Sony very wisely lent one of their pre-production PMW-F3 cameras to Jason Wingrove, shooter, director, and co-host of the invaluable Red Centre podcast. He made this:
compulsion - teaser from Jason Wingrove on Vimeo.
I’ve seen the raw footage close-up and it looks amazing (Jason let me grade a couple of the shots using Colorista II). Very film-like, very gradable, and the compression is certainly there but nothing like what we’re used to from our DSLRs. I haven’t yet blogged about the F3 because it’s still settling in with me exactly where the camera fits. But it absolutely does fit.
Jason and Mike will be discussing the camera on the next Red Centre, so be sure to tune in.
Director Martin Scanlan also got his hands on an F3 and shot this short film:
Convergence - Short Film shot on Sony PMW-F3 from Martin Scanlan on Vimeo.
Sony also announced another Super-35 camera today, code-named the NXCAM. Little brother to the F3, it features the same sensor (we think), fewer options, but a much lower price point than the F3, which is said to street for about $12,000 when it becomes available [UPDATE: its now up on B&H for $16,000] [Second UPDATE: B&H reduced their price to $13,300 in short order, and added the promised F3K model with its included trio of Sony F2.0 PL primes for $18,950]. Oh, and a design inspired by Stanley Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Philip Bloom was at the Sony launch and has a great write-up on his blog.
Both of these Sony cameras are, like the Panasonic AF100, examples of a company responding to the turgid love affair the filmmaking world has been enjoying with HDSLRs such as the Canon 5D Mark II, 7D, and my new favorite for video, the Canon 60D. Neither the Panasonic nor the Sonys are breaking new ground in resolution or compression (both are 1920x1080 max, with what are considered to be decent, but not great codecs) the way RED did with the RED One and intends to with future offerings. But both blow HDSLRs away with their professional features that we’ve long taken for granted on proper video cameras, such as XLR audio inputs, exposure and focus assist options, and built-in ND filters. Oh yeah, and true HD images without the aliasing and moiré we get from our SLRs.
It’s a great time to be a filmmaker.
Update
on 2010-11-19 16:50 by Stu
The ungraded offline cut of Convergence is now available on Vimeo “for those people interested in looking at what came straight out of the camera recorded onto internal media.”
Also, as usual, the comments below this post are thoughtful and worth reading. Thanks guys!