Bob Wall

It's old news - F35's have been going at that price point for several years. 
 
I used one (A Genesis, actually) on a film, and indeed, it was a great image.  Many of the films and television shows that I love the most from a pure image aspect are shot on F35.  F35 color has always impressed me more than any other camera, for whatever reasons. 
 
That said, I have almost zero interest in owning one, even if it was free.  My own work involves travel and moving around shooting B roll and interviews, with little or no help.  Have you ever carried a kitted F35?  It's not light, and it's not small.  I'm not willing to get a superior image by sacrificing my back to the degree that an F35 would require.  My clients wouldn't care either.  I suppose if you had a studio and did a lot of work in one place, it might be attractive, or if you had a crew.  Accessories for the F35 aren't super cheap or common either, so unless you're buying a kitted package, beware the actual price.  

Nice but can we remove or shrink the banner from the forum? It takes up an amazing amount of space.

Philip says that he's sure it would be shut down in the next firmware update...but wouldn't that firmware update have to offer something useful to make people apply it?  If I was an f5 owner, I'd be sitting there thinking that this hack, with current firmware was extremely valuable - to make me apply a new version, that new version would have to offer something at least as valuable.  Otherwise I'd stay on the same firmware forever - because the camera works perfectly well right now. 

Things like this are going to happen more and more often as hardware becomes more generalized and the firmware and software that runs them becomes more specialized.  Stuff like this obviously happens in the computer realm every day and has for decades, camera makers just aren't used to being hacked because they are so specialized in function.  I don't think it's unethical for Sony to disable features, in fact I think it's probably really common.  They shouldn't be surprised that this happened though.

Look at the Canon 24-70 f4 IS - $1500 and Sony has their equivalent at $1200.  They are pricing around the market.

Indeed.  I just finished a production for a client who entertained the notion that his quad flying shots were appropriate for his film.  It was incredibly difficult to diplomatically try to inform him how to fly his toy.
 
Ultimately, he just liked to fly the damn thing high to the point where the landscape basically looked nondescript/static and then he would just pan and tilt the camera around randomly.  Augh.  
 
Some people would rather hang a painting of Kincaid in the house than a Wyeth.
 
I just had to accept it.  Lots of folks just don't get it.  Their subjectivity skews toward tacky.  With flying shots it's typically low, slow, and in a straight line.  It's really that simple.

Sure.  Usually you're balancing DOF (aperture) and ISO to get a properly exposed shot (in all light conditions).  With this camera the only consideration the aperture, not the ISO, as it's usable to a much higher number than any other camera.  So when composing in poorly lit scenes, you're thinking only about what sort of DOF you want, and you don't have to be wide open any more.  See the scenes out the car and several other here; clearly he's stopped down and getting considerable DOF, which wouldn't be possible with most other large sensor cameras, and small sensor cameras wouldn't be properly exposed with these levels of light (or very very noisy):

 
Dynamic range is generally high for this camera, so we're having to make fewer choices about what to lose, highlights or shadows.  The image is more detailed, than, say Canon DSLR (it's direct competitor).  It has a full frame sensor and reads the entire sensor, which is a first for a full frame.  It has a proper aps-c function built in, multiplying the apparent number of focal lengths you have with you.  It has the ability to do 120fps at what appears to be a pretty sharp 720p.  It's half the weight of a canon full frame DSLR. 
 
If you can't figure out what to do those things creatively to increase the quality of the work you're outputting, you might consider a different line of work.

I believe your view on a DP's job is oversimplified. Yes, they do care -a lot- about DOF and bokeh, because those are also composition tools. To think they just worry about camera placement and framing is like saying an actor only has to memorize some text.
 
When you shoot a closeup, sometimes you want the character blended in the environment, but many times you want to isolate the face with very shallow DOF to center the attention on his/her expresion. And the bokeh orbs that you see in the background are often lights or elements placed on purpose to serve as defocused background, and have nothing to do with the real background or what you see in the wide shot.
 
For wide shots such as establishing shots (descriptive) deep focus is usually desirable, since you want to show a general impression of the setting and not focus the attention on a specific point. The problem comes when some unseasoned or untrained filmmaker decides to shoot every establishing shot with an 18mm @ T1.5, just to "show off" shallow DOF. The same could be applied to many closeups: you do not always need the background that blurred.
 
DOF is not an aesthetic element that looks "cool", but a narrative element to tell a story. And composition is probably the last thing a DP worries about. Composition is relatively easy. Its rules are common knowledge. Camera placement and lens choice pretty much define it. It has already been agreed in preproduction and any decent camera operator would be able to frame properly. DPs are more concerned with lighting. If you are looking for that cinematic look, you need proper lighting and lenses, and the extra stop of light provided by the Speedbooster becomes irrelevant (though may come in handy in docu).

Because few people (at least the type that read this forum)  want to haul around a (fully kitted) 30lb package that requires active cooling?

Seems like an ideal pair with a set of Rokinon/Samyang manual primes.

Since the A7S provides a Super-35 crop mode, it would appear the NEX to EF SpeedBooster would work with the A7S, providing another stop of light. Image quality for the crop mode should be decent as Sony appears to have a high-quality scaler.

I played with the 12MP JPEG in ACR- highlights are clipped and not recoverable- DR looks similar to 5D3 in that shot. Noise cleaned up OK using ACR tools, however image then looked over-processed (Neat Video would work better along with temporal NR).
 
I shot a clip with the GH4 at ISO 1600 and lit it with a single LED (iPhone 5S). After Neat Video NR and bringing up the levels in post, it looks pretty good compared to the A7S examples so far. I would expect the A7S to do better in any case, however if Neat Video is needed in both cases and the final results look similar, the A7S's utility over the GH4 in low light would then be lessened. The FS700, especially with SpeedBooster is pretty good in low light, all the way up to ISO6400 (still needs NR in post at that level).
 
So far most of the A7S demo shots have been with locked off (tripod) or very low camera motion. It would be helpful to see typical handheld (with and without a rig) shots. While it would be nice to have a 5D3 replacement at 50Mbps (vs. 5D3 RAW at ~64GB per 12min), I almost pre-ordered the A7S but am holding off until it's released and actual end-user videos are posted. Also curious about the A7S XLR audio attachment (release date and cost).

Or maybe it makes the most sense.  The stills camera market is much bigger than the pro camcorder market so there is the most profit and the best ability to reduce costs with much larger production runs, and dont forget they didn't even have to design a new body for this, they just re-used the A7/A7R body.  Why build 5 cameras at different tiers at 5x the R&D cost and greater production costs for several smaller runs, when you can make one amazing product that does 10x the business because it beats the competition and caters to many markets.  Why do extra R&D to build so many different cameras if they can build a camera head that no one doing photo/video can't afford not to have.  I mean it's a FF35 body that costs less than a 5D3 body and can take pretty much any lens ever made and has a proper XLR audio option and 4K output, not to mention possibly the best image quality to date?  Plus there is the added benefit that they might actually start to create exponentially more demand for E-mount lenses and other camera accessories if they capture more of the market.
 
I'm afraid if it ends up being too good it'll be tough to justify holding onto my FS700 just for 240fps HFR...
 
But you are right to some degree, there are a lot of claims that have yet to be verified and there may be limitations on what they were able to stuff into the small form factor or what they attempted to do for video if it has to also cater to the stills market.  We will know in a couple weeks.

I've never understood why people care that much about "jello" anyway. In most situations it just doesn't come into play.