Sony announces PMW-F55 4K pro camcorder with global shutter, F5 without: Digital Photography Review

My wish is that everyone can look at new artistic tools with a kind consideration for others. Why all the mean spirited trash talk? This is an exciting time for motion capture...very different from when you either shot with a bulky 35mm tank or a smaller inferior tank, and you had only a few options.

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0 upvotes

Official Prices:

PMW-F5 15,340 Euro
PMW-F55 27,804 Euro
External RAW Recorder 5,206 Euro
AXS-CR1 Access Card Reader 549 Euro
Access Card 512GB for External Recorder 1,535 Euro

0 upvotes

This camera tells me Sony is under a lot of pressure, looks aimed straight at taking market away from RED.
-The RED Scarlet package (batteries, remote, EVF, touch screen, ssd module, ssd reader, batteries, brain, 4x64GB ssd's, etc..) plus red rocket card for post production is around $22.000
-Canon C line doesn't make sense from top to bottom.. it is completely overpriced or under specced. To me it looks like Canon was caught by surprise with the success of the 5D MkII on the video and even the film market and they still don't have a clue what they're doing. Not to mention it seems they got greedy. Maybe next round?
I'll have to wait until we produce something with these one and go through all the stages from production to finish.
But if it matches RED I'll still go with RED, they deserve support for being innovators, for disrupting the market and shaking the big guys.

2 upvotes

Not sure if I follow you, Ed -- are you saying that a RED SCARLET CAMERA and all of the ACCESSORIES that you had listed for it altogether costs USD $22,000? Or only that the listed accessories together cost $22,000?

Agree w. you on the Canon EOS Cinema Cx00-series cameras being a giant fiasco for them, but of course fiasco is what Canon does best lately. All of these cameras (C100, C300, C500) should be priced at 50% of where they are priced for them to have any chance of success vis-a-vis the competition (Red, Sony, and soon, Panasonic).

1 upvote

Those of you freaking out about price and comparing this camera to the Canon C series, and complaining about the "extra" modular components that you "must" purchase before shooting are the people who are NOT expected to use this camera. This is NOT a "videographer" camera; it is a cinematographer's camera. This is a camera that one could film a "Prometheus" or a "Hugo" with, and even with all of the modular accessories, it's still cheaper than the pro cine film camera systems that it's intended to replace.

Even ultra low budget feature films can have seven-figure budgets, so suddenly the cost of this camera isn't so high when you consider who is supposed to be buying or renting it for their productions.

It's like complaining to Ferarri that they aren't making super cars cheap enough for Corvette drivers to afford, and then calling them stupid for it, like you know something about their market that Ferarri doesn't.

2 upvotes

@ PeakA: You seem to be on a roll, hate to clarify a few things, though.

A. Canon EOS Cx00-series was also launched as a "digital cinema camera," in case you were in attendance at the Paramount lot a year ago when they unveiled the C300. So, comparing a Canon C300 or C500 to a Sony PMW-F5 or PMW-F55 is comparing apples to apples.

B. If you want a high-end "cinematography" camera, you need to get the Sony F65 or something in that class.

C. By the time you accessorize the Sony F5/F55 with the host of proprietary Sony accessories, you will be at a price point where other contenders are also operating.

D. By definition, an "ultra-low budget" film is NOT one with a even-figure budget. Seven-figures usually indicate an amount of USD $1,000,000 or higher, and thus by definition are not "ultra-low."

E. The vast majority of buyers of these 2 new Sony cameras will be the camera rental houses. They buy the cameras and accessories... then they rent them out by the day, week, or project.

1 upvote

DigitalCinemaReview.com, thanks for the heads-up on the exciting Sony PMW-F5 & PMW-F55 digital film cameras. Now, once Sony publishes some LIST PRICES for these things and the myriad of 100% proprietary accessories for it, we will know whether to be happy or sad. Everything you own from Sony now -- would have to be replaced by those getting an F5 of F55 digital cinema camera from Sony.

