Best super 35mm camera?

[Inazuma]

2 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

So here's the rub.

An F3 with the 4:4:4 upgrade will output 1080/60 10-bit 4:2:2 from a single SDI cable into compatible recorders, like the BMVA.

An F3 without the 4:4:4 upgrade will only output 1080/60 by utilizing both A and B SDI outputs in a dual link configuration to a recorder that supports it, like the Convergent Design Odyssey.

Luckily, getting a 4:4:4 model is more a matter of diligence and patience than price; my good condition 4:4:4 model only ran me $1200.

Does the BMVA 5" support A and B SDI outputs in a dual link configuration?

[BenEricson]

2 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

Luckily, getting a 4:4:4 model is more a matter of diligence and patience than price; my good condition 4:4:4 model only ran me $1200.

Same here. I think I paid 1600 for mine.

[Don Kotlos]

There is one for $1400 @ ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-PMW-F3-camera-super-35mm-XDCAM-EX-HD-camcorder-S-LOG-SxS-4-4-4-RGB-/172874331382?epid=109366082&hash=item28401cf4f6:g:FdYAAOSwIZBZwdUE

[TheRenaissanceMan]

40 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

Does the BMVA 5" support A and B SDI outputs in a dual link configuration?

Nope, because it only has one SDI in.

[BenEricson]

52 minutes ago, Don Kotlos said:

There is one for $1400 @ ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-PMW-F3-camera-super-35mm-XDCAM-EX-HD-camcorder-S-LOG-SxS-4-4-4-RGB-/172874331382?epid=109366082&hash=item28401cf4f6:g:FdYAAOSwIZBZwdUE

That's a great deal. Another really nice piece shot on the F3. Cooke zoom I believe.

 

[IronFilm]

7 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

It has a ton of advantages over a comparable DSLR, too, like outstanding battery life, XLRs, internal NDs, interchangeable mounts, SDI out (hard to go back once you have it), more mounting points without the need for a cage, top handle for low angle shots, no record limit, and the most accurate peaking function I've ever used. 
 

 

Has timecode and genlock too, which I as a soundie appreciate.

[IronFilm]

4 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

Luckily, getting a 4:4:4 model is more a matter of diligence and patience than price; my good condition 4:4:4 model only ran me $1200.

Ditto. I paid the same price for my 444 F3 too, *years* ago ;-)

It is impossible to recommend a better full size cinema camera at this price point.

The only reasons which might hold me back:

Is if you want to go smaller: BMD Pocket or Micro. But then you miss out on other features.

Or if you can stretch the budget a little: because the FS700 has fallen so far in price now! (This is probably what I'd do instead of an F3, if I was doing this all over again today) Or the wildcard JVC LS300

Or you want a stills camera too: Panasonic GH5, or G80.

[Dogtown]

The Sony PMW F3 was and still is a great camera! Just had to post some great examples of what can be delivered with this camera. Copy and paste only the underlined.

https://vimeo.com/93482666   The Caravan

https://vimeo.com/100404599 One In - All In short

https://vimeo.com/82889552 Someday Soon

https://vimeo.com/231103934 AFI

https://vimeo.com/41164521 Mr Roberts short

https://vimeo.com/95472923 The Good Wild Man by Grug (Dreamsmith Presents)

https://vimeo.com/24823960 Insect

https://vimeo.com/83833648 Trinkets short film

https://vimeo.com/67683780 Inside Fighter short

https://vimeo.com/33312169 Goosebumps

https://vimeo.com/201181688 Agent F teaser

https://vimeo.com/24606481 Indigo Teaser

https://vimeo.com/55131809 Ice -cream Harrods

https://vimeo.com/173607846 Invicto comercial

https://vimeo.com/136651224 Comercial

https://vimeo.com/136658635 Comercial

https://vimeo.com/151151128 Fashion Ad The Clubsuit

https://vimeo.com/189398621 Rocks and Splashes

https://vimeo.com/36493981 Wish it Was True Music Vid

https://vimeo.com/58104857 Rick - Tysabri by Ed David

https://vimeo.com/50934216 Duracell by Ed David Ed David

https://vimeo.com/138387726 Heather Hardy by Ed David

 

[IronFilm]

Nice! Where did you get this list from, or did you put it together yourself?

