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

[IronFilm]

On 5/2/2022 at 7:32 AM, TomTheDP said:

I don't know man, tripod is honestly the way to go for most things. Most people don't have the budget to do good moving shots outside of really basic stuff. Everyone wants to be Euphoria without having any of the resources to pull it off.

Yeah, doing those big sweeping gimbal shots that run for ages and ages are a lot more work for EVERYONE. 

Art Dept, Director, Actors, Camera Dept, Sound Dept, etc etc

I did late last year a very low low budget feature film (dunno about the budget, but I'd take a wild wild guess that it is probably to likely be sub $100K, but with all the favors pulled in we were "operating at" more like the $500K-ish level? Which is still ultra low budget level for a feature film).

Bulk of it was shot on either a tripod or a dana dolly. (as a dana dolly gives you that movement in the scene, but also still allowing you a lot more fine control over the camera movement than anything else would. Well, anything else that is affordable that is!) A fair bit was shot handheld / easyrig as well. Oh and of course sometimes a high hat / sandbag / saddlebag. 

But perhaps a couple of times a week we'd get in a Steadicam Op, for particular scenes/days when camera movement made a lot of sense for the story. 

We also had at least three days of car shoots, of which two of those days were done with the car on lowrider being towed by a truck (with Director / AD / AC / Grip / DoP all in the back, in the truck bed. With myself, with my mixer & monitor, and the truck driver in the cab itself). 

Never used a crane. Never used a gimbal. Never used a drone. (although I wouldn't be surprised if there is a splinter unit done sometime after we wrapped main production which goes out to get some drone footage. Or perhaps they just use a bit of stock footage? I dunno)

100% shot on an ARRI Mini btw. 

  

On 5/2/2022 at 12:00 PM, webrunner5 said:

I think other than interviews and big time movies tripods are a thing of the past. And this is coming from a hard core tripod guy! I follow 10 to 12 people on YouTube, and help pay their way with Patreon. And I don't think any of the use a tripod very often. Heck one of the people I follow, Goonzquad shoots the whole thing on a iPhone 13 Pro. They do use a tripod at times, but not often.

The average YouTuber with a big following is totally disconnected to the reality of how the professional world works on film sets / tv productions / reality shoots / TVCs / etc

[webrunner5]

7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

The average YouTuber with a big following is totally disconnected to the reality of how the professional world works on film sets / tv productions / reality shoots / TVCs / etc

And I think you are "disconnected" on how many people are involved in a "cheap" $500K movie or more. Get real there are like 10 people on here doing that.

I am happy for you for doing what you do but you are in a Select few that do do it.

[IronFilm]

Am certain there are more than 10 people on this forum who have worked at "the level" of a NZ$100K (or even $500K) indie movie!

 

[IronFilm]

On 5/3/2022 at 6:57 PM, IronFilm said:

Nah, wasn't twenty people. It was a microsized (almost)no budget production. 

Had:
Director
DoP
MakeUp/Costume (same person! She handled props & art dept too)
2x PA / LX Assist (one of them had a fair bit of film set experience, but he's primarily focused on acting/directing and isn't professional tech crew person. The other person it was their first time on set! Just a teenage kid, because he was the brother of one of the two actors)
Sound Mixer (me!)

As I said, an extremely small production. The smallest I've been on this year. (or the last couple of years for that matter, when it comes to narrative productions)

Just realized I forgot one person! The person who was doing the BTS stills (she was the fiancé of one of the two actors). 

I just uploaded a few BTS photos from that shoot:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdIZm-Vv88N/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link 

[IronFilm]

(all shot with a Canon RF mirrorless camera, if anybody is curious)

 

[webrunner5]

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Am certain there are more than 10 people on this forum who have worked at "the level" of a NZ$100K (or even $500K) indie movie!

 

The movie business is just about out of business. TV has killed it off. He in the USA the only big-time movies are kiddie comic book knock offs making any sort of money. I don't see that lasting long either, they have run them into the ground. 