BTW, not only will these cameras not come with lenses, they will not come with a viewfinder, battery, battery charger, XLR audio module, video connectivity module, 4K recorder module, not even a top-side handle. Congrats to Sony -- the must-have accessories for the F5 & F55 will cost almost as much as the camera brain will, most likely.

And if you read the press release carefully -- almost all the features that these cameras can perform will be subject to some "future upgrade" hinted to happen sometime down the line, for prices yet to be determined. Thanks, Sony Son, you've been.... well, real.

1 upvote

who told you these cameras will not come with battery, battery charger, XLR audio module?

This guy is the biggest idiot on DPR.

Just scroll down and see he has been posting crap -- almost everything he has been posting is crap.

0 upvotes

VivaLasVegas. Is what us scots would call a fantoosh.

Sony have led the professional video camera market for years before they even considered buying minolta. The alpha series of cameras simply doesn't come into it in any way shape or form.

I'd like to know what kind of camera VivaLasVegas uses, because unless it's a canon, it'll have a sony sensor. And if it is a canon then all but the most dyed in the wool fan boys actually wish it their canons had sony sensors. I know because I use canon for stills and have been shooting video on Sony cameras since forever.

3 upvotes

Another A99 like product, rocking solid on specs sheet, but will suck in real world use. That has been the Sony tradition for too long.

2 upvotes

How do you know the A99 "sucks in real world use"? Have you used it yourself, or are you just parroting? Tell me your story please, I am listening.

8 upvotes

I'd rather have a RED Epic. RED is the only company I know of that is actually upgrading existing user cameras with new sensors (see Dragon sensor).

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/16/red-dragon-upgrade/

It's nice to see a company address the problem of camera obsolescence in a big way.

3 upvotes

RED is Bullshi*

2 upvotes

Yes, it's nice to be able to upgrade the sensor, but the dragon upgrade isn't free. It costs $6,000 to upgrade the sensor.

Also, there is no guarantee that Red will offer such an upgrade again at this price. Sometimes the whole circuit board and surrounding electronics and processor need to be upgraded too. What will happen then? Yes Red will announce a new camera, making the old one obsolete . That's life.

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1 upvote

RED is BS? I'm thinking there is a good chance that you don't know what you're talking about.

@ET2 True, but the opportunity to have their best sensor in the Scarlet, their least expensive model, is likely going to be worth it for many users.

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Even the Epics are not being being upgraded yet. Scarlet will start after that, and as I remember Scarlet will require a new circuit board making the upgrade even more expensive.

Scarlet isn't that cheap once you add all the other stuff that you will need to make it even work. It's not cheaper than say F3, that works out of box.

1 upvote

Yeah, it's amazing how anyone could call BS on Red. They delivered their Monstro series of 35mm, 645, and 617 sensor cameras exactly as promised. Scarlet lived up to all its promises, too, as did their still camera series.

Their ability to deliver the goods is epic. I'm sure this sensor upgrade is every bit as real as the Monstro.

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Dragon supposed to be the first "Monstro" sensor.

Back in 2011 they were saying it would be released in 2012, but what is now? Nov 2012. It not coning in 2012.

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1 upvote

With the Red, you buy the camera brain now.... and in a year or 2, they will tell you to replace half of it at least for something better, i.e. the new sensors. Call me old-fashioned, but I do not wish to Frankensteinize my camera by chopping it up and replacing this-that-and-the other in it endlessly/needlessly.
The Sony PR release is total b.s. Nor prices are given at all, but if you add up the list of accessories, none of which is standard with the F5/F55 camera brain, you will be out of $10,000 to $12,000 in accessories before you can actually shoot video with the F5/F55.

As far as what these cameras can do -- most of the neat features listed are subject to some "future update." That is, when you buy the camera, it won't be able to do the all the stuff they are hyping.

Sony had 100% knocked-off the Arri Alexa Blue's design and form factor.... and combined that with a 100% knock-off of the Red predatory pricing scheme. Everyone, meet the F5 and F55 super-cams from Sony!

1 upvote

Snooze...I thought this website was for still cameras?

0 upvotes

DPR does posts important video releases too sometime too, like GoPro Hero release a week ago and Canon C500/C300/C100, releases before that.
Also, all still cameras now are hybrid. They are video cameras too.

0 upvotes

All you need to do is click on the links that interest you. If this article doesn't interest you, there is tons of still camera only content.

0 upvotes

Hybrid cameras are great, you can shoot still pix and videos with them.

The Canon EOS Digital Cinema Cx00-series models, and these new Sony PMW-Fxx-series cameras, however, cannot shoot still pictures. Only video. Correct me if I am wrong in this, but a video-only camera is not the same thing as a camera that can also take still pictures. Or is it?

2 upvotes

Bit rate is measured in Mbps. The usage of mbps is improper.

1 upvote

Good one! m actually stands for milli - a milli-bit per second would be one bit for every 1000 seconds or approx. 20 minutes.

0 upvotes

Love this one more Sony HDR-AS15

http://webshop.fotobooms.nl/img/da14540/Sony-HDR-AS15-Action-Cam-%2B-%80-25%2C--cash-back%21.jpg

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16-bit 4k RAW O_o

and no rolling shutter? am not very knowledgeable in video, but all these sound so good, it must be worth a kidney or two.

2 upvotes

Now we're cooking with gas!

0 upvotes

a Super 35-sized sensor, 16-bit Raw recording, 4K with "a global shutter"? really?

Oh.. Canon era has finished. I thought it just started.

Where is 1D C?

8 upvotes

I don't think there is any Canon era in the movie industry.
I would agree Arri era, Panavision era, Mitchell era..... but never Canon era.

3 upvotes

@Edmond: I agree! Cheers! :)

1 upvote

You never seen?

Yeah it's just a sec. even before started Lol

1 upvote

@ #Edmond, you apparently were not present last year in November on the Paramount lot in Hollywood when Canon announced their EOS C300 camera, were you? Bloody hell, they even convinced poor old Marty Scorsese to "ooh" and "aah" about the Canon break-in to the stalwart strongholds of Hollywood.

Fast forward 12 short months... the planned Canon invasion to overtake Hollywood seem to have burst already. After all, who in Hollywood circles would be dumb enough to buy a camera for thousands, let alone tens of thousands of dollars that maxes out at regular 1080pHD for resolution, maxes out at 30 frames per second for refresh rate, and maxes out at 50Mbit/sec for a M-JPEG recording codec? I guess Canon Son did not get the memo, either

2 upvotes

Conveniently did not mention price. haha

I'm guessing six figures for all components in that picture?

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The F55 should come in around 25k for the body 2k for the recorder, and figure another 2 k for the other accessories. You can't really count the lens because thats a fixed cost in any system. Im curious what the F5 will cost though.

1 upvote

No way R5 recorder would be 2K. Think 10K or even double that

1 upvote

I've heard 20K for the R5 recorder, and 20-25K for the F5 body. Expect the F55 to be much higher.

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Maybe one day, we'll know. My own guesses, partially based on the recent price-drop announcements coming out of Red HQ, and partially based on current Sony F3 and F65 camera pricing:

Sony PMW-F5: USD $16,000 to $22,500 for the brain only (body), add to this another $10,000 to $12,000 for all the needed accessories before you can shoot with it, let alone shoot native 4K rez video with it.

Sony PMW-F55: Brain (body) only will be around $30-45,000, and to this you add the accessories to turn the brain into an actual shooting + recording apparatus.

The fancier viewfinder and the 4K recorder alone might be more than $20,000 here, phew.... Sony F5/F55 looks like an Arri Alexa.... and priced out piecemeal, like a Red-cam.

0 upvotes

And more crap from Francis continues. You don't need the recorder to shoot with F5/F55. Unlike Red, these cameras record internally too on SxX cards.

0 upvotes

Goodbye Canon. It was nice to know you.

....

Hammer. Officially. Thrown. Down.

