What Focal Lengths For Interviews

[Thierry Humeau]

Sorry but nothing of interest to show at this point. I am taking the F3 on a shoot to Morocco early April and should have great viz to show on return.

Best,

Thierry.

[Nigel Akam]

Originally Posted by Steve Cahill

Thierry any footage from F3 using the Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 that you can share or the Sigma 17_50mm_F2_8_EX_DC ?

Steve

I recently shot with the Tokina 11-16 for GM. Here's the link to some of the selects. I used it on a Cam Mate jib. We had zip gears on it and the focus puller used a Preston that my Jib op owns.

Sony F3 - Ton TV on Vimeo

[Dennis Dillon]

T, Thanks, Ill PU one before NAB and take a look.

[Dennis Dillon]

T,
My initial concern was its use on a 5D.

[Dennis Dillon]

Nigel,
Nice selects. Can you tell us the bit rate? and how was it posted? CCed?

[Nigel Akam]

Originally Posted by Dennis Dillon

Nigel,
Nice selects. Can you tell us the bit rate? and how was it posted? CCed?

Dennis

We shot these instalments of Ton TV with a combination of the F3 and 5D's. I had just got my F3 a few days earlier, so we had to scramble to prep it, even though I had previous experience with it. The F3 bits were recorded both in camera and to my Nanoflash. These are the files I posted.

They were recorded 1080P 23.98 at 100 mbs. I cut the selects in FCP with a very minor correct with the 3 way colour corrector, and exported with compressor to h.264. Uploaded with the Vimeo uploader. There was a wide range of lights above at the auto show. LED's to tungstun... A lot of green involved. I was very impressed on how the camera held up with the contrast of dark cars with hard light hitting it from everywhere, and light coloured cars and floors. The Tokina was great. Covered the F3 sensor, and did not seem to vignette.

I was trying different gamma curves when we did this, looking for a good combination that would handle the contrast. The host links were with cinegamma 2.

Since then, I've refined a bit of the look, testing out Alister's natural look (thank you Alister) and just finished a week with Subaru that we are producing. We had a lot of contrasty situations and the camera held up very well in all these situations. I'll have full control in post to have it graded properly, and am very happy with the quick looks I've had.

Not sure of the release date for GM's Ton TV, but it will be on their website at some point

[Leonard Levy]

Nigel,
How did the F3 look compared to the Canon's and did the client notice the difference? ( That's the big question isn't it?

Lenny

[Nigel Akam]

Originally Posted by Leonard Levy

Nigel,
How did the F3 look compared to the Canon's and did the client notice the difference? ( That's the big question isn't it?

Lenny

We used 2 5D's to shoot the interview, guest type segments, cross shooting, and also on our host segments straight to camera with the 5D on a close up side angle on a long lens. I did notice a difference in the two cameras for sure. Firstly, we were monitoring the 5D's using HDMI outs and splitters, so that was always a pain.

The 5D was more contrasty, even with the contrast at the lowest setting. Same goes with the saturation. I ended up turning it down. The F3 had more latitude, and even though we didn't have a lot of time before hand to set it up, there's more room to play in the set- up.

The director noticed the difference. When you take in account all the extra headaches with monitoring the 5D's and all the extra bits involved to make them work, I was happier when we were shooting with the F3. I did get a chance to do some quick tests with Alister's 5D look for the F3, and it seemed like it matched it up closer to the 5D.

[Steve Cahill]

Nigel- thank you for posting the footage.

[Steve Kalle]

Nigel,

For your work, do you have a preference between a F3 + external recorder and a Red One MX (or Epic)? I am very interested in how the F3 affects peoples' desire to use Red cameras.

[Aaron Newsome]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

Nigel,

For your work, do you have a preference between a F3 + external recorder and a Red One MX (or Epic)? I am very interested in how the F3 affects peoples' desire to use Red cameras.

Funny you should say that. I got a call from the producers of a documentary, who have decided to shoot their movie on F3 instead of RED (which is why they were calling me).

