Camera owning plans 2020

[Nikkor]

The f35 is ccd the f3 is cmos, I don't think they should look the same.

[Andrew Reid]

Am I missing something from this F3 mojo trend?

I never even thought it looked all that great in 2011 or whenever it was

[Andrew Reid]

Here was my take on it at the time

https://www.eoshd.com/news/sample-sony-f3-footage-and-first-impressions/

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

@IronFilm

So more 2020 camera plans coming to reality. I just got a good deal on a Sony F3 ($500), it also came with the 444 upgrade😎

Oh wow! I've been hanging out on eBay for a while waiting for a deal that good. 
As I see them very rarely around ish that price, but I keep on missing out. 
And honestly any more than $500 and I think just getting a FS700 instead starts to become more sensible?

But what are you going to do now you have both the URSA Mini and a PMW-F3? Selling the URSA Mini? 😉
 

11 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Question for you though as I know you work with these cameras on a regular basis, can the Atomos Ninja 2 be used with it? Would need somekind of HDMI to SDI adapter I imagine? 

Any Atomos product with the word "Ninja" in it is HDMI only. 

The F3 doesn't output 10bit over HDMI I believe

[rdouthit]

In addition to my Sony A7III and a BMPCC4k I plan to add an Olympus EM1 Mk 3 to my kit. 

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, Avenger 2.0 said:

Nice deal, but why are these 'sxs' memory cards so f*cking expensive??? Two 32GB cards will cost you as much as the camera.

a) you get best quality by recording externally
b) SD to SXS adapters cost next to nothing

[thebrothersthre3]

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Here was my take on it at the time

https://www.eoshd.com/news/sample-sony-f3-footage-and-first-impressions/

 

Its definitely not worth 20k, however $500.......
Are those images prores or the internal recording? 

 

5 hours ago, Nikkor said:

The f35 is ccd the f3 is cmos, I don't think they should look the same.

I'm saying they look similar color wise. Huge price difference between the two as well. 

 

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Oh wow! I've been hanging out on eBay for a while waiting for a deal that good. 
As I see them very rarely around ish that price, but I keep on missing out. 
And honestly any more than $500 and I think just getting a FS700 instead starts to become more sensible?

But what are you going to do now you have both the URSA Mini and a PMW-F3? Selling the URSA Mini? 😉
 

Any Atomos product with the word "Ninja" in it is HDMI only. 

The F3 doesn't output 10bit over HDMI I believe

Can you use a converter box to transfer an SDI stream to HDMI? 

Yeah I found it on a facebook group, haven't seen them that low on ebay. I'll be keeping both cameras though hehe, selling my XT30. 

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

So you are doing all this to look good in front of clients then?

I don't like it but clients certainly factor in to why I do things. 

The F3 just works price wise. I also like it better than anything else I could remotely afford with internal ND's( next option would be the JVC LS300). A DP I know pretty much got an Alexa because its demanded by the people who hire him. I can't afford that yet but one day. 

[IronFilm]

45 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Its definitely not worth 20k, however $500.......

I think it was totally worth that money back then if you were a professional working at that level. 

Remember the context of back then, you basically had two major options a crappy Canon 5Dmk2 or similar or a quarter million dollar Sony F35! 

Plus of course a few other options as well outside 1080 filming, such as dealing with the erratic troublesome RED ONE or shooting expensive S35 (or lower quality S16) film!

Thus at the time the F3 seemed like a very good idea if that is what you needed!!
(although if you had a crystal ball, you might have held off and got a C300mk1 instead in the future. Or perhaps a FS700 a little later)

49 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Can you use a converter box to transfer an SDI stream to HDMI? 

Who
 

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

The URSA really tops out at 800 as you get weird fixed noise pattern at 1600 iso. 

I thought the later models fixed that?

Remember we've got four main types under the "URSA" banner:
OG URSA (the BIG BOY!)
OG URSA Mini 4K (which had similar, or a little teeny bit better quality, than the BMPC4K)
OG URSA Mini 4.6K (the first with the new 4.6K sensor)
URSA Mini Pro G1
URSA Mini Pro G2

 

11 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I do plan on purchasing an S1 at some point. I think they'll drop even lower in price in a few months. Its kind of a no brainer camera. People like to see "real cinema cameras" though. Panasonic should have put the S1H in a EVA1 body with Electronic ND's imho.

