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Sony ENG / EFP Shoulder Mounts
Sony PDW-F800, PDW-700, PDW-850, PXW-X500 (XDCAM HD) and PMW-400, PMW-320 (XDCAM EX).

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Old February 4th, 2009, 03:28 PM   #1
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Had the F700 for a week now

Okay, I have had the F700 for over a week now and it has been working nearly every day. For those interested, here is a link to a quick review on the camera in use.

Very nice image, pity about the cheap looking black finish. Some of the fittings really are a bit tacky considering the cost.

http://www.studioscotland.com/SonyF700_review.htm

Steve: The IDX Elite battery on a continuous shoot with perhaps a dozen stop starts lasted 2 hours 50 mins. However in very cold industrial settings with numerous stop starts and using “delete last clip” a few times it lasted about I hour 30 mins. I must say though that I had messed up the battery settings in the camera menu so I think I would have got a good bit more out of it. We are back out in the cold all day this Friday shooting with numerous “stop starts” so I will check it again.

Regards: Stu
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Old February 4th, 2009, 10:36 PM   #2
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Stu,

Good work on the review. I agree with most comments except for the cheap black finish and the viewfinder. Although I prefer the lighter finish used on the PDW-510/530 SD cameras (captures much less heat in full sun...), the black finish of the PDW-700 looks quite less plastic than the F-350s but this is no biggie. As for the viewfinder, I think there is a huge difference in sharpness and picture resolution when comparing the F-3XX camera SD viewfinder to the high-end HDVF-20A HD viewfinder of the PDW-700.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the camera.

Thierry.
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Old February 5th, 2009, 11:25 AM   #3
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That's a great review Stewart!

I already noticed it a couple of days ago when it wasn't ready yet. ;-) Nice to hear you are enjoying your new camera.

Did you know that you can get a better eyecup for your viewfinder? If you really dislike the one that sits on the HDVF-20A, you maybe can get Sony's high performance A8314-798-A viewfinder eyepiece with soft cushion, that also magnificates 3 times. It's actually a loupe. But be prepared to lay down some money for comfortable toy. To be more specific, expect to pay something around $725! That's the price I got from my dealer when I was looking for something to make the EVF on my XDCAM HD a little bit more comfortable. Ouch!
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Old February 9th, 2009, 03:14 PM   #4
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Hi Stewart
Hope all's well. As a F350 shooter I really enjoyed your F350 review you posted some time ago. If you don't mind me asking, where did you purchase your new 700 camera from? Did you get a deal with the lens and viewfinder? Did they do a trade in deal with the F350 or did you keep it?

Also can you firewire the clips straight into your edit as with the F350 or do you have to injest them another way? Questions, questions!!

I run a small production company in the South East, Sparky Media Productions Ltd, so it's great to see another company doing so well.

Good luck,

Mark
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Old February 9th, 2009, 04:46 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivan Snoeckx View Post
That's a great review Stewart!

I already noticed it a couple of days ago when it wasn't ready yet. ;-) Nice to hear you are enjoying your new camera.

Did you know that you can get a better eyecup for your viewfinder? If you really dislike the one that sits on the HDVF-20A, you maybe can get Sony's high performance A8314-798-A viewfinder eyepiece with soft cushion, that also magnificates 3 times. It's actually a loupe. But be prepared to lay down some money for comfortable toy. To be more specific, expect to pay something around $725! That's the price I got from my dealer when I was looking for something to make the EVF on my XDCAM HD a little bit more comfortable. Ouch!
Hi Ivan
I tried to google this eyepiece but couldn't find it anywhere. Do you have the full model number please? Would it work on a f350 viewfinder?
Thanks
Mark
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Old February 10th, 2009, 03:24 AM   #6
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Hi Thierry – That’s a very interesting piece on the hyper gamma link you posted – I am still playing about with the camera. I know I appear to be in the minority here concerning the viewfinder compared to the F350 but I still maintain that I could not see any difference… must be my poor old eyes.

Ivan – that viewfinder attachment looks interesting but that’s quite a price… there is a “zoom” magnification feature on the 700 which I assigned to one of the buttons, but to date I have not used it as focusing is very easy.

Mark – glad you enjoyed the review, the F300 series is a great workhorse and yes we did trade it in with our dealer - CVP. As far as I understand it, I would not say it was a specific promotion, just more of a “we would recommend you purchase this” and here is the price. Our F350 + Fujinon Lens was in excellent condition complete with all packaging and we got a very good trade in deal considering dealers are usually not a great place to get a good price.

You can certainly get equipment at lower prices from other outlets, and for many things we do… but I have built up a friendship with Phil Baxter the MD and over the years he has been very helpful, particularly with the more expensive product purchases. Of course there is also the peace of mind knowing that if anything goes wrong I have a good dealer to sort it out which they have done with equipment in the past.

As far as I understand it, we were on a list for an original pre-order which gave us last years prices fixed. With all the price hikes this year I don’t know what the deal would be.

FAM – Yes it can be connected by Firewire but we use the U1 Drive – much more user friendly.

Unless you really need the 700 Mark, or can easily afford the trade-up (the workflow slows down) I would not recommend it, as others have said, when I compare F350 images against the 700 similar images – from a distance (medium/close ups) they cut well together – larger screen work would be a different matter but be in no doubt your F350 is a great performer.

I hope business will be good for you this year...

New link for 700 review (link changed):

http://www.studioscotland.com/Sony700_review.htm

For those who are interested - F350 Review:

http://www.studioscotland.com/SonyF350_review.htm


Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com
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Old February 10th, 2009, 07:36 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark McCarthy View Post
Hi Ivan
I tried to google this eyepiece but couldn't find it anywhere. Do you have the full model number please? Would it work on a f350 viewfinder?
Thanks
Mark
Hello Mark,

The full model number of the eyepiece is: A8314-798-A. You find it on page 13 in the HDW-F900R brochure.

http://www.sony.be/res/attachment/fi...9199129607.pdf

Your dealer has to order this from Sony parts.

I guess you can also use it on the DXF-20W viewfinder from the PDW-F3xx serie.

Here below is are two pictures from a PDW-F330 with the optional DXF-20W that has the eyepiece on it. I'll try to get some more information about it.
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Had the F700 for a week now-xdcam-hd-025.jpg   Had the F700 for a week now-xdcam-hd-029.jpg  

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Old July 12th, 2009, 03:15 PM   #8
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Hi there
Sorry I have only just seen your reply on this tread, I know you posted it ages ago! Are you using the A8314-798-A viewfinder on your PDW-F330? Would love to how it works on my F350.
Thanks, Mark
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Old July 20th, 2009, 12:45 PM   #9
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Mark,

That's not me in the pictures above. ;-) I'm not using the F330. That camera-operator is Chris De Paepe from Q-CAM and IMAGE4YOU. I found these pictures a long time ago on the web. I remembered them because of that special eyepiece.

No, I don't have that have that high performance eyepiece yet. My dealer contacted Sony and they confirmed that it will work with the DXF-20W and HDVF-20A viewfinder. The price is 399,- Euros VAT not included.
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