New Sony F3 Footage

[Andrew Rieger]

Sony has mentioned that the camera will later be enabled for Dual-Link 4:4:4 through HD-SDI but I imagine that this will cost more than the version they are showing now and knowing Sony, it could be much more expensive. As I understand it, the most this camera can do now is Dual-Link 4:2:2 and keep in mind all the pretty test footage has been shot using a costly ($50,000) HDCAM SR recorder. The 4:4:4 upgrade should be able to take advantage of the Cinedeck Extreme ($10,000 range) which can do Cineform 4:4:4 and is practically identical in quality to 440 mbps HDCAM so that may be the best option. But realistically, to get cinema-grade quality out of this camera, you will need $20,000+ for the 4:4:4 enabled body plus another $10,000+ for an external recorder that can handle 4:4:4 so we are looking at a mini S35 for $25-30,000 which is great considering that the S35 is a six figure camera but bad considering that Red can offer 4+k, better media storage, better form factor, higher frame rates ect. Still, I expect Sony to sell many of these.

I will admit that the footage does look very good all things considered and if Red was not in the picture, everyone would be drooling over this camera. I think Sony needs to drop the price or at the very least not charge more for the 4:4:4 upgrade and try to come up with some compact recorder to use 4:4:4. What if you want to move around and shoot with a shoulder rig? Is some guy going to walk behind you carrying the Sony HDCAM SR recorder tethered to your camera? (which is equivalent in size and weight to two cinder blocks stacked on top of each other). They need a full quality on-board recording solution. This is also a problem with the Alexa.

At this point, Red needs to fire back with some Scarlet S35 footage. Ya, its probably not 100% but Sony and Panasonic don't seem to have problems with releasing prototype footage, after all, it generates buzz. I am a little skeptical of the Scarlet S35 projected release dates but I will give Jim the benefit of the doubt (although I will say now that late 2011 seems more realistic).

 

[MichaelHalsell]

Timelines, delivery schedules, backorders, footage collectively is the elephant in the room. Like most, it's a nervous wait and the sport of punting the competitors offerings is getting a bit long in the tooth. Stuff's getting done no doubt, we just don't know all the what, when and where's. A scoch of footage showing the new and improved dynamic range would be nice.

 

[Alex G. Cohn]

I will admit that the footage does look very good all things considered and if Red was not in the picture, everyone would be drooling over this camera. I think Sony needs to drop the price or at the very least not charge more for the 4:4:4 upgrade and try to come up with some compact recorder to use 4:4:4. What if you want to move around and shoot with a shoulder rig? Is some guy going to walk behind you carrying the Sony HDCAM SR recorder tethered to your camera? (which is equivalent in size and weight to two cinder blocks stacked on top of each other). They need a full quality on-board recording solution. This is also a problem with the Alexa.

Sony has all ready announced their 5Gbps speed 1TB SR Memory Cards

 

[Henry Olonga]

I am pretty sure you can build a DIY mostly portable rig using a magma chassis, laptop and Declink HD extreme from Blackmagic design + Cineform for around £ 2 500 pounds to take advantage of 10 bit 4:4:4 Dual link HD-SDI input. Okay not so compact but certainly portable and cheaper than the Cinedeck. Brings things down a little. HD-SDI can have long runs so tethered may not be such a problem in a lot of cases.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/decklinkhdextreme/techspecs/

http://www.magma.com/expressbox1.asp

http://www.vimeo.com/4083139

 

[Andrew Rieger]

Sony has all ready announced their 5Gbps speed 1TB SR Memory Cards

I believe that was a tech concept, not a working product but Sony said that the cards were at least 2 years off last I heard. Still very exciting stuff but by the time Sony has these cards for the F3, The Scarlet S35 will be on the scene. I don't really see this as a Red competitor, more suited for TV and corporate work but who knows what Sony has up their sleeves.

 

[David Battistella]

I'm talking from a business point of view. People will buy this camera, and the AF100 and DSLR's and and and. They would have all been on the Scarlet or the S35 or the Epic by now, but they have lost the faith and gone elsewhere.

As fans of RED, this should concern you too. You surely want RED to be around for your entire career right? Well if they don't start releasing footage and showing some hard truth to the recent claims (The new release date of the S35 was far to close to the announcement of the F3 or it be coincidence!), they will be losing clients on a large scale. Not good for you and not good for RED.

Yeah I'm complaining. But hey, when I'm running behind on a deadline and my client starts to complain, I pull out the double espresso

Great points Richard.

I thiink RED has the business point of view from the perspective that all of the people who put down 25% deposits in May of 2010 are, in a way, shareholders in keeping the technology alive.

Ultimately, the companycould shut down tomorrow and everyone could be left high and dry, but we are trusting that the investments are safe and we are participating (in both the developement and the financial structure) by putting up dough and to allow this to move forward.

