The more I think about this camera the more exciting it becomes. At release the FS700 will be limited to HD and in many respects will be similar to the FS100. This means that although the FS700 has a 3G capable HDSDi output, when in video mode this output is still restricted to 8 bits due to the internal video processing. However from what I have been able to gather, the proposed 4K mode bypasses this processing altogether and outputs the direct sensor data as 12 bit RAW sensor data. How is this possible? Well any video camera outputting video has to output 3 values for every point within the image. So for a 1920 x 1080 camera there are in effect 3 outputs, one for the luminance value for each point plus two chroma or colour values, one for Cb one for Cr. In a 422 system the resolution of each of the Cb and Cr channels is half the full resolution, so that’s 960 x 1080 Cb and 960 x 1080 Cr. However you look at it that’s a lot of data, even at only 8 bits, but 422 1920×1080 8bit and even 10 bit 422 will fit into a standard 1.5G HDSDi signal. With a 3G HDSDi connection the amount of available data bandwidth is doubled. This in itself gives the ability to transfer 444 HD data with full R, G and B data or Y, Cb, Cr at full resolution for each channel at 8 or 10 bits (FS700 restricted to 8 bit processing).
With 12 bit data however, at 4k there would not be enough bandwidth, even with 3G to transfer a 444 or even a 422 video signal, the extra 2 bits of data needs a lot of extra bandwidth. But Sony are not talking about video data, they are talking about RAW sensor data. The sensor in the FS700 is a bayer sensor. A bayer sensor has an array of pixels with colour filters over the top of the pixels to filter only green light to every other pixel and red and blue light to the remaining pixels. The pixels themselves don’t see different colours, all they see is a brightness or luminance value. It’s not until the luminance data from the sensor is processed (de-bayered) that the colour information is created by extrapolating luminance (brightness) values from the R, G and B filtered pixels. The De-Bayering process creates an R, G and B value for each point in the 4k image, so 3 values for each point. However if we just take the RAW luminance values all we have is a single luminance value for each pixel on the sensor. The De-Bayer process  greatly increases the amount of data that needs to be processed, keeping the data as luminance only minimises how much data there is and makes it possible to pass 12 bits of 4k data over a 3G HDSDi cable.
Now, this signal from the FS700 will not comply with any standard that I know of, so it will need a dedicated recorder or at least a recorder programmed to accept it, but it promises a lot of exciting possibilities.

For a start, you will get the full sensor dynamic range, so we should expect at least 12 stops of DR, maybe a bit more. In addition having a 4k image means that when shooting for HD you can crop in to the image with no resolution loss. Here’s a thought, you should be able to use a 2/3″ ENG broadcast zoom. Yes the image on the sensor will vignette, but you should be able to extract a full 1920×1080 resolution image from the centre part of the 4k image. As this will be using a smaller part of the sensor your DoF for a given field of view will be similar to what you would have with a 2/3″ camcorder. So could the FS700 be that jack of all trades camera many of us are looking for? 4k RAW, s35mm when you are making a filmic piece and then with a simple lens mount adapter (no optical elements needed) stick an ENG zoom on it and use it for news style shooting. At the moment it looks like you will have to extract the HD 2/3″ centre crop from the RAW 4k yourself, but perhaps Sony will be able to add centre crop to the camera firmware at a later date.
However you look at it, the FS700 is a very exciting proposition. I placed my order for one the day it was officially announced.

Using Sony’s new NEX-FS700 to shoot slow motion is simplicity itself. To enter the slow mode button you simply press a switch marked S&Q on the left side of the camera. First press of the button puts the camera into S&Q motion where it will shoot full resolution HD at up to 60fps. In this mode you just shoot as you would normally, only now at a higher speed than normal. Press the S&Q button again and the camera enters super slow motion mode.
In supper slow mo the FS-700 will shoot at 120fps or 240fps at full 1920×1080 resolution. You can also shoot at 480fps and 960fps at reduced, but still very useable resolutions. When shooting at 120fps you are limited to a recording burst of 16 seconds and at 240fps the burst period is 8 seconds.
There are two ways to trigger the recording burst. You can trigger recording immediately after the press of the record button or you can set the camera to record the burst period prior to pressing the record button. If using the trigger at start mode, on pressing the record button a message saying “buffering” appears in the viewfinder. After 8 (or 16 secs) the camera starts to write the recording to the SD card (or FMU) and you see a slightly slowed preview of the recording (roughly half speed) of what you have just shot. So this takes about 2x the record time, roughly 16 seconds, to write the file and during this period you cannot shoot anything else. Pressing the record button during the write process, stops it at that point, keeping the written file to that point and the camera goes back to standby ready to record another shot.
In trigger at end mode, you point the camera at the scene you want to capture and shortly after the thing you want to record happens you press the record button and the camera then starts to write the previous 8(16) seconds to the SD card, again you see half speed(approx) playback of the clip as it is written to the card.

