One Summer Evening with the FS700

[Alister Chapman]

Here's a short compilation of clips I put together last night with the FS700. Slow-Mo is sooooo addictive!

One Summer Evening with a Sony FS700 - YouTube

[Walter Brokx]

I've been a slowmotion addict since years; it still has this unreal beauty.
You wouldn't say it's in the evening: it's still very bright :-)

FS700 finally makes it possible to realise ideas I've had for a while.
Too bad I don't know anyone at Sony ;-)
(I case they read this and like to have other slowmo-stuff than skaters, biker, golfers and waves: they can mail me :-p)

[Noa Put]

At how many fps and in what kind of resolution was this shot?

I also see there is quite some aliasing in the first clip, also when viewed at 1080p, is that a result of the slowmotion mode or has it something to do with youtube? The slowmotion shots do look very smooth, impressive.

[Alister Chapman]

The Bikes were shot at about 7pm, so definitely evening, but the sensitivity is such that I had plenty of aperture still to play with.

The first shot was at 480fps. At 480fps the image is 1920x1080 but the vertical resolution is halved to 540. This halving of the resolution leads to the extra aliasing.

The other shots were done at 240fps where the camera is full resolution 1920x1080.

Once I get my own FS700, hopefully in late June, I will be off to shoot some much less common subjects in super slow mo. I'm doing some FS700 workshops at Broadcast Asia if anyone is interested.

[Mark Watson]

Is there much of a delay after each shot while the buffer is writing to the media storage?

[Chris Medico]

It is read out in real time so if you were shooting 240fps and had the camera set to conform to 24fps, each second of captured footage will take 10 seconds to record to card/play out the video ports.

[Alister Chapman]

Thats not correct Chris. The buffering is faster than real time. I was shooting at a base frame rate of 23.97 and the buffering appears to happen at 60P ( which presents an interesting possibility with regards to using a higher quality external recorder to record the slow mo, this needs more investigation).

So when shooting at 240fps you get 8 seconds of filming, which then takes 32 seconds to buffer and results in a clip 80 seconds long.

[Chris Medico]

So regardless of the base rate it outputs 60p?

This will be a problem for using external recorders such as the PIX since they don't do 3g.

[Alister Chapman]

No, just while it's buffering. In normal modes the Sdi output reflects the shooting frame rate. I have not fully investigated this but that's what appears to be happening.

So when shooting super slow-mo, first you set your base shooting and playback rate which can be 23.98, 25P or 30P then you activate super slow mo ( two presses of the S&Q button). When you hit the record button the camera starts to buffer either the previous or the following 8 seconds (if at 200/240 fps) depending on whether you are using start or end triggering. It's during this buffering period that the camera appears to be operating at 50/60fps.

My suspicion is that the camera is storing the 240fps video in an internal memory buffer and then reads out that memory at 60fps, writing a 60fps AVCHD file to the SD card that is then flagged to playback at 24 or 30fps. This allows the FS700 to write at standard AVCHD speeds and bit rates making it really easy to create the slow motion files.

[Chris Medico]

That is interesting. I was under the impression that after it buffered it would play out at the base rate so you could use an external recorder.

If I am understanding you correctly there won't be any advantage to use an external recorder in the interest of avoiding the internal AVCHD codec.

[Alister Chapman]

The buffering happens at 60p so if you have an extnal recorder that can record at 60p there may be some advantage.

[Chris Medico]

I will be interested to find out if frame rates other than 60 will be possible in the production units since the recorder I have doesn't do 60p.

[Alister Chapman]

It's going to have to be 50 or 60p. Not many will want to wait 80-90 seconds before being able to shoot another shot. The Gemini and Hyperdeck Shuttle 2 can do it. My full review is online now http://www.xdcam-user.com/2012/05/a-...ony-nex-fs700/

[Chris Medico]

Unfortunately those aren't the one I already purchased. :(

[Lonnie Bell]

Hello Alister - always great to get/read your input!
Den Lennie reports they got SloMo recorded via SDI to the Samurai here - about 20% down the web page you will find it...

Sony NEX FS700 on Location - Become a Film Maker Without Quitting Your Job!

What's your take on this please?

Thanks again,
Lonnie