When you say 1/2 price does that include matching CF cards to Hard drives?
even SSDs are cheaper than CF cards, and we're talking about spinning or hybrid drives, they are way less expensive than compact flash.

Thanks I checked and compared the pricing.

In terms of reliability, nothing is better than the SxS cards which are designed for one purpose, and one purpose only - to record a constant stream of data.

Anyone who has been a Pro still photog knows that CF cards are not very reliable, which is why Sandisk would include recovery software with their expensive cards up until the last couple years (probably to cut costs).

Consumer SSDs are not designed to write a constant stream of data which is why many do not work reliably for video recording. However, the Enterprise SSDs which use SLC memory are designed for constant writing but cost 3-4 times as much as consumer SSDs with MLC chips.

There is a reason why Arri chose SxS cards for its internal recording and not CF cards or SSDs. Also, look at C-D's Gemini and their custom made SSDs and Red with their custom designed SSDs.

For the utmost reliability, you can't beat a memory device that is custom built for a single purpose.

Good point Steve,

I have recorded over 30 TB with my SxS and not one dropped frame on 6 different cameras. But with CF cards and high quality ones I have had a 30% failure with cards. One of the may reasons to always dual record unless it is SXS cards.

Anyone who has been a Pro still photog knows that CF cards are not very reliable, which is why Sandisk would include recovery software with their expensive cards up until the last couple years (probably to cut costs)

I tend to disagree with this: I've been a professional press and concert photographer, using digital camera's since the very beginning in the year 2000 (Nikon 1D), and on a total of more than 100,000 clicks, I have had only one instance where a CF-card let me down. Unfortunately it was the shoot of the start of the Tour de France in Antwerp, so that was a disaster. But otherwise, I have never had any problems, although some of my shoots were in rather difficult circumstances. 100 pix lost on a total of approx. 100,000... I would call that very reliable anytime.

I tend to disagree with this: I've been a professional press and concert photographer, using digital camera's since the very beginning in the year 2000 (Nikon 1D), and on a total of more than 100,000 clicks, I have had only one instance where a CF-card let me down. Unfortunately it was the shoot of the start of the Tour de France in Antwerp, so that was a disaster. But otherwise, I have never had any problems, although some of my shoots were in rather difficult circumstances. 100 pix lost on a total of approx. 100,000... I would call that very reliable anytime.

You can't base reliability off of your own experience and neither can I. I know a few wedding photographers who use only 4GB cards due to the problems they have experienced and do not want to risk losing more than 4GB of data at a time. For high end video, there are many people who use 2 recording systems because all forms of electronic recording fail - its not a matter of 'IF', its a matter of 'WHEN'. This is one of the main reasons why I use my nanoFlash.

Its very telling when CF manufacturers include recovery software with their products. Now, to save money, they tell their users to download the recovery software from their website rather than include mini CDs with the CF cards.

I have based this opinion not only on my experience, but on that of numerous colleagues and friends, press photographers who also describe the CF-cards they use in their hi-end Canon's and Nikon's as 'very reliable'. Trust me, just as me they earn(ed) their living with these cards and the industry wouldn't tolerate major and frequent failures. Moreover: I would hardly compare a wedding photographer who shoots once a week (if he's lucky) to newspaper guys who shoot every day. Even the cheaper Transcend cards (without recovery software) have never let me down. The only card that ever failed was a Lexar.

That said, SD-cards are a completely different matter: they were designed for amateur use and I wouldn't trust these at all for any professional job: too flimsy.

That said, SD-cards are a completely different matter: they were designed for amateur use and I wouldn't trust these at all for any professional job: too flimsy.

You really need to go and look at some of the websites that stress test SD cards for fun some time before making sweeping statements. Just even a cursory search on Youtube shows some very extreme testing. In the sample below while the Sandisk fails at the first hurdle (which granted was firing a bullet at it which shouldn't concern most of us), the Panasonic survives the bullet, being driven over and being baked.

The Most Brutal SD Card Torture Test Ever - YouTube

There were also some very interesting tests I saw last year regarding ATP cards and radiation and magnetism. The cards survived to a level that if the data was erased, frankly your footage would be the last thing you would be worrying about.

