Sony F3 - Things I really hope Sony change!

[Glen Vandermolen]

EX3 perfect for handheld?? I think you're giving the EX3 too much credit. I've used one enough to know a true shoulder mount form is the best.
The EX3 does have the advantage of lesser weight compared to most shoulder mount cams, but I'd hardly consider the EX3 "perfect." It's still front heavy and the semi-shoulder mount is a far cry from a true shoulder mount cam. The majority of the EX3's weight still rests on your right arm, not your shoulder. That can quickly lead to fatigue. Try a JVC HM700 or HD200 for a really well-balanced hand-held camera.

I'm not saying the EX3 is a bad camera for hand held shooting, and its excellent EVF helps, but in my opinion there are better cams out there for off-the-tripod shooting.
I understand how a form factor similar to the EX3 might be desirable, though. I guess a semi-shoulder mount is better than no shoulder mount at all. But, let's not write off the F3's hand held comfort just yet until we've tried it.

[Giuseppe Pugliese]

For me more weight is better, even if it isn't "shoulder mount". Heck the RED One isn't shoulder mount at all, you have to treat it just the same. Buy add on mounts to get it done right.

I would love for an Sony PMW F5 with S35 sensor and SHOULDER mount form like an ENG or Alexa form. I'm kind of tired of these pro-sumer looking things. Build the professional one heavy and like the Alexa in terms of form.

Lets face it, after seeing the real price of it, they are sure to put out a new camera in the 30k USD range that is much more pro. I just hope they listen to the actual pro users and not this flood of "internet DPs".

Shoulder mount is key even if you dont use up all the space inside... look at all these cheap shoulder mount cameras they already make, its literally so you can use it for that reason, the cameras are hollow for the most part, but they sit on the shoulder.

[Erik Phairas]

Oh a true shoulder mount is easily the most stable, but it's huge. EX1s and above are really too big for handheld if you ask me. I like the EX3 because it's stable, gives me 4 points of contact if you count my cheek, but I can throw it into my backpack too.

[Glen Vandermolen]

Originally Posted by Giuseppe Pugliese

I would love for an Sony PMW F5 with S35 sensor and SHOULDER mount form like an ENG or Alexa form. I'm kind of tired of these pro-sumer looking things. Build the professional one heavy and like the Alexa in terms of form.

But Sony already has such a camera: the SRW 9000PL. Of course, it's a wee bit more costly than the F3.

[Giuseppe Pugliese]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

But Sony already has such a camera: the SRW 9000PL. Of course, it's a wee bit more costly than the F3.

Hmmm this is true... But that is a tape based on-board recording format, not solid state. The SRW 9000PL is also around $115,000 street price. So there would be a huge gap between the 13k F3 and a 115k 9000pl.

Any good business person should know that if you have a gap that you cannot fill in your pricing structure you're allowing costumers to then go to another manufacture to fill that gap for them.

They have a huge chance to compete with RED and Alexa by putting out a product in the 30k range. The options on the 9000PL can be limited to say more of an F3 on steroids. As long as it offered better options from the F3 and a solid state capability in camera at a 10 bit 4:2:2 you'd have a great camera but still not having the options of the 9000PL or F35 for obvious reasons.

You must remember that Alexa at $55,000 is an amazing price point per camera vs. capability. Alexa is almost fully upgradable, they are build to grow, unlike the 9000PL or F35 which are pretty much where they will always be.

Sony has such a strong pull all they need to do is put out a good product at that price range, and they will do very well. Specially for the companies that were swayed by RED's 4k sensors and ease of solid state data capabilities.

If there is a hole (which there is) I'm sure sony could fill it with a very nice camera in that range. even if they just put out an F5 with the F3 sensor but with shoulder mount and internal 4:2:2 recording and nice mountable viewfinder, and maybe some enhancements for gamma, and normal AB battery mount... that would be worth it for an extra 8 grand to me. Just something more professional than a handycam.

That wouldn't cost them much to make, considering all the components of the F3 would be used just rearranged differently for bigger body. Come to think of it, a bigger body allows faster clocking speeds on the sensor meaning faster fps. They could really put out a killer camera for not much more than it costs them to build the F3 but sell it for 2x the price.

F5 would be:

the F3 sensor and processing
shoulder mounted or at least more professional body build than handycam format
50mbit 4:2:2 internal recording
AB battery mount
More internal options for gamma and dynamic range stretching
same 4:4:4 capabilities but without having to pay for upgrade
proper EVF thats removable
Maybe faster fps options

Think about it, ALL of that wont cost much more to implement. The hard part was already done, the sensor and processing. Everything else is just a matter of software, and materials for the different body size. Heck it doesn't even have to come standard with the EVF, just develop a nice one for people to add on if they'd like for extra $.

I believe sony should hire me to design, you all would never be disappointed haha

[Emmanuel Plakiotis]

Sony build the camera mainly as a B camera , so it had to be small and light. In that respect a shoulder mount design was out of question. The versatility of a small camera is that if someone wants shoulder mount, he can always attach one. It would have been nice if Sony came up with a dedicated shoulder mount for F3 with an uncompressed (or HDCAM SR) recorder built in. That will be awesome.

