Which Camera?? Decided… Sony F3

Well after a little over a year of searching and waiting and wanting I made a what I think is a fine decision for my next camera.  For those of you who have been following my “which camera” posts you’ve scene me ponder everything from the Scarletus… I mean, Scarlet.  And the 5Dmk3, Nikon D800, FS100, FS700 and more.  But after working with the Sony F3 for others I decided to get one of my own.  Great Camera!!!
I went to CineGear this year to look at everything that was coming out and projected to be out soon.  Lots of cool stuff – (technical term).  Spent quite a while at the Canon booth and the Sony Booth.  Big competition there.  With all the research about new cameras and features I was feeling very lost and then about 2 weeks ago sat down and took a hard look at what I do and how this new crop of cameras could affect that – here’s what I found:

Most used this year: 5Dmk2
Most flexible: Sony EX3
Best combo of the two: Sony F3

I’m not being asked to go 4K just yet. If need be I can rent an EPIC from VR and go crazy with resolution.  Super Slowmo is great but likely to get overused in my circles and burn out quickly and again — EPIC if needed.  Super Shallow DoF nice but not the end all be all.  The F3 seems to fit the bill right down the middle.
The best part I like is I’m already an EX3 owner so all my achechepies plug right in. I’m planning to do the S-Log upgrade soon so I’ll keep you posted on the progress.  Also I’m getting a set of the Rokinon T1.5 cine lenses as the come out.  See my review of the 35mm T1.5.  I’ll be getting the 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm.  I can rent a Zeiss ZF.2 kit when needed but I wanted to start with the Rokinons to give them a try.  I got the Tokina 11-16 in Nikon F — no cine mod yet; a Nikkor 28-70 ƒ2.8 and a Nikkor 80-200 ƒ2.8.  It will be a balanced kit when I”m done.

Well dinner is ready.  More to come…

Until next time, good shooting

Sony PMW-F3 and Non PL Lenses

OK. So we have the 3 SONY primes 35, 50 and 85mm T3’ish — very nice. Also we have the RED 18-50 T3 PL zoom – handy. When they were offering the pair, 18-50 and 50-150 from Optimo, it was a great range and deal… But now it’s a different pricing structure… So we have steered ourselves down the NIKON road for a little while =)

Ken Rockwell.com and eBay are your friends. We went through Ken’s sight and double checked our lenses for reviews, tips and tricks and finally general pricing considerations. We decided on covering a range from 28mm to 200mm with a 28-70 ƒ2.8 ED and a 80-200 ƒ2.8 ED. Really rugged, well built and clean.

The 80-200 came in a week ago and we were able to take it to Duclos Lenses in Conoga Park last week. REALLY nice guys Paul and Matthew. Boy do they know their stuff. As it turned out they were doing a run of Cinemods on 80-200 Nikkor lenses that week and just added our parts to the run. We dropped off the lens in the morning and went to lunch and it was done by the time we got back an hour later. Awesome!!!

To add to our collection we also got the 28-70 this week. We’ll test it out on a commercial shoot this coming week. We’ll have it modded probably later this week or next. The mod is great – they remove the “click-stops” in the aperture ring and add a focus gear. If you like they will upgrade to front flange to 80mm for consistency.

The look seems very nice from these lenses. Bokeh is pretty smooth. Don’t see that much vignetting in the way we use the lenses. All in all I think a good decision.

While we were at Duclos we checked out their 11-16 lens – very cool. Again – rugged!! Worked really well with the F3. Gives you a great wide look. They are so popular for the RED and EPIC and F3 that there is a fair sized waiting list – well worth the wait and the money.

More to follow as we put the lenses through some real world testing…

Until next time, good shooting

TDTrey.com