Want to learn more about working with 4K using Sony’s F5 or F55 cameras? Why not join me at a workshop being run by Advanced Media of Dubai where we will be fully exploring these remarkable new cameras from Sony and how to get the most from them. We will look at how to set them up, how to shoot with them and then how to handle you material in post production. We are still working out the final details of the event, but we may also have an F65 to play with too. I’ll also be in Dubai for the CabSat trade show a week later.

One of the most commonly asked questions for me right now is which camera do I choose  out of the PMW-F5 and F55. The price difference isn’t huge, around $10k USD. If you have the budget, if money is not a major concern then the choice is actually quite simple. Buy the PMW-F55. The F55 has a slightly better sensor, it uses a global shutter, so unlike most CMOS cameras there is no problem with image skew or flash banding. This alone is probably worth the $10k USD extra. The other major extra features that the F55 offers is the ability to record compressed 4K footage and it can shoot at up to 240fps while the F5 only manages 120fps. The F5 can only record HD and 2K internally, it can’t record 4K internally. If you want to record 4K with the F5 you have to get the add on R5 raw recorder and shoot 4K raw.

If you are on a tight budget (like me) then choosing between them is a little more complicated. You see I have two options, I can afford either the F5 plus R5 or I can afford the F55 on it’s own. Either way I can shot 4K. With the F55 it would be 4K XAVC compressed recorded internally to the SxS cards. With the F5/R5 I can shoot 4K raw recording to the AXS media. Raw will be better for grading, overexposure and high dynamic range shots will be handled much better than the compressed log recordings that the F55 records internally. It’s a tough decision. I’ve actually ordered an F5/R5 but having shot with an F55 using S-Log2 XAVC I have to admit that I’m questioning that decision. The S-Log2 material is very impressive, it copes very well with a couple of stops of overexposure and grades easily and nicely. The files size is quite reasonable with an hour of footage taking about 100GB. The 4K raw footage on the other hand is 5 times the size with an hour of material taking 512GB. That’s a lot of data.

Right now 4K is only really being used for high end productions and if you are working on a high end production then in my opinion, raw is the way to go, so where does that leave 4K XAVC? Well, consider this. Your working on a big production and for your key scenes you would shoot using raw. But what about some location shots, maybe in a remote place where you only have limited access to recording media or back up and archive systems? This is where you would use 4K XAVC. I’m thinking about some of my storm chasing or Northern Lights expeditions, 4K XAVC would be a great candidate. On some of my storm chasing trips I might shoot 10 hours of material in just a few day. With 4K raw that would be 5TB of data to manage and backup. With XAVC that’s just 1TB which will go on a single 2.5″ USB3 hard drive (or at least a pair of them, one being a backup). Even over USB3 it can take an hour or more to make a single copy of a 512GB AXS card, so backups could be a long and slow process.

One thing the F5 does do better than the F55 is low light performance. In S-log2 the F5’s native ISO is 2500 ISO while the F55 is 1250 ISO. Both are impressive figures, but the 2500 ISO of the F5 for me at least will be a fantastic asset when shooting storms etc where the light levels are low. However the flip side to that is that with so much sensitivity I’m going to need to use a lot of ND for many conventional shoots. I will add that both the F5 and F55 are remarkably noise free. Even at 20,000 ISO the F5 noise is really not all that bad.

Basically though, the F55 is the better camera of the two and as I said at the start, I think you should strive to afford the F55. It’s likely to hold it’s value better than the F5 so is probably a better long term investment. I’m still undecided about my pre-order for the F5, maybe I will ditch the R5 for now and strive to get an F55. I can always add an R5 later, while trying to swap from an F5 to an F55 is going to be harder and more expensive. I have to admit that the one thing that’s really hurting my budget right now is the way the resale value of the F3 has fallen through the floor. It’s all but impossible to sell an F3 right now and I have two of them.

So that’s the camera body what about the viewfinders. There are 3 to choose from. The 3.5″ LCD, the OLED EVF and a DVF-L700 7″ viewfinder. All 3 are very nice. The 7″ is more of an on camera monitor than a viewfinder, so really the choice is between the LCD or the OLED. I know there has been quite a bit of excitement about the OLED, it was only the other day that I first got to try one. To be honest I found it rather underwhelming. I’m not saying that it’s bad, but it really doesn’t seem to be that much better than the LCD. The LCD is using a new 960 x 540 lcd panel (is this another iphone screen?). This is higher resolution than the now familiar EX1/F3 LCD panel and I really struggle to see the pixels with the new 3.5″ LCD. The LCD is sharp and clear and has a 1000:1 contrast ratio, it’s a good viewfinder. It also has the flexibility of being a monocular viewfinder or by flipping up the mirror assembly becoming a small LCD monitor. You can’t do this with the OLED finder. The OLED finder is marginally sharper and does have a higher contrast range with true black blacks. But, for me at least I prefer the flexibility of the 3.5″ over the very small image quality advantage of the OLED finder. If you have the budget then the best solution is probably to have both the OLED and the 7″ LCD. You can use both together by plugging the OLED into the dedicated EVF socket (which sticks straight out from the side of the camera and is vulnerable to damage) and then use the main or sub HDSDI outputs to feed the 7″ LCD. The F5/F55 outputs can be split so you can get a clean output on the Main HDSDI’s and video with camera data overlay on the Sub HDSDI’s. Even if the OLED and the LCD EVF’s were the same price I would still get the LCD for it’s flexibility on location. Someone that does more larger crewed film type shoots may prefer the OLED EVF and then add on an on camera monitor.

