Sony’s New F23 HiDef Camera is Cinematographer-Friendly

 

Sony has received the first orders for its new, top-end, digital cinematography F23 acquisition camera, with five F23 cameras going to equipment and rental company Band Pro in Munich and further orders in the UK and the Netherlands. The F23 is aimed at the top-end of movie-making, commercials and television production.

 

"The F23 is a new digital cinematography camera recording on 4:4:4 RGB HDCAM SR," says Richard Lewis, chief engineer, Sony Professional Solutions Europe. "The F23 has many useful features designed specifically for digital cinema production and high end commercials. It is a stand-alone camera that looks and feels exactly like a film camera. It means you can take your film camera off its tripod and replace it with the F23 and its really easy to use with all the same accessories."

 Shipping this spring, Sony's latest top end camera is aimed directly at cinematographers and camera operators who have not yet used High Definition. It has been designed to be cinematographer friendly by making sure that most camera operations follow the well-established patterns of 35mm film cameras, with new HD operators able to settle comfortably into a familiar camera environment and then go on to discover what the F23 is capable of doing for their shoot.

Munich-based dealer and rental company Band Pro, who supply equipment to many leading European productions are one of the first companies to test drive the new F23. They are impressed enough to have ordered five units for summer delivery.

 

Gerhard Baier, Band Pro's managing director is impressed with the friendly feel of the Sony F23, which not only works like a film camera, but is also capable of taking any of his company's extensive range of  Zeiss DigiPrime high definition lenses.

"Because it has the same handling as a film camera, it is the tool for cinematographers tp go from film to digital. It has the same kind of operating and handling and uses the same tripod. So you could put a film camera down and replace one for the other." Baier explains.

 

The F 23 is designed to work effortlessly with a wide variety of HD and prime lenses and the lens mounts have been specially strengthened to take the extra wear and tear that comes with the many lens changes that take place on feature film shoots. Bridge plates, matte boxes and follow focus units can all attached to the camera without modification.

 "It is a perfect fit with our Zeiss DigiPrime high definition lenses. The fact that it looks like a film camera should also help the acceptance of digital acquisition tools in the cinematography world."

 

Moviemakers will be pleased to see variable speed recording available to them via Sony's SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorder which docks neatly into the top or tail of the new F 23 camera, dispensing with the need for cable runs tying the camera to a separate recorder. Dual-link connection to a separate recorder can still be used if a lightweight camera is needed up front for some particular reason.

The F 23 has been planned to have a familiar feel to operators, even in its programming system, which allows detailed programming of parameters to be set up in advance of shooting and essential choices only displayed during filming operations.

"When making a movie you don't need all the menu functions," Baier explains. "You can decide the basic set-up beforehand and run it like a film camera. That really helps."

The F23 camera uses three 2.2 Megapixel two-thirds inch-type progressive CCD imagers, coupled with a 14-bit A/D convertor. Basic specs of the new camera include, while recording onto the SRW-1, capture at 4:4:4 1920x1080, RGB imaging at variable speeds from 1P to 60P at a host of frame rates including 24P, 25P and 50i.

More on the F23 and HD CAM SR here