The fact that you can’t shoot anything else during the write process is a little frustrating, but it’s a small price to pay for the ability to shoot at 240fps, although it does mean you can’t really use the FS-700 to shoot long duration events without gaps in super slow mo. The great thing is that as all the processing is done in the camera playback of the clips is no different to playing any other AVCHD clip. 8 seconds at 240fps results in an 80 second clip at 24fps. I could have really done with the trigger at end mode on a recent shoot I was doing with Red Epics where we were shooting pyrotechnic and special effects events that often took some time to trigger, but only lasted fractions of a couple of seconds. With the Epic’s we often ended up with several minutes of footage prior to the action we wanted, wasting storage space and making more footage for the editor to go through.

I really enjoyed using the FS-700, my guess is that slow motion is about to become the new time-lapse.

I’ve uploaded a few sample clips shot on the FS-700 at the Sony booth to Vimeo. These were shot on the camera set and include a couple of slow motion clips. I have a load more clips, but I need to get these cleared before I can upload them.

I didn’t really get a lot of time to look around the show, but here are a few things of note from the show:

Sony FS-700, obviously a big hit and drew a big crowd. The 240fps full resolution recordings capability is very nice. There was also a lot of interest around the tiny NX30. The entire optical block, lens and sensor is mounted in a gimbal that helps stabilise camera shake. It really is like having a tiny stedicam inside the camera. The PMW-100 is a nice little camera, but with only one sensor, it doesn’t meet broadcast specs, so I’m not sure how well it will sell.

In a back room was one of Sony’s best kept secrets, although the camera was officially launched before NAB, the PDW-680. This is an interlace only version of the PDW-700 that uses the CMOS optical block from the PMW-350. It’s considerably cheaper than the PDW-700 and aimed fair and square at news organisations. The camera body is identical to that of the PDW-700 with the exception of an “EXMOR” badge on the side. The 680 will be available in the EU.

Atomos have a new version of the Ninja, the Ninja 2. This adds HDMI out a slightly higher resolution screen and some extra horsepower under the hood. The extra processing power makes it possible to add new firmware features and the ability to read timecode embedded in the HDMI stream. In addition the Ninja 2 will run the soon to be released AtomOS3.0 firmware which has some very nice features including the ability to add shot markers plus a number of monitoring upgrades. The new SmartMonitor mode includes useful features like Peaking, Zebra and false colour exposure measurement.

Both Convergent Design and AJA were showing 4K capable recorders. Hopefully Sony will get together with these guys when figuring out how they will output the 4k data from the FS-700.

Dolby had a good glasses free 3D TV prototype. There are still sweet spots where you need to be to see the 3D, but these were quite big and there was plenty of them. The images did look a little flatter than perhaps they would have done on a conventional 3D TV, but it’s still an interesting glimpse of what might come in the near future for 3D viewing. Staying on the subject of 3D, Dashwood Cinema Solutions have a new version of their popular 3D editing plugin. The new version has some very powerful new tools taken from the high end “stereo CAT” 3D analysis tool as well as on screen sliders that are superimposed over the actual image you are manipulating.

GenusTech were showing a preproduction shoulder rig that is completely different from anything you will have seen from Genus before. Aimed squarely at the super35mm market this is a very high quality shoulder mount with hand grips and integral Arri quick release plate.

Wow, Blackmagic does it again. I didn’t see this one coming but at a mere $2,995 USD for an HD camera with 13 stops of dynamic range, DNG RAW workflow or ProRes/DNxHD recording internally, it’s going to rock the boat quite a bit. On my list of things to see at the show in the week.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/cinemacamera/

Got to play with a working Alphatron EVF last night. There are still a few bugs in the firmware to be ironed out, but boy oh boy, what an improvement over the Cineroid or Zacutto. If you think the viewfinder on an EX3 is good, wait till you look into one of these. The resolution is right up there, crisp clear images that can be focussed without the need for a ton of peaking. Longer review will follow.

I tried to like it and “get used” to the ergonomics, but the audio controls, lack of switches for gain and white balance plus the stepping iris controls was driving me nuts. I had hoped the C300 would be that one piece solution I was looking for, but when you consider that you have to add an external box (the viewfinder module) to get Audio controls and XLR in, for me at least it kind of defeats the object. I’m sticking to my F3 with an external recorder, which does not restrict me to 8 bit 50Mb/s. I just love 10 bit S-Log on to the Gemini or Samurai.

The C300 is a great camera, the pictures are very good, but it’s just too much like a DSLR for me, so it had to go.