On 14 March 2013 Jasco Solutions and Sony South Africa hosted the Sony Open day to
showcase some of the current Sony Professional product range available in South
Africa.
One of the highlights of the day was the national launch of the Sony PMW-F55. While
the Sony F65 is for your high end 35mm feature movies and is priced at the high end,
the introduction of the PMW-F55 will be widely accepted as a cheaper alternative.
“This is the camera that everyone’s been waiting for,’ says Jess Goedhals, general
manager Broadcast and Professional Division of Sony. “It is our 4K digital cinema
camera which is affordable and will be well used in the market in terms of
commercials and feature films.’
Rupert Dalton, sales executive at Jasco Solutions, says: “The big workflow enchancer
is that both HD and 4K images can be captured simultaneously, allowing for the rough
editing of material using the HