Sony PMW-F3 with 2500 hours on it. Should I buy it?

[TheRenaissanceMan]

3 hours ago, Antoin e said:

Someone already had the 3alty technica body armour ? Definitely looks cool and makes it more flexible i guess but i can't seem to find one.

I already have a top plate on mine so i don't know if its worth it but would depend on the price.

 

Also, dummy question : How do you transport these type of cameras for a shoot ? I can put in my pelican 1510 when everything is detached but it does take some time to put it together so i guess maybe just put the F3 already build up in the car with a seatbelt and put the lenses/accessories in the case.

I use a Sachtler "Doctor Bag" for mine.

[tupp]

11 hours ago, Antoin e said:

Also, dummy question : How do you transport these type of cameras for a shoot ? I can put in my pelican 1510 when everything is detached but it does take some time to put it together so i guess maybe just put the F3 already build up in the car with a seatbelt and put the lenses/accessories in the case.

On one feature I shot, we used a "Snow White"-themed rolling case, very similar to this:

We put in a little padding in it, and it was very convenient in carrying the fully built camera.  When we wanted the camera on set, we would call, "'Princess Case' on set!"

 

When shooting in crowds, we could walk a fair distance away from the case, and nobody bothered it.

[IronFilm]

14 hours ago, Antoin e said:

Someone already had the 3alty technica body armour ? Definitely looks cool and makes it more flexible i guess but i can't seem to find one.

I already have a top plate on mine so i don't know if its worth it but would depend on the price.

Yes most F3 specific accessories have ceased being made. 
And I wouldn't be surprised if back in the day the new price for the 3ality technica body armour was more than what a used F3 costs now!
 

14 hours ago, Antoin e said:

Also, dummy question : How do you transport these type of cameras for a shoot ? I can put in my pelican 1510 when everything is detached but it does take some time to put it together so i guess maybe just put the F3 already build up in the car with a seatbelt and put the lenses/accessories in the case.

Yes, that's a common way to transport a cinema camera during a shoot, or on the AC's lap. 
Otherwise inside a really large camera bag. You might remove the monitor/EVF to make it easier to transport the camera, but otherwise leave it all rigged up as is. 

[TheRenaissanceMan]

On 7/2/2020 at 8:09 PM, PannySVHS said:

That would be awesome. Loved Geoffs beautiful colours in his shots. It is a bulky beast. If people buy them they must be very serious shooters. Would be fun to see an armada of them filming the heck out of them.

It's not as heavy as it looks. Besides, between the top handle and the side grip it's infinitely more comfortable to handhold than a DSLR/mirrorless imo. 

I'm tied up this weekend, but Monday or Tuesday I'll try and get some Protest HQ test clips up for y'all to mess with. 

[PannySVHS]

13 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

It's not as heavy as it looks. Besides, between the top handle and the side grip it's infinitely more comfortable to handhold than a DSLR/mirrorless imo. 

I'm tied up this weekend, but Monday or Tuesday I'll try and get some Protest HQ test clips up for y'all to mess with. 

🙂 I find it very heavy for shoulder work at the moment with my current rigging stuff. The monitor is very close to the eye. Putting the camera further away from the eye makes shoulder work impossible.

[IronFilm]

4 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

The monitor is very close to the eye. Putting the camera further away from the eye makes shoulder work impossible.

Use an external monitor/EVF, and shut the F3's monitor screen into its body. (but with the screen facing out! Not in)

[PannySVHS]

David, you shot with it. You still have pictures of a rigged F3 for shoulder work? With my rigging skills and rigging stuff the cam is hugely out of balance with shaking parts. Not worth the effort. If on sticks it would do fine of course.

[IronFilm]

My camera isn't built up at the moment. 
But the principle is get the camera as far back on your shoulder as possible, most builds I see are far too front heavy. And I use arri rosettes as much as possible, as they firmly lock into place. 