Comment edited 38 seconds after posting

11 upvotes

Good. So Canon is now an opponent for Sony in the Super 35 area, woooow! Now: please take another look to that picture - not that "compact" the "gear" you see, not that easy to glue it to a yellow cab in a small box, let's say like one EOS 1 C might be able to just fit in, right? So good luck, when you will shoot Avengers II just take that into consideration... Cheers! :) P. S.: Canon = newcomers "here" - they will either decide to invest and crush Sony (even through an alliance with some Hi-tech consumer electronics folks) or just close the "cine" business; my take: let's wait for round two; Sony = the pro in the arena, they have now the tech edge AND a good price. Or maybe I'm just wrong...

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couldn't really parse this reply

5 upvotes

Me too!

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Zerg is a Pananasonic AG-AF100 shooter, that would be my best guess, at least.

0 upvotes

Fantastic news! Don't forget the F5 too, which was announced today with the F55. Sony really listening to the end user and offering cinematographers two very good cameras. Both can record at 50Mb/s at 4:2:2 to SxS cards, this is long overdue. The new Sony PL lens lineup looks promising as well!
Now we can put our old PMW-EX3 to rest. But I'm not sure yet if the F5 or F55 will be the one. I want to see a few tests.

4 upvotes

You do not really need to spend $15,000 to $45,000 for a Sony video camera to record 8-bit color HD video at 50Mbit/second acquisition bitrate. For instance, you can just spend $1,300 on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 camera, and with that one you can record 8-bit HD video at 72Mbit/second.

Or else, spend $3,000 for a Blackmagic Cinema Camera, with that one you can record 2.5K rez video internally, and not via using some extra body, extra hustle external clip-on recorders. Oh yeah, the $3,000 Blackmagic does not record at 50Mbit/second. However, it does record at 220Mbit/second and also records in RAW.

But other than these minor nuisances -- the Sony PMW-F5/F55 announcement really blows!

2 upvotes

More gas coming out of Francis's ass. Blackmagic camera is crap. You can't even change the battery as it'd built in to the camera, and the battery life is crap.

And F5 does 2K XAVC 422 10-bit 1-120 fps internally, you stupid moron.

Why you keep posting about a topic when you clearly are clueless about it?

1 upvote

why isn t global shutter implemented in all cameras? too expensive tech? what s the disadvantage?

0 upvotes

It's very very difficult to achieve with CMOS sensors. All CCD sensors have global shutters, but achieving the same with CMOS was very rarely seen up till recently. No DSLRs offer global shutter, and a few of professional camcoders do.

Comment edited 46 seconds after posting

3 upvotes

it is expensive and can compromise the image quality, but it does beg the question...why aren't these camera's CCD to begin with?

0 upvotes

"why aren't these camera's CCD to begin with?"

They used to be. But the current Sony CMOS sensors offer:
- much faster read out speeds (see high fps at high res)
- much more lattitude (14 stops)
- lower noise, especially read noise (the above is also related to this)
- better efficiency (less power consumption, ceteris paribus)

Just to name a few things.

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3 upvotes

No, all CCD sensors do not have global ("snap" is a better word) shutters. Medium format CCDs don't. Nikon D2X didn't.

Snap shutters have nothing, at all, to do with being CCD or CMOS. There was a time when sensors and cameras had electronics so slow that they took pretty much near a movie frame time (1/24, 1/25, or /130 sec) to read out the image. So, doing a "rolling shutter" could result in the entire image tearing across the frame, from upper left to lower right. The only way to make an acceptable video camera was to add snap shutter circuitry, even if it lowered image quality or increased the size of the chip.

As camera and sensor circuitry got faster, rolling shutters had less impact, and people found the tradeoffs between tear and other image quality issues (blooming, low light noise) to not be so cut and dry, and you had both kinds of cameras.

