Nick Morrison
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Recent discussions this week about RED vs Alexa vs F65 vs Dragon led me to dig up this summer's fascinating article in American Cinematographer about the making of AFTER EARTH...famously shot on the F65.
As we all wait for Dragon to finally arrive...I thought it would be interesting to revisit this article, and dig deeper into "After Earth's" workflow and experiences with the F65...as this camera will remain arguably Dragon's main rival for 4K delivery until Alexa releases their own 4K solution. I of course expect Dragon to surpass the F65 in many categories, but I was still curious to know more about this vaunted camera from Sony.
Across the board, the "After Earth" team is effusive about the F65's performance. Nothing shocking - by all accounts it's a brilliant camera. But a couple of things did stand out for me, especially when seen from the POV of a RED shooter. I realized after reading this article how many things I take for granted when we shoot RED.
Let me explain:
1) SONY F65: HUGE FILE SIZES
The first thing that shocked me, was how MASSIVE the file sizes are when shooting uncompressed on the F65. I'll let the article explain more:
Yes, that wasn't a misprint. The F65 devours 512 gigs of disk space to capture just 30mins of 4K. By comparison, if you shot 4K on an Epic at 5:1 (compression most commonly used on Prometheus) you'd record 157mins. About FIVE TIMES MORE. Record at 5K 5:1 and you'd get 100mins, over THREE TIMES MORE at a higher resolution.
Consider that Dragon will allow us to shoot at much high compression levels (even 17:1 looks superb), it's obvious on Dragon these ratios will only increase. It would't surprise me if Dragon is SEVEN or EIGHT times more efficient than the F65.
2) "ANALYTICAL IMAGE" & NEED FOR DIFFUSION
In light of all the recent talk of the Alexa's built in "low-con" filter, and RED's clean look, and how the F65 looks so amazing, I was a bit taken back when I re-read this commentary about the F65's imagery:
Wait, what? He had to add diffusion to the F65 to make it look "filmic"? I'm confused. I thought this camera was supposed to be amazing out the box? And rival the Alexa for "rendering"? Instead...like with so many other cameras, they needed to resort to the age old trick of a 1/8 Black Pro Mist to help make it look "filmic" (bear in mind even Iron Man used 1/8 BPM to cut the edge, and that was shot on FILM).
This got me thinking. Even the vaunted F65 needs diffusion to look good (and don't forget Claudio Miranda in POST added diffusion to ALL of Oblivion). Even productions on FILM use diffusion, because film stocks and modern optics are getting so CLEAN. The Alexa has a 1/4 LOW-CON filter in-front of its sensor for this very reason.
Basically, a slightly diffused look is clearly POPULAR. The Alexa has that look ALL THE TIME. With RED, if you want that look, then...like with the F65...just add some 1/8 BPM, or a 1/4 Lowcon, or whatever "trick" you have up to your sleeve...but as Jim has said...you have choices.
With the motion mount around the corner, adding one simple piece of glass infront of the camera to create certain "blooms" won't be a big deal. In fact, I feel like it will "add" to our creative choices. Do we go clean? Do we add BPM? HBM? Classic Soft? Lowcon? Ultracon? Glimmerglass?
The choices are endless. But I feel comforted being reminded that this need for diffusion is a concern that affects us across the board these days regardless of what camera you are shooting on. Whether on FILM, RED, F65...at times they can all use some diffusion if thats what you feel the shot needs. The Alexa starts there already, and you can add more if needed, but that's also their philosophy...to "look good" right out the box, and take some of the choices away, because they've already made them for you. Which means when you shoot F65 or RED you may have MORE choices to make...do we go clean? Which diffusion do we use? OR what lens? Will an older lens do same as diffusion? There are so many ways to skin a cat, and I like that.
3) NATIVE ISO
The native ISO of the camera is familiar:
The EPIC is already at 800 ISO. I know Probst shoots at 640. But DRAGON looks like it can shoot 2000 iso w/out skipping a beat, which is very exciting. Even the 4000 ISO shots looked very, very promising. Imagine what Social Network would look like on DRAGON??! Fincher should make "Social Network 2" and find out!
4) WEIGHT
I looked this up myself. Apparantly with the recorder it's 15lbs. A stripped down Epic is obviously much lighter.