"Flimsy" is something that breaks in your hand easily, not something that breaks because it has a bullet fired at it!

SD-cards, compared to CF-cards, are very flimsy. Try to break a CF card in two and do the same with an SD card, you'll see what I mean. In my shirt- or back-pocket, an SD-card wouldn't live long. Moreover, SD cards have exposed contacts which makes them even more vulnerable. It's not a coincidence that all pro still camera's use CF-cards for more than a decade now. Only very rarely they also have an SD-slot, for backup, like some Canon 1D's. I do not know one of my friends and colleagues press photographers who would trust an SD card in his camera's. But that's in real everyday life, not a single test.

"Flimsy" is something that breaks in your hand easily, not something that breaks because it has a bullet fired at it!

"Flimsy" is exactly how I would describe SD cards. In fact, three weeks ago I had a 32GB SDHC card from a major manufacturer literally fall apart. I was using my finger tip (not fingernail) to insert it into a reader when the card split into two halves (like two slices of bread) and my finger went right into the card. After that, the card would not work and I lost about 40 clips. Luckily the camera and lighting was still setup in the studio so it only took a couple of hours to reshoot, but now I am even more wary of using SDHC cards.

"Flimsy" is exactly how I would describe SD cards. In fact, three weeks ago I had a 32GB SDHC card from a major manufacturer literally fall apart. I was using my finger tip (not fingernail) to insert it into a reader when the card split into two halves (like two slices of bread) and my finger went right into the card. After that, the card would not work and I lost about 40 clips. Luckily the camera and lighting was still setup in the studio so it only took a couple of hours to reshoot, but now I am even more wary of using SDHC cards.

Please can you provide details of the card so that others can avoid them?

I must say my EX1 cards never leave their MxM adaptors. Once locked in place they stay in there. But I do have to handle SDHC cards directly for some of my other cameras and can't say that the brands I'm using (mainly ATP with a few Sandisk Extreme's thrown in) have ever felt flimsy. I'm not mad keen on handling them, but that is more down to size. Frankly I'm worried enough when handling any media master, let alone something the size of a postage stamp.

If you are that concerned about the cards breaking I'd suggest one of the professional cards as demoed in that video, possibly the Hoodman which has a steel plate through the middle.

The card that fell apart on me was an older blue 32GB Hoodman. It is my understanding the new Hoodman's being sold today have been redesigned. I keep each SD card in it's own adapter too, but I have to take them out to go into my reader. That is where the damage occurred.

Also, just for the record, I should say that I generally do not recommend shooting anything important on SDHC cards. I use SxS cards 99% of the time but this just happened to be a long day where I decided to use an SD card instead of erasing an SxS card. That decision cost me two hours of reshooting . . . but I knew that was the risk. If it was for something that could not be done over again, I never would have used the SD card at all.

The card that fell apart on me was an older blue 32GB Hoodman. It is my understanding the new Hoodman's being sold today have been redesigned. I keep each SD card in it's own adapter too, but I have to take them out to go into my reader. That is where the damage occurred.

Also, just for the record, I should say that I generally do not recommend shooting anything important on SDHC cards. I use SxS cards 99% of the time but this just happened to be a long day where I decided to use an SD card instead of erasing an SxS card. That decision cost me two hours of reshooting . . . but I knew that was the risk. If it was for something that could not be done over again, I never would have used the SD card at all.

I think this is also a good reason why large memory cards add more risk such as 64GB SxS cards or 128GB CF cards.

I have been using the 64gb SXS cards since they arrived on the scene and I have not had one bit of information lost. I can't say that about the CF cards I use in my Nanoflash. In fact, on more than occasion once the 64 SXS saved me from totally losing images on the corrupted CF cards.

Luc said that losing in a 100 or a 1000 is great odds. I disagree, because you know that "one shot" is going to be irreplaceable.

I have to take them out to go into my reader.

An adaptor costing just a few dollars prevents any direct handling of the card being needed at all and will allow the SDHC adaptor to be plugged directly into the USB port. Hence why my cards have never left their MxM adaptors since they were first put into use.

[QUOTE=Steve Kalle;1721099]In terms of reliability, nothing is better than the SxS cards which are designed for one purpose, and one purpose only - to record a constant stream of data.

