F3: Why I bought an F35 instead of going 4K with the F5/F55

V

Viddovation

Veteran
**This is in the F3/F5/F55 forum because I'm an F3 owner, who considered buying the F5/F55.
Sony-F35.jpg

Friends, the F55 makes me drool. I'm not going to lie. Like many in this forum I've followed the development of the "New F" with bated breath. I wanted it. I waited for the prices, and when I saw them I started scratching out the accounting arithmetic. The F5 was nice, but global shutter... it was a dream... made real. But a kit was going to cost at least $40k - $45k more realistically, if not immediately. It was so close to Used Alexa territory that I started looking at those too.

Somewhere along the line I tried to break down what I really expected to gain out of the new camera. The fact was, many if not most of my clients wouldn't truely appreciate the new features, the better codecs, the improved handling, the global shutter. One client still insists on 720p, and even the F3 is overkill for him. I didn't have the client base for a $40k investment. And the F5, as many others have also concluded, didn't offer enough improvement to make the switch from the F3.

In December I realized that the global shutter I craved existed in the F35, and being only 1080p, the F35 was falling through the cracks of an increasingly 4k world. And then I noticed that the SR-R1 recorder was likewise neglected, and available used a couple of places at a significant discount.

Friends, the kit you see in the photo above, battery, lens, and matte box excluded, cost me less than a brand new PMW-F3 costs today. And that's including the $2,000 SR-D1 SRMemory card reader I paid retail pricing for.

I do beleive the pricing I managed to haggle (and I did haggle!) is unusual. But less than two years ago on February 11th 2011 I was one of the very first people to take deleivery of a Sony PMW-F3, which I paid retail for. And two years later a $250k camera package is available for under $20k.

I did it in part to prove it could be done. What it showed me is the most expensive camera packages have the farthest to fall. Right now you can buy an Arri-D21 with optical viewfinder for $10k. What will a first generation Alexa be worth in two years? Four years?

I didn't buy an F55 because I don't have clients willing to pay a premium for it. And in just a few short years, it'll be available used for a whole lot less.
 
Very interesting, I'd be really curious to read a quick review of the Sr-R1 connected to the F35.
Codecs, compatibility, reader, editing etc.
 
Congrats on your new rig! It's definitely all about the client base and what their needs are, or what you can "sell" them in terms of camera features, etc..

i've found that most of the time I can talk a new client out of a camera they think they want and into the camera I have, and then of course its also backed up by your existing work you can show them.

Give me my F3, or even a AF100 and I'm sure my finished product would be within hairs of each other from what the client sees in the end. (Of course not what guys here would see however :cool: )
 
macgregor said:
Very interesting, I'd be really curious to read a quick review of the Sr-R1 connected to the F35.
Codecs, compatibility, reader, editing etc.
Click to expand...

Will follow up with that as I do more field testing. I know a few things already. Main one is that it *will* record 12bit 444 RGB from the F35. Second is that current firmware will not do the variable framerate up to 50. Stuck with standard frame rates, maxed at 30fps.

Another bonus is that I can use the SR-R1 with the F3, and do the highspeed 1080p there.
 
starcentral said:
Congrats on your new rig! It's definitely all about the client base and what their needs are, or what you can "sell" them in terms of camera features, etc..

i've found that most of the time I can talk a new client out of a camera they think they want and into the camera I have, and then of course its also backed up by your existing work you can show them.

Give me my F3, or even a AF100 and I'm sure my finished product would be within hairs of each other from what the client sees in the end. (Of course not what guys here would see however :cool: )
Click to expand...

Agreed! And I plan to sell this as the $250k camera that shot Tron:Legacy, and the successor to the vaunted Panavision Genesis. There's still some cache there I think. Certainly more than the F3 has.
 
Viddovation said:
Will follow up with that as I do more field testing. I know a few things already. Main one is that it *will* record 12bit 444 RGB from the F35. Second is that current firmware will not do the variable framerate up to 50. Stuck with standard frame rates, maxed at 30fps.

Another bonus is that I can use the SR-R1 with the F3, and do the highspeed 1080p there.
Click to expand...


