jax_rox

IMO, out of the box the F3 gives images pretty similar to the A7s out of the box (the A7s having the advantage of the incredible low light performance). Pair it with an external recorder for the 10-bit output and you can get very nice images out of it. In my opinion, it's quite similar looking to the A7s. Essentially, imagine if the A7s had a 10-bit out via HDMI (as well as lower ISO in Slog, but at the trade-off of low light performance). They aren't incredibly future proof, but if you're happy shooting 1080p, they can give you quite a good image for an incredibly reasonable price. The Sony PL primes are stupidly cheap, and are actually not bad glass - I'd say they're about on par with Zeiss CP2s (although if I had a choice, I prefer the CP2s).

​This isn't the same or even a similar argument. Kubrick used super fast lenses to deliver on a creative idea on how he wanted to stage the scene. The question is more like: Kubrick - 'If I shoot Fuji stock over Kodak, will anything change?' Forum user - 'Do tests man, but remember that in the grand scheme of things, which stock you use isn't the biggest concern' Kubrick - 'Alright, well at least I know if they don't have enough Fuji stock for my film, I can use some Kodak stock and it won't matter so much' In fact the debate/chat these days is more like this: Filmmaker: 'If I use Kodak Vision2 stock instead of Vision3, am I going to be missing anything..?' Forum user 1: 'Man, Vision2 is so old now, you can't even get grain structure anywhere near that of Vision3. I made the switch to Vision3 not long ago and I would never go back to Vision2' Forum user 2: 'I don't like the colors in Vision3, they're so different to Vision2. I know Vision3 supposedly gives you more dynamic range and better grain structure, but I like the colors so much better in Vision2. I know some people can work with Vision3, but I think for the majority of people, Vision3 is way too hard to get good colors out of' Forum user 3: What happened to Fuji? I used to shoot Fuji stock all the time, but they haven't brought out a stock I've liked in so long. I'm using Vision3, but would happily jump back to Fuji stock if they ever came out with anything I was interested in using. Forum user 4: 'I don't understand the fuss - all the stocks mentioned give you great images - just go out and shoot on what's easiest and cheapest for you to afford. No-one in the cinema is going to be nitpicking whether or not you used Vision2 or Vision3. Yes, there are differences between them, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a deal Filmmaker: 'I'm so confused'

I wouldn't be surprised if the future of VR is a cross between a CGI movie experience and a video gaming experience, perhaps in addition to pure CGI movies, and video games (in addition to video games for VR headsets).

Stick with 96/24. And keep your levels the same (-12 peaks). I've never heard of extr adistortion when recording 96KHz. Post up the specific model of recorder and it will be easier to tell whether or not it will be fine to use. ​Converting 24bit 96KHz audio to 128kbps mp3 will actually sound better than starting with a 128kbps mp3 recording. Advising to record in mp3 is silly and you definitely will run into problems if you attempt to do any kind of audio post on it. If you had no other option, then sure - record to mp3, but when one has the option of recording high bit and sample rate wav files, why would you suggest doing anything otherwise? As has already been said, mp3 quality audio will likely cause QC fail.

I'd go with 24/48 wav at minimum. None of the post audio guys I've worked with would be too happy if you delivered mp3s as the location audio masters.

I'd get 4 fresnels over 4 LED panels if you're looking for versatility. LEDs can be good for small spaces (though I prefer kino flos), but it's a lot more difficult to make a soft source hard than it is to make a hard source soft. The only advantage LEDs provide is that of color temp (I.e. You don't lose a stop and a half when correcting it to daylight like you do with tungsten lights) but then with all but the most expensive LEDs you'll be battling the green cast at the very least anyway.

We just ran a job with two Amira's with these exact lenses. They're not small, IIRC they're technically T2.95, but it's barely a difference to 2.8. They're not super light and they're not super small - they're no Angie Optimo DP, and their image is nowhere near as nice as that out of the Angie's. But, they're really not that much bigger than say the Fuji Cabrio 19-90 (and you get a bit more on each end for slightly cheaper). It is a bit heavier, but it's really in fact smaller than some of the Cooke and Angie zooms I've shot with. Personally, if money was no object, I'd buy a set of Hawk V-Lite Vintage '74s, perhaps a lighter non-anamorphic prime set along the lines of an Ultra Prime.. And then I'd want something along the lines of a 15-100 t2.8 with the size, weight and image quality of an Angie. A light little 18-100 F4 for my A7s would be nice too.

As far as I can tell, there's only one out of the whole range that is limited to iOS device only - and that is purely because it connects via a Lightning adapter built into the microphone itself. All the others can be used on pretty much any device. I'm not really sure how useful they are for real filmmaking though. The lavaliers might be cheaper than traditionally expensive wireless lavs - but the phone preamps are rarely going to be any good.

​Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to complain! If anything, this once again proves that lighting is everything - moreso than what particular camera body you're giong to go with (as you show, the Alexa and F35 are pretty similar looking, at least on the web on Vimeo). I'd love to see F35 vs Alexa on a cinema screen

What glass did you use on this?

​I can't imagine its for lack of trying. I'm a little nervous about this convergance with Resolve. History suggests it will mean that the core product will eventually end up diluted. Apple's Color used to be an incredibly powerful, if confusing, piece of software. The same way that Shake was, and even Motion wasn't altogether too bad. I just hope Blackmagic don't go down the same 'chasing prosumers at the expense of pros' path. Perhaps instead we'll get an immensely powerful online suite.

I really dislike that Fujifilm look you've got on it. Whilst it's probably closer colour-wise to Fuji stock than Kodak, I wouldn't go as far to say that it looks like it's been shot on Fuji stock. Anyway, the Alexa obviously has the slight advantage in regards to dynamic range. The colours on both cameras are different - but would be easy enough to match to be able to intercut, Which one you prefer will depend greatly on your own personal taste. IMO, this 'test' (along with another one I saw recently that compared $15k, $5k, and $500 lenses) really doesn't mean much until you blow it up on the big screen. I do like the images you can get out of an F35, and I think I've said this before, but I'm not sure I'd be investing in it as my A-cam, unless I simply had an extra $10k to throw around.

​With Sony, you can't really base ideas of how any of their cameras work on one camera in particular. THe menu systems are sometimes drastically different between cameras, and the images you can get - with/without ease can be quite different. IMO, the A7s gives a much better image out of the box than the unsharp, muddiness you get out of the FS700. I was utterly horrified when I saw stuff I saw that I'd shot on the FS700 projected on a big screen. If nothing else, the A7s is miles sharper. You can now get quite decent images out of the FS700, but it can take a bit of work. IMO, the A7s is quite different, and has a pretty different gamma curve, and even slightly different colours. To me, that A7s looks much more like what you get out of an F3 - and the external Slog2 looks very much like what you get out of an F3 in Slog2 (albeit on the F3 you can get 10-bit output in Slog2). Personally, I find I tended to dislike the colours out of my Canon. The A7s certainly has a look about it, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it's bad, or has bad colour. You can get bad colour out of an Alexa if you only have a minimal idea of what you're doing (as I said up above). I've seen noisy, ugly, unsharp, muddy, green looking footage straight out of a RED Epic, which by all means shouldn't be too hard to at least get a decently exposed, nice looking image (I mean, all you really need to do is look at the Histogram). I find Canon colours to generally be way too warm. The skin tones end up almost orange, rather than a nice pinky-red colour. I've found the colours out of my A7s tend to be a little bit more 'true to life' than the Canons which can look like you've put a warming filter over the lens. I've done a lot of shooting with the A7s and I find it relatively easy to get quite a nice look and colours. I've never seen green skin tones on my footage. I have seen people using green tinted ND filters.

...But it is user error. I'm yet to see colours that are as 'horrible​' as everyone else supposedly sees from my A7s. Therefore, I can only put it down to user error, unless somehow my A7s (and those of the experienced DPs/operators who are my colleagues who have all bought them) have completely different colour science to the consumers on the internet. I'll admit Slog2 is old news, and Slog3 is much better. If I shoot F5/55, it's Slog3 for sure. Personally, I find the A7s' Slog2 looks pretty similar to that of the F3. I think when people here say 'bad colour' what they actually mean is 'totally different to Canon'. My Sony V1 had totally different colours to the Canon XHA1, just like the PD170 before it had pretty different colours to the XL2. But the colours were never bad - I certainly never found myself disliking anything I got out of it. This reminds me very much of a friend of mine who would constantly talk about how 'green' the Alexa looked. I remember saying at the time (this was a few years ago now - before the Dragon) that whilst if I was splitting hairs between the RED and the Alexa, the Alexa was maybe a tad more green, and the RED a tad more golden, but that I wouldn't say it was overwhelmingly green. I questioned further and it turned out trhat 95% of the projects he was shooting, he had Tiffen IRNDs on the glass - which made the whole image look green.

There's no other camera I'd want to travel with than the A7s. Most other DSLRs are too big/bulky for my liking to be carrying around everywhere. The A7s feels like you're carrying around an old film SLR - but gives you better 1080p video than any other DSLR/M and low light capabilities unrivaled by just about any other camera. If 4k really is a deal-breaker for you (I'm not really sure why it would be a deal breaker, but then I'm not sure what you're shooting), then go for something else - but for my money I'd go A7s. Of course, without knowing what you're trying to achieve visually, it's going to be a lot more difficult. Is this just to capture your travels, or are you shooting a travel doco, or what?

