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Shooting 1:33 on the Sony F3 camera
Hi everyone,
Regarding the Sony PMW-F3 camera. I’m wondering if you are able to shoot full frame on this? 1:33 aspect ratio. 4:3
If you can shoot in that ratio, is it in full HD?
Is this a menu setting?
If it’s not a menu setting does anyone know how you would shoot 1:33 on the F3, can you use a hard matte?
I am asking because I am a film student prepping my thesis film and for artistic purposes I want to shoot in full frame. The boxy framing lends itself to what my story and character are about. Also I am shooting sequences of this film on super 8mm and want to seamlessly cut the native full frame 8mm footage in with the digital footage.
The other high end choice I have at my film school is the Red One camera. I guess I could ask the same question, does anyone know if you can shoot 1:33 HD on that? Believe it or not I would prefer to shoot with the F3. It is lighter, easier to handhold (which I’ll do a lot of) and also in my experience just a hell of a lot easier, with no real loss in image quality/capability.
If anyone has any expert knowledge or experience with this aspect ratio question I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.
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7 Replies
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Evan,
I think the best way to answer this question is to say, “Read the manual”. Your post has been on line for an hour and change now and if you had taken the time to download the manual you would know the answer already. There is so much information available in the manuals now. Frankly spending time with it will probably unearth other little bits of information that you didn’t even know you wanted to know! I own an F3, I have the manual on my iPhone and my iPad in addition to in the camera case. Go ahead, search it, download it, read it. In the end you will be better for it.
Much luck with your thesis film
dale westDale West Video
North Miami, FL
305-588-2683
dale@dalewestvideo.tv -
Hi Evan-
Sorry, no 1:33 on the F3.
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Evan,
The simple answer is not “native 1.33” but that doesn’t stop you from “side cutting” to adjust the 1.78 HD aspect to 1.33 in post. Use the 4×3 framelines in the camera as a guide while shooting.
The only native 4×3 imagers are those in the Alexa Studio, 4×3 Plus and M cameras, which are really intended for full frame anamorphic.
I believe you could cut a full rez 4×3 image from the larger sensor Red cameras as well.
JS
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Dale,
You’re right. Referencing the manual is the best option. I did download it online and took a look to try and answer my question. And from what I could tell (camera manuals aren’t the most user friendly in their language) I basically got the answer I thought: it’s not possible to do in camera.
That is why I came to these forums. To see if there was a way to over-ride what the camera does, i.e. a hard matte on the lens or something similar to that. That is something they DO NOT mention in a camera manual.
I don’t want to sound rude, but I wanted to point this out to you. Because in the time it took you to write your response about me checking the manual you probably could have helped me out, or pointed me in the direction that the other two users who responded did.
Creative forums like this are for discussion outside the realm of “camera manuals”. At least that’s why I come to them.
-Evan
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Evan,
You are not being rude and you make a good point. My response should have been to provide an answer and then show you where you could see it for yourself.
Ian and John are rock solid with their responses. Ive known John for years and have been reading
responses from Ian for a while as well. They know their stuff and always offer sound advice.
I love the Cow. I have 4-5 forums that I bookmark and check a couple of times per day.
Ive even reached out for help.
It was not fair to indict you for a trend I sometimes see here and that is asking a question that is
so totally answerable by a quick look at the manuals. Keeping up requires constant effort.I really did mean it when I said good luck with your thesis.
Perhaps when its done you can share a link.best
dw
Dale West Video
North Miami, FL
305-588-2683
dale@dalewestvideo.tv -
Thanks a lot Dale. I really appreciate your response.
I’ll be sure to keep up to date with these forums, and when the film is finished maybe a link, or directions to a festival you can see it at hopefully 🙂Have a good one.
-Evan
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You could do a workflow like this…which I have done in CS6. Do your sequence setting as dv ntsc… 4/3 standard def. Import your HD footage (16×9). When you put the HD footage on the timeline it will more than fill the frame! If you right click the timeline there is a setting you can check… Scale to Frame Size… this will letterbox the HD video in the SD frame size. But, you don’t want it to be letter boxed. Select the clip on the timeline and then go to the effects controls and select the Motion drop down box. You will see a scale setting. Make sure “Motion” is selected… this puts a bounding box around the video in the program screen. Now change the scale to 133 and the video will now be the “4×3” center of the 16×9 HD footage!
You could also do a full HD edit and then scale the video to a center-cut when you render it out in Media Encoder.
Probably there is a similar workflow in Final Cut.
Dave Speace
Producer/Director/DP
DZP VideoWindows 7, 64 Bit, i7 8 Core, 16Gb Ram, GeForce 4800
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