Agreed, or the GH5S sensor in an EVA with a MFT sensor!
 

10 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

I highly recommend going out to a recorder via SDI and recording Prores 4:2:2 from it, the image quality is up there with the best of them if you expose it right.

Very jealous of that deal BTW, but it looks like a ton of people are dropping their F3's. It's a pretty incredible camera still if you don't need 4K. 

Agreed. don't mess with HDMI (unless just throwing on an extra monitor onto the rig, then perhaps maybe). 

Get yourself a SDI recorder, 1080 SDI recorders are cheap cheap now.
 

10 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Yeah the EVF is broken but I think its still a great deal as I almost never use EVF's. 

ditto, mine never worked because it was REMOVED! The original previous owner removed it, as he never used it, and he didn't like it getting in the way. 

[IronFilm]

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

So you are doing all this to look good in front of clients then?

It is not a bad thing to keep the clients happy! 😉

In fact some could say it is the #1 most important thing of all? At every stage, while pitching, during pre production, during the shoot itself, while editing, and so on and so forth, you should be asking yourself "what does the client want, what will make them happiest?"

Plus a Sony PMW-F3 brings tangible benefits beyond "looking impressive":

SDI outputs
TC I/O
NDs
Solid/flexible mount
Nice colors
Excellent low light

 

3 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Are those images prores or the internal recording? 

Everything in Andrew's article is 8bit internal. 
Although that can look nice too! Such as "Safety Not Guaranteed", all 8bit internal: 

 

  

3 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Can you use a converter box to transfer an SDI stream to HDMI? 

Don't mess with it. It is another failure point to go wrong. 
Plus who knows how the conversion process might strip away the goodness of the files, you might be left with only an 8bit output?? Who knows, who knows. 

As I said before, 1080 SDI recorders are cheap now, get that!

  

3 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Yeah I found it on a facebook group, haven't seen them that low on ebay.

Which FB group, a local one?

[thebrothersthre3]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

I thought the later models fixed that?

Remember we've got four main types under the "URSA" banner:
OG URSA (the BIG BOY!)
OG URSA Mini 4K (which had similar, or a little teeny bit better quality, than the BMPC4K)
OG URSA Mini 4.6K (the first with the new 4.6K sensor)
URSA Mini Pro G1
URSA Mini Pro G2

 

Agreed, or the GH5S sensor in an EVA with a MFT sensor!
 

Agreed. don't mess with HDMI (unless just throwing on an extra monitor onto the rig, then perhaps maybe). 

Get yourself a SDI recorder, 1080 SDI recorders are cheap cheap now.
 

ditto, mine never worked because it was REMOVED! The original previous owner removed it, as he never used it, and he didn't like it getting in the way. 

Only issue is the two cheapest options the atomos samurai and the BM assist HD are both still going for $400 which is a bit pricey for a somewhat old shitty recorder.  I wish there was something like an atomos Star with SDI’s. The BM assist isn’t the worst but I wish it took SSDs 

[Thpriest]

Happy for now with my GH5, GH5S and GX85 as all record 4k non-stop and are small a weigh little (sold my C100 and most lenses). 

Will keep an eye out for S1/S1H bargains as well as the GH6 but will mostly be buying sound and lighting gear.

*And hard disks....😭 (4k pain)

[IronFilm]

4 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Only issue is the two cheapest options the atomos samurai and the BM assist HD are both still going for $400 which is a bit pricey for a somewhat old shitty recorder.

Depends on your perspective, from the perspective of when the F3 came out the recording options now are dirt dirt DIRT CHEAP! 

And if you apply your same detective skills (that got you a F3 for $500) to buying a recorder, you can surely find one for $250ish I reckon. (I've got mine cheaper! And that was ages ago, surely the depreciation since then has only made the task easier)
 

7 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

The BM assist isn’t the worst but I wish it took SSDs 

SD cards which can handle ProRes are dirt cheap, and you don't need MASSIVE ones either like you do with raw or 4K. Simply a couple of 64gigs cards is plenty to get you started with. 

 

[thebrothersthre3]

9 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Depends on your perspective, from the perspective of when the F3 came out the recording options now are dirt dirt DIRT CHEAP! 

