Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I now have a Sony F65 on order. This will be a stunning camera, with unsurpassed resolution. The screen tests I have assessed are simply… remarkable. Be ready for some awesome aerial photography in particular in 2012.
20 Megapixel sensor, 8k bayer, 4k 16 bit RAW!
Suffice to say, these are specs to dribble over. They are so impressive in fact, I might have to reduce my German allegiance, walk away from the Alexa I love and explore the virtues of ultra HD recording.
Here’s what Sony has to say about their new camera – shipping from January 2012:
The F65 exceeds the resolution of any previous digital motion picture camera (as of August 2011), the result of a remarkable Sony Super 35 image sensor. Sony has been developing semiconductor image sensors since 1973 and manufacturing commercial quantities since 1985. Through all the decades, our design goal has always been to match the photographic quality of 35mm film. But now we’re setting our sights even higher: to surpass the limits of human vision. The F65 image sensor is the first of this new breed.
Key Features
F65 Imager
The F65 imager contains a total of 20 Mega-pixels. Half are sensitive to GREEN, and the other half are equally shared by RED and BLUE pixels. The sensor will provide pristine super-sampled HD and 2K images, and this is the first sensor in the industry that provides a dedicated green photosite for each pixel in the 4K (4096 x 2160) output image. The green channel is the most significant in creating the Y (or Luminance) signal. Having twice the amount of GREEN photosites compared with traditional 4K Bayer pattern sensors provides a significant improvement in image resolution.
SRMemory Card
The SRMemory card is an ultra high-speed, high-capacity, and high-reliability flash memory media for SRMASTER series cameras, ideal for demanding professional applications including 3D production, high frame rate digital cinematorgraphy, and high-resolution digital cinematography.
IIF ACES
With its significantly wider colour space, Dynamic Range and other processing, the F65 is the first image capture system designed from the ground up to support the Academy IIF-ACES, Image Interchange Framework, Academy Colour Encoding Specification.
The Arri Alexa here shown with my Arri Alura 18-80mm lens, 7″ Field Monitor and Cinedeck Extreme portable field recorder attached.
Well, it’s taken many months, but finally my Arri Alexa has arrived. We’ve been testing her extensively over the past few weeks and while there is still much to do, I’m feeling that the kit is just about production ready.
With the kit I have purchased two Arri zoom lenses. The wonderful 18-80mm Alura and the monster 45-250mm Alura. Prime lenses will be available on a job by job basis.
Additionally I have also taken delivery of the Cinedeck Extreme portable field recorder. This has many advantages. Long record times, excellent monitoring facilities and, most importantly, it will support ArriRaw recording. ArriRaw is the highest quality and most unadulterated image that Alexa will deliver.
For most of us however, the Alexa’s ProRes workflow will be the way to go. This is very very cool because the camera records natively to 10bit or 12bit ProRes files and these can drop directly into any up to date Avid or Final Cut system. It is the most insanely simple post production path ever created for high-end production.
And don’t forget – all that comes with the most delicious, organic-looking images ever created by a digital cinema camera. Alexa’s ability to handle highlights in particular has to be seen to be believed.
Once you’ve tried it, you’re all going to love this camera as much as I do!
Exciting times.
I’m just back from LA where I’ve been doing some advanced digital cintematography and 3D training. What a great experience it was. 11 hours a day firmly ensconced at Sim Video and Red Studios in Hollywood. My mind is exploding by the end of it!
Then on the afternoon of day 2, out came a working Red Scarlett. I played around with interest, with this shot snapped by Vincent Gracie of the SantaFe Workshops. Little did I know that this was in actual fact the first public outing of a working Scarlett!! Who would have thought, a cinematographer from Sydney bums his way over to LA and ends up getting a scoop! Cameraman ‘s luck?
Anyway, Scarlett is an exciting little camera which sports a 2/3″ sensor with tiny form factor and very high quality imaging. It’ll be great for shooting in tight spaces, or for genuinely compact 3D rigs.
