Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

NOTES FROM ASC: SONY F65 ON "After Earth"

BRANDON JAMESON said:
F65 can also capture in various flavors of SR codec.
Click to expand...

That is correct, but it should be noted that SR File recordings are at HD resolution (1920x1080). The camera does do a very good job of debayering and scaling, however.
 
Justin O'Neill said:
In this interview here, a Sony product specialist says the F65 does not have 8k worth of photosites, they will interpolate the 17.7MP to get an 8k image. Can anyone think of why this would look any better than up-resing Dragon footage to 8k?

http://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/398-why-the-sony-f65-is-still-on-top
Click to expand...

Internal interpolation was an old camcorder trick back in the day to make a camera seem to have more resolution than it actually had... thought we had blown past that. I guess uprezzing is the same thing but that is usually done after the footage leaves the camera.
 
Dragon has 2 more megapixels 19mp v17mp of the Sony.

Graeme
 
That's why we tell you both pixel array numbers on the sensor and we've also shown measured resolution and MTF on these forums.

Graeme
 
So whats the measured MTF on an F65 ? Just so we can conpare pineapple with pineapples.

What ever the answer Im still buying Dragons for our cameras.
 
The F65 makes lovely images and the data/post pipeline has improved dramatically since After Earth. Measured resolution is in the same neighborhood as the Epic MX and both sport 16bit color from Bayer CFAs. IMO the biggest differentiator is the larger footprint of the F65 vs the Epic - it's bigger, heavier, sucks more power, generates more data (in most use cases) and requires even more expensive recording media. All that might be worth it if it blew the doors off the Epic in terms of IQ and over cranking but that's not the case.

Cheers - #19
 
Sony did present an MTF graph as part of their F65 marketing material. I have no idea how accurate, but it did seem to suggest that aliasing would be present.

Graeme
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
The F65 makes lovely images and the data/post pipeline has improved dramatically since After Earth. Measured resolution is in the same neighborhood as the Epic MX and both sport 16bit color from Bayer CFAs. IMO the biggest differentiator is the larger footprint of the F65 vs the Epic - it's bigger, heavier, sucks more power, generates more data (in most use cases) and requires even more expensive recording media. All that might be worth it if it blew the doors off the Epic in terms of IQ and over cranking but that's not the case.

Cheers - #19
Click to expand...

Blair, we have both and I have to say that the noise floor is not even close to being the same.
 
BRANDON JAMESON said:
Blair, we have both and I have to say that the noise floor is not even close to being the same.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. While I have never seen what an unadulterated image from the F65 would look like, Sony has apparently leveraged their industry leading expertise in digital signal processing (DSP) to apply noise reduction early in the signal chain that results in a lower noise floor. Based on what little we know at this point, I expect the Dragon to have a native S/N ratio that is similar to what the F65 achieves with DSP. In theory this would allow the Epic Dragon to hold more high frequency detail at equivalent S/N ratios, but until Dragon is shipping and optimized that's pure speculation.

As a reference point my testing with the F55 showed excellent DR, I'd estimate 14 stops, but along with the low noise floor came a bit of an "air brushed" feel that I attribute to a bit too much noise reduction. For a number of use cases, even UHD/4K projects, that slight loss of high frequency detail (most noticeable in fine textures) is a welcome trade off for virtually noise free imagery.

All of these notes lead back to the old trope about horses for courses. If the footprint of the F65 fits easily into your budget, shooting style, etc then its really an issue of taste/appropriateness to the material. Epic Dragon looks to be the cream of the crop in terms of form factor, cost and IQ - of course that can't be conclusively proven until its a shipping product. The F55 looks to be a great camera for UHD/4K sports and other live multicam applications. The F55's live UHD/4K output via 4x 3G-SDI or HDMI 1.4a combined with a production friendly form factor at an Epic-ish price point will suit some shows nicely.

Cheers - #19
 
One other thing I have heard about F65 that doesn't come up in pro/con analysis when talking about the image quality - apparently the mechanical shutter isn't exactly quiet, which I think is something important to think about given picture is only half the cinema experience after all.
 
Craig Parkes said:
One other thing I have heard about F65 that doesn't come up in pro/con analysis when talking about the image quality - apparently the mechanical shutter isn't exactly quiet, which I think is something important to think about given picture is only half the cinema experience after all.
Click to expand...

Ours is silent...where is all this bizarre misinformation coming from?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top