And if you apply your same detective skills (that got you a F3 for $500) to buying a recorder, you can surely find one for $250ish I reckon. (I've got mine cheaper! And that was ages ago, surely the depreciation since then has only made the task easier)
 

SD cards which can handle ProRes are dirt cheap, and you don't need MASSIVE ones either like you do with raw or 4K. Simply a couple of 64gigs cards is plenty to get you started with. 

 

I am also considering the C300 mk1 at this point. Can't do 10 bit external but the internal Codec isn't bad at all. 

[Andrew Reid]

13 hours ago, IronFilm said:

I think it was totally worth that money back then if you were a professional working at that level. 

Remember the context of back then, you basically had two major options a crappy Canon 5Dmk2 or similar or a quarter million dollar Sony F35! 

That "crappy" 5D Mk II and the Panasonic GH1 are why this entire forum exists.

It's about the liberty and artistic freedom you get from the small cameras and a democratic playing-field.

A wonderful thing.

But with Blackmagic URSAs, overkill Pocket 6K rigs and old camcorders we seem to be heading the opposite direction again.

Yes I get that clients want HUGE expensive looking pro rigs, and there may be some business sense in investing in an Alexa, or even a poor man's Alexa.

But selling Fuji X-T30 to get an F3 just seems pointless to me. A fun experiment, but hellish in reality. I wouldn't like to be the one handling that weight and inconvenient ergonomics, and the image quality 'advantages' are pretty dubious. It's such an old camera. It was nowhere near an Alexa or F35 in terms of a cinematic look and feel. Now we are much closer to an Alexa's image with something like an X-T30 or Panasonic S1, and you want to shoot F3... It's bonkers.

In the short-lived era of the F3 in-between the small chip EX1 and much better FS7, how many people would have killed to have a 4K shooting X-T30?

GH1 was successful for a reason and only shot AVCHD 

53 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I am also considering the C300 mk1 at this point. Can't do 10 bit external but the internal Codec isn't bad at all. 

WHY!?

[Geoff CB]

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

That "crappy" 5D Mk II and the Panasonic GH1 are why this entire forum exists.

It's about the liberty and artistic freedom you get from the small cameras and a democratic playing-field.

A wonderful thing.

But with Blackmagic URSAs, overkill Pocket 6K rigs and old camcorders we seem to be heading the opposite direction again.

Yes I get that clients want HUGE expensive looking pro rigs, and there may be some business sense in investing in an Alexa, or even a poor man's Alexa.

But selling Fuji X-T30 to get an F3 just seems pointless to me. A fun experiment, but hellish in reality. I wouldn't like to be the one handling that weight and inconvenient ergonomics, and the image quality 'advantages' are pretty dubious. It's such an old camera. It was nowhere near an Alexa or F35 in terms of a cinematic look and feel. Now we are much closer to an Alexa's image with something like an X-T30 or Panasonic S1, and you want to shoot F3... It's bonkers.

In the short-lived era of the F3 in-between the small chip EX1 and much better FS7, how many people would have killed to have a 4K shooting X-T30?

GH1 was successful for a reason and only shot AVCHD 

WHY!?

 

On 2/19/2020 at 6:14 PM, Andrew Reid said:

Here was my take on it at the time

https://www.eoshd.com/news/sample-sony-f3-footage-and-first-impressions/

You've never shot it to an external recorder, creamy smooth insane highlight recovery in S-LOG. It's a whole different camera. 

Also for me nowadays resolution is secondary to color and handling. I wouldn't go for a FS700 for this reason over it, or the origional Ursa 4.6K. The F3 has those ND's, XLR's and a solid body. I also far prefer SDI to HDMI when using an external monitor.  

 

[thebrothersthre3]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

That "crappy" 5D Mk II and the Panasonic GH1 are why this entire forum exists.

It's about the liberty and artistic freedom you get from the small cameras and a democratic playing-field.

A wonderful thing.

But with Blackmagic URSAs, overkill Pocket 6K rigs and old camcorders we seem to be heading the opposite direction again.

Yes I get that clients want HUGE expensive looking pro rigs, and there may be some business sense in investing in an Alexa, or even a poor man's Alexa.