4 upvotes

Well, if they really wanted they could have developed it so far that it should be usable for consumer cameras, but marketing deciced that other "improvements" like 3D or smile detection were more important.
The technology of global shutter is already know since 2003 IIRC.
Now they introduce it in their top pro cameras, if marketing shows mercy we will see it maybe in the new high-end consumer cameras next spring...maybe not.
A lot of people don´t even know what global shutter and rolling shutter mean. They don´t know why their mobile phone footage comes out wobbly, they think it´s due to the lack of image stabilisation but it´s the global shutter which is still pretty visible in most mobile phone videos.

0 upvotes

Oh yes, Lupti, the entire universe were collaborating with each other to hide global shutter from consumers. There were no technical problems. Nice conspiracy theory.

Why were F65, Red Epic, and Canom C500 missing global shutter? Marketing again?

3 upvotes

Although Sony F65 is missing global shutter, optional mechanical rotary shutter is available.
The rotary shutter for F65 also supports variable shutter angles.
Therefore, global shutter is unnecessary for F65.

1 upvote

Q: "Why were F65, Red Epic, and Canon C500 missing global shutter? Marketing again?"

A: In the Sony F65, they decided to use the superior, motion picture film camera type of mechanical spinning rotary shutter disc, so that is at least as good if not better then a purely electronic global shutter. Which is why it is found only in their top-of-the-line F65 camera. The F55 will have electronic global shutter. And the F5, only rolling shutter. You pay more, you get more, or so the logic goes.

Re. Canon and Red, if they could have designed and implemented workable global shutters for their cameras, maybe they would have done so. Alas, they did not.

1 upvote

Excellent!

4 upvotes

What a specs! Global shutter, 240 FPS...

3 upvotes

Sony does market compatibility with other mounts via adapter (including Canon EF), but doesn't market their own Sony A-mount? Interesting...

2 upvotes

Hardly pocketable and it comes in only one color... but besides that, this must be the best camera to hit the market!

This is a pro camera; Love it where he talks about the removable audio box. "Just release the four screws."
They also show us the future of memory cards: 128gb SxS cards and 2x512GB 'something else' for raw recording.

As today it is Haloween, I'm sure this camera will bring the shivers to the competition!

4 upvotes

Why would you want to spend 10s of thousands of shekels in the year 2013 for a digital video camera -- only to loosen 4 screws and LOSE the microphone inputs, thereby turning into a MOS camera with no sound recording capabilities? Makes zero sense to me, too.

Re. the new Sony flash memory cards and assorted extra plug-in video recorders and SSD caddies -- expect these to be strictly and 100% Sony proprietary devices. And you shall be paying for them rather brutally, through the teeth like.

1 upvote

F55 video

http://www.sony.nl/pro/lang/en/nl/article/broadcast-professional-camcorders-pmw-f55-video

0 upvotes

something is horribly wrong with this video (stuttering playback and screaming sound); I don't think this video was aimed for the public.

edit: oops, now it works;
Love it where he talks about the removable audio box. "Just release the four screws."
They also show the future of memory cards: 128gb SxS cards.

Comment edited 4 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

Are the audio recording capabilities of these new Sony cameras so horrid, that you might actually be grabbing your handy screwdriver and remove the microphone interface box from it? Wow....

"The future of memory cards?" Wow, a 128GB capacity flash card? Wow, yet again. Considering that you can get 256GB capacity SD cards now, 128GB in a much, much larger form factor memory card does not look like much, especially when you write to it at a data rate of 300Mbit/second. Maybe it will be really cheap to compensate for all this?

0 upvotes

Gosh Francis is an annoying twit who posts his ignorant crap all over DPR.

Where did you get that 300 mbits number? Out of your ass? SxS Pro+ has a minimum recording speed of 1.3 Gbit/s with a theoretical maximum speed of 8 Gbit/s

Comment edited 45 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

Sony is smart not to announce prices just right now. Four days ago Red announced they will lower Epic prices on Oct 31, just a day after Sony's announcement.

Now they probably are just as clueless ...

1 upvote

I don't think RED have anything at all to stand against F55.

