Upgrading from Sony FS7 to Epic W - What am I giving up

[Gregory Garrison]

When shooting walk and talk documentaries I love the built in ND and the built in XLR connections on the FS7. Everything on camera built in is nice. With the Epic I'm going to have to carry a separate audio recorder and put an ND on the lens. Not a big deal...but other than these two items and disk space (I plan on shooting fairly compressed) what else will I be giving up? Thanks

 

[Nick Morrison]

You don't necessarily have to give either of those up.

Getting a Redvolt Expander from RED or an OMOD XLR from Off Hollywood, can give you first class XLR inputs.

You can also add XLR inputs by just getting an A-Box from Wooden Camera. There are no preamps of any kind, it's still the the camera's on board microphone jack, but it's still more than serviceable. We use this setup all the time on Epic Dragons, and our Sound guys have NO issues at all. Done over a 100 jobs this way.

For ND, the Motion Mount is amazing. It's expensive yes, but totally amazing. Cleanest ND we've ever used.

Not sure why the Canon Motion Mount is no longer on RED's site, maybe out of stock?

Hope this helps.

 

[Nino Tamburri]

Hi Greg , I'm currently an owner of the fs7 and an epic (soon -w upgrade). I wouldn't see the epic-w as a replacement. I think they are 2 totally different cameras made for 2 purposes.
The fs7 is good on one man shoots where you have lower budgets , and have to run lean and handheld, data and power and filters are a non issue.
The Red is spectacular but unless your shoot has help for things like data, power , handheld and filters, it can be too much work. Im not sure what it is your shooting but if you can afford to keep both, thats what i did and it works great.

 

[Joseph Wesley]

Hey Gregory
As a person who owns a few camera systems, I wouldn't look at it like I am giving up things, it's more of a different tool for a different job.

Epic - Cinema camera, usually with a multi person crew. The perfect camera for gigs where image quality is king.
FS7 - Run and gun, event, one man band situations where making it work and making it fast matter most.


That being said, on to what you'll be giving up.

cropping. You don't need to deal with different crop factors when going from 2k to 4k on the FS7. On an epic, changing resolution means changing cropping. That can be a pain sometimes.

an FS7 has a MUCH lower power draw. I can run an FS7 almost 5 hours on a single standard V Mount. There's basically no way to do the same with an Epic W unless you're plugged into the wall. (I know someone is going to say shark fin and 8 v mounts, but carrying a backpack full of V mounts isn't exactly practical for a run and gun)

The FS7 does have a great set of internal NDs (Nick Morrison is correct about a motion mount being more than sufficient, and in fact the motion mount is basically the exact same mechanism as the new ND filter on the FS7 Mk 2) You can definitely achieve that if you want to spend the extra $ with your epic, but it's nice to have it as the "standard option"

The XLR inputs are nice and convenient on the FS7. The audio AD conversion inside an epic isn't very high quality. I know there is an ongoing discussion on the boards about work arounds to get good sound direct into body with an epic , but at the end of the day, I wouldn't use an epic as a primary sound recorder. I generally wouldn't use an FS7 either, but I'd trust it more.

An FS7 requires a bit less rigging to handhold or run and gun, you can 100% solve that with a good rig on your epic, but it's going to cost you some $, and at the end of the day it will be significantly lighter than an epic-w fully rigged. That can be a big deal on a long day shooting.

Lens adaptability The short flange on an FS7 is one of the best things about it, you can stick any ol glass you please on it from native E mount, to canon, to Leica M, and on top of that you can use a speed booster with a lot of glass, which in run and gun situations is pretty great, a full stop of speed on a 2.8 zoom can be all the difference in a dim room. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of glass options out there for Red, an FS7 just happens to have more.

At the end of the day, they are very complimentary cameras to have in your toolbox.

 

[Gregory Garrison]

Thank you for the great feedback. It confirms what I had already suspected...basically you cant have it all (or you can for a price). I don't believe my future projects are really aligned to the Epic. Its on location storytelling without large budgets, lighting or crew. Right now my kit is the AS7ii, FS7, Inspire Pro, Osmo Pro, Shogun Flame and Ronin M. I added the FS7 for image quality and raw. But found it lacking. The Red platform looked like the answer for high image quality and portability. Maybe it is...but I would have to spend an awful lot of money to find out.

 

[Tom Cheater]

Also worth a nod that there is a great image in that little guy. treat it right and you really can get great results with it.

 

[paulcurtis]

My 2c having come from FS700 rather than FS7.

1) Missing the internal ND, that was really convenient.

2) that was it.

