Sony PXW-PS7

[Brian Drysdale]

A Super 35mm sensor camera from Sony which seems to have picked up on the form factor of the Kinetta and the Minima.

 

http://focuspulling.com/PXW-FS7_Brochure.pdf

[Brian Drysdale]

Some videos on the camera:

 

 

[Michael LaVoie]

So after you purchase the R5 Raw recorder and the part that connects the two, you've spent $16K. The price of the F5. Before it's Raw recorder option. All in all, I'm really glad I waited for this before getting the F5/55. Who knows if the market will embrace it but it's cheap enough that I can feel safe taking that risk.

 

Sorry AJA, I'm giving up on the Cion. This is too sweet. No global shutter but the readout purports to be faster so maybe it's not that much of an issue. Always rolling shutter repair in premiere pro. I've had good luck with Sony cameras. Just hope they keep their October promise.

[Brian Drysdale]

Adam Wilt gives a preview here: http://www.dvinfo.net/article/acquisition/sonyxdcam/first-look-sony-pxw-fs7-l-s-s-shoulder-mount-camcorder-part-1.html

 

Also has what looks like Sony Powerpoint slides here: http://provideocoalition.com/awilt/story/122-slides-on-the-sony-pxc-fs7

[Michael LaVoie]

I spoke way too soon. The AXS-R5 doesn't simply attach to this. Yeah, that was wishful thinking on my part. Getting RAW out of this is of course, way more complicated and expensive than that...

 

There is an option to attach the XDCA expansion kit ($2450) that will allow you to attach an Odyssey 7Q or shogun, similar to the FS700.

 

Or you can attach the XDCA expansion kit ($2450) and then the IFR5 ($2200) so that you can then attach the AXSR5 ($5995 plus drive media -$1500) back and then a battery. WHich would make the back of this thing look like an RPG.

 

Setting up the R5 recorder option though would bring the total cost of the camera to well over $20,000. Which no one is likely to do. So it's really another camera meant to go with an Shogun or Odyssey if you want cinemaDNG Raw.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Michael LaVoie

[Tyler Purcell]

Its still a Sony… which means; you can only use Sony hardware. You're stuck in their world, with them telling you what you can and can't do. No standardization of SD card's for instance, they want you to buy all new cards from them.

 

Good form factor, but too much money for what it is out of the box. If it had pro res and raw recording onto a generic SSD card, it would be MUCH more powerful.

[Michael LaVoie]

Sony does work closely with Convergent Design though for the Odyssey and they were in touch well before the release of the camera. And while Convergent also have their own proprietary SSD's it's for a very good reason. Which is the actual life of the SSD and reliability. This is not standard across the board. They're not all equal in quality which is why they and AJA don't want people inserting other SSD's into their equipment and then complaining later when they have data loss, failures etc.

[Michael LaVoie]

Ordered from Abel Cinetech the day it was announced and they're still waiting on a shipment. Sony rep says the demand is high and supply is low. Anyone get theirs yet?

[Mark Kenfield]

Its still a Sony… which means; you can only use Sony hardware. You're stuck in their world, with them telling you what you can and can't do. No standardization of SD card's for instance, they want you to buy all new cards from them.

 

Good form factor, but too much money for what it is out of the box. If it had pro res and raw recording onto a generic SSD card, it would be MUCH more powerful.

 

Huh?

 

This thing has a S35mm sensor, 2000 ISO base sensitivity, 14-stops of DR, does up to 60fps in 4K, 180fps in 2K, a sensible form factor, powerful and affordable media (XQD cards), the ability to mount just about any lens ever made to it, and can quite affordably be expanded to offer both ProRes recording internally and raw recording via an external recorder... and it does it all for just $8000.

 

What other camera on the market comes even close to that feature-set/price ratio? Sony have certainly had their share of snafus over the years, but I really can't see how anyone would think this camera doesn't offer an incredible value proposition.

[Phil Rhodes]

So do a lot of cameras - we've seen huge advances of late, which is great, but new releases need to be taken in context.

 

Like Tyler, I'm dismayed by Sony's continuous generation of new flash card formats which are technically unnecessary, at least from a bandwidth point of view.

 

It may be possible, of course, to use third-party recorders with FS7. FS700 doesn't make this particularly easy with regard to its high-speed options, though, and things like raw are likely to be unavailable unless someone specifically reverse-engineers Sony's protocol, which probably isn't worth the effort for the relatively small market.

 

I think Cion is lovely but too expensive, given what it will cost to put worthwhile glass on it, especially as it isn't that sensitive, doesn't include viewfinding (another $1k at least), and also requires proprietary flash. There was talk from the company at IBC about making a CFast adaptor for it, which I strongly recommended they did to avoid being seen as price-gouging on the storage. I mean, they're showing them with things like the Fuju 85-300, which is just absurd.