[TheRenaissanceMan]

Apparently the gang over at DVX User are still fans as well.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?356594-Maximum-F3

[Dogtown]

51 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Nice! Where did you get this list from, or did you put it together yourself?

I put it together, I found these on Vimeo. I was looking at this camera 3 years ago, and found a lot of these examples on Vimeo. I ended up buying three of these F3's, as the price with the S Log RGB was $1,800 to $2,000 (with a few extras as well!) you can't beat the F3 for the money. And built very well with all the HDSDI outputs. I find it can shoot just about anything you can throw at it  I recommend the Optitek FZ to Nikon or Canon lens convertor, it's rock solid and locks the Nikon or canon lens on the F3 without any jiggle or play. I use my Odyssey 7Q+ and together they work a charm. 

[IronFilm]

Saw this tweet:

"John Wick 2: 2k, Alien covenant: 2k, Arrival: 2k, Fury Road: 2k. Do people really think they are getting actual 4k resolution movies?"

 

https://twitter.com/RuairiRobinson/status/912865327221846016

 

People shouldn't feel pressured to buy a 4K camera (plus almost all VFX, with some rare exceptions, is not done in 4K! And with how VFX heavy films are these days, even the 4K films are typically having a lot that is not 4K)

[HockeyFan12]

20 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Saw this tweet:

"John Wick 2: 2k, Alien covenant: 2k, Arrival: 2k, Fury Road: 2k. Do people really think they are getting actual 4k resolution movies?"

 

https://twitter.com/RuairiRobinson/status/912865327221846016

 

People shouldn't feel pressured to buy a 4K camera (plus almost all VFX, with some rare exceptions, is not done in 4K! And with how VFX heavy films are these days, even the 4K films are typically having a lot that is not 4K)

I assume most people buying 4k tvs are doing it because they own a 4k camera phone or something, not to watch commercial 4k content, of which there is almost none.

The transition will happen, though. I think Fincher makes good use of a 4k+ workflow. Netflix is building a library of 4k HDR content.

I totally agree with his comment that 4k vfx etc. are prohibitively expensive. What's weird is online it always seems to be vfx artists (or companies pushing cameras as designed for vfx) asking for higher resolution. Whereas in my (very limited) experience and in agreement with that tweet, 4k is the LAST thing vfx artists want. But I read a post on Canon Rumors, presumably from an artist on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (which is the only thing I can think of shot at 8k), who was discussing how great 8k is for vfx.

A lot of conflicting narratives there.

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, Dogtown said:

 I recommend the Optitek FZ to Nikon or Canon lens convertor, it's rock solid and locks the Nikon or canon lens on the F3 without any jiggle or play. I use my Odyssey 7Q+ and together they work a charm

I'd love the Optitek mount & an Odyssey!

But that would kinda defeat my purpose of being super frugal with my camera purchase.... :-/ 

So poor me settled for a chinese eBay FZ adapter, and an Atomos Samurai Blade. Still happy with it though! Is excellent. 

 

[Don Kotlos]

39 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Saw this tweet:

"John Wick 2: 2k, Alien covenant: 2k, Arrival: 2k, Fury Road: 2k. Do people really think they are getting actual 4k resolution movies?"

 

https://twitter.com/RuairiRobinson/status/912865327221846016

 

People shouldn't feel pressured to buy a 4K camera (plus almost all VFX, with some rare exceptions, is not done in 4K! And with how VFX heavy films are these days, even the 4K films are typically having a lot that is not 4K)

It is true that in most cases we don't need 4K, HD should be good enough. But to get proper HD, we need oversampling and therefore we need 4K. 

[IronFilm]

3 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

I totally agree with his comment that 4k vfx etc. are prohibitively expensive. What's weird is online it always seems to be vfx artists (or companies pushing cameras as designed for vfx) asking for higher resolution. Whereas in my (very limited) experience and in agreement with that tweet, 4k is the LAST thing vfx artists want. But I read a post on Canon Rumors, presumably from an artist on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (which is the only thing I can think of shot at 8k), who was discussing how great 8k is for vfx.

A lot of conflicting narratives there.

For Keying / tracking / etc then 4K can be handy. 

CGI? Nope!

So I guess it means what type of VFX you are talking about. 

[HockeyFan12]

16 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

For Keying / tracking / etc then 4K can be handy. 

CGI? Nope!

So I guess it means what type of VFX you are talking about. 