So that leaves the streaming services having the lions share of it now. Not sure a one hour long thing is considered a movie but having to wait a week to see pretty much 80% of what you saw last week isn't going to cut it long term. Sure they come up with new stuff but that doesn't last long either. Hard to hit home run after home run.

Not too sure that many people in the USA are even watching TV here anymore. I watch 5 hours a week tops, probably less. Younger people are just too busy now in this day and age to watch much of anything. Netflix is a good example to what is happening to streaming stuff, also on the way out.

So moral of story sell your tripods while you can, all 12 of you, they are going to just start gathering dust.

[TomTheDP]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

The movie business is just about out of business. TV has killed it off. He in the USA the only big-time movies are kiddie comic book knock offs making any sort of money. I don't see that lasting long either, they have run them into the ground. 

So that leaves the streaming services having the lions share of it now. Not sure a one hour long thing is considered a movie but having to wait a week to see pretty much 80% of what you saw last week isn't going to cut it long term. Sure they come up with new stuff but that doesn't last long either. Hard to hit home run after home run.

Not too sure that many people in the USA are even watching TV here anymore. I watch 5 hours a week tops, probably less. Younger people are just too busy now in this day and age to watch much of anything. Netflix is a good example to what is happening to streaming stuff, also on the way out.

So moral of story sell your tripods while you can, all 12 of you, they are going to just start gathering dust.

Not sure about that one, I've never not used my tripod on a shoot. The movie business is booming in Detroit. I'd say camera equipment is a short term investment anyways, you make a bunch of money with it and the equipment itself loses value. Aside from maybe cinema lenses.

[webrunner5]

Do you make a full time living doing it?

[aaa123jc]

4 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

So moral of story sell your tripods while you can, all 12 of you, they are going to just start gathering dust.

It really comes down to what kind of work you're doing. Event videos, corporate videos, short films...etc. All of these requires a tripod, while a gimbal may not be essential. 

The YouTube community makes many believe working in video production professionally is about making cool shots with gimbals or any other fancy new technologies. Making those shots are cool, but the majority of works are usually done in a more traditional, even boring manner. 

And I'm not even talking about working in a proper film set (I have only worked in no budget short films). I usually work solo or with one or two partners. It is safe to suggest I am the average (or below average) working professional. 

[webrunner5]

Sure, real film sets need them because they are using huge cameras with big glass on them, and they are story boarding. That is probably never going to change I get that. I can see a tripod for photography a lot more than for videography. If you are shooting movement move the camera. Ehh sort of what video is. Just panning on a tripod all day is not my idea of an interesting shoot. Looks boring pretty quick.

I did hundreds of weddings years ago and worked with other wedding photographers, and we never used a tripod even then.  Now some of the richer ones came to a studio with their dress and had shots done after the honeymoon. Had a Hasselblad, 3 lenses, 5 rolls of 12 shot film and away you go, was the weapon of choice back then. Static wedding shots are boring as hell. We didn't use 3 cameras and carry 20 lenses like people do today, so I guess it has changed, not sure why but.

Yeah, I guess if you are charging $50,000.00 for a wedding you need to look like you are earning it I guess. Sure they have a crew with bounce rigs, etc., etc. so I can see the complexity for a few super rich brides.

[IronFilm]

As you can see from the other replies, tripods are commonly used throughout the industry everywhere!

And even for weddings which are shot gungho nonstop with a gimbal by some keen muscular dude, they'll still be using a tripod for at least some of angles for the ceremony and reception!

And when I say "$100K indie film level" (or $500K) I mean also anything else at that "level", i.e. a web series or TVCs etc. 

Tripods are worth it, I have a nice one, basically the previous generation to this one here:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1431251-REG/vinten_vb100_ftms_vision_100_system_with.html

 

[webrunner5]

If you own a tripod business, you had better find another product to sell down the road. They are coming to an end.