 

P

[Michael LaVoie]

Total price on the camera with 3 85wh onboards and 3 of the 128 gig XQD G - series cards (20 min each of 4k a24fps) came to $11,671 That's for a fully functional camera with an hours worth of recording media and a days worth of battery life. I already owned an NEX to PL and NEX to Nikon mount for my FS100 that I'll just transfer over to this.

 

Cion will be about $4,000 or more above the base price to get the same functionality. Viewfinder, lens mount, pak media One step forward with the global shutter and 2 back with the 320ISO. Not sure what that's about.

 

All in all, FS7 is a far more compact user friendly setup than the cumbersome FS700 / Odyssey combo rig. So from what I can see it's the best in show at it's price point.

 

I am hoping to get it in this week and have some demo footage up soon. No idea why they don't just offer the true 4K now and not in some future firmware update. Seems silly since it's planned to be a free update. Maybe that'll change and it'll be bundled with other features and there'll be a charge.

[Phil Rhodes]

not sure what that's about

 

I think it's probably about the amount of silicon area taken up by the shuttering transistors. Adding global shuttering requires one more transistor (at least) per pixel, which is area that otherwise might have been light-sensitive. Reduce the pixel area, you reduce the sensitivity and/or increase noise.

 

Several semiconductor companies are experimenting with multi-layer sensors which allow control electronics (such as global shuttering provision) to be mounted on another layer behind the light-sensitive parts, which should offset this. Could be soon, next couple of generations. Until then, this is the compromise.

 

P

[Michael LaVoie]

Got the camera. First impressions are that it feels professional. It's got some weight to it, good form factor and with rails and cinestyle accesories it looks a bit larger than the F5. Menu is nearly the same but there's no side screen to see the status. Need the viewfinder for that.

 

I'm hoping that someone designs a cage for it cause the bottom threading surface is small due to the recessed shoulder groove. So a cage would give it some extra support. Also the body has magnesium in the coating and you don't want to drop this thing without some protection. Movcam will hopefully get on that. It's still hard to get a camera though.

 

I was way off on the cards and the runtime. I thought that a 128 gave you 20 minutes of 4K in 24p but it's more like 66 minutes per card. So I might have overdid it getting 3 of them. The BPU90's are also very long batteries. But 3 is a safe bet on those.

 

Some odd quirks with the settings. It seems to only allow for viewfinder LUT's under very specific viewfinder and monitor settings which I find a little annoying. You can also freeze up the viewfinder image by putting the wrong settings in which was likely a bug that'll get fixed. No waveform in Cine - EI mode. Not a huge deal if your onboard has one.

 

Hopefully the firmware updates will address all that. It's also missing a 2K mode in XAVC which is not a big deal but it would be nice for when you're shooting with an F5 and want to match it exactly.

 

I'm shooting a short with it next week. Will hopefully have some good footage and set photos.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Michael LaVoie

[tomer shteinberg]

hi

can someone tell me, if i can see or notice a diffrence in the motion blur of shooting in xavc-i , between xavc-L ?

tx

[JFlack]

We've also gotten ours and there are some annoyances and bugs, but overall the camera seems to be very well built and produces a beautiful image, particularly in CineEI mode, I really haven't used it in any of the other 'video' modes.

 

Some people have reported Slog3 to have more noise, but I really don't see it, sure there's more signal there, so the noise that is there is Slog2 is amplified a little, but it's the same noise.

 

I will say I think the noise pattern lacks the organic feel of the Alexa sensor, but for what we paid for this camera I'll be very happy with it once Sony addresses some of the bugs.

 

Only real annoyance is the enormous viewfinder. Sony claims it's to reduce the possibility of burn, but I'd have preferred something like the F5 with a mirror to get is out of the way of the FF and matte box. Hopefully they will offer an upgrade at some point for this or I'll just buy the Zacuto and toss the FS7 EVF in the bin.

[JFlack]

We've also gotten ours and there are some annoyances and bugs, but overall the camera seems to be very well built and produces a beautiful image, particularly in CineEI mode, I really haven't used it in any of the other 'video' modes.

 

After over a week with the camera, I should probably qualify the above comment by saying that the image still looks ike a Sony camera, which means that from a color standpoint it is far behind the Alexa, and still behind the Canon CXXX cameras in my opinion. I would even say the Panasonic cameras coloremitry is better.

 

Others may argue with this, but for my taste, even their sLog3 has a very video feel to it that Arri has managed to cure with the Alexa.

 

Am I happy with the camera? Kind of. Does it live up the the hype? Well, that's subjective.

 

I have not liked the F5/55 look since day 1, and Slog2 was a step in the right direction, but not a solution. Slog3 is just a tiny incrimental improvement in my opinion.

 

The camera is okay, but like Sony did with ergonomics, they need to go back to the drawing board on the color side.

Edited December 28, 2014 by JFlack

[Michael LaVoie]

It's difficult to compare the two unless you take both and shoot the same film with them under the same settings, lenses, filters etc. and then have a colorist apply exactly the same cocktail of LUTS and adjustments etc. To both footage and then see what the color looks like.