Due to a short notice cancellation I have a spare place on either of my February 2013 Northern Lights expeditions. If your interested please use the contact form to get in touch asap. I expect these places will go quite quickly. There is ONE place open on each of the tours: https://www.xdcam-user.com/northern-lights-expeditions-to-norway/

The picture below is from my Northern Lights expedition earlier this month and gives you an idea of the kind of pictures you too can hope to get.

I’ve just ordered a new MacBook Pro. It’s a Retina MBP, so has a 512GB SSD. Upgrading this is difficult and extremely expensive. So in preparation for the new machines arrival I started freeing up disc space on my current MacBook Pro. I used a useful piece of free software called “GrandPerspective” to visualise what’s using up my disc space. While searching around I came across a bunch of files eating up a huge amount of disc space. These are Adobe Premiere’s cache files. These never get deleted unless you do some house keeping. Even if your projects and media are saved on external drives, these cache files will slowly fill up your system drive unless you select the tick box to “save media cache files next to originals where possible” under the “preferences”, “media” tab. While your there you can also “clean” your cache database to remove older cache files.

Well the picture says it all really. The December Northern Lights expedition to Tromso and Karasjok in Norway was a big success. Everyone went away with some excellent pictures and great time-lapse. I shot the picture below with one of my NEX5n cameras with the 16mm f2.8 pancake lens. I also got some great time-lapse with the FS700 which I will cut together and post when I get back home.

One of the things that’s struck me on my travels is the different attitudes to training, education and accreditation around the world.

Lets face it, these days anyone can call themselves a DoP, I do! But what is a DoP? What does it mean? It means a lot less today than it did 10 years ago. When I started in the industry there was a kind of unofficial apprenticeship system. You started as an assistant, became a camera operator, learnt how to light, becoming a lighting cameraman and worked your way up. If you tried to sell yourself as a lighting cameraman without having the skills to back that up, word of mouth would mean no one would hire you. Today however it seems that almost anyone can pick up a camera and call themselves a DoP, Director of Photography, a very grand sounding title. There is no requirement to have actually had any training or real world experience before you can call yourself a camera operator, DoP, colourist or whatever you fancy.

The problem for production companies is working out who really does have the skills and experience to back up their job title. I’ve spent many days helping production companies train their staff and frankly it’s quite scary sometimes as I’ve met many so called DoP’s and camera operators that have huge holes in their basic skills and knowledge that really shouldn’t be there.

Education and accreditation are what’s needed. I don’t just mean education through college and university courses, but real world, hands on education. Out in the field with more experienced camera operators. That’s hard to get these days as few productions have the budgets for camera assistants and even fewer have the time for mentoring and one to one teaching. You also tend to find that a production, depending on the budget will use either more expensive, skilled and experienced operators or low cost self shooting AP’s and the two rarely come together on the same project at the same time.  In addition we need certification or recognised accreditation. We need industry standard recognition of skills and experience, not just for those new to the industry but also for those of us that have long term practical experience. The IOV (Institute of Videographers) has the right idea. You can gain different levels of accreditation through assessment of your skills by a panel of IOV members. However this accreditation is not widely acknowledged outside of the IOV and is not always relevant to some areas of broadcast television.

A further issue we have here in the UK is that we don’t like paying for training. In the USA and Asia for example that attitude is quite different. I know many Asian freelancers that consider it normal to spend significant sums of money to attend week long, peer led, practical workshops. Why? Because at the end of the workshop they know they will have new or improved skills and they will have a certificate to back that up. That certificate will help them get more work or better paid work. Because the workshop is run by working industry experts, not just college lecturers, the knowledge gained goes beyond just the “how to” but also includes the “why’s” and “when’s” and practical how to run a business experience that is often lacking in traditional schooling.  Because many here in the UK either can’t afford to pay for training or simply think it’s not worth the investment they will turn to the internet for help. That’s a whole can of worms in itself because absolutely anybody can set up a web site and write anything they want. While there is a lot of very good information on the internet, there is also a lot of incorrect information and if you don’t know any better how do you know whether what your reading is right or wrong?

