Dogtown

I saw a Sony F65 for sale on DVXUSER today $22k complete kit minus lens, batteries, and tripod, seems like a good deal! I wonder if Ed David still has his F65? Ed did love his old F35 and produced some great images with that. Tools, we do love our tools.
F65 kit
INCLUDED:
-Sony F65 brain, with SRR4 recorder & control panel
-Sony OLED EVF
-1x 1TB SRMemory card (blue)
-1x 256GB SRMemory card (black)
-Gold Mount battery plate
-Extended length power cable for use with DC power block
-SRPC4 high-speed card reader 
-Set of 19mm carbon fiber rods (12" & 8")
-Travel case
$22K

I saw a Sony F65 for sale on DVXUSER today $22k complete kit minus lens, batteries, and tripod, seems like a good deal! I wonder if Ed David still has his F65? Ed did love his old F35 and produced some great images with that. Tools, we do love our tools.
F65 kit
INCLUDED:
-Sony F65 brain, with SRR4 recorder & control panel
-Sony OLED EVF
-1x 1TB SRMemory card (blue)
-1x 256GB SRMemory card (black)
-Gold Mount battery plate
-Extended length power cable for use with DC power block
-SRPC4 high-speed card reader 
-Set of 19mm carbon fiber rods (12" & 8")
-Travel case
$22K

Riadnasla, one option is to stay in the Sony camp, and get a EX3 for your speaking events, these can be had for $1,500 in good condition with extras! great codec for those long events, you can use the F3 as a second camera that you can dumb down to match the EX3, you would have easy timecode sync with both cameras, then I would only add an A7S for your Glidecam, that camera could also net you 4K should you ever need it. So if you could raise the funds say $3,000 you would have three cameras that would cover anything you need. When you jump into the Canon camp, you could almost do the same thing with the C100 and a Canon mark III, and the DPAF on the C100 would work great for the Glidecam.   

Riadnasla, one option is to stay in the Sony camp, and get a EX3 for your speaking events, these can be had for $1,500 in good condition with extras! great codec for those long events, you can use the F3 as a second camera that you can dumb down to match the EX3, you would have easy timecode sync with both cameras, then I would only add an A7S for your Glidecam, that camera could also net you 4K should you ever need it. So if you could raise the funds say $3,000 you would have three cameras that would cover anything you need. When you jump into the Canon camp, you could almost do the same thing with the C100 and a Canon mark III, and the DPAF on the C100 would work great for the Glidecam.   

You might be better of keeping your F3, the prices are so low now it could make you cry   besides the Canon C100 II, with the limit to 8 bit out is still nice, but it's not the 10 bit of the F3! I like the locking SDI connectors on the Sony, the C100 HDMI is too weak. The C100 original and C series cameras are lovely cameras, but you have more DR range shooting RGB S Log, with the F3. The Sony F5 would be a nice upgrade path, but it gets bulky when you add on the extras.
  

I do like my F3, ( I have three of them now for multicam shoots ) I find for WEB and TV it has all the resolution I need, the image is wonderful going out to my Odyssey 7Q+ S Log RGB 444, it does have a great film like image when handled well, It is built tough and has so many solid HDSDI connections, just make sure you get the RGB S Log upgrade either installed already, or with the key! If I want to step up to a client that request 4K I bought a Canon C500, I do find 2K to be more than enough for everything I'm shooting these days. Some good information on the old F3 is out there.
F3 in fact has a 3.4-3.6 megapixel sensor. And from further reading it seems engineers find that, while very small pixel pitches bring with them increased noise, once you reach a reasonable size -- 4-6 microns -- the benefits of larger pixel pitches in terms of noise are reduced. Thanks for the comments -- that's exactly the kind of info I was trying to suss out.
Here is the full read:
http://nofilmschool.com/2011/03/sony-f3-times-light-gathering-ability-red

100% Agree with this, I run with an F3 (S-log) + Gemini 4:4:4, and they're built like bricks, never had any issues. Often my clients have difficulty re-focusing from "need 4K" to "need awesome image quality", but after the shoot when I start going through the dpx footage, all debates stop. Biggest downside for me: It's a light cinema camera, but it still heavy as a cinema camera compared to stuff like the C100s. I'm usually a one-man band, so that means a lot more work, but if that doesn't bother you, I can't recommend better IQ for the price. In addition, the native FZ mount can adapt to pretty much anything other than E-mount for the price of a cheap adapter. 
 
