F5/55

[Bill Anderson]

Filmmakers have a great deal to thank Jim Jannard for: whether they embraced RED, or fought it. Again, I shudder to think what the camera landscape would look like without JJ in it.

 

[Bill Sepaniak]

Filmmakers have a great deal to thank Jim Jannard for: whether they embraced RED, or fought it. Again, I shudder to think what the camera landscape would look like without JJ in it.

How true! There's no looking back.

___________________________________
Scarlet X # 1859 “Bettie Page”
“… preparing to ‘whip’ the competition …”

Zeiss Lenses:

CY 21/2.8
ZF 28/2.0
CY 35-70/3.4
CY 50/1.4
ZF100/2.0

Nikon Lenses:
G 14-24/2.8
G 24-70/2.8
D 80-200/2.8

Tokina Lenses:

11-16/2.8

 

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Very rightly said.

In Marketing, they say try and convert your opponent's strength into weakness. RED ensured raw. However, for quick turn around projects raw became a bottleneck. So your strength becomes a weakness here. Give people the option to use raw or prores or whatever they want.

There are certain weaknesses like fan noise, battery time etc, which I am sure RED will be working on.

In Jannard, RED has an aggressive leadership which reacts fast to changing market situations. The hallmark of a great leader is to understand in which areas your competition is and then overcome those.

I sincerely hope that RED innovates and remains as a strong pillar so that everybody benefits.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

agreed, three things that make me shoot much more on the c300 than the epic right now:

- Fan noise, for sensitive documentary, the epic is useless, the tremendous vacuumcleaner sound gains way to much attention. Next to the dragon update, the biggest thing to work on, when the epics go back, is killing the fan noise. Or at least 75% less...
- Built in ND, so convienent when shooting run and gun.
- Lower data rate, editready 1080 codec. This is the main reason for a lot of production company's not wanting to work with red. Data transfer times are long, files size huge, the convert to 1080P anyway, computer can't playback without redrocket, etc
- Better battery life is always welcome

The new sony ticks all these boxes above, and those are really important. I know the philosophy of red, and i know there are working on the last point. And understand that build in ND, is quite a different design. But please kill the fan noise and bring out the prores mini module asap.

I think the thing is, all the camera's are getting so good in image quality nowadays, that the choice for a system is more and more based on non-image related facts. Like, battery life, media price, size, weight, fan noise, codec, built in ND, easy menu access, stability, audio recording options. All the stuff that is not directly related to the image, is getting more and more important and sony nailed it with this camera. They used the best of of epic, alexa and their own stuff. This is the first camera, apart from the alexa, that actually has a normal viewfinder from the start without all kind of difficult mounting solutions, in a logical position, that alone is already a big plus.

 

[Lawrence Steele]

F55: 19`000 Euro
F5: 15`000 Euro

http://www.creativeventures.be/sony-pmw-f55-pmwf55.html

 

[Antonio Ribeiro]

I think Red may have seriously overpriced the Meisler module. On the other hand, the F5 has the reverse philosophy: Shoots 4K onto 1080p/2K and shoots 4K as 4K raw if you acquire a separate recorder. This could be a determining factor, despite the advances with native 4K editing (CS6 and FCPX). If the sum of the parts ends up being less in cost than Red.

I think the pricing above of the F55 seems seriously optimistic, but again, we all know Canon first announced the C300 was going to cost $20K and ended up dropping this price down to compete with the Scarlet X.

Very curious to see what the next few weeks bring in terms of price confirmation for both these cameras and the epic/scarlet.

 

[Antonio Ribeiro]

And just to add another thought here: if price of all the bits (AXS-R5 recorder) for the Sony F5 becomes similar or lower than the Red, the fan noise of Epic and Scarlet could be a real deal breaker.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

And just to add another thought here: if price of all the bits (AXS-R5 recorder) for the Sony F5 becomes similar or lower than the Red, the fan noise of Epic and Scarlet could be a real deal breaker.

Are you forgetting about the pending Dragon sensor release? Why would a person purchase a camera with less DR, less iso and less resolution? Also an ecosystem that is not as rich as the RED? Perhaps they would do it for the global shutter and ND filters... but I don't think those are deal breakers by themselves. Especially when the Dragon sensor may have a global shutter.

 

[oleg kaizerman]

wow 1000 usd for Swiss made fan ' at least place a lever inside and watch for that sum
i bet that sony fan will stay silent for 11 minutes ( 1000 feet roll )
and say hello to mr sax from me

We propose the FanPlate as our solution

BTW There is a little fan for you!