Considering there's four images shot on the A7r (all of which have had the important parts of the EXIF scrubbed, by the way - and that 3 of the four are 7360x4912 (max resolution of A7r), I'm going to go ahead and suggest that this particular picture is upscaled - probably cropped and then upscaled. Why else would they only take one photo, out of all of them, with a prototype - especially considering it's the same girl in one of the other photos, so one could assume it's from the same shoot.

​.... or Amira

I'm going to go ahead and say that the average consumer actually doesn't really care. They buy based on numbers because in their mind higher megapixel = better. They have no understanding of why, or how - but that's the thought process. If you showed an average consumer a picture taken with a $100 kit lens, next to the same picture taken on the same body at the same focal length with a $1200 lens - they may or may not see much difference. But they're unlikely to go out and spend an extra $1100 on a lens. Most consumers are baffled when you tell them a single lens can cost $100,000. Professionals buy expensive lenses because they appreciate and understand the very reason they're expensive. Professionals (and even enthusiasts, I guess) care about the quality of all the components, because they know the difference it makes to the picture. Consumers don't get it. Realistically, someone who's just picked up a camera is unlikely to take amazing photos even if they have a $1200 lens on it.

​No - I'm talking more generally than anything.

​Perhaps you're right - but aren't those who are doing this, doing so because they are not in a position at this current point in time to be able to make bigger budget films? Isn't the end goal to be able to work with budgets that allow you to do what you want and need to be able to effectively tell the stories you want to? If so, shouldn't you at least be attempting to make your film in a similar way, and to at least attempt to get to the same kind of standard - that is, if someone one day sees enough potential in you to give you a bigger budget, don't you want to be educated enough, and understand why exactly you're going to have to spend time micing up actors and hiring sound guys, rather than suggesting that you 'mount a mic on the camera and get close enough - I've done it heaps of times before and the audio is perfectly usable'? Sure - if you only ever want to make small films, then fine. I was simply under the impression that people were making tiny budget films out of necessity, rather than because that's what they want to do.

​I don't really understand why - these cameras are still first and foremost photo cameras, perhaps with the exception of the A7s. Yes - in the future, when 4k has become the new 1080p - i.e. the standard (it hasn't yet) but not in the immediate future.

I don't believe the A7rii will have 4k internal before A7sii. Given that the A7s is at most a year old, technology would have to have come a long way to be able to get internal 4k into a decent codec in that tiny body and that sensor size. Given the only other video camera Sony has in its entire lineup with a larger than 4k sensor is the F65, I find it pretty unrealistic to think that a $2,000 consumer camera will employ the same technology. Hey, I might be wrong. But I doubt it. At least for now. Also, the A7s was always designed as the video-oriented camera despite what the letters might represent. Now, Sony, of all camera manufacturers, were the first to tout the fact that you can get 'real' 4k out of their F65, based on its 8k sensor that was 'necessary' to get 'proper' 4k - so if anyone's going to do it, it's probably Sony. But then, it also doesn't really make sense - and the F65 is less popular than the F55 as cinema cameras go, so obviously it's not all just about resolution.

I haven't done any scientific testing - but I couldn't say equivocally that you lose two whole stops of dynamic range. Honestly, it depends on what you're shooting and how you're exposing. If you put the camera into REC709 Picture Profile, you do easily lose a couple of stops of dynamic range, but in PP off, or in different Picture Profile settings, it's not as cut and dry. Even with PP off - it reminds me more of the difference between REC709 and Log-C on an Alexa, rather than two totally different images with different dynamic ranges to boot. You can still shoot pretty damn flat without going full Slog, being able to maintain low ISOs. Again, I haven't really put it through major testing (I will be soon), but even Cine2 compared to Slog2 doesn't seem to have that drastic a difference in dynamic range. I dunno - I usually try and shoot within my dynamic range anyway,,

​And then there's movies like The Room which become popular because of how bad they are.....

​Yes, and then had many thousands spent on it for all sorts of post processes to actually get it to a distributable level, and then in the actual distribution. Look at the numbers: http://www.indiewire.com/article/sundance-2015-infographic-most-festival-films-will-land-distribution-deals-20150116 Roughly 2300 films submitted to Sundance. Of that, maybe 100 get some sort of distribution deal. The average budget is nearly $2mil - commercially viable films that just need someone to distribute them. How many of those films that were picked up had sound from a mic that was mounted on camera? How many have crews that are in the 1-2 people range? I'm going to take a guess and say none. I can't recall the last film that was made for <$10k with a crew of one that ended up getting picked up for mass distribution - can you? Perhaps Monsters, but then that was ~$25k + 10 times that or so to get it to a distributable level, and then distribute it... Even Like Crazy had a $200,000 budget and a pretty large crew, despite being shot on a 7D and being a really rather simple, non-extravagant love story. I'm happy to be proven wrong - I guess I just don't really understand the whole playing the odds of doing it all yourself - you've likely got more chance of winning the lottery; at least someone wins the lottery each week.