Sony PMW-F3 Review: Sony PMW-F3 professional camcorder

Of course you’ve heard of the Sony Professional Digital Super 35 mm film cameras now, here comes the latest installment — The Sony PMW-F3. Reportedly, this camcorder will exhibit the best of both F35 and the recently announced SRW 9000PL. These cameras flaunt the Super 35 mm PL mount and sensor technology and makes Sony’s claim of bringing entertainment to home a reality with awesome clarity and prolific definition. As i said, if you are into media and are looking to go out and shoot your flick, well, then this undoubtedly is your take. It will aid in manufacturing commercials, music and promotional clippings. Let me tell you this cam brings you PL-lens kit with 35/50/85mm T2.0 lenses with fixed focal length which obviously makes the product suitable for use as a half 35-mm camera or a B-camera next SRW 9000PL .

Bill Drummond, Strategic Marketing Manager at Sony Professional Europe, stated,

Sony has a long and successful track record in developing digital film production, Our cameras have all been shot once, from documentaries to blockbusters with huge budgets, billions of euros into the laadje have brought. The new PMW-F3 we put all our expertise to be able to control exactly the depth and the enormous variety of available lenses cine accessible to a wider variety of users.

Sony PMW-F3 global specifications

Well, the Sony PMW-F3 is totally based on Sony’s XDCAM EX Work flow (codec is MPEG-2 Long GOP 4:2:0 8 bit, 35 Mbps) and utilizes Sony’s well known recording format based SxS Express Card ™. Whats more, the Super 35 mm CMOS image of a camcorder makes sure you get depth of field with high sensitivity and low noise levels (ISO 800, F11, and an SNR of 63 dB at 1920 × 1080/59.94i mode) and also a wide dynamic range .

Now, lets see what else is in the offering, as it happens the camcorder brings you a vivid range of options for creating images, to add to this it provides you with the ability to PMW-F3 images seamlessly together to assemble with material shot on Sony’s F35 or SRW-9000PL camera – by utilizing an HD SDI dual-link output for external recordings (1080 4:2:2 RGB 1080 23.98/25/29.97PsF 50/59.94P standard and optional).

Not only this, “S-LOG” and “Hyper Gamma” are selected. This liberates users to take the advantage of the large dynamic range of the CMOS sensor, so much so that their images during post-production are in the same way as custom make a work flow based on film. There are De recording formats 1920 x 1080, 1440 × 1080, and 1280 × 720 with 23.98/25/29.97p, 50/59.94i and in DVCAM mode, and 25/29.97PsF 50/59.94i. Filmmakers can also benefit from “slow” and “fast” recording, also known as “over cranking” and “under cranking” from 1 to 30 fps at 1920 × 1080 (17 to 30 fps in dual-link mode) and from 1 to 60 fps at 1280 × 720 (17 to 60 fps in dual-link mode).

The other interesting fact about the PL-mount of the PMW-F3 can both PL-and zoom lenses and is compatible with a variety of cine-lenses such as Cooke, Arri, Fujinon and Zeiss.