 

What most people compare are the finished looks of familiar well known films and generally speaking films shot on an Alexa are usually of bigger budgets than those using the Sony cameras. But if the same DP used the same lighting and shot the same film with both cameras and it was posted exactly the same way, I doubt you'd see much of a difference if any.

 

I've watched enough camera comparison tests to see that it's really the production itself that dictates the "look" of a movie. Much moreso than the sensor. Some people have personal preferences but I think it has more to do with the cameras they're used to working with and the films that have been shot with them. Much moreso than just raw footage.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Michael LaVoie

[Phil Rhodes]

I've got what I have been told is the only one in the Old World on review. Have to say I quite like it so far, the articulating EVF is nicely done. They've included the XDCA adaptor but not the raw recorder.

 

Edit: Hm, 240-frame modes seem to be available only with the external raw recorder. Pity.

 

Also: I've been trying to make it talk to a Blackmagic 4K SDI to HDMI converter, for low-cost monitoring. I need to do a bit more work on this, trying different modes, but so far I can't make it happen. What do we know about SDI output formatting in 4K?

 

P

[JFlack]

We put the camera head to head against the Alexa and have serious control tests built into Resolve.

 

Having tested the Canon C cameras, various Panasonic, Red cameras, etc., all using this same methodology I'm confident the color is consistent at the (ahem) 'dneg' stage. We work with folks who have developed LUTs for multiple platforms to emulate various stocks and have had good results consistency-wise.

 

Skin tones have a decidedly Fuji film 'metalic' feel to them. Other earth tones witch seem equally over saturated above 60% luminance (especially for those of us more used to film's tendency to desaturate at higher exposure levels).

 

The camera has it's plus side, but it's still far more painful to work with than an Alexa given the horrible menu setup, etc. It's a good camera, but it's still designed like a video camera and despite a wealth of buttons to control the camera, jump into auto everything modes, etc. setup is a pain, and switching modes is a pain. If you think this is a Cine camera, it's not, it's a video camera with progressive cine-like features.

 

I can change shutter angle, framerate, etc. an Alexa in 10 seconds. With the FS7 (and all the other Sony cameras) it's down into this menu, over into that, up over here, scroll to that.. just a major PITA and VERY prone to error if your AC isn't a Sony expert. Don't get me started on all the other little gotchas. To me, working with a crew, I want equipment that helps reduce errors, not encourages them. I don't think Sony's ever understood this.

 

The EVF also interferes with a lot of support equipment that's close by. Mattebox stages that are top load will require the EVF be moved away to swap filters, the follow focus is very cramped by the EVF meaning every lens change this is an issue. The image in the EVF is good got LCD, but it's nowhere near the image you get from an OLED and the length is a real problem, burn issues be damned.

 

We tested with Cooke S4's and even the 75 was just cramped as all hell, so the operator will be wanting to re-adjust the EVF every time you have to change lenses, filters, etc. Some aftermarket support options for the EVF will help here, but that's going to be an add on.

 

For Sony the camera is a 7 where the earlier cameras like the 700 were a 4 at best for ergonomics, but their menu system and the EVF will have anyone using it for serious production work wanting.

[Satsuki Murashige]

To be fair to Sony, changing shutter angle and frame rate is almost as simple as an Alexa on the F65/55/5.

[Phil Rhodes]

If I want to go from 23.98 to 25, I have to change "country"!

[JFlack]

To be fair to Sony, changing shutter angle and frame rate is almost as simple as an Alexa on the F65/55/5.

 

No it's not. Not by any measure.

 

If I want to go from 23.98 to 25, I have to change "country"!

 

Exactly, and in CineEI mode you're further constrained. Sure I can go into S&Q but I lose sound then?! WTF?

 

We had high hopes, bought the camera, tested thoroughly... but we're selling it and sticking with renting the Alexa for our work. Sony makes great tools for engineers, but still makes very poor tools for filmmakers.

Edited January 9, 2015 by JFlack

[Satsuki Murashige]

ORLY? B)

 

 

The Alexa doesn't record sound when under or overcranking either. I can't think of a camera that does actually.

[Robert Houllahan]

The Alexa is great, basically "the" alternative to 35mm film, however there are situations that you can get into where the menu structure is not perfectly intuitive. Also Alexa's are around $100K, maybe $40K used and this Sony is $8k so comparing a Ford Focus to an Porsche 918 is not exactly a real comparison is it?

[JFlack]

Cost of buying a camera has really never been a realistic factor when budgeting any production I've worked on. There are much more practical considerations, like how quick can the crew work with it and how likely are problems with the camera due to operator error or over complexity of the equipment. Just like I don't need GPS on my hammer when I'm hanging a picture on the wall, some manufacturers are more concerned about marketing specs than usability. Arri clearly resisted that when everyone was screaming 4k, and look who is the market leader now.