3 upvotes

8.9 MP RAW at 60 fps? Looks like this will also be good for still images of action. :)

3 upvotes

You can certainly hang up your 1D mkII. Oh unless you want continuous autofocus...

0 upvotes

Also good for the vendors of storage.

0 upvotes

'Global shutter' don't come for free. AFAIK the analog signal is transferred to a second layer and then digitized line by line. The extra transfer layer comes at a cost in image quality. But then Sony is the best and largest sensor manufacturer at the moment. If anyone can get it right, it's them.

7 upvotes

The modularity is a really important feature too which, as far as I know, only RED was pushing at these price ranges ($15k and under).

4 upvotes

Great feature -- for manufacturer. Whereby until know Sony actually had sold you a video camera/camcorder with which you could go go out and shoot on the day of unboxing it.... now you will have to purchase, Red-like, a whole host of accessories for the camera brain, since the new Sony camera now is nothing more than a sensor brain with the electronics. Even for the cheaper PMW-F5, you will likely be out of $10-12,000 for these must-have accessories needed to use the brain, plus of course replaceable recording media costs and cost of PL-mount cine optics. Videography -- on a piecemeal basis, more like it. Sony unashamedly lifted the design off of the Arri Alexa, and lifted the accessory pricing regiment off of Red. Very original, Sony Son.

1 upvote

My sensation is that we are in the very beginning of video production and the industry keeps bringing innovations each year so that they do not fit in the consumer (even the pro) budget.

0 upvotes

Professional videographers have budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think they will be VERY happy with cameras like these.

0 upvotes

"Professional videographers have budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Not really. But if you read all the assorted hype, you might think so. Fact is, unless you shoot with the cheapest gear, you are probably going to be underpriced in your bids by someone else who does.

Regarding 4K video -- just remember that the $3,000 Blackmagic Cinema Camera shoots at 2.5K native resolution, and that the $400 GoPro Hero3 Black Ed. camera shoots video at 2.7K and 4K. You will be in the 10s of thousands of dollars with the Sony F5 even, once you add all the accessories. But hundreds of thousands of dollars just for VIDEO GEAR -- nope, never heard of that, frankly.

0 upvotes

I'm not a videographer, but the spec of this camcorder is very impressive! 16 bit RAW 4K video together with the global shutter feature. Should create beautiful movie footage. More and more lately Sony are coming out with very impressive products.

9 upvotes

Very interesting cam. Some reservations though.

SxS...memory standard created by Sony and Sandisk. Limited driver support (Mac and Windows only) to read cards.

No price announced.

No delivery date announced.

Canon and Red should be afraid of this camera, but any idea how much and when?

Edit: found the dates on the EOSHD site and estimated pricing...odd why dpr nor the Sony link had any of that info.

Comment edited 3 minutes after posting

1 upvote

Delivery date was announced. It was Feb 2013.

As for SxS memory cards, that's been around a long time. Sony is also releasing USB 3.0 card reader that can be used with any computer.

Comment edited 26 seconds after posting

1 upvote

I don't think that limit to Mac and Windows is any issue. And SxS cards spec-wise seems to be more then worth of it.

0 upvotes

I would think that drivers could be easily written should the demand materialize.

0 upvotes

Sony: impressive stuff. A total wow. Canon: a total boo, over-priced and under-performing.

Sony did the right thing by investing heavily in sensor design. I hope they learn something from their TV panel fiasco, there must be no let-up this time, no chance for any competitor to overtake their sensor capabilities.

18 upvotes

Instead of FZ mount, they should have E-mount underneath the PL mount. Both FZ and E-mount have the same 18mm flange distance anyway. Maybe they thought they will stick with F3 mount, but I am sure long term this was a blunder. E-mount has far more adapters, including adapters that AF Canon lenses, plus Sony's own LAEA2 adapter.

2 upvotes

The FZ mount is the F3 mount. It has the same flange local distance as the E-mount but a wider image circle.

4 upvotes

NEX users - like a plague. Always coming when noone needs them.