My reel, shot mostly with available light, with this rig for demonstration: 
 

Looks like you had a lot of fun with the shoot! I just bought a C500 and the Odyssey Q7+, I had started a thread over on DVXUSER Fan noise be gone! There is a solution to the fans on the C500 that kick in 7-10 minuets in while recording in 2K and 4K mode:
http://mattporwoll.com/problems-solved/
I bought one of these units through AbleCine here in LA, the fan system looks streamline on the C500, and even better it works and is super quite while on! You can read all about the fan noise in the DVX thread, it goes back to some other thread spinoffs that talk about solving the fan noise issue. Now I can roll on those long winded interviews without that dreaded fan whining noise kicking in recording in 2K or 4K  

IronFilm, I decided to go with the Odyssey Q7+ I have an F3 as well and on the site of Video Devices, for cameras supported it stated 720p for the F3 only? I called them and have not got the call back from their support team on weather the Pix E5 does capture the 444 RGB 1080p 10-12 bit through the single SDI F3 output. When I hear back I'll post their reply.

Kino, thank you for posting these fine examples of images from the C500. I think the color pallet coming from this camera is wonderful, the 2K those last three spots were shot in was WOW! Knowing you need some great glass to focus the image on that sensor to get the WOW, I wonder what new options there are that won't be twice as much as the C500 + Odyssey?
And a big thank you Jimmy, that Man Beast was beautiful, I had seen a behind the scenes on the making of that when the C500 first came out, along with Steve Poster's, Rhythm of Life (stunning in 4K)  
 
I'm shooting now with a Sony F3, along with a Zeiss ZF kit of primes, along with a Nikon 35-70 and a Nikon 80-200. I love the image i'm getting with this kit, but want to up the game and capabilities next year.
 
Broatch  

Amook,  If you are going to shoot S Log with the F3 you are going to want to record to an external recorder! You need the 10bit and 422 color space to record the S Log picture, if you use the the internal F3 codec which is a 420 compression, when in the S Log mode you will not be getting all the information ( bits and color information ) you need. There is a lot of information on exposing the F3 when shooting S Log, do a search. Here is a basic explanation of the F3 and S Log by Andy Shipsides of Ablecine.
http://blog.abelcine.com/2011/08/04/f3-s-log-part-1-on-the-charts/
And here is another post talking about the F3 and S Log on DVX
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?269977-Do-I-need-a-Gemini-or-Ki-Pro-Mini-to-Use-the-S-LOG-Firmware-Update-on-the-F3
Good luck.
 
Broatch

So my lingering questions are:
If I transcoded to ProRes, can I expect my system to bog down less? Yes, you will be much happier!
If I transcode, would I want to use 5DtoRGB which is said to have a very good 10bit conversion processor? ClipWrap and EditReady are much faster on the transcode. 

I already have ClipWrap and 5DtoRGB. 5DtoRGB worked great with my older GH2 AVC codec, with the Canon C100  AVC codec, I noticed little difference from the ClipWrap files and the 5DtoRGB files? I also recorded out of the C100 to my Nanoflash recorder ( XDCAM HD 422, 100mbs Long Gop ) the Nanoflash had a richer cleaner (less noise in the blacks) look.
 
Also unless you are doing major VFX or color CC don't waste the space and go for ProRes 422. 
 
Broatch Berry
Venice CA
screamingdime.com