RED fans will never understand a decision like that. Actually, I take that back. I'm a RED fan and I fully understand their decision. I guess I meant to say, the RED fanboys would never understand.

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Aaron Newsome

Funny you should say that. I got a call from the producers of a documentary, who have decided to shoot their movie on F3 instead of RED (which is why they were calling me).

RED fans will never understand a decision like that. Actually, I take that back. I'm a RED fan and I fully understand their decision. I guess I meant to say, the RED fanboys would never understand.

Hi Aaron,

Can you tell us the reasoning behind your director's decision? And will you be using your Cinedeck with the F3 or something else, and is this project planned for before or after the F3's 444 upgrade is available?

Thanks to all so far for your input.

For cranes and jibs, has anyone had issues with the lens creeping when using a zoom lens from a stills camera?

[Aaron Newsome]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

Hi Aaron,

Can you tell us the reasoning behind your director's decision? And will you be using your Cinedeck with the F3 or something else, and is this project planned for before or after the F3's 444 upgrade is available?

Hi Steve. Yes we are way off-topic for this thread here. I've had some pretty long talks with these guys about what they are doing and how they're doing it. I know they're not just blowing smoke either since their last film won an academy award. Those don't happen by accident.

I never really got a solid answer about WHY F3 instead of RED, but from what I can gather it's something to do with the post production and "quick turnaround" of footage.

They already own an F3 and they already have a defined workflow that they would like any B-camera guys (like me) to use. They are already shooting with Convergent Designs nanoFlash. I can already deliver footage identical to nanoFlash, since I have a Convergent Designs XDR. Their workflow with the nanoFlash won't benefit tremendously with the F3 S-log upgrade so I don't think that was a consideration. Plus they've already shot a ton of footage before the S-log was available so I don't think they care about it.

I sure do though. I just wish it wasn't $3,500. Seems a little steep.

Sorry to take the topic off the path. Now back to lens talk.

[Nigel Akam]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

Nigel,

For your work, do you have a preference between a F3 + external recorder and a Red One MX (or Epic)? I am very interested in how the F3 affects peoples' desire to use Red cameras.

Flexibility is a big key for me. The range from recording internally, too the Nanoflash, and then too Gemini, (or Cinedeck, Sony's new recorder...) Quick turnarounds with no real hassles to convert or encode the footage.

I like this range. I looked long and hard at the other options, but at the end of the day part of it was return on investment, and the projects I could use the camera on. Over the last month, I've used it on run and gun shoots to full blown commercials. With the Gemini, and other options this spring, I think it will push the bounds of where I can use this camera.

Once upon a time we paid over $70K for a Betacam. I did, but can you make that money back now in under a 3 years now. I think some of the economics have been forgotten in this equation about cameras. Technology is changing very quickly, and I've had people at rental houses ask me how owner/operators make money these days. Especially if they buy very expensive cameras, and day rates go down.

Am I off topic.... Lots of snow here today, and a long day shooting....With the F3 :) part of the shoot was some welding. Could not believe how well the F3 handled it.

[Steve Kalle]

Nigel, thanks for the input.

No, you aren't off-topic. I only mentioned about getting back on-topic because I have seen threads go wayyy off on another tangent where multiple people start multiple conversations. Anything to do with the F3 is great for me as I will buy one within a couple months now that I know the FS100 is not what I need; although, its price is very tempting as I already have a nanoFlash. Plus, I really like the Zeiss lenses for the Sony Alpha mount.

Lets morph this thread some more: Nigel, Aaron and others - when do you find 8bit not enough from a nanoFlash/XDR? I am learning DaVinci Resolve on Mac (using FXPHD) and applying what I learn to After Effects. At least with my EX3/nanoFlash footage, I have found that I really need something 'better' such as low noise. However, I haven't had a chance to really push clean 8bit footage, which brings me to another question: anyone have a short clip of a scene with lots of contrast that I could download for testing?