1 upvote

Fact is, both the Sony E-mount and FZ-mount is pretty useless when it comes to modern lens mounts, because Sony only makes low-end lenses for them. And why get a professional digital film camera for tens of thousands of $/€, and then use a cheap, desperate Sony E-mount or Sony FZ-mount lens on it?

Thing should have come with a UNIVERSAL LENS MOUNT, or else with an Arri PL-mount, which when removed would reveal a Nikon F-mount. But a Sony ZD-mount? In a high-end, very pricey digital film camera? No, Sony, thanks anyhow, guys.

0 upvotes

I think Canon has just been eclipsed here...suppose DSLR video had its time...

12 upvotes

Now, well ... This camera might be just a tad more expensive then your average video capable DSLR ... ;)

But impressive, without a doubt!

13 upvotes

Yeah, a $15k and $25k APS video camera prove that $400-1200 APS DSLRs "had its time".

Sort of the way Panavision has been proving that there's no market for 16mm or 8mm movie gear, or camcorders, for over 1/2 a century.

6 upvotes

Great comparison. Might be better comparing it to the Canon C300/500 I think.

Hey look mum, my Ferrari is a much better car than your Corolla, looks like Toyota has just been eclipsed here

Anyway the Sony looks damn impressive and something I would love for our work. Probably blow away our old Phantom 9.1 I'd say.

2 upvotes

Sony PMW-F5/F55 press release is full of holes.

Obviously, they like totally ripped-off the Arri Alexa, just look at the pix of the Alexa and then look at the pix of the F5/F55. This is pretty awful right off the bat.

Next, there is no pricing provided for the camera brains themselves, nor for the myriad of must-have accessories and add-ons without which you will not be recording anything with these F5/F55 brains.

Lastly, most of the features are "upgrades at a future time." The way I read it, upon release the PMW-F5 will only record 8-bit video at 50Mb/sec, and certainly not at 4K resolution. So, the $1,300 Panny Lumix GH3 will beat it hands down, since it will also record 8-bit video, but do so at 72Mbit/sec intraframe, and right out of the box, without any extra cost accessories and whatnot.

Another premature press release with a lot of vague promises -- the industry is so full of them lately.

0 upvotes

Its awful they 'ripped off' the Alexa design? Sony asked our thoughts on design when creating this camera. And unsurprisingly a lot of operators & DPs essentially said, can you make it like the Alexa please. Because Alexa is one of the most enjoyable cameras out there to use. So rather than saying it's 'awful' and they 'ripped off' the Alexa, surely we should be happy there's another camera coming out, designed properly and with the operator in mind, in addition to the people that want 4k at 240fps with 16bit colour depth and global shutter. It is important that a camera is useable as well as producing nice images with lots of information.

With regards to cost, does it really matter what the number is until it's actually available to buy does it? I wouldn't be surprised if Sony were biding their time a little to see how competitors react to the cameras (RED halving the price of most of their brains for example!?)

An exciting push for what was becoming a stagnant market in my opinion.

0 upvotes

wow! :)

4 upvotes

A Global Shutter; would that not also eliminate maximum shutter sync speed with flash photography?

10 upvotes

I think so.

2 upvotes

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, not for regular shooting anyway

this is only for video where the sensor is totally exposed, maybe live view shooting if the shutter speed is simulated by electronics rather than the actual shutter movement

2 upvotes

But wait, who will buy those overpriced Canon "C" cameras???

19 upvotes

I would not!

4 upvotes

Canon has one chance, and only one, to salvage their sinking "EOS Digital Cinema" ship from sinking to the sea bottom. Immediate and brutal price cutting across the board, as follows:

EOS C100 = $4,000

EOS C300 = $7,000 to $8,000

EOS C500 = $13,00 to $16,000

Unless they drop list prices to these levels, and do so right now, they won't have a chance in flying hell in selling these presently sickeningly overpriced contraptions of theirs. Just my 2 cents' worth, mind you.