I use PMW-350 and record simultaneous to nano flash and sxs cards and last job i have done the nano flash saved my life because i lost all data on sxs card, nothing in there and when i put it in camera it said (unknown media)... lost everything, and the 450 euro sxs card can be thrown in the trash:-(...
And that's after two years of usage, sxs was beaten by CF in my case. now i have also the FS-100 and i will continue using my trusty nano flash with CF cards and record on both nano and sd on fs100.
Samer

Marcus,

Thanks for suggestion. However, I have no desire to shoot on any SDHC cards in the future so it doesn't matter at this point. It's SxS or nothing.

Same here. As I bought the PMW-320 only for my hobby, and it's never going to make me any money, I thought buying two adapters and some SDHC cards would save me some money. It did, but I found the use of these flimsy cards so inconsistent with my love and respect for professional solutions, that I invested in 4 SxS cards + a Sony SxS card reader anyway, albeit second hand ones. Now I can use the camera with peace of mind and in a reliable manner. I sold eight of the SDHC cards and kept two for use in pure amateur equipment. That's what they were designed for.

I have been using the 64gb SXS cards since they arrived on the scene and I have not had one bit of information lost. I can't say that about the CF cards I use in my Nanoflash. In fact, on more than occasion once the 64 SXS saved me from totally losing images on the corrupted CF cards.

Which CF cards?

I think this is also a good reason why large memory cards add more risk such as 64GB SxS cards or 128GB CF cards.

Flash memory wears out. While we were used to older flash memory with 100,000 write cycles, the best flash available in CF cards is now in the sub-10,000 write cycle range. Recent flash cell implementations have 1000-5000 write cycles and , very recently, even 100 write cycles. Flash memory performance (some stalls are 1/3 second) and reliability drop as the card reaches 90% of its capacity. The answer is to use a larger card and avoid filling it up, and that also addresses your concerns with placing more video data on a large card. In practice, it's hard to wear out a card, but my mind is not at ease after reading the tech specs for flash cells.

I could see a market for the industrial grade flash (Single Level Cell - SLC) to be placed in flash cards for customers willing to pay for reliability, but my industry friends tell me that no flash cards (CF, SDHC, etc.) use SLC anymore. Would you be willing to pay 2-3x the price of a top-of-the-line SanDisk Extreme? That would be the same as replacing all of your flash cards more often.

From Sony, I would like to see parallel recording to two cards as an option given that two flash card slots are available on the EX-series.

Dear Friends,

There are special techniques in designing both the hardware and software to ensure that both CompactFlash and SSD's do not slow down as they are filling up.

We have implemented these techniques in both the nanoFlash and Gemini 4:4:4.

When we test both CompactFlash cards and SSD's we test them to very close to 100% capacity.
(In the nanoFlash we reserve just a small amount of memory, since some cards routinely fail if you fill them up 100%.)

I have been waiting patiently, but despite dealer suggestions to wait, the expected developments at NAB don't seems to have happened. The only significant change being the software updates allowing the HyperDeck Shuttle to write to ProRes HQ and the Atomos devices to write natively to Avid

Alister's YouTube clip XDCAM 35Mb/s compared to Samurai ProRes HQ - YouTube (http://bit.ly/I58qKi) conclusively shows the benefits of these devices, so herein lies the oft asked question: which recorder to go for?

Currently I'm using an EX3, but an F3 / FS700 is looming. The logical decision on performance with EX3 is the NanoFlash and this would be my choice. However, the price here in the UK is still way out of line (the US$1000 reduction does not seem to have translated) at GBP1995. By comparison, the Samurai comes in at GBP1050 and the HyperDeckShuttle (with battery etc) is GBP450.

All these units need CF / SSD to make them work adding around GBP200-250 to the price of each.

The arguments about 8bit / 10 bit, data rates etc all have validity, especially with the new cameras, but the key point with all these devices is 4:2:2 colour and reduced compression.

Does anyone have experience of the HyperDeck Shuttle with Sony cameras. On specs and price it seems to be the sensible option, if not the most compact.

Nick

Hi Nick,

I have looked at the Hyperdeck to use with an F3 but the main reason why I do not like it is because it requires a computer to change its settings and to monitor what it is doing.

