Sony UK to Announce PMW-F3 at 10am UTC on Facebook

[Andrew Stone]

This announcement appears to have come out of nowhere...

On Monday, November 7th, Sony UK is going to have a Q & A session on their 35mm sensored camera on Facebook at 10am UK time or 2 am pacific time (only a few short hours from now). They are now calling their creation the PMW-F3.

The announcement is here (scroll to bottom of page)...

Sony : Sony's 35mm World : United Kingdom

The Facebook home page is below. You will have to add them as a "like" them and then go to the Q & A section in the "Discussion" tab.

http://www.facebook.com/SonyProfessionalEurope

You splendid Europeans and North American night owls, please take notes and someone make sure that the Sony engineers know that developing another camera with a bottom that looks like a Henry Moore sculpture is so NOT on.

[Glen Vandermolen]

Unfortunately, the links to the F3 info don't work. I wonder if Sony decided to pull them for now.

[Andrew Stone]

Could be Glen but I think it is more likely to go live either tomorrow or more likely on the 17th of November when things get official with their press conference. Tomorrow I suspect is to prepare them for the onslaught of questions they will get from the tech media and film industry people that will be there on the 17th. A dry run as it were in preparation.

[Dave Blackhurst]

Links worked fine for me, but since such a toy is out of my budget and tomorrow is an early day, probably will miss it...

[Glen Vandermolen]

Sorry, to clarify: the links supplied by Andrew work fine. It's the links within the links to the PMW-F3 products pages on the Sony/UK site that don't work. For now, anyway.

[Erik Phairas]

I see the product page, I'm reading the specs now. Or are you guys talking about something else?

Exmor™ Super35 CMOS image sensor

The PMW-F3K is equipped with a Super 35mm sensor which is the same size as Super 35mm film and has been specifically developed for digital cinematography. Its positioning within the chassis is exactly the same as it would be within a 35mm film camera – ensuring exactly the same optical performance with the unrivalled range of 35mm Cine lenses.

In addition, Sony's advanced accumulated sensor technologies provide an excellent sensitivity of F11 (ISO 800)* and a remarkable signal-to-noise ratio of just 63 dB*. Unique Exmor™ sensor offers exceptional noise reduction and greatly reduces power consumption.

*All measured at 1080/59.94i and typical value.

MPEG-2 Long GOP
HD HQ mode: VBR, maximum bit rate: 35 Mb/s, MPEG-2 MP@HL
HD SP mode: CBR, 25 Mb/s, MPEG-2 MP@H-14
SD mode: DVCAM

Audio:
Linear PCM (2ch, 16-bit, 48-kHz)

[Andy Wilkinson]

Yes, just read all the product info and full tech specs on the pages. I see Sony are sticking to 35Mbps VBR codec, at least for now. Not sure if this is "new" info, or was there before.....Interesting....but this camera is going to be well above my planned budget for my next cam!

[Brian Drysdale]

I imagine people will be using a Nanoflash on quite a few productions.

[David C. Williams]

I can't see any pricing anywhere? You'd think they'd pitch it around the EX3 range, as it looks like slotting in right about there with it's feature set, but for the larger sensor brigade. Maybe a bit more for the three T2 lens kit version. And more again for the 3G upgrade.

[William Koenig]

Quote from product info PDF, "Sony F3 Original Mount for Zoom Lens Sony plans to introduce a range of zoom lenses directly compatible with the F3 mount. More details will be revealed shortly. Zoom lens compatibility expands the operational flexibility of the F3 so it can be used for almost any application."

One of the main reasons I haven't jumped on the large sensor/DSLR bandwagon is the mainly prime lens set-up. I prefer to shoot shorts and features with an ENG set-up. With the zoom rocker, I'll be very interested in what type of zoom lenses that are in developement, or already in existance. A 35mm EX1R/3 would be perfect for my shooting style.

[Dave Elston]

I'm hoping there'll be a lot more details to come about the F3 mount. While having a PL mount is nice, I'd really only be interested in the camera if I could marry it up with my existing set of Nikon stills lenses.

Due to the longer FFD of PL, there are no "optics-free" adapters that will get from there to either Nikon or Canon mounts without losing focus at infinity (and essentially forcing the lenses to behave like macros).