The EPIC is PRESOLD. there are enough deposits to move forward. I think Jim and the team have a great deal of respect for the customer for this reason. This is a kind of loyalty that the other brands are not built on.

Like my first new motorcycle. It's new. It's scary. It moves fast and we fucking LOVE IT!

David

 

[Carl Weston]

I am a little skeptical of the Scarlet S35 projected release dates but I will give Jim the benefit of the doubt

LOL...I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth, as it relates to release dates.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Sony wants te be part of the game indeed, but exactly how much will this external recorder cost???

and let's be honest, isn't that so 80's..... i remember my dad laughing that he carried such a JVC recorder all the time when I was a kid....

Ok , this is professional equipment, but it seems sometimes we're going back...

You can't say it's not possible to wrap the recorder inside off the body.

With the Alexa I think it's even ridiculous concerning that , at least they have already 444 on board right now and a pretty good codec.

I hesitate that many people will go with an external recorder on the Alexa, certainly in these times;

Sony should have come maby with prores as well...

or maby they are too scared to throw in a new codec in their line, and they hope some people who already love the ex (I use it daily..and love it.), will come to the game, I also still now a bunch off people who will always buy Sony, just because it's Sony , no matter how much better the competitors are at the moment; but this said , these are mostly people from the broadcast side of things.

ps The body looks a little to small , difficult to operate, and what the hell are these xlr inputs doing where you should be able to hold the camera in some way in certain circumstances.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Great points Richard.

I thiink RED has the business point of view from the perspective that all of the people who put down 25% deposits in May of 2010 are, in a way, shareholders in keeping the technology alive.

Ultimately, the companycould shut down tomorrow and everyone could be left high and dry, but we are trusting that the investments are safe and we are participating (in both the developement and the financial structure) by putting up dough and to allow this to move forward.

The EPIC is PRESOLD. there are enough deposits to move forward. I think Jim and the team have a great deal of respect for the customer for this reason. This is a kind of loyalty that the other brands are not built on.

Like my first new motorcycle. It's new. It's scary. It moves fast and we fucking LOVE IT!

David

I think you're assuming RED needs your deposit to move forward and for what we know of Jim and the RED's business model, this is far from being the reason there are delays. Sony just re-engineered and repackaged existing products, down to the S35 sensor which they developed for the F35, and yes, they moved uncharacteristically fast with the F3 by their standards, and yes, they will eat up a lot of potential sales from Scarlet. But in truth, it doesn't look like Jim cares about lost potential sales and they'll just move at the pace that allows them to come to market with the features they deem essential, and god knows that takes long for them. In the digital cinema arena, Sony is the one company that may have gotten most affected by RED's success, but now, ironically, this little camera and the upcoming NXCAM version will surely eliminate a few thousand purchases from Scarlet's books, but they will still sell a ton of Scarlets, whenever they release it, which in my opinion, it will be late next year....

 

[Tom Lowe]

Sony is the one company that may have gotten most affected by RED's success, but now, ironically, this little camera and the upcoming NXCAM version will surely eliminate a few thousand purchases from Scarlet's books, but they will still sell a ton of Scarlets, whenever they release it, which in my opinion, it will be late next year....

I don't think Jim will care about some lost Scarlet sales after he completely decimates Sony's entire "high end" CineAlta division with Epic X. That camera is going to ruin the competition. It won't be pretty.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Quite right Stuart, BUT, I will take MPEG-2 at 35 mgbs over AVCHD at 24 mgbs as a RECORDING format any day of the week. The amount of compression artifacts and noise I see from Canon's 1/3 " camcorders is ghastly compared to the footage that comes out of XDCAM Sony cameras recording from 1/2" and even 2/3" sensors...

Because AVCHD cameras are cheap cameras with cheap shitty noisy sensors designed for affordability and because Sony XDCAM has better compression engines.

H.264 is newer, smarter, more efficient compression with smaller artifacts, depending on the compression engine quality, profile and level.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Sony just re-engineered and repackaged existing products, down to the S35 sensor which they developed for the F35

The sensor in the PMW-F3 is a completely new design. For one thing it is a CMOS chip with a Bayer-pattern mask while the F35 has a CCD chip with a striped mask. It is also a slightly different size.

The PMW-F3 has been in development at Sony for more than two years.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

At least some of you might have a point. Some that are really waiting for a good camera with a s35 sensor, and really need a camera to work or for any specific reason , might end up buying a sony instead of a Scarlet , if they don't have any specific date to wait on.

If i were Jim, I would do a tiny update just to be sure he doesn't lose any potential sales , because it might be that actual dates aren't to far away from eachother. Finally people will blame Red again in the end. First because they did not deliver fast enough (on a timeline set by competitors for Red and not themselves), and second because these people will buy almost desperate a system they did'nt want in the first place.