One important feature to look into is 3:2 pulldown removal. The nanoFlash supports it but other recorders have not like the Ninja.

As a PAL user pulldown isn't an issue, something I've never had to worry about.

Nick, I think ProRes is only on Hyperdeck studio not the shuttle.

I'm using an EX1 and looking seriously at the FS100, I don't need super slowmo for an additional £2000...
I know it's got SDI and NDs, but a variable ND is actually more flexible I think.
Also the 4k chip means it's likely to be a little worse off in low light.

What about the new Ninja 2? the HDMI out, metadata integration and new screen look great.

(BTW creativevideo have the NF at £1700 all in!)

Duncan.

Thanks Steve and Duncan,

As Duncan says, the pulldown is not a problem. I spoke to BM yesterday and the PR HQ is on Studio and Shuttle 2, so it is an option, but as Steve mentioned usability and also I suspect, dust resistance may not be the finest.

FS100 is interesting, but the SDI and NDs on the FS 700 would be the deal-breaker for me - planning on a zoom + CP2s and they have no thread for Vari-ND. SDI also means Samurai not Ninja. I notice that Alister uses Samurai a lot with his F3

Interested to hear the CV have the price down at last - I was quoted 1900 + VAT by the UK importer today.

Too many choices!

Nick, I can't find ProRes on the Shuttle2 being mentioned anywhere but here.
Eager to know more.

Is it a future firmware update?

Duncan.

Hi Duncan,

There may be a painful, pregnant pause here: I am sure I read it as Shuttle2 on Monday and product specific email discussions with BM support have not contradicted that. However the release notes say clearly 'Studio' - I am checking with support now

Actually, the difference between the FS100 and FS700 seems to be £3000... going by the best prices I've found so far.

I'd buy an Atomos HDMI-SDI convertor (runs on SonyNP batteries too), a 4x4 VariND, Screw-on VariND and live with 60p conformed down to 25p for my slo-mo. And still have over £2000 in my pocket (that's $3200 or so)

What else does the FS700 offer... 4k (makes it less sensitive), a better handle... Dunno.

Duncan.

Duncan,

My humble apology - I was wrong: the 3.0 software provides ProRes HQ for the Studio model - I'd swear I saw it applied to the Shuttle. Oh well.

Your points about FS100 / 700 are valid and in this climate, £3k is not to be sniffed at. The killer for me is the ability to shoot real stills with the latter (although I need to see examples to be convinced).

Looking forward to comparing the two.

Nick

My initial look at the 100/700 at NAB seems to indicate that the effective speed of both sensors is about the same, in spite of the pixel count difference.
In addition to adding an HD-SDI connector (which will at some point in the future be the 3G source of 4K data) and the ND filters, the 700 has a way of recording a burst of slow motion full 1920/1080 res at 120 or 240fps, as well as at 480 or 960 fps at reduced resolutions.

You also get Picture Profiles in the 700 which is worth most of the extra cost alone although SDI and built-in ND makes a huge difference for me. I recently spent a few days testing the FS100 with my nanoFlash to see if/how it would fit into what I do, and the lack of ND and SDI are deal killers for me. Also, the way the FS100 handles highlights is horrible.

Its amusing to see the difference between 2 very similar cameras: FS700 and C500, yet one costs over $20k more than the other (both record 1080p internally and can output 4k).

Looking at the FS700 and the new 4k Ki Pro Mini, I could make a very well balanced shoulder rig out of them with the Aja as counter balance.

Something else I noticed is the FS700 outputs only 8bits over SDI even though it can do 12bits with the 4k upgrade. Why not 10bits over SDI then?

Something else I noticed is the FS700 outputs only 8bits over SDI even though it can do 12bits with the 4k upgrade. Why not 10bits over SDI then?

I really wish that Sony would have made the SDI output 10-bit but then that would eat into the F3 sales and Sony's marketing machine wasn't going to let that happen.

Too bad, the FS700 looks like a pretty nice camera on spec (need to get some first hand tests) but it could have been a real killer if they would have just bumped the output to 10-bit.

The FS700 uses the same video processor (DSP) as the FS100 so any video output will be limited to 8 bit. In RAW mode the DSP is bypassed so the 8 bit limitation goes away.