5) COST
$65,000. Compared to a $9000 Dragon upgrade if you already have an Epic (or approx $30k for a full Epic X kit).
As we all wait for Dragon to finally arrive...I thought it would be interesting to revisit this article, and dig deeper into "After Earth's" workflow and experiences with the F65...as this camera will remain arguably Dragon's main rival for 4K delivery until Alexa releases their own 4K solution. I of course expect Dragon to surpass the F65 in many categories, but I was still curious to know more about this vaunted camera from Sony.
Across the board, the "After Earth" team is effusive about the F65's performance. Nothing shocking - by all accounts it's a brilliant camera. But a couple of things did stand out for me, especially when seen from the POV of a RED shooter. I realized after reading this article how many things I take for granted when we shoot RED.
Let me explain:
1) SONY F65: HUGE FILE SIZES
The first thing that shocked me, was how MASSIVE the file sizes are when shooting uncompressed on the F65. I'll let the article explain more:
Yes, that wasn't a misprint. The F65 devours 512 gigs of disk space to capture just 30mins of 4K. By comparison, if you shot 4K on an Epic at 5:1 (compression most commonly used on Prometheus) you'd record 157mins. About FIVE TIMES MORE. Record at 5K 5:1 and you'd get 100mins, over THREE TIMES MORE at a higher resolution.
Consider that Dragon will allow us to shoot at much high compression levels (even 17:1 looks superb), it's obvious on Dragon these ratios will only increase. It would't surprise me if Dragon is SEVEN or EIGHT times more efficient than the F65.
2) "ANALYTICAL IMAGE" & NEED FOR DIFFUSION
In light of all the recent talk of the Alexa's built in "low-con" filter, and RED's clean look, and how the F65 looks so amazing, I was a bit taken back when I re-read this commentary about the F65's imagery:
Wait, what? He had to add diffusion to the F65 to make it look "filmic"? I'm confused. I thought this camera was supposed to be amazing out the box? And rival the Alexa for "rendering"? Instead...like with so many other cameras, they needed to resort to the age old trick of a 1/8 Black Pro Mist to help make it look "filmic" (bear in mind even Iron Man used 1/8 BPM to cut the edge, and that was shot on FILM).
This got me thinking. Even the vaunted F65 needs diffusion to look good (and don't forget Claudio Miranda in POST added diffusion to ALL of Oblivion). Even productions on FILM use diffusion, because film stocks and modern optics are getting so CLEAN. The Alexa has a 1/4 LOW-CON filter in-front of its sensor for this very reason.
Basically, a slightly diffused look is clearly POPULAR. The Alexa has that look ALL THE TIME. With RED, if you want that look, then...like with the F65...just add some 1/8 BPM, or a 1/4 Lowcon, or whatever "trick" you have up to your sleeve...but as Jim has said...you have choices.
With the motion mount around the corner, adding one simple piece of glass infront of the camera to create certain "blooms" won't be a big deal. In fact, I feel like it will "add" to our creative choices. Do we go clean? Do we add BPM? HBM? Classic Soft? Lowcon? Ultracon? Glimmerglass?
The choices are endless. But I feel comforted being reminded that this need for diffusion is a concern that affects us across the board these days regardless of what camera you are shooting on. Whether on FILM, RED, F65...at times they can all use some diffusion if thats what you feel the shot needs. The Alexa starts there already, and you can add more if needed, but that's also their philosophy...to "look good" right out the box, and take some of the choices away, because they've already made them for you. Which means when you shoot F65 or RED you may have MORE choices to make...do we go clean? Which diffusion do we use? OR what lens? Will an older lens do same as diffusion? There are so many ways to skin a cat, and I like that.
3) NATIVE ISO
The native ISO of the camera is familiar:
The EPIC is already at 800 ISO. I know Probst shoots at 640. But DRAGON looks like it can shoot 2000 iso w/out skipping a beat, which is very exciting. Even the 4000 ISO shots looked very, very promising. Imagine what Social Network would look like on DRAGON??! Fincher should make "Social Network 2" and find out!
4) WEIGHT
I looked this up myself. Apparantly with the recorder it's 15lbs. A stripped down Epic is obviously much lighter.
5) COST
$65,000. Compared to a $9000 Dragon upgrade if you already have an Epic (or approx $30k for a full Epic X kit).
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