Pat

 

[Scott Brown]

I honestly think usability will be the defining factor in who wins out here. RED are obsessed with resolution and new sensor development when they really need to address the basics of the current Epic/Scarlet cameras.

Audio sucks - we should NOT need to pay out for add ons to have XLR inputs. Epic was a BIG step back from RED One in terms of audio. This is basic stuff!!! I can plug in a mic to every other camera we use and get useable sound but NOT on our Epic. Talk to Sound Devices and get them on board to sort this out for once and for all.

Too damn hot and noisy - I really HATE using our epic for interviews. It just kills the atmosphere and every client keeps asking why the camera is so noisy!

Again, to keep banging the drum 4K for tomorrow BUT give us a really efficient and workable 1080p codec now - look at the C300 to see how to get it right. That camera is just a joy to use.

Batter battery life would also be nice )

Honestly, leave Dragon for a moment and go back to basics guys or you'll lose the fight!

Scott

 

[Robert Horwell]

Skyfall wasn't shot on anamorphics if that's the implication, it was shot on master primes.

no not the implication, i was saying the quality of the image on eyemax was fantastic.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

F55: 19`000 Euro
F5: 15`000 Euro

http://www.creativeventures.be/sony-pmw-f55-pmwf55.html

Phillip Bloom said on Facebook today that these prices are not correct.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Phillip Blood? Ha ha.

Phillip Blood said on Facebook today that these prices are not correct.

 

[Andy White]

Phillip Blood? Ha ha.

Yup - his special Halloween name

 

[Brandon J.F.]

Phillip Blood? Ha ha.

Yup - his special Halloween name

Oops

 

[Bob Gundu]

I actually from a industrial design viewpoint have always preferred the Alexa and now these new Sonys. Having external buttons and easy access is great. But I do also like when I have the RED on my shoulder I can access the menus without leaving the viewfinder when using the side handle. Having those button next to your face means you have to remove from your should to make any changes. Unless I'm wrong of course and that there is a jog wheel close by to access them easily. In any case, I would have expected the competition to finally put something decent together by now. I still can't understand the FS100 and FS700 ergonomics at all. So hats off to Sony for finally getting something right.

 

[Mike P.]

Off topic, but if REDvolts actually lasted an hour (shooting, 1.5hours standby), RED DSMC would be an ideal set-up... As-is though, they essentially last just long enough to boot up, set up, and shut down, which means you need a bigger/external battery, which kind of defeats the whole small purpose, which in turn kind of defeats not having onboard knobs/buttons (since the size advantages are kind of thrown out the window when you have to add on an additional 5lbs worth of gear anyway just to get the camera shootable.)

But yeah, if you could actually shoot with just the side handle/redvolt for any length of time, that'd be the tits.

 

[Manfred Baulig]

I think this may be the first video of the camera in operation

[video]http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/article/broadcast-professional-camcorders-pmw-f55-video[/video]

Did he say ISO ist fixed in RAW???
Deal breaker for me

and at around 12 minutes the cameras fan becomes VERY loud

 

[Mike P.]

Did he say ISO ist fixed in RAW???
Deal breaker for me

and at around 12 minutes the cameras fan becomes VERY loud

ISO is metadata though; realistically, there is no ISO in Sony's camera just as there isn't in REDs... It's merely a known quantity for adjustments in stops of light.

For example, boost your r3ds to 12800 ISO... they look noisy, huh? Now use curves, or exposure, or brightness, or FLUT, etc. to bring it back down to an "800 ISO" equivalent brightness... looks exactly the same as it did when set 800 ISO, doesn't it? In other words, the ISO in RAW isn't adjustable; it's what's ever is native to the sensor (MX is 320ISO, the F5s is 1280ISO...whooooo) and "setting the ISO in post" is electronically boosting or reducing brightness by known nomenclature/quantities.

 

[Ryan De Franco]

On fans and digital cinema:

The fan noise that begins at 12:00 and intensifies quickly in that Sony video is very telling...

* the camera is not recording
* the raw recorder has been hooked up only for a few minutes. the fan kicks in then gets loud, fast.
* the camera is at rest in a large empty indoor space

It's not easy to make a quiet 4K Raw recorder, even for Sony. Which leads me to wonder what Arri's 4K camera will sound like.

Aaton's delta is silent (<19db) while it records 3.5K Raw files... and it stays silent when not recording. Take a look at the side of the camera to figure out how they did this...

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Did he say ISO ist fixed in RAW???
Deal breaker for me

and at around 12 minutes the cameras fan becomes VERY loud

Yes the fan does sound very loud.