» Posts Tagged ‘sony’
The Sony FS100 is a fantastic large sensor video camera for the money, but one of the chief criticisms is that its highlight roll-off is less than pleasant. If you’re trying to squeeze as much dynamic range out of that camera as possible, your options are limited, as it does not provide any sort of log mode like its big brother the Sony F3. By utilizing scene files, we can make the most of the limited color space and dynamic range. Andy Shipsides, who is an essential resource for all things color profiles and crop factors, recently updated his custom scene files for the FS100. More »
Will Nikon Enter the Large Sensor Video Camera Market to Compete with Canon and Sony?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Nikon has been pushing video extremely hard with their latest DSLRs, the Nikon D4 and the Nikon D800, and at least in the case of the D800, they’ve got a worthy competitor on their hands. Somehow the D4 didn’t get the sharpness of the D800, but it still got full, clean HDMI that can be recorded using a number of external devices to get a better codec like ProRes. If you’re curious, that’s not a real photo to the left. It’s what would happen if the D800 and the C300 had a full frame 35mm video camera child. Far-fetched? Maybe not. More »
So Many New Camera Tests it's Hard to Keep Track: Phantom Miro, RED SCARLET, Sony F3, and Canon C300
We’re trying to share more actual shorts and not just camera tests here, as a difference of one stop in dynamic range from one camera to the next is not going to make or break your narrative or doc. From DSLRs costing hundreds to 4K cameras costing tens of thousands, there is a great camera out there for your budget. Still, one question all filmmakers will be asked is, “what do you want to shoot on?” and so it’s still handy to keep tabs on what’s available. Here are several new tests of some of the latest large-sensor imagers: More »
Weren’t we just saying that this year wasn’t the year of 4K? The Japanese company NHK is plugging away with their 8K technological breakthroughs, and they’ve finally brought their 8K monster down to the size of a standard broadcast 1080p camera. That’s big news in the advancement of camera technology, and it’s only a matter of time before we’re shooting 4K on our cell phones. But what does this really mean for the world of video? How far away are we from having 8K TVs in our homes and actually shooting in 8K? More »
This is the very last video I did at NAB just before the show closed, and Dennis Wood of Cinevate showed off all of their exciting products, including a complete cine kit for the FS100 that bolts to the camera in a similar way as the Zacuto FS100 rig. He also gave a walk-through of their Axis jib, which is designed to be mobile and simple to assemble. If timelapse is your thing, and you’ve already got a Cinevate slider, they are partnering with DitoGear to add timelapse functionality. More »
When Sony’s FS700 camera was first announced, it was rumored to be under $10k, with some folks pegging it at $8k. When the European version’s price came out at roughly 8,000 euros (~$10,500) the promise of being under $10,000 transformed into “probably around $10,000″. So what am I going on about? Well, the price has finally been confirmed in the U.S., and it’s just as hoped for — $8,000 dollars for the camera body, or $8,600 with an E-mount zoom lens. With this announcement, I figure it’s a nice moment to check out some more test videos shot with the camera that look at how well it handles whip pans, high contrast lighting, auto-focusing situations and more: More »
NAB 2012: Final Recap - Was This Really the Year of 4K? (Blackmagic Proves Otherwise)
I’m still trying to catch my breath from this year’s NAB show, but all this week I’ll be posting more videos and a few more thoughts on what I saw there. This had been dubbed the year of 4K by many, but I’m not so sure we can call it that. 4K is still a couple more years from becoming mainstream, but there’s no doubt that manufacturers are pushing their televisions and cameras into the world of 4K2K and QuadHD. Even though there were a few devices capable of shooting in that frame size announced at NAB, none of them are currently shipping (though the FS700 is the closest – even though it won’t technically be shipping as a 4K camera). It was a big year for announcements, but a few companies stood above the rest, while others missed the mark. More »
NAB 2012: Day 3 Recap - Thoughts On 4K RAW Data Rates and Letting the Camera Roll
I had a chance to stop by Atomos, RedRock, ikan, Jag35, Zacuto and had some great conversations with the people there. I will have video updates from all of these companies and more as soon as I can get them uploaded (again hotel WiFi is brutal, I know I am not the only one suffering from this problem). NAB 2012 is flying by and there is enough happening at this show that if it ran for a month it would still be impossible to cover everything in-depth. On a side note, if you’re going to make an app for your show (the NAB 2012 app), why not promote it a little more? This is probably advice for anyone making an app for any type of event like this, but promote it like crazy – from posters to telling people about it when they register.