No offense to Sony with this, it might be a really nice product, and I'm sure lot's off people can be satisfied with it, but imho the Scarlet could be a lot , lot better, and if I were to choose between... if it would record with a better onboard codec, things could even get worse for Red and in Sony's advantage

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I am confused. They recorded to an SRW-1 deck for off-line? If so, then this is not about the F3, but the F3 + SRW-1 (and the lenses of course).

Great stuff either way though. To me it looks like a leap from the ProSumer look. However, with an SRW-1 and cine lenses there is little ProSumer about it, little that is revolutionary. It has a pretty small body, and a large sensor with good sensitivity which. One could add that both of these were --way-- overdue. Of course I am no DP or camera rental company so I might be missing something that makes this a huge deal, I just don't see it. But either way, it look very nice.

 

[Steven-Marc C.]

Saw a mock-up of the new solid-state SR recorder today. It's not huge or heavy, and just slides onto 19mm rods at the back of the camera. Not that different from the way you currently link a Red Raid to the Red One.
And it will cost less than the SRW1. No final pricing announced yet.

The F3 itself looks like a nice piece of equipment.

 

[andrewhake]

The F3 looks great but where will it be on the arrival of S35 Scarlet? RED is so far ahead by having their own well developed and tested compressed RAW format.

Sony has the resources, they just dont have it where it counts. Or just don't let their best and brightest do what they really want to do with a product. A company run like a startup will never be outperformed by a comittee given the same resources. What well established feature film director was field testing the F3 in it's early prototype stage, in 100F weather? And was happy to do it?

That said, who said RED is trying to have a monopoly on the camera industry? The F3 will give RED some room to keep up with all the orders they will have. . .


Wingrove's F3 teaser looked fantastic, if he listed the 5D as gear used I wouldn't have questioned it. I am no pixel peeper though.

 

[Henry Olonga]

The F3 looks nice but where will it be on the arrival of S35 Scarlet? RED is so far ahead by having their own well developed and tested compressed RAW format.

I agree - but we need RED to give us a bone here. 4 K as a mainstream product is a few years off and these high end 1080p cams will be good enough for broadcast until 4 K takes over. So folk like myself want to get in on the action and get a good high end digital cinema camera to make money with now and I want to invest in it for some projects this year. I have already passed on the AF100 ( good as it is) .To be honest 1080p is good enough for my projects but I want the future proof RED concept. How long can I wait before deciding on which camera - well that will be determined by availability by mid year. I hope RED will have moved into the S35 space and I can purchase by then

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

I agree - but we need RED to give us a bone here. 4 K as a mainstream product is a few years off and these high end 1080p cams will be good enough for broadcast until 4 K takes over. So folk like myself want to get in on the action and get a good high end digital cinema camera to make money with now and I want to invest in it for some projects this year. I have already passed on the AF100 ( good as it is) .To be honest 1080p is good enough for my projects but I want the future proof RED concept. How long can I wait before deciding on which camera - well that will be determined by availability by mid year. I hope RED will have moved into the S35 space and I can purchase by then

Listen closely - I'm honestly trying to help.

It's not about what you want. It's about what earns you $$ against what you have invested, and how fast you ROI that investment. And with respect to choices - yes - it matters very much WHEN you can get the product.

Anyone know what the rental rate on an F3 is? I don't - it's not for rent yet.

I suspect - it will be $500-$600 a day. But I could be wrong.

You have to ask yourself - instead of buying an F3 - are you better off RENTING an F3 or whatever the best-bang-for-the-buck is - and INVESTING your $$ into a long-term, more dynamic, future proof product - while you wait.

I strongly suspect you will all know WHEN you can really get an EPIC or SCARLET before the F3 ships ....

My 2 cents. Take 'em or leave 'em.

PS - smart move skipping the AF100

 

[Jim Retar]

I strongly suspect you will all know WHEN you can really get an EPIC or SCARLET before the F3 ships ....

Unfortunately, knowing when we can order a RED is not the only piece of the puzzle.... how long will each product be on back order? how about accessories?

If RED somehow launch Epic and one or more scarlet models early next year... the demand will be crazy... I am very concerned about laying down my cash and then waiting for a year or more for a camera and accessories.

Hopefully RED will be very upfront and honest about the shipping procedure, when the time comes.

 

[sandro-bachmann]

I strongly suspect you will all know WHEN you can really get an EPIC or SCARLET before the F3 ships ....

Yes mark, thats the reason, we are talking since years about scarlet and epic, and nobody knows, when all this talking really becoms reality?

on the paper, scarlet and epic seems to be the way to go, no doubt, but in real life, they only exist, for jim and his team. thats the truth right now.
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