0 upvotes

RIP RED

15 upvotes

I guess RED dragged their heels too many years. Or not?

2 upvotes

Black Magic has sensor with Global Shutter, as far as I know. Very good news!

Comment edited 34 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

The black magic camera DOES NOT have global shutter. And sensor on black magic camera is slightly smaller than 4/3.

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 46 seconds after posting

13 upvotes

SONY is really focusing on digital imaging.

13 upvotes

Okay, okay, "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", I know... Nevertheless, any idea what the projected price might be?

Never mind, I just saw a mention of $25K here and on EOSHD. Nice. That will cool me off. ;)

0 upvotes

I always ask the dealer for a price when purchasing my Lamborghinis, because I appreciate a discount as much as any other Croesus.

Comment edited 2 minutes after posting

1 upvote

Sweet, no rolling shutter effect.

Comment edited 21 seconds after posting

10 upvotes

So how long until this global shutter sensor shows up in cameras? That is the big question.

0 upvotes

It could show up really soon if you are willing to pay $25,000 for your camera instead of $500. Global shutter is not a necessity right now. The rolling shutter effect can be remedied with proper filming technique.

I would much rather have variable shutter durations per pixel. However, that will probably require a Global Shutter so I guess in the long run it will be important.

Imagine a camera that would adjust the shutter duration to be shorter for all overexposed pixels and longer for all underexposed pixels. For Bright outdoor scenes it would be incredible.

You could achieve human eye or more dynamic range that way. It wouldn't work well for dimly lit scenes with moving subjects though.

Comment edited 3 times, last edit 8 minutes after posting

8 upvotes

@mpgxsvcd

http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/cx_news/vol68/pdf/imx136lqj_llj.pdf

sony has that technology named HDR movie mode.

It only works in movie mode right now.

Comment edited 53 seconds after posting

4 upvotes

Your point about variable shutter duration is intriguing. But there is a limit to what you say, "The rolling shutter effect can be remedied with proper filming technique." If you look at the Sony pdf, the example of a fast moving train passing by can't be remedied.

4 upvotes

A global electronic shutter is an electronic option. Unless it requires dedicated hardware I can only see it costing less to produce than a camera with a mechanical shutter.

Edit: looks like only thing that has held off global shutters is getting imaging quality high enough (requires each pixel to have its own memory, which takes up imaging space or other issues). Looks like Aptina and others have been working on that for years and finally reaching a point where it is good enough.

Comment edited 11 minutes after posting

1 upvote

Global electronic shutter technology is the first step for cameras flash sync'ing at all speeds.

5 upvotes

Give it a few years (maybe more than a few, but you never know.) and global shutter will become universal. I wish we would come up with a better name, something that doesn't sound so mechanical. Anyhow, the cameras will be amazing, and not just for train videos. Still photography may benefit even more. Bursts? Same as video rates. Flash sync? What's that? Incredible DR from variable exposure. Panoramas however you want them, just wave your camera around. Simulation of mechanical shutter defects in Instagram. OK, maybe I'll pass on that. Clever people will come up with features no one has even imagined.

Comment edited 37 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

If they implemented it in the way Sony described it in their papers, it doubles the size of the chip. So an APS camera like these "Super 35" F cameras has a FF sized sensor.

If you don't mind paying FF prices for an APS camera, you can have this in a still camera, too.

1 upvote

Or you can go back to CCD. My old D70 will happily sync at 1/8000th (provided you don't try it with a iTTL flash, which artificially limits the speed to provide for long flash duration) since the focal plane shutter maxes out at 1/250th. Mind you, the 6MP resolution and the strictly decorative/surveillance-quality ISO 1600 setting could use a bit of an update...

0 upvotes

You just need to step back a few years for global shutter in still cameras. Nikon had it a long time ago. They eliminated the circuitry for it because the negatives outweigh the positives. Notice that the global shutter F55 has ISO 1250 sensitivity while the F5 is ISO 2000.

0 upvotes


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Sony announces PMW-F55 4K pro camcorder with global shutter, F5 without

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