Wait wait wait. No 50p? no 60P?
 
macgregor said:
Wait wait wait. No 50p? no 60P?
Click to expand...

The SR-R1 will do 1080 60p with the PMW-F3. The F35 will do up to 50p with the SRW-1 HDCAM-SR deck it originally shipped with. The F35 does not do 1080 60p, the cap is 50p.

The gap here is firmware not hardware, but there's no guaruntee Sony will ever bother to write the correct update. I have asked about it in the F65 forum over at Sony Community.

Both cameras use a similar SDI flag method to do the high speed variable recording to their respective decks, but apparently, they're different enough that the SR-R1 isn't fooled into thinking they're the same.

What we need is more voices asking Sony for this support.

What I'm doing in the meantime is packaging the F35 as my A camera, and the F3 as the B Camera, and as the highspeed camera.


EDIT: (2/9/2013) I discovered a couple days later that the current firmware will let the F35 output a 50p stream the SR-R1 recorder can record. Variable frame rates are still off the table though.
 
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I keep hearing that the camera won't do 60p, but there is a 60p setting listed in the latest manual and in the menus and I've connected the F35 with the gemini at 60p. So now I'm realy confused.
 
Viddovation said:
Agreed! And I plan to sell this as the $250k camera that shot Tron:Legacy, and the successor to the vaunted Panavision Genesis. There's still some cache there I think. Certainly more than the F3 has.
Click to expand...

...um, WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more than the F3. It's kind of sad the F3 didn't do more for itself, I still am not sure why or what happened with it. Was the market just too saturated with satisfying alternatives by the time the F3 was released? Who knows.... but it's got me nervous about the F5/F55 as well.

Like you said in 2 years the F55 will drop in price too, no one knows by how much, but my bet is you'll be able to get one for an easy $20k.
 
macgregor said:
I keep hearing that the camera won't do 60p, but there is a 60p setting listed in the latest manual and in the menus and I've connected the F35 with the gemini at 60p. So now I'm realy confused.
Click to expand...

MacGregor,

I fully intend to do more research into this soon, but my current understanding is that F35 can send a 1080 60p data stream, but can only capture up to 50 real frames per second. It just puts drop flags on the other 10 frames.

That's my current understanding.
 
Congratulations. The F35 is fantastic.

Keep in mind that even though the camera can be had for cheap - spare parts are still priced like a $250k camera. The latching mechanism for the interface box is more fragile than it should be and when it goes it takes electronics with it. Not trying to be scary, just encouraging you to be extra careful so that you can avoid a repair that cost twice as much as the camera.
 
Thx, Carlos.

I might pick up a second one at some point, for parts if nothing else. I've done internal camera repairs on the EX1, so I'm fairly confident.

It's an excellent warning though. I spent about $300 in repairs for the three issues it did have. A replacement level bubble was $170, replacement rubber handle $75, and I spent about $50 getting a pl positioning screw. And over $600 to get a docking mechanism fabricated.

Not free.
 
On paper the 35 is lacking in latitude compared to the F3, although I can certainly appreciate the niceties that come with a proper high end camera that make it worthwhile.

You'll have to relate if you wind up missing at all those couple-3 stops...

I might have gone down the same road if it wasn't a step backward in that way, that aspect is pretty important to me.
 
I haven't done side by side testing yet, but I did take the F35 in a parking garage and shot out into the sun. Overexposed, but not gone. The darks are noiser than the F3 at 0db gain, but in motion the grain disappears, very useable.

If I had the clients to pay off an F55 quickly, I might have gone that route. But I think this is going to be awesome.
 
Something interesting I learned tonight...

We, like a zillion other people in the US, have been watching a lot of Downton Abbey in our household lately. tonight we watched season 1 ep 2, and every time since I learned season one was shot on the D21 I look a lot more carefully at what things look like.

While watching, I surfed around, and learned not only was it D21, but a lot of it they used the Panasonic AVC-Intra recorder to P2 cards. 100mbits AVC-Intra, the precursor to XAVC.

I'll be danged.
 
Arri has some used D21 cameras available for around $10k. Keep in mind, it has an optical viewfinder and works with anamorphic lenses. Has an ARRIRAW mode too. It's a serious camera.
 
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