FS700

[HurtinMinorKey]

Here's a decent review of the FS700 from Philip Bloom:
http://philipbloom.net/2012/05/25/240brighton/

It's sad the camera still has a lower bit-rate than the 5dmkii. Looks like they didn't want to mess with F3 market.

 

[bp]

Those are some sexy framerates. Ooof.

Not sure I'd want to shoot with it all the time. Love the compact form factor of DSLR's, along with that hard-to-pinpoint x-factor look of the full frame sensor. But man, this would be an amazing camera to have in the closet for those times when you want to do full HD extreme slow-mo, but don't feel like shelling out $3k/day to rent a Phantom. SO, I guess, in a nutshell, I REALLY hope one of my good friends buys this camera so I can play with it every now and then. haha. I was a bit shocked to see the 1D-C only goes to 60fps at it's price tag.

 

[psolberg]

Here's a decent review of the FS700 from Philip Bloom:
http://philipbloom.net/2012/05/25/240brighton/

It's sad the camera still has a lower bit-rate than the 5dmkii. Looks like they didn't want to mess with F3 market.

so? bit rate doesnt' mean anything without codec details. the 5DmkII had a really primitive codec which performs worse than the lower bit rate codec of the 5DmkIII. instead of looking at silly things like bit rates, what does the image quality tell us? the resolution of the FS700 looks much more like true 1080 than any canon body out there.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

The bit rate tells us a lot about the upper bounds of information the camera is capable of relaying. It's not everything, but across cameras, it's arguably the best indicator of quality we have(especially if you plan on working something in post). There is a reason why the Alexa can capture at 330Mbps.

As for the fs700 beating Canon video. Did you mean DSLR video? Because the c300 takes the fs700 to the woodshed. The F3 is the comparable Sony camera to the c300, and they purposefully nerfed the fs700, so it wouldn't compete with the F3.

And I still haven't seen any shots out of the fs700 that rival the best shots out of the 5Dmk2 or mk3. That may be because there are a lot more Canons in use, but the fs700 is clearly a specialized tool for filming at ridiculous frame rates, without having to pay $20k+. If you aren't going to use the hyperframe rates, it's a woefully priced camera.

 

[psolberg]

The bit rate tells us a lot about the upper bounds of information the camera is capable of relaying. It's not everything, but across cameras, it's arguably the best indicator of quality we have(especially if you plan on working something in post). There is a reason why the Alexa can capture at 330Mbps.

yes but that's meaningless without details about the codec. As you know the 5DmkII has a higher bitrate than the 5dmkIII IPB mode, yet the mkIII holds up better. The mkII did not use B frames and as such compression if far less efficient. The efficiency of the codec is just as important as the bit rate and it is meaningless to compare bitrates without codec efficiency details.

If you compared the same compression codecs at similar settings, then the bitrate reveals more. But even so, then you have to consider sensor sampling which is just as critical. For example, the 5DmkIII produces less detailed output even using it's 96mbps all I codec than the D800 using 24mbps IPB.

you simply can't generalize based on bitrates and comparing across cameras based on bitrates is next to useless since they don't al use the same codec pipeline or sensor sampling.

That may be because there are a lot more Canons in use, but the fs700 is clearly a specialized tool for filming at ridiculous frame rates, without having to pay $20k+. If you aren't going to use the hyperframe rates, it's a woefully priced camera.

I'm not sure I agree. The FS700 is also getting updated to shoot 4K and produces superb 1080p footage at the standard frame rates. the 5DII/III just can't capture that much true 1080p detail. So there are plenty of uses for that camera in addition to slow motion. The only canon body that matches the quality of FS700 is the C line 15K dollar canon. Look over eoshd.com's blog. He's a fan of the FS100 precisely because of the superior detail at normal framerates and the 700 just improves on that.

I'm considering getting the FS700 once prices come down a bit. the inability of DSLRs to capture true 1080p and doing so at higher frame rates still ways out.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

I agree, you need to compare apples to apples when it comes to codecs(inter to inter, intra to intra). Intra is almost always worse, and only shines under some very special circumstances, because you are restricting compression across frames.

I agree that the 5dmkiii isn't true 1080, but let's not pretend that the fs700, or the d800 are either. Recording true 1080, in 24bit color, approaches something like 1.2 Gbps. Even with good compression, you can't record at a 50to1 ratio and expect to resurrect true 1080 detail.

Honestly, from what I've seen, I don't see a huge improvement in detail in the fs700 over the 100. That being said, the fs100 seems to be the consensus "best bang for your buck" video solution in that price range. Personally, I'm still waiting for the affordable super-35 sensor cam that actually does something close to true 1080p. The most promising thing I've seen in development is the Kineraw.

 

[psolberg]

I agree, you need to compare apples to apples when it comes to codecs(inter to inter, intra to intra). Intra is almost always worse, and only shines under some very special circumstances, because you are restricting compression across frames.

I agree that the 5dmkiii isn't true 1080, but let's not pretend that the fs700, or the d800 are either. Recording true 1080, in 24bit color, approaches something like 1.2 Gbps. Even with good compression, you can't record at a 50to1 ratio and expect to resurrect true 1080 detail.

Honestly, from what I've seen, I don't see a huge improvement in detail in the fs700 over the 100. That being said, the fs100 seems to be the consensus "best bang for your buck" video solution in that price range. Personally, I'm still waiting for the affordable super-35 sensor cam that actually does something close to true 1080p. The most promising thing I've seen in development is the Kineraw.

the D800 does not capture full HD either, and I've used one long enough to know that for sure. It looks a little better and sharpens better than the 5DmkIII specially sing the uncompresssed 4:2:2 out and recording to pro-rest at over 200mbps. but ultimately, still looks terrible compared to a resized still image. Footage from the fs700 looks more like a set of stills and it is about as close to 1080p as the Cinema canon line is. but yeah, I think it may not be trully 1080p either. just very close.

My hope is that 2K and 4K video will allow us to do the downsampling to 1080p in our workstations to see if we can finally get better 1080P footage. This is the reason I'm keepin an eye on the FS700's alleged update that will alow it to shoot 4K. Even 2K scaled down would be leaps and bounds ahead of any dslr ouput.