Edit:
Just found this picture of me from four years ago shooting a short film with the F3, this isn't how I'd rig it up today, but gives you at least a rough rough idea:

 

[hijodeibn]

On 7/3/2020 at 10:34 PM, IronFilm said:

Yes, that's a common way to transport a cinema camera during a shoot, or on the AC's lap. 
Otherwise inside a really large camera bag. You might remove the monitor/EVF to make it easier to transport the camera, but otherwise leave it all rigged up as is. 

In case of you are not able to use a large camera bag to cover the camera and you are planing to transport it in a seat of the car with the seat belt, which I use most of the time, also use a blanket, a jacket or whatever you have available to cover the camera, you really don't want anybody to notice you are transporting a cinema camera.

[PannySVHS]

@IronFilm nice rig, especially for the monitor! Though you don´t seem to look happy about its weight.:) Still I am fascinated by this camera and cannot wait to put it to a useful test.

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

Though you don´t seem to look happy about its weight.:)

Ha! No, I think it might have just been the pressures and stress getting to me, of trying to shoot too many pages in too little time and the sunlight was going to rapidly disappear soon. 

[PannySVHS]

@IronFilm Tell us about it, David. I mean on dvxuser is a whole thread about the f3 only. It´s from an Australian filmmaker who got into depths of his two shortfilm projects. I think read a post of yours too in that thread. Now tell us about the project. Just had an 8 days project with 6 days of filming. I am recovering from it right now for three days now. So please drop some insights on that beautiful project and the situation of the disappearing sun in front of your beautifully shouldered F3. 🙂

[hijodeibn]

7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Ha! No, I think it might have just been the pressures and stress getting to me, of trying to shoot too many pages in too little time and the sunlight was going to rapidly disappear soon. 

It's strange filmmaking, you spend the whole day working from early in the morning, and almost always rushing at the end before the sun is gone, when shooting I sleep like 3 or 4 hours per day, and I am always with my energy at the roof, working like a slave, I don't feel any pain, enjoying even last minutes screw up, and when everything is finished and you are back home, I am like in a coma state for 3 days and need like a week to recover. Sounds like love!!! 

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

@IronFilm Tell us about it, David. I mean on dvxuser is a whole thread about the f3 only. It´s from an Australian filmmaker who got into depths of his two shortfilm projects. I think read a post of yours too in that thread. Now tell us about the project. Just had an 8 days project with 6 days of filming. I am recovering from it right now for three days now. So please drop some insights on that beautiful project and the situation of the disappearing sun in front of your beautifully shouldered F3. 🙂

Yes dvxuser is really good for F35/F3 info. (or the FS7, their work on getting the best look out of SGamut3.cine/SLog3 I think cancels out some of the "sony look" arguments against the FS7)

I messaged the director for a link of that film we did, I can't even remember what the name of it was! Was a pretty basic no budget kind of shoot, think I even pressganged my GF into being the boom op for one day as we had no other crew aside from myself and the director for that shoot day. (although I had a friend who actually has some experience, do sound for the other day. Was partly because of her that inspired me into doing sound full time, sadly she is no longer working in film as she found the industry too tough)

7 hours ago, hijodeibn said:

It's strange filmmaking, you spend the whole day working from early in the morning, and almost always rushing at the end before the sun is gone

Yup, the days seem to never be long enough! One of the reasons productions try to shoot in summer if they can, no only do you get better weather, but you get longer days too. 
 

7 hours ago, hijodeibn said:

when shooting I sleep like 3 or 4 hours per day, and I am always with my energy at the roof, working like a slave, I don't feel any pain, enjoying even last minutes screw up, and when everything is finished and you are back home, I am like in a coma state for 3 days and need like a week to recover. Sounds like love!!! 

Yup! And if that sounds rough, try doing it for weeks on end for a feature or a series. 
 

[IronFilm]

Here you go, the film has a grand total of 8 views, go make it be 9!
 

 

Forgot that Jackson was there for of the days! He's "Grip" in the credits, but that I feel is totally inaccurate. General lighting (holding a flecky) / camera assistant is more accurate. 
 

[PannySVHS]

@IronFilm Spiffy! Thanks for showing! Good short. Efficient shotdesign. Well done. This thread is becoming classy and classic.:) Did you shot internally or to the monitor/recorder device in the pic- Samurai?

