kind enough to explain how you evaluate Slog exposure?

Im interested in either highlights, and/or getting skin as bright as possible without hitting the 'plastic region' (70IRE?) - shooting people I tend to go for correct skin and not worry about a few blown highlights in the BG

THanks

S

*68 or rather 63.5 seems to be a valuable point in SLog as per http://www.sony.co.uk/res/attachment/file/66/1237476953066.pdf ?
"its getting bright" ie you would not want stuff apart from specular highlights above 63.5?
 
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NAHA41 said:
I find the lut's for monitoring on the F3 to be unusable. They certainly do not look like a delogged rec 709 image. They simply bring down the gamma a bit and do not add chroma.
More often than not, i bang back and forth between log and a picture profile to put my clients at ease. Clunky
Click to expand...

That's probably because the F3 in-camera LUTs are limited to one-dimensional LUTs only, which at best will let you shift tonal mappings for separate R, G and B, but can not do more complex color transformations involving saturation, hue, etc... (ie. a 3D LUT)

It's still useful "on-set" and on your monitor to get an approximate feel of the image without slog, but without that saturation or further color shifting capability, as you suggest toggling back and forth between a picture profile and slog is probably better suited for giving any producers or clients an idea of what the picture looks like.


morgan_moore said:
Ive been trying to work out how to monitor (evaluate exposure), using minimal tools
Click to expand...

Turn on the spot meter function on the F3 (which I wish to dear god I had on the F55). Use a grey card to read 38% on the F3 LCD display, or use a white piece of paper and read 65%.

sony_s-log_zps1b1891f9.png
 
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starcentral said:
Turn on the spot meter function on the F3 (which I wish to dear god I had on the F55). Use a grey card to read 38% on the F3 LCD display, or use a white piece of paper and read 68%.
Click to expand...

This works on the onboard display only like the histo? Im across those tools but ideally don't want to turn to see the onboard monitor when operating on the shoulder.

Also is there a menu item that will show the area (a box) that the spot meter is reading?

You see a LUT that moves 68 in log to 100 in lut and activates a zebra is something you might consider on the F5, at least with the F3 it is simple to see what is going where.. spot meter during the setup phase!

S
 
Yes turn on spot meter and make sure in the display menu "marker" or something to that effect is turned on. What it does is give you a nice little box in the center of the LCD or VF which will give you a full scale IRE reading of whatever that box is on top of.

Sony failed big time with their miniature and unlabelled waveform monitor on the F5/F55 absolutely useless for nailing slog2 exposure. I would have taken the spot meter and box function from the F3 over that miserable attempt.
 
Very interesting thread.

I've had my F3 for several months now and love the picture quality recorded to the BM shuttle. As I am mainly shooting in controlled lighting situations I've stuck to using gamma's 1 and 4.

I've not shot much Slog as I'm pretty much having the same issues that Sam has highlighted, increased noise and not yet having the confidence to expose Slog correctly. I don't have the paid Slog upgrade so I'm using Slog as a gamma curve within a PP. The unpaid version does not have a monitor LUT option, So I've not had the confidence to use it on an actual shoot.

I may try switching between 2 PP's as suggested in this post between an Slog PP and a standard rec709 based one.

Would it be totally disastrous to set/light up with a rec709 PP and then roll on a Slog PP?

Will be following this thread with interest and hope to learn a lot more about how to get the best out of Slog.

Sam if your ever in Birmingham please pop in to see us. I noticed that your only a stones throw away up in Bristol :)


Surinder Singh.
 
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