The Next 35mm Revolution?

We live in interesting times. On October 15th marketing manager Peter Crithary for Super 35mm acquisition and technologies at Sony Electronics, USA first tweeted “Ahead of schedule. October 30, 2012. The New F”.

Many of us including myself speculated it would be the announcement of a new 4k recorder to accompany the FS700 but then later more clues arrived indicating it would indeed be some new 35mm camera capable of 4k, high frame rates, and 50mbps 422 recording. Other rumors suggested 80mbps & 220mbps recording, shoulder mount, new media card technology, and even the possibility of internal 4k recording. Looks like Sony definitely hired a new PR firm this time around after receiving ample critiscm for not beating their drum enough when the PMW-F3 was first announced in 2010.

We would wait only 15 calendar days to find out the full details of The New F camera, but in the forums at least it seemed like an eternity with speculations running every which way imaginable. Finally here is a first glimpse from Sony’s website at the new F5 and F55 CineAlta cameras: http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-highend

F5 CineAlta 4k truly gorgeous HD

  • Super-sampling: Spectacular HD, 2K or 4K
  • 4K/2K RAW recording option
  • The future is built in
  • Vast exposure latitude
  • Viewfinders as revolutionary as the camera
  • Optional shoulder rig
  • Modularity and versatility
  • Choice of recording formats
  • High speed shooting at up to 120 fps in 2K
  • High-speed SxS PRO+ media cards
  • Real world workflows
  • Incredible flexibilty: PL-mount, FZ-mount and still lenses
  • Sony CineAlta PL-mount prime lenses: A new generation
  • More than just a pretty interface
  • The connections you need
  • Long-life Olivine Battery
  •  

    But Sony was not the only one cooking up some PR:

    On October 14th only one day eariler @ 10:14pm EST RED announces a truckload of RED Scarlets for over 40% off the retail price of $13,400 USD. That’s right, a “newish” RED Scarlet for $7100 including side SSD module, Canon AL Mount, and power supply while supplies last. Below Jarred Land’s post on REDUSER.net:

    I can’t tell you much about it.. but we just did a massive project with a need for a pretty special 3 second shot, so they rented a whole truckload of Scarlets from us … more Scarlets than most people have seen in their lifetime.

    None of them had more than a minute of record time. We can’t sell them as new.. and the rental was good.. so we are giving you guys a one time break on these as ” Battle Tested ” Scarlets.

    $7100 instead of the regular $11,900. Scarlet Brain, Side SSD and Canon Mount. And because I know someone will ask, you can’t swap the mount to a Nikon or PL for this deal.

    They come with the standard Battle Tested 90 day warranty.. but we will open up RED ARMOR just on these since we were with them 100% of the time that they were out of the box and are as close to brand new as you can get.

    http://www.red.com/store/products/sc…-lens-mount-bt

    Tell all your friends 🙂

    No details about the “massive project” have been released to date despite being asked numerous times in the forums. By Wednesday (only three days later) poof the deal was gone as fast as it had arrived. Hope you managed to snag one!

    But things weren’t done heating up at RED HQ. On October 26th 2012 @ 10:39pm Jim Jannard posted a thread: “Everything Changes… Important Post” announcing price drops on the RED EPIC to be announced on November 1st, 2012.

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