[Josue Nunez]

On 4/30/2022 at 6:37 PM, PannySVHS said:

@Josue Nunez Looking great! There is a certain mojo to this image! The nice edit, grade and framing in your piece helps to appreciate the image from this camera, of course.:) What lens did you use? My mini SDI to SDI cable ripped so I got a good exuse not to use this camera, since I need that tasty external 10bit.:)

Thank you! I used the "crappy" Vivitar 25mm F2.5. Part of the that mojo comes from the lens and its imperfections. I say crappy because for general use it has too many imperfections like very clear ghosting, and crazy lens flares. 

[kye]

@IronFilm - great pics but man...  what a ride that was!!

"we were out in the forrest just minding our own business and playing with cameras"

"the bugs were getting annoying so we used some spray"

"then out of nowhere the freaking empire showed up!"

"It was at least 6 to 1, but those guys are SCARY...  he said our bug spray needed a permit and that if we didn't have one, he'd KILL us"

"we didn't know what to do..  we didn't have a permit, and the guy was completely nuts, so we mostly just avoided eye contact and tried to let the situation calm down"

"he eventually left, probably to go kill more innocent people on a picnic or something, just gave us the evil eye before he left.  psychopath!"

 

[IronFilm]

@kye lol🤣

Of course that "bug machine" wasn't for the bugs, but a fog machine to make it all pretty on camera. 

Quite common on sets. Never yet caused the Empire to show up!! Although years ago I was working on the lighting department for a music video, and we got a few fire engine trucks show up because they believed there was a real fire  in the bush which they needed to respond to 🚒 🔥🔥🔥

[kye]

13 hours ago, IronFilm said:

@kye lol🤣

Of course that "bug machine" wasn't for the bugs, but a fog machine to make it all pretty on camera. 

Quite common on sets. Never yet caused the Empire to show up!! Although years ago I was working on the lighting department for a music video, and we got a few fire engine trucks show up because they believed there was a real fire  in the bush which they needed to respond to 🚒 🔥🔥🔥

I'm aware it was a fog machine.

I've been consistently amazed in BTS videos of large productions the sheer quantity of fog that some productions have - and the fact that there are machines capable of generating so much of it.  I have vague recollections from before digital of a movie adding fog to several entire hills to get the fog-in-trees look while doing a huge dolly-up on a crane that went from  the subjects up through the canopy and out the top to show the hills of trees with fog.  Must have been an army of people in the forrest with machines all set to full-blast!

Colours in the images look really nice too BTW 🙂 

[IronFilm]

Yup, and that's just one person (heck, not even really one whole person... but a person split in their roles between that and in "lighting" as well) with a small handheld machine fogging up everything in view in that forest we were shooting. Get a whole crew in and pipes laid out? Now we're talking!

[PannySVHS]

@Josue Nunez Love the images you created with your beautiful Sony F3 camera! I would love more people to post their stuff. I´ve done my Lumix 8bit share a little bit, 3 short videos in three months, which I posted here.

So I am forgiven for not having produced any footage with my F3 yet. But you other F3 owners, you are not exused, so you better start posting. 🙂

[kye]

19 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Yup, and that's just one person (heck, not even really one whole person... but a person split in their roles between that and in "lighting" as well) with a small handheld machine fogging up everything in view in that forest we were shooting. Get a whole crew in and pipes laid out? Now we're talking!

One of my favourite YouTubers is Martijn Doolaard who is renovating a cabin in the Italian Alps and besides the obvious fact that he's a great cinematographer / editor / storyteller, the frequency of fog in the shots I think makes a huge difference.  He recently did a Q&A and mentioned his equipment and it's nothing special (A73 and DJI drone) but the footage just looks magical a lot of the time.

[PannySVHS]

Oh tastyness of colours. Oh F3 so beautiful. Why do you sit around in my livingroom and don´t get picked up, you marvelous wonder of a week full of colours.

Darn, this is beautiful natural light, captured beautifully. I know for pretty sure, what contradiction in itself,:) that noone on cinematography.com would post like many of us do, full of wonder for the simple beauty to behold by an 11 year old camera. They won´t post a simple video as below. Still a very cool forum though. 🙂