18 hours ago, hijodeibn said:

It's strange filmmaking, you spend the whole day working from early in the morning, and almost always rushing at the end before the sun is gone, when shooting I sleep like 3 or 4 hours per day, and I am always with my energy at the roof, working like a slave, I don't feel any pain, enjoying even last minutes screw up, and when everything is finished and you are back home, I am like in a coma state for 3 days and need like a week to recover. Sounds like love!!! 

I´m in my coma state, 3rd day now. So feeling better. It was a week hardcore prep and a week of hardcore filming. I was dp with another guy pluas gaffer at the same time and packing and doing cables and so on. And director was insisting on shots we already did before, triple coverage on some, little on others. But a blast. No budget project, with hopefully big cinema looks:)

[hijodeibn]

7 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

And director was insisting on shots we already did before, triple coverage on some, little on others

This is lack of experience, since it was a budget project, I am assuming the director was also the director assistant, which is the reason for this kind of rookie mistake, once a shoot is completed you can not go back, the director always have to be sure he has the shoot before moving to another, that means after he saw in the monitor exactly what he was looking for, needs to check with sound that everything was OK for that particular shoot.

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

@IronFilm Spiffy! Thanks for showing! Good short. Efficient shotdesign. Well done. This thread is becoming classy and classic.:) Did you shot internally or to the monitor/recorder device in the pic- Samurai?

Yes, I was recording on the Atomos Samurai (I've got two! For those few times when I shoot with 2x F3 cameras).

[Antoin e]

So I’ve tested out the F3 a bit but I can’t seem to get it right when outputting the footage from resolve.

ive recorded with the VA 4:2:2 slog rgb with a 95mbits sd card in ProRes hq.

I get very desaturated colors when uploading to Vimeo and on QuickTime however it is fine with VLC.

I did some research and found out it’s something called « gamma Shift » occurring between different color spaces like the Apple displays that uses the same system for colors as the web players.

Also, I’ve upscaled the footage by 2 so I guess it is UHD ? Ive tried x4 but it keeps crashing. I Exported in 2:39 2048x858

For the codecs I tested out QuickTime dnxhr hq 10bit and h264 but it is pretty bad.

Can you guys share some knowledge about how to do a good render with resolve ? And also adress this issue with the gamma shift ? I’m looking to post my work exclusively on Vimeo and such so I need to find a good workflow with that and a file that is not too big for the upload.

also I’m on windows so I do not have ProRes out. 
 

https://vimeo.com/436540500/41894c141e
 

exemple of a h264 export (also some footage is underexposed...)

[Geoff CB]

45 minutes ago, Antoin e said:

So I’ve tested out the F3 a bit but I can’t seem to get it right when outputting the footage from resolve.

ive recorded with the VA 4:2:2 slog rgb with a 95mbits sd card in ProRes hq.

I get very desaturated colors when uploading to Vimeo and on QuickTime however it is fine with VLC.

I did some research and found out it’s something called « gamma Shift » occurring between different color spaces like the Apple displays that uses the same system for colors as the web players.

Also, I’ve upscaled the footage by 2 so I guess it is UHD ? Ive tried x4 but it keeps crashing. I Exported in 2:39 2048x858

For the codecs I tested out QuickTime dnxhr hq 10bit and h264 but it is pretty bad.

Can you guys share some knowledge about how to do a good render with resolve ? And also adress this issue with the gamma shift ? I’m looking to post my work exclusively on Vimeo and such so I need to find a good workflow with that and a file that is not too big for the upload.

also I’m on windows so I do not have ProRes out. 
 

https://vimeo.com/436540500/41894c141e
 

exemple of a h264 export (also some footage is underexposed...)

Don't see anything wrong with the footage you posted. 

What video levels are you exporting at? What video levels is your timeline set at? And what monitor/web browser are you viewing the footage on? 

Also NEVER use QuickTime to view footage, it's completely innacurate. 

Under project settings make sure to use color managed, and make sure on the clip settings set them to Full range.