[Brian Drysdale]

More likely 3rd party manufacturers will, same as they've done for other cameras including the EX3. The rear V/F does limit things balance wise, but perhaps one of the DSLR accessory V/Fs may be a possibility.

[Thierry Humeau]

Originally Posted by Emmanuel Plakiotis

Sony build the camera mainly as a B camera , so it had to be small and light. In that respect a shoulder mount design was out of question. The versatility of a small camera is that if someone wants shoulder mount, he can always attach one. It would have been nice if Sony came up with a dedicated shoulder mount for F3 with an uncompressed (or HDCAM SR) recorder built in. That will be awesome.

Once you equip a F3 with a proper rig, better monitoring device, larger batteries, wireless mic, etc... it will end up being quite bigger and clunkier than a PMW-350 or PMW-500. There is indeed a huge potential in sales for a well balanced and integrated one-piece shoulder style S35 camera. The PMW-500 body and form factor is close to perfect to house the guts of a S35 camera. The doco and news mag market would embrace this in a pinch.

Thierry.

[Brian Drysdale]

I'm not sure the market for S35 is that large in the doc and news markets. 2/3" & 1/2" has big advantages in zoom lens size etc., S35 would be more boutique in it's use. For many docs the Canon XF 300 & 305 fulfils the bill that the Z1 & the old PD150 met in the broadcast SD world.

[Dean Harrington]

Kind of agree and at the same time don't quite agree with the idea that a large shoulder cam style is best. I certainly think that Sony should entertain the idea of something like the JVC 700 shoulder mounted camera size and form factor ... at the same time, I consider the small frame to be very convenient as carry on ... travel wise small form factor travels well.

[Giuseppe Pugliese]

Originally Posted by Thierry Humeau

Once you equip a F3 with a proper rig, better monitoring device, larger batteries, wireless mic, etc... it will end up being quite bigger and clunkier than a PMW-350 or PMW-500. There is indeed a huge potential in sales for a well balanced and integrated one-piece shoulder style S35 camera. The PMW-500 body and form factor is close to perfect to house the guts of a S35 camera. The doco and news mag market would embrace this in a pinch.

Thierry.

This is really where my point is at. Everyone says well you can just add on... by the time you're done adding on everything I listed, you end up with again these ugly big beast cameras with parts hanging off left and right. Its just not the way to use a proper camera. It shouldn't be harder to use these cameras than an Arri SR16. That is such a perfect little design. These contraptions you say you want to add on, yet you want it to be small... kinda defeats the purpose, and takes away valuable time when you have to attach everything again every time you need to use it.

There are smaller ways to build things, like the mentioned JVC way. Just please dont add things onto the back, that was just ridiculous, those cameras ended up being bazookas and quite a problem to use.

You can have a small shoulder mount camera, no one said it had to be full ENG size. They have cameras out like AG-HMC80. They are small but shoulder mount. As long as they were built with metal instead of cheap plastic like those, you'd have a very compact yet shoulder mount professional CINEMA camera. Maybe lose the ugly viewfinder and mic though haha.

[Brian Drysdale]

Indeed, the JVC HDV series of cameras are the nicest small cameras for hand holding and they're not that large. There are other small HD cameras which have a similar form factor eg Ikonoskop

Ikonoskop A-cam dII - Part 1 : Introduction on Vimeo

However, this a much lighter camera than the F3.

[Bob Grant]

Seeing as how no one has really gotten their head around this...

No real problem with the single or double 1/4" screws that go into the plate on the EX1/3. The problem is how the plate is held onto the rest of the camera. All that holds that plate to the camera chassis is 4x 2mm screws and it is these that can tear out of the pressed metal chassis.

No doubt there'll be people from here making a plate to address this problem. The only problem we've struck with using any of those plates with the EX1/3 is they alter the distance between the centreline of the lens and the bottom of the camera. As a result getting matte boxes to fit becomes a bit of an issue.

For my money this is a pretty serious issue. The EVF can be removed with a Dremel tool if it really bugs us. There's kind of ways to add more bolt holes on the top of the camera and once you have rods from the front and rear of the camera it's pretty easy to mount stuff anywhere. The camera plate problem is impossible to fix elegantly if at all.

[Alister Chapman]

You do have several 1/4" mounting holes on the top of the camera body and an additional one towards the rear of the base of the camera but off-set from center. I agree that this is not the best of designs, but most people are going to be using rails etc. So it would make sense to add an integrated base plate with rail support that makes use of both the standard tripod mount holes plus the additional offset on at the rear.

With many PL mount lenses the bottom of the lens will end up below the base of the camera, so a little extra height won't hurt. In Oslo the camera had a Zacuto riser and rail system on the F3 to support the Cooke PL prime and it was very stable.

[Leonard Levy]

Is it true that there is no "color peaking" for the viewfinder like the Ex-1 has. That would be a major loss as I rely on it at my age.

Also is the IR problem solved?

Same gammas choices and Painting choices as the EX-1?

Did they at least give us 2 presets for daylight and 3200?

I'm very excited about this camera.