JWilsonphoto
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
|
 p.264 #3 · Mustang Air to Air: The Sequel | |
Finished my Adobe marathon at 1:30 this morning, then took 30 minutes to begin going over the Sony Z280 operating manual, what a camera! My good friend and mentor Doug Jensen has been instrumental in my journey into video/cinema, we've been emailing back and forth over the Z280 ever since Sony announced it six months ago. Doug does wonderful in depth tutorials on Sony gear, and other video techniques, that's how I met him. We began corresponding way back when I was in a panic over the T38 round the US stuff I had committed to. I just told Doug that I had bitten off way more than I could chew and that I was so far behind the knowledge curve that I didn't even know what I didn't know. Here's a guy who has been a successful cinematographer for a long as I've been shooting stills, a Sony Guru, teaches at the Maine and New England Workshops on cinematography, and yet he was kind enough to take the time to mentor a guy he didn't know from Adam, what a guy! Doug's five hour in depth tutorial on the Sony FS7 was released exactly when I got my FS7. The tutorial was excellent, much of it way over my head, but I've watched it a dozen times and still go back to specific sections when I have a question, truthfully, it saved me a year in getting familiar with that camera. I emailed Doug to tell him how grateful I was for his tutorial and our friendship struck up from there. I'm going to a couple of his workshops next year and I've promised him breakfast/lunch/dinner the next time I'm in the neighborhood. Doug is working on a tutorial for the PXW Z280, problem is Sony hasn't gotten him one yet  so he's started composing it from the manual. We talked yesterday on the subject and he was giving me a lot of trouble about the fact that I seemed to have gotten one of the first ones, if not the first one in the wild. I'm going out this afternoon to shoot some different settings and report back because he has some questions.
I've been very pleased with my Sony choice, and so happy that I didn't fall for all the hype over "RED" equipment. I'm sure it's great stuff, but the buzz created by Hollywood over "RED" just doesn't add up for a guy like me. Since day one, even though I could ill afford it at the time, redundancy was all important to me. I never wanted to be in front of a client and have to tell them that we were going to have to put everything on hold because my ONE something just went toes up. Two of everything is good and three of somethings is better. A single "RED" body (they call it the Brain), memory, viewfinder, a couple of necessary accessories, batteries and a case, no optics, the tab is $75,000, redundancy, well you do the math. Cine lenses run the gamut from $3K to $100K, but that's another subject. The "RED" is a very cool system, but Sony is too and actually outperforms them in several areas, one being durability. I anguished over the choice because they have some outstanding marketing and they are the industry buzz word, but I'm so glad I went with Sony. I now have double and triple redundancy everything from camera bodies to batteries and the tab barely exceeds what a basic "RED" system runs. Sony is a bit annoying about their proprietary media, they always have been. The Z280 will run 4K @ 60fps filling a 128 GB card in 22 minutes. A Sony 128 GB Sony QXD-G card is just under $300, trouble is, the Z280 requires Sony S&S Pro+ media to guarantee compatibility at that capture rate. S&S Pro+ cards are just under a grand a piece, for 22 minutes of video, gulp! I'm going to run some tests for Doug this afternoon using Sony S&S Pro adapter cards that take QXD-G cards, the jury is out as to whether they'll allow 4K@60fps. Otherwise, memory investment will come close to matching the price of the Z-280 in order to have 4-6 hours of capability.Webeesee!
|