Wow, this has been quite the tread. Sorry I had not chimed in earlier. A little busy with work and NAB.
At least 4 or more topics were amassed here, as well as some edgy 35vs50Mb experiences. Glad to know first hand that both Doug and Alister are true professionals, who have done all of us a great service. They have spent a lot of time and money to find the best workflow that works for them, and have shared it to us without compensation.
So WTF do I think. Surely I must have an opinion on the 35/50 thing. And perhaps nobody cares what I believe. That's the way I like it. So take the next paragraphs with multiple grains of Kosher Salt.

My choices are not necessarily the most effective due to the subjectivity spreads between what's happening at 35 and or 50, and the end user. Heavy grade, or just a color correct. Keying? Motion?
I base all my decisions on what my clients want. Since my base is network TV (50 LGOP), I utilize 4 Nanos on my EX 1 and my two F 3's, one back up.
Since the FS700 is 8 bit, I have advised all those who asked me at NAB, that a Nano would be the right fit.
Oh no, what about the future 12 bit 4K. Until I see 4k displays in Best Buy for less than 400.00$, that is when Most of us should consider a 4K 10 bit recorder for a 4K 10 bit camera.
The future is now. What can create better margins for me right now.
That being said, I'll disclose that if one was to have a business plan that included stock footage, one should consider 4k raw acqusition on a 10 bit recorder. Take your pick.
I thought here on the F3. I believe the base line noise level is so low that every network engineer head, should reconsider the F3 at 35 native AS BEING BETTER than 50 LGOP when comparing lesser (higher SN RATIO) camera heads.
Apologies for any tech or gramatical errors above. I posted after a wonderful meal of beef filetes al la Rhone from Fernand Point. Paired with a 2005 Rioja. If I do not have a camera in my hand, it would be sauté pan.
From The New York Times:

EAT: ‘Give Me Butter! Always Butter!’

Enlisting the help of one legendary chef (Thomas Keller) to tackle the recipes of another (Fernand Point).

http://nyti.ms/HVNivf


I work to live, not live to work. Sorry I'm quoting from an unknown source. Seems Thoreau ish. Anybody?

Sorry I drifted from the original subject. Nano for the EX 3, Sammy or Gemini for the F3. Nano for the FS700, until updated 4k.

DD

Can I ask for a bit of advice about the EX3's nearest cousin? I'm using the PMW-320. I've heard from some that this camera has slightly less noise than the EX1 and EX3, although it's not as clean as the PMW-350. Is the Nanoflash the best best for the PMW-320? Or should I be looking for a 10-bit device?

Dear Malcolm,

One of the major strengths of the nanoFlash, is that it is a very low noise recorder.

And it has a very wide variety of bit-rates/flavors: 18 to 280 Mbps in HD.

Other recorders are typically not as low in noise, and require a higher bit-rate for Broadcast Quality.

But, to be fair, the nanoFlash is 8-Bit, but this is not the big deal that many make this out to be.

For example, the nanoFlash does an excellent job on the very low-noise Sony PMW-F3, a truely low-noise 10-Bit camera.

Now that the price is the nanoFlash is very close to the others, please consider a nanoFlash.

Just ask anyone that owns one.

It's quite easy to "break" the 35Mb/s codec in the EX and F3. I did some test with trees blowing in the wind and you can really see the image degrade as the leaves flutter about. Admittedly, I was trying to break the codec, it was a test. Most of the time I am surprised by how good 35Mb/s looks and I do think that an F3 at 35Mb/s is good enough for broadcast if you take care with your workflow and are aware of what might cause problems.

The broadcasters (here in Europe at least) have to consider however, that many people that shoot and produce programmes for them have very little technical knowledge. It is very sad, but very, very few of the smaller production companies have any staff engineers or even camera operators with sound technical knowledge. So with that in mind, when the broadcasts set their standards they will err on the side of caution.