It’s that time of year again, when companies reveal what they’ve been working on for the past year, and quite a few prototypes that aren’t quite ready to see the light of day. A few have already thrown down the gauntlet for camera superiority, namely Canon and Sony (though Sony still might have one more surprise for us at the show). We’re still waiting on RED’s (and Panasonic’s) response to these new 4K RAW ready cameras, and Jim Jannard has been making some noise on the REDuser forums, showing his excitement for what they’ve got coming next. Hopefully we’ll get a glimpse of “Dragon” at NAB, but we’ve been told in the past on those same forums that we won’t see any new products until they are shipping. More »
DP Timur Civan, who lensed my RED SCARLET test short and now has a SCARLET of his own, has done an apples-to-apples comparison with two of the top similarly-priced Super35 motion picture cameras currently on the market: the Sony F3 and the RED SCARLET. Timur has the luxury of owning both — and some flawless Cooke Panchro primes — and has set up a nice skin tone and still life test. Here it is: More »
Earlier this week, Sony announced the Sony FS700, and today they released some of the first footage shot on the camera as part of their official launch. Yep, it’s pretty much a promo film, but it has lots of goodies to take a look at, especially in terms of the FS700′s slow-mo capabilities, along with some very interesting footage shot by candlelight. Check it out: More »
Band Pro has teamed up with Astrodesign to make a 1920 x 1080 Electronic Viewfinder. We’ve already talked about what might be the future for small EVFs, but for now, we’ve got this monstrosity weighing in at 3 pounds. Though many of us won’t be able to afford this when we actually find out the price, it will be a fantastic rental and it’s a good sign that high-resolution EVFs at affordable prices are just around the corner. More »
Looks like Sony has decided to make some waves with the next model in their line of NEX cameras — the FS-700. Building on the FS100 (Super 35mm sized sensor, interchangeable E-mount lenses, XLR inputs, etc.), with some nice additions (internal ND filters, 3G-SDI output), they have decided to throw in some very big features — up to 10X slow motion at 1080p resolution (i.e 240 fps), and an upgrade path to 4K acquisition/delivery. It’s rumored that it will run about $8k, confirmed that it will run you about $8k (body only). More images and a preliminary features list after the jump: More »
Of course that’s not quite true, it does matter, but will anyone really buy it? Sony is rarely a company to lag behind and not have an answer to major announcements from competitors. Instead of announcing a high-end product, they’ve announced a replacement to a low-end product: the 16 megapixel APS-C Sony Alpha SLT-A57. Like some recent Sony cameras, it has a translucent mirror instead of a flip-up mirror – so it stays down while recording to allow AF during video. More »
Sony, likely fearing the growing competition from the C300 and all of the new DSLRs coming out, has decided to make S-Log a standard option on all new F3 purchases. It would have made a lot of sense to offer this feature as standard in the first place, but Sony decided to charge $3000 for what amounts to little more than a firmware upgrade. What should be great news is terrible news for those who already own an F3. More »
Fool Your Camera with the Metabones Canon EF to Sony NEX Smart Adapter
The Sony FS100 has been very popular for those wanting to own a large sensor video camera, but can’t afford the Sony F3 (plenty of you who read this site). Obviously the FS100 has its issues – like any other camera – but one of the major problems for lots of folks that upgraded from DSLRs is being able to properly use their EOS EF mount lenses on their shiny new Sony camera. If you’re one of those people, then Metabones has a product that just might solve your problems. More »
Electronic Viewfinders have slowly been replacing traditional viewfinders for the past few years, but last year’s NAB saw an explosion in cameras with all-digital viewfinders – as well as standalone EVF products. Sony has been in the lead for the quality of the EVF on their cameras, specifically the NEX-7, A77, and A65. Panasonic is just behind with their GH2. But all of the EVFs on these cameras pale in comparison to MicroOLED’s technology. More »
With all the news about the Canon C300 and RED SCARLET-X lately, it’s easy to forget that both of these cameras are out of the price range of most DSLR shooters. What many were looking for from either company was an announcement at the price point of the Sony FS100, which, though it has some ergonomic quirks, is a very nice camera for $5k. It looks like it will be getting nicer in early 2012, with a firmware update from Sony that makes it a global camera — adding PAL recording rates to the North American model (and presumably vice versa) — as well as some nice other free feature additions. Here’s the list of expected upgrades: More »
Has anyone done an official dynamic range test of the Sony F3 with its amazing S-Log firmware enabled? I heard it was 13.5 stops, but now Sony is claiming firmware version 1.20 will add another stop by utilizing Exposure Index S-Log mode (more on this after the jump). Also, Sony will be coming out with two zoom lenses for the F3, making use of the camera’s zoom rocker. Plus, the CBK-3DL01 3D Link option will add the ability to link two F3s together for 3D use, but will apparently cost $5,500. While the F3 is a hell of camera, something tells me that if Sony wants to remain competitive in terms of pricing, after November 3rd they might want to think about their firmware pricing. If you want S-Log and 3D, that’s a total of $9,000 in upgrades on top of the camera’s $14,000 price tag. Then again, if the new S-Log mode does add another stop of exposure, that would put it even with the ARRI ALEXA — and that camera is $75k. More »
Since Canon’s original announcement of something “historic” coming on November 3rd, there hasn’t been any hard and fast information about what kind of history they’ll be making. But rumors have been flying about a Super 35 4K camcorder, and as someone with an upcoming feature to shoot I’ve certainly been curious about what Canon has planned. RED will release SCARLET on the same day, and it’s very likely that many upcoming independent features over the next few years are going to be shot on one of these new cameras (in addition to existing RED cameras and the Sony F3). Again, no one knows for sure, but what seems likely? More »
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