This second photo shows two (model) Scarlets mounted on the newly designed Element Technica Atom Rig. Now you may think that looks large – but anyone who’s every seen your bog standard rig designed to carry a conventional film or high end digital camera will attest that this is incredible. If 3D does take off I can’t help getting the feeling that 2/3 inch sensors will regain popularity as the deeper depth of field characteristics of a smaller sensor will once again become more desirable. Scarlett will be ideally placed. Personally I can’t wait for the absolute obsession with shallow focus shooting to be banished to the wastelands. That’s not to say shallow depth is bad (I love it!) it’s just that it’s not always good either!
POSTSCRIPT…
And now it’s just announced that the 2/3″ scarlett is no more and it’s going to be a cut down Epic. Well as Red says… “everything is subject to change…” Pity, I was excited about the prospects of a really compact 2/3″ camera with high quality recording.
We went through a really interesting exercise the other day shooting a couple of the lads from The Chaser at the ABC Studios in Sydney. The sequence was essentially an FX shoot where two of the Chaser lads presented the opening sequence for an awards night to camera.
Woopy doo you say. Why bring in a specialist cameraman from Sydney and go to all that effort in a big expensive television studio? Well, ultimately their image will be keyed and prepped, then put through a very flashy prioprietory system which projects a lifesized (or bigger) 3D holographic like image onto a screen. So… if you want to get really flashy about your live venue displays and image projection, this is so the way to go.
We shot the guys against green, having to take special care to light them in a way that works best for the Musion system. I used the Sony PDWF800 HD Camera but recorded to the new Cinedeck multi format recorder. How awesome is this device. You can record uncompressed, prores 422 and 444, Avid DNx, Cineform and more, all down to solid state esata drives. It also has a field monitor with waveform, vectoscope and other goodies. Audio remains an issue shooting prores, but I hope that will be ironed out in the next firmware upgrade.
More about Musion: http://www.musion.co.uk/
Shooting Star Picture company is involved in producing content for Musion in Australia.
It’s taken a while in coming, but XDCam HD live logging is now available. What does that mean? Well, imagine a shoot where scenes, takes, shot descriptions, directors comments… whatever… are entered directly onto computer which is receiving a live stream of the take in progress. Key moments with takes can also be tagged and referenced. Then all of those records are immediately written directly back to the XDCam disk (while it’s still in the camera – and without the cameraman ever knowing…). Then in post, the disk is inserted into the edit suite, and this logging information can be referenced directly off the disk. In addition, a full list of shots, time codes and comments can be printed off and used as a hard copy reference. Very cool. It will mean doing things differently, which will need a small change in thinking – but the improvements in efficiency stand to be enormous!
Well, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and have ordered an Alexa. There aren’t many orders yet – but there are also even fewer allocated to Australia, so it looks like the little beasty won’t turn up for some months. Maybe even next year 
… That said, I looked over one of the first Alexas to arrive in Australia at Arri’s head office in Sydney the other day and it’s certainly built like a tank. The viewfinder is absolutely amazing!!
Just in the process of putting together a new website as I’ve had the pleasure of a few quiet days after the busiest couple of months in quite a while. As such, things here will be looking a little half baked for the next week or so while I slowly re configure the content and start refilling the pages. Thanks for your patience 
OK – you can buy one now. US$80K for a basic but functional kit. Double that for some good lenses. Bargain! I’m looking forward to taking one for a spin.
Well, we’re still waiting on the mystery wifi adapters. Apparently they’re in the country in stock. But my sony dealer at least has not had a chance to get it working. Could it all be a dream? Still I was on a shoot yesterday watching the poor production assistant trying to keep up with logging all the detail required. good takes, bad takes, scene reference and the rest and thought to myself how much easier could this all be on location and then in post should this system actually work! We wait with baited breath.