Assuming that the F3 mount has a short enough FFD (well under 44mm), I'm hoping either Sony or third parties are planning to bring additional F3 mount adapters to market at launch or very soon after. In fact it would be great to hear from anyone at Mtf - if they have any plans on this?

[Andy Wilkinson]

Latest I've found on this....

"There are two models, one PMW-F3K with three lenses (35, 50, 85mm F2.0) - Euros 20,700, PMW-F3L body only model - Euros 14500. Availability is Jan 2011. With regards to details on the zoom lens, Sony will be producing specific zoom lenses for this camcorder, which we intend to show prototypes of at NAB 2011."

[Tim Polster]

I think a lot of us are excited until we see the price. 14,000 for body only is not a "second camera" for your EX-1/3. Also looks like the zoom lenses will only be prototypes at NAB which means when will they be available...

I would say this makes me think that Sony has another model which will compete with the upcoming Panasonic AF-100. They know that a lot of people are not interested in spending $15-$20,000 on this camera. But the specs are not that far off from the AF-100. It is kind of tough to see what they would cut to get the camera down in price.

2011 is going to be quite the year for camera releases.

[Andrew Stone]

The model with a 35, 50 & an 85mm lens set will cost in the neighbourhood of 20,700 euros. They are all F/2.0 lenses. Sold as a brick at $14,500 euros. Like the previous EX's my hunch is the street price will be lower.

The sensor is the same size as the F35 sensor which is a 35mm film academy sized sensor but spits out XDCAM EX footage to the SxS card slots, 10bit 422 out the operational HD-SDI port with a paid dual link HD-SDI option available around NAB time along with a few option pay for options. With the 3GHD-SDI option you will have access to 4:4:4 10 bit output but you will have to have a way to capture it.

It weighs 2.4 kilos without lens or battery, standard ISO equivalent is 800 as opposed to an EX1/3 at 320, the tripod mount is a standard screw thread mount... didn't say whether or not the bottom was curved like the EX3, 12 stops of latitude, apparently the rolling shutter is not as bad due to a sped up refresh rate, zoom lens ANNOUNCED at NAB (didn't they just announce it today?), it has a PL mount so cine lenses are the order of the day like Zeiss Primes.

One significant benefit of this camera is the sped up workflow in relation to RED and the decreased risk of things going sideways in post. Producers and clients who deal with RED are going to be interested in this. But...

One significant downer on this, unless you have a nanoFlash or the would to be maybe possibly Ki Pro Mini is it doesn't do appreciable overcrank out of the box even at 720. Sony are you looking at your competition? This where Sony could create instant deal breakers in a lot of people who are ready to drop money on this unit that has a lot going for it. To get 60 frames of overcrank at 720p you have to buy the dual-link HD-SDI option. I'm guessing this is going to be a multi grand option given it will give you access to 4:4:4 output. It won't do appreciable overcrank in 1080 whereas Panasonic's AF100 will do 1080p60 albeit at 24bit on their souped up AVC codec but at least it is there and ostensibly usable in a lot of applications.

It is kind of odd that they have priced this within reach of people in the lower end of the pro market, that being where the huge sales unit numbers would come from but they have hobbled it by effectively excluding overcrank. I understand the size the processor has something to do with it but the reality is a large part of the decision is based on a small hardware piece and acess to software within the camera to give the user overcrank through the dual-link HD-SDI ports.

Sony is trying to play both sides of the fence by going after the low end of the pro market with the price point of the body but charging film industry rates for add ons like some forms of overcrank that are now considered standard fare. Those days are over at the low end of the market. Panasonic has figured this out and they are going to mop up with the AF100, if Sony doesn't get with the program.

The lenses they are going to offer are going to be in the 2 to 2.5 thousand dollar range each which is less than Zeiss Primes but you might want to look at the compact primes that Zeiss offers as they are within shooting range of the Sony lenses. User reports on these lenses I suppose will determine whether or not the Sony lenses are close enough in quality to the Zeiss lenses or not.

[Andrew Stone]

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

This makes me think that Sony has another model which will compete with the upcoming Panasonic AF-100.

All things are pointing towards Sony announcing a camera to compete with the AF-100 but you have to remember that Sony has been showing off prototypes of what we now call the PMW-F3 for the last eight months. Absolutely NOTHING has been shown or talked about an AF100 competitor.

We will know on the 17th of November. Hopefully.