Coming back to the NanoFlash. When we shot the Duran Duran "A Diamond in the Mind" film (available on BluRay next month) we chose to use NanoFlashes, even though we were using F3's. We used them for several reasons. The main reason was the amount of data produced. The NanoFlash files even at the 80Mb/s we shot at are still half the size of a ProRes file. This makes data wrangling much easier when you have a total of 23 three hour streams of video to manage. They are extremely reliable and very low power, we could run them off the Swit camera batteries without need separate battery kits. The media is cheap, again with so many cameras a major consideration. Hard drives would not have worked, the loud deep bass music would have caused corruption on hard drives. However, we knew going in to the concert that there was a small sacrifice to pay by going 8 bit over 10. So I created a very careful tuned picture profile for the cameras that was tailored for the stage lighting. For most of the concert only minimal grading was needed. But for a couple of tracks the band insisted on a very heavy graded look. The very low compression noise of the nano flashes did a fantastic job and even with a hard grade the pictures still look fantastic. I'm really looking seeing the reviews once the BluRay is released.
For conventional gammas and even cinegamma's low noise 8 bit works really well. We have been using 8 bit recording for decades and there have been many beautiful looking programmes made with 8 bit.

However, when you start going to log curves like S-Log, the extra dynamic range really needs more grey shades than 8 bit delivers. That's when 10 bit starts becoming more or less essential. I've had my NanoFlash for almost 4 years. It's been fantastic and even though I do now have a couple of 10 bit recorders (a Gemini and a Samurai) I am definitely not yet ready to part with my NanoFlash, for a start it can do time-lapse and over crank which none of the others do and I know I can trust it to work as it's supposed to without any fuss.

I guess the NanoFlash is like a pickup truck. Versatile, robust, functional (in a good way), dependable, but without too many flashy bits. While the Samurai is a sports car, flashy, sleek, modern but not very versatile.

Which is better? Depends on the application, moving house or impressing the ladies? Shooting news and documentaries or shooting drama. On the road or in a studio? 50Mb/s off a NanoFlash will look as good as ProResHQ at 175Mb/s. From an EX or PMW-320/350 it will grade very well indeed and I think you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between the 8 and 10 bit recordings, but at 50Mb/s you only need a third of the recording media, backup and archive.

I'm a very happy Nanoflash owner of 18 months now. I don't use it for BBC jobs but for my own films, with an EX3.

Filming wildlife the Nanoflash Prebuffer mode is a godsend in getting the subject to enter the frame without running up huge amounts of useless data.

Crank mode is essential in all wildlife production (although the alternative of conforming later also works and I use it this way when in Prebuffer mode because Crank mode is not possible with Prebuffer at the same time).

Also, I'm not a fan of acquiring footage in an edit-ready eg.Prores format with the extra data wrangling overhead. I prefer to offload the day's shooting as quickly as possible and get more sleeping time instead. In summer in the northern hemisphere that's no joke.

Very low power consumption and light weight I love too. I don't think the other contenders can match that.

8-bit is fine unless like Alister says you have a very high end camera. Just take more care with exposure.

"Filming wildlife the Nanoflash Prebuffer mode is a godsend in getting the subject to enter the frame without running up huge amounts of useless data."

Great feature, though the time of the PreBuffer is inversely proportional to the bitrate. I found this feature useful only with a remote record (Libec ZC-9EX) as even a slight shake of the camera was apparent on my footage when I touched the record button. This is not a problem when the PreBuffer is not used. Am I a spaz?

Yes, wobbling the camera when you hit the record button is an issue. But with a decent tripod this should be minimal.

I think many people economise too much on the tripod, me included sometimes. You really want the biggest tripod you can sensibly use with any camera. Just because the camera is light, it doesn't mean you can get away with a light tripod, especially at long focal lengths. A decent tripod is a much better investment than most cameras. It should last 10 years or more and a good tripod will improve the smoothness and stability of your images.

Alistair, yeah, I'm using a Gitzo tripod (no center column) built for a DSLR + 400mm f/2.8 lens and lock down the Really Right Stuf BH-55 ballhead. Hoping to buy a Vinten or such this year. My current video tripod is a monstrous Bogen, but since I do with stills and video on trips, I just take the Gitzo or a smaller Really Right Stuff Ground Pod. Most of the wiggling occurs when I shoot video or stills of animals in the trees. Wind will move it a tad, but fingers always do it. I know my 501 faux-fluid video head just won't give me the vertical angles.