I guess so, but I've always found the Alexa keyed a lot better than the Epic and F55. And that the cost of a fiber network plus storage and render times to support 4k pushed budgets up insanely high even for 2D work.

That's true, though. That's a fair point. On high end stuff the cost of the network and storage must become irrelevant. 

[IronFilm]

3 hours ago, Dogtown said:

I put it together, I found these on Vimeo. I was looking at this camera 3 years ago, and found a lot of these examples on Vimeo. I ended up buying three of these F3's, as the price with the S Log RGB was $1,800 to $2,000 (with a few extras as well!) you can't beat the F3 for the money. And built very well with all the HDSDI outputs. I find it can shoot just about anything you can throw at it  

Might steal this list, and add a few of my own, for a future blog post at some point. 

As would be nice to have one central link I can point people to when referring to what the F3 is capable of. 

Other than this of course:

http://www.shotonf3.com 

[redimp]

I must say, those videos from the list got me a bit confused. Some footage looks extremely good, like this one https://vimeo.com/231103934

Some other footage looks pretty bad, like this one https://vimeo.com/82889552 

Not sure if it has something to do with 444 upgrade, or using internal vs external recording. Can anyone clarify? I mean, the first clip looks very good to my eye, amazing lowlight and SHARP. The second reminds me of a bad 90s camcorder with noise reduction and sharpening going on there.

I'm collaborating with a friend of mine who's also a DP full time, he says he worked with this camera a lot in the past and it's not good, so that's holding me off from buying it, otherwise I would've pulled the trigger on it already, you guys seem to love it.

Also the price for the body is on a cheap side, yes, that $1400 cam you've linked to earlier seems like a great deal, but Covergent recorders seem to cost another $1500, and that's a 3k package we're looking at, excluding cost of SSDs for the recorder.

To be frank I can stretch the budget quite some, I think up to 4.5k. If Ursa MP 4.6 fit there it would be a no brainer, but the 4k sensor seems to be super bad, and the regular (not pro) version seems to be a hassle when it comes to media, and also does not have NDs.

The HD, well, I was super keen on that idea, thinking that "what's in front of the camera is what matters", and I also watched that video from the new Star Wars episode DP,  where he talks about how the resolution does not matter, but then I watched all these example/test videos on my 5k monitor, I realized that 4k is king. Probably with modern technologies going beyond 4k will not make sense to a guy like me, but I can clearly see the difference between HD and 4k, and I want 4k so badly!

I know, I sound like an immature child, and there is no perfect camera, and I want too much – all those features I listed in original post and 4k in addition, for only 5k bucks, and it's probably not going to happen, but can't forbid a man to dream, huh?

I've spotted a Kinemini for sale today, it's a package for $4k. Seems to tick all the boxes apart from the NDs, but watched the footage on vimeo/yutube and apart from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhyCOtG9aWE I could not find anything decent.

I guess I'm back to square one.
P.S. I really appreciate all the thoughts, guys!

[IronFilm]

42 minutes ago, redimp said:

I'm collaborating with a friend of mine who's also a DP full time, he says he worked with this camera a lot in the past and it's not good, so that's holding me off from buying it, otherwise I would've pulled the trigger on it already, you guys seem to love it.

What specifically is he saying? If he is just vaguely say "it is not good" then call him out on his bullsh*t

42 minutes ago, redimp said:

Also the price for the body is on a cheap side, yes, that $1400 cam you've linked to earlier seems like a great deal, but Covergent recorders seem to cost another $1500, and that's a 3k package we're looking at, excluding cost of SSDs for the recorder.

Get an Atomos Samurai Blade like I did (or get a BMD VA), you can find it secondhand for just $300ish. Or buy new for $500
SSDs are dirt dirt cheap these days! We are not still living in the days of the BMCC when it was first released, and you had to spend a minor small fortune on recording media. 

 

42 minutes ago, redimp said:

I've spotted a Kinemini for sale today, it's a package for $4k. Seems to tick all the boxes apart from the NDs, but watched the footage on vimeo/yutube and apart from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhyCOtG9aWE I could not find anything decent.

A full Kinemini package for $4K would be good too, did you know they just recently announced a Terra 4K as well? US$4K for the brain. 

They shot a bunch of other things with their KiniMINI as well:

 

Basically we live in a fantastic time, any of FS700/F3/Kinemini/Terra/BMMCC/BMPCC would be a excellent choice that great things can be made with!