Some basic questions for upcoming FS700 rental

[Stuart Brontman]

This will be my second rental of the FS700 for a client that I shoot 120-240fps footage for. Last year there was no proper way to record more than 8 or 16 seconds of slo-mo footage but now I have two options. Here are my questions:

1) Sony RAW vs Convergent Designs options. I've already locked in a rental of the Sony external kit unit but noticed the Odyssey 7Q appears to do the same thing and costs less! Any pros or cons of these units? I'm NOT shooting 4k, just 2k at 120 and 240 fps.

2) For external lanc control, will it run either external recording unit? I can not be at the camera to run it due to safety concerns where the shoot is taking place.

3) Is there any method for controlling this camera from a laptop vs. using a lanc controller? If not, you would think there would be some enterprising developer who would come out with this for Sony cameras. I have searched the web and find nothing...

Thanks for any input on the above!

[Chris Medico]

I can contribute that there is currently no remote start and stop for the 7q. That feature is on the roadmap but not in the current firmware.

[Stuart Brontman]

Thanks. I thought I read that starting and stopping the FS700 will trigger the 7Q automatically. If so, would lanc control of the FS700 also trigger the 7Q?

[Chris Medico]

The start/stop button should trigger the 7q fine. You will just need a lanc extension cable.

[Stuart Brontman]

Excellent. Thanks Chris.

[Colin Elves]

The Sony system uses compression, so you'll get longer record times per card - although the Odyssey requires 2 cards, so ultimatly you'll probably get roughly the same amount of real time recording before you need to download. There'll be more to download with the O7Q but I don't think the Sony card reader is thunderbolt (you can use a thunderbolt SSD adaptor for the Odysseu SSDs) so offload times might be about the same anyway (depending upon your back up set-up). As a general guide, using thunderbolt it takes about 20min to offload 10mins worth of O7Q 240fps footage to a fast SSD or RAID external drive (using thunderbolt). With a 7200rpm single spinning disk it will take an hour.

In post the Sony system will be a lot more simpler to deal with as you can use the Sony Raw viewer to process and/or Sony Raw settings in Resolve lite (and other applications).

In comparison you'll have to use Resolve to process the O7Q footage as that's the only system that works with cDNGs the Odyssey records FS700 Raw as. The processing workflow is also a little fiddly (you'll need to use the CD LUTs.)

As regards remote trigger - you can set the O7Q and the Sony recorder to be triggered by the camera and the camera can be triggered by a lanc controller (or the remote).

[Stuart Brontman]

Thanks Colin. I think I'll stick with the Sony unit since we're not dealing with broadcast issues and the client was thrilled last year with the standard 120-240fps from the original FS700. The 7Q would save some money in the rental, but the post work alone offsets the upfront savings.

It looks like lanc is the way to go - pity no one has developed a way to control/trigger this camera from a laptop.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Stuart Brontman

It looks like lanc is the way to go - pity no one has developed a way to control/trigger this camera from a laptop.

I've not tried it but this could be your computer control solution - USB to LANC Interface Adapter

[Stuart Brontman]

Thanks Chris. I'm checking into it now and will let you know if it works (if I try it lol).

[Stuart Brontman]

Chris, I went ahead and ordered the unit and the software. They claimed they have several people using this combo successfully with the FS700. I'll hope for the best. If it works it will be a great addition to my arsenal!

Thanks again for the link.

[Leonard Levy]

This is a long shot, but Does that Lanc to PC adapter get you into the menus of the camera? color control?

[Stuart Brontman]

I'm not sure how effective this will be, but here's a link to the software they provide for the controller:

Sony LANC Deluxe Control Software

It seems to have fairly deep abilities, but I'm sure each camera and the true capabilities of the software will be different...