Ive sort of blogged my vague ramblings of why my new camera is a Sony PMW-F3
http://www.sammorganmoore.com/backstage/choosing-a-new-a-camera-sony-pmw-f3
S
Morgan,
What format will you shoot to 422, 420, or 444 uncompressed?
Just curious if you tested all three, because honestly I don't think bit rate and depth is all it's cracked up to be, or if it is, did you notice a difference?
I now shot about a billion hours of footage on the gh3's and the RED 1's, Scarlets, etc. sometimes in the same session and settings and honestly final out in 2k I can't see any real difference other than the Red footage takes a lot more work to get to a read to edit proress. Actually I have three RED rocket cards two in mgloic cases one in an 8 core mac and the only one that works today is the one mounted in the mac.
Don't know why the other two stopped but it's maddening to be in the middle of a project and all of a sudden your encoding times quadruple because two $4,500 video cards or software, or something fails to work.
In fact I'd buy an Amira just for proress output, but once again, if i can't see the difference between a 4k raw 444 $25,000 camera vs. a $1,299 420 h264 camera then I kind of wonder if we're not chasing the dream more than the actual result.
I don't disagree with your final choice and understand it's a big purchase, but I am a little curious why you went with a 2k only camera and I'm not a real advocate of 4k except for lack of moire, because the 4k I've seen on a big screen and 2k I can't see any difference. I can tell more about depth and color and professional on set and post production than I can about the actual camera . . .
Which leads me to believe that in video or digital cinema or whatever it's called, a lot of this talk is just mumbo jumbo, kind of like the stuff we went through with still photography where everyone thought they needed a trillion megapixels and now think 20 mpx is great.
But getting back to my point, I don't for a minute think that the next catch phrase of motion will be 4k. I've already had clients ask, I've already had client's go wow, even though I intercut those little gh3 files into the REd footage and nobody say a word.
Anyway, nice report and wish you the best with your new camera.
IMO
BC