EX3 nanoflash vs samurai?

[Duncan Craig]

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.

[Nick Wilcox-Brown]

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

[Duncan Craig]

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.

[Nick Wilcox-Brown]

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

[Dave Sperling]

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.

[Steve Kalle]

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?

[Garrett Low]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

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.

[Alister Chapman]

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.

[Dennis Dillon]

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

[Malcolm Bernard]

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?

[Dan Keaton]

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.

[Alister Chapman]

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.

[Stephen de Vere]

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.

[Gints Klimanis]

"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?

[Alister Chapman]

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.