But selling Fuji X-T30 to get an F3 just seems pointless to me. A fun experiment, but hellish in reality. I wouldn't like to be the one handling that weight and inconvenient ergonomics, and the image quality 'advantages' are pretty dubious. It's such an old camera. It was nowhere near an Alexa or F35 in terms of a cinematic look and feel. Now we are much closer to an Alexa's image with something like an X-T30 or Panasonic S1, and you want to shoot F3... It's bonkers.

In the short-lived era of the F3 in-between the small chip EX1 and much better FS7, how many people would have killed to have a 4K shooting X-T30?

GH1 was successful for a reason and only shot AVCHD 

WHY!?

I agree the XT30 has a really nice image. The body is just too small and fragile. I tried attaching an atomos to it to get around the stupid 15 minute record limit and it was just janky. 

I can get by not rigging up my XT3. Its got a 30min record limit which is decent. Plus the battery grip gives you good battery life performance unlike the XT30 which doesn't have that option. 

I am looking at a C100 at this point too lol. Though I am not paying over $1000 for a C100 or c300. Honestly I don't want to pay over $800. At $1000 I could get a pocket 4k, though after rigging its more like $1500 and then I'd be close to just getting an S1 or another old used Ursa. 

I may just sell the XT30 and not get a 3rd camera. The XT3 and Ursa Mini 4.6k isn't a bad combo. 

In the F3's defense I think with an external recorder its one of the nicest images out there in a "pro body". The FS5 has got that modern Sony look. Canon's offerings in the lower price point are all 8 bit compressed HD. 

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Now we are much closer to an Alexa's image with something like an X-T30 or Panasonic S1, and you want to shoot F3... It's bonkers.

Are we though?

There's a reason why the majority of Hollywood cinematographers still choose the 2K image from the Alexa over 4K, 6K or even 8K from a Red.

With the Mini LF's release, the rise in FF and anamorphic lenses, more DPs are shooting at higher resolutions, but for now, and the foreseeable future, 2K is the resolution choice for delivery and distribution.

Since the beginning of digital acquisition, the goal was to create an image comparable to film.

To this day, the Alexa is the only camera that comes even remotely close. And even that is a stretch. You can look to The Walking Dead as proof. The original show has always been shot on S16 film. The spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead, is shot on an Alexa. And although I love the look, the original S16 is a better image.

Unfortunately, there is this YouTube craze where content creators claim that the image from this or that camera is as good as an Alexa. There are coloring tutorials and color space transforms to try and mimic the Alexa. And people can get it close, but it's never the same.

As far as ergonomics go, I agree with you... I prefer using a DSLR/DSLM to a rigged out camera, but I assume the eventual goal of most filmmakers is to shoot at a professional level with professional equipment and unfortunately these consumer cameras won't ever be at the level of proper cinema cameras... in terms of features or image quality. 

The good news is that story is still king, so if you prefer the handheld dexterity of a smaller camera, or Brothers3 prefers the cinema construction and features of a cinema camera, the stories you produce will have a much larger impact than the cameras they were filmed on...

If that's not the spirit of this site, I don't know what is?

[thebrothersthre3]

27 minutes ago, mercer said:

 

The good news is that story is still king, so if you prefer the handheld dexterity of a smaller camera, or Brothers3 prefers the cinema construction and features of a cinema camera, the stories you produce will have a much larger impact than the cameras they were filmed on...

It terms of handheld though my Ursa mini is kind of ideal for that. The weight and really low rolling shutter is ideal for that. Its 7.6ms in 4.6K and something like 6ms in 2k. Really the best performance on the market in this price bracket next to an Alexa classic. 

[mercer]

1 hour ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

It terms of handheld though my Ursa mini is kind of ideal for that. The weight and really low rolling shutter is ideal for that. Its 7.6ms in 4.6K and something like 6ms in 2k. Really the best performance on the market in this price bracket next to an Alexa classic. 

I'm sure it's great for that weighted, handheld look that is popular now, but I was referring to the lightweight, handheld stability of IBIS.

On a side note... what are your plans for all of these cameras? Originally, I thought you were more of a director that shoots your own films. But it seems you're more interested in cinematography now. So, with your cameras, how do you foresee these tools being used? I assume the Fuji will be your wedding camera and the Ursa and the F3 will be for docs,  music videos and narratives?

I've been watching some videos from the original Ursa Mini and although it has a stop less DR than the 4.6K... there is something very organic and beautiful about the 4K... and the price isn't too bad either.