My FS700 was rigged with the O7Q+ and i was almost always recording 4K RAW. So actually my EpicW setup is lighter. By the time the FS700 was rigged and powered it was larger than i wanted. Right now, stripped back i have the EW, Vlock adapter, light weight vlock, small contax lenses and a simple wooden handgrip and the 4.7. I'm done for most of my uses. Fits into a single back pack. It's awesome.

Oh, yes, okay there is one big difference between the two and same for FS7

The emount is a very short mount onto which you can mount practically any lens out there. The EW is more restrictive. I was shooting with M glass a lot on the FS700 which i can't do on the EW right now. The lens ecosystem is better on Emount - a lot more choice.

cheers
Paul

 

[Gregory Garrison]

Thanks again for the assistance. Here are the accessories I would be ordering with the EW to keep it light and to mount it on the Ronin M.

Jet pack sdi expander
Battery Clip
Red brick power pack
Sidewinder
Side handle
V-Lock I/O Expander
All associated cables

This should keep it light. Ill still need external recording. Not too insterested in the motion mount. The final decision to make is whether to add a red rocket -X to speed up the work flow. Regardless we are looking at a 40K+ investment if I order with the Nikon mount and use my Milvus lens. Decisions...Decisions

 

[Curren Sheldon]

Hey Gregory - New RED user here, but I think there are some better battery options out there for a lightweight setup other than the Red Brick. Personally, I'm going to go with the Dynacore slims. Much much lighter than the BRICKS (aptly named) and with the same amount of power: http://www.dynabatteries.com/shop/batteries/dm-155s-battery/

I'm also in the same situation, where I use a Sony FS5 for most of my work (doc-style 1 (maybe 2) person team), but grabbing an Epic-W for all of my commercial work, shorts, and doc-shoots where I can have a dedicated sound recordist.

 

[Oron Cohen]

My 2c having come from FS700 rather than FS7.

The emount is a very short mount onto which you can mount practically any lens out there. The EW is more restrictive. I was shooting with M glass a lot on the FS700 which i can't do on the EW right now. The lens ecosystem is better on Emount - a lot more choice.
Paul

I really agree on many points about the Sony but not on this one. RED has a way superior system for mounting lenses. Yes, the sony mount has very short flange and you can mount different lenses via adapters, but it never feels native to the camera apart from the sony lenses.

With the RED DSMC & DSMC2 (apart from Raven) you can change mounts and every mount make your camera be NATIVE to that mount. You have Canon, Nikon, PL, Leica M and there are also some other mounts available all feel super solid and it only take 4 screws and something like 3min to change. so in that regard I way prefer the RED system and actually think it's one of RED's strongest point.

 

[Rakesh Malik]

I really agree on many points about the Sony but not on this one. RED has a way superior system for mounting lenses. Yes, the sony mount has very short flange and you can mount different lenses via adapters, but it never feels native to the camera apart from the sony lenses.

No matter how you slice it though, you do get more options to you when using Sony's mount. There are some lenses that there's no way to adapt to the Red due to geometry, specifically flange distance. That includes the FE mount line, which includes some very good lenses. Red's approach is more user friendly for sure as well as more robust, but as in all things in life, there's a tradeoff.

 

[Oron Cohen]

No matter how you slice it though, you do get more options to you when using Sony's mount. There are some lenses that there's no way to adapt to the Red due to geometry, specifically flange distance. That includes the FE mount line, which includes some very good lenses. Red's approach is more user friendly for sure as well as more robust, but as in all things in life, there's a tradeoff.

Agree. But let's break it down for a moment, apart from Sony's mount and maybe C-mount for super 16/16mm what pro lenses do you really have? and as you said: robust is the key word here. When you are working on 12-15 hour day shoot in all sort of conditions for weeks, last thing you want is some flimsy adapter.

Btw, check out ciecio7 mounts on eBay, this guy from Poland is making: Leica R, OCT-19 (LOMO), Canon FD, Mamiya 645, BNCR and Pentax K add that to RED's and WC: PL, Canon EF (electronic), Nikon F and Leica M...I mean...you are COVERED lol

 

[Rakesh Malik]

There are more mounts available than I'd realized -- on the small format side the only mount I'd be interested in that isn't already available from Wooden Camera or Red is Sony Alpha, for travel and such... but I'm most likely going to save up for a Nikon mount since I have some Nikon glass already, and then add some Sigma Art lenses in a Nikon mount to my kit for adventure travel, for easy of carrying.

Some day I'd like to be able to get into medium format digital; when I get there I'll be a lot more interested in 645 lenses.