This isn’t something that can be fixed overnight. Our attitude to training and education needs to change, especially as the rate of technology change continues to increase. There are new concepts to grasp almost every day these days.  Great cameras do not, on their own make great pictures. It also takes a skilled operator. We need a formal way of recognising different ability levels to make it easier for production companies to find the right people for the job. I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years, but I’m still learning and many of the most useful things I’ve learnt have been from those more experienced than me. So we need more peer based training and it needs to be accessible to freelancers, not just those with staff jobs. We also need to think of education as an investment. People are prepared to invest £1000’s in a camera that may have a working life of just a couple of years, but are much more reluctant to invest a few hundred in a workshop that might give them skills and knowledge that might last a lifetime.

Finally, what is a DoP anyway? It used to mean Director of Photography. The person that directed the camera operator, chose the lenses and film stock. The DoP did not normally operate the camera. The DoP would normally be the most experienced person in the camera department, typically with many years of experience as an assistant then camera operator. Today it appears to mean anyone that can operate a camera and make a YouTube video.

So here’s the offical list pricing for the F5 and F55. Looks very attractive indeed. Some dealers are already listing the F5 body for just a little under £10.5K GBP + VAT and the F55 for around £18K + VAT.The 512gb AXS Access card at €1.5k Euro’s is not as expensive as I thought it might be. Still a pretty big investment though if you ned 3 or 4 of them. The Olivine batteries are really rather expensive. You can get similar capacity V-Lock batteries from other manufacturers for quite a lot less. OK you can’t charge them super fast but do you really need ultra fast charging?

PMW-F5  €15.340 Euro

PMW-F55 €27.804 Euro

AXS-R5 S35mm F-series External RAW Recorder €5.206 Euro

AXS-CR1 Access Card Reader €549 Euro

AXS-512S24 Access Card 512GB for AXS-R5 External Recorder €1.535 Euro

SCL-PK6/F CineAlta PL Lens Pack (6 lenses) €19.895 Euro

SCL-PK3/F CineAlta PL Lens Pack (3 lenses) €11.118 Euro

DVF-L700 7″ LCD Viewfinder for F-series €4.113 Euro

DVF-L350 3.5″ LCD Viewfinder for F-series €2.925 Euro

DVF-EL100 0.7″ OLED Viewfinder for F-series €4.113 Euro

BP-FL75 Olivine Battery for F-series €470 Euro

BP-L90 Olivine Battery Charger for F-series €766 Euro

So, first of all what is Par-Focal? Well it’s the ability of a zoom lens to maintain the same focus point throughout the zoom range. In other words as you zoom in and out there is no focus shift. Most DSLR zoom lenses are not Par-Focal, they don’t need to be, as when taking stills photos you would zoom to get your desired framing, then set the focus. Some are closer to par-focal than others, some are pretty good, others are way off.

If you have ever used a full size shoulder mount broadcast camera with a removable zoom lens you’ll know that the lenses used have an adjuster on the rear of the lens to set the back-focus. This adjustment is there to take into account tiny variations in the lens mount, the optical filters behind the lens, wear and tear and temperature extremes. If you don’t adjust this correctly the zoom lens will not be Par-focal. DSLR lenses and most PL Mount zoom lenses don’t have this adjustment. Without a means to adjust the back focus it is the luck of the draw as to how par-focal your lens will be. On the Sony PMW-F3 you can adjust the back focus by adjusting the sensor to lens mount distance with an adjuster screw. However the way the ND filters work, with one stacked above the other will shift the optimum back focus distance depending on which ND filter you use. Most higher end 35mm video and film cameras have mounts that can be fitted with shims to adjust the flange back. In addition the better quality PL mount lenses are designed to be fitted with shims so that all the lenses in a set are corrected for the 52.00mm flange back distance for PL mount.

So, seeing as all the cheaper 35mm and APS-C video cameras have no facility to adjust or shim the distance between the lens mount and the sensor you are relying on the precision of the the camera manufacturer. In addition you are also relying on the precision of the lens manufacturer and the manufacturer of any mount adapters you might be using. Overall, even if the lens you have is truly par-focal the chances of everything being absolutely perfect are small, so the chances of your focus tracking perfectly accurately is also small. As a result, in most cases when using zoom lenses on a lower cost large sensor camcorder your focus will not track perfectly throughout the zoom range.

Sony have just released a firmware update for the PMW-200. Click Here for a download link.

One of the key features of this update is the ability to automatically adjust the cameras back focus. This will be great news for the few users out there that are reporting slight focus shifts when zooming. The design of the Fujinon lens used on the EX1, EX1R, EX3 and new PMW-200 means that if the camera is bumped around, say in transit somewhere or during delivery shipment the back focus can get misaligned. The auto flange back adjustment operates by placing the camera at least 3m (10ft) from a wall with patterned wall paper or a flat brick wall (something with a texture or pattern the camera can focus on easily) or a Siemens Star chart. The camera must be square on to the target. Then execute the FB Adjust option in the menu to run the calibration routine.

The next new feature is the ability to add the CBK-WA01 WiFi adapter to the camera for remote operation from an iPhone, iPad or Android device (although I have not seen the matching app for this yet). Finally there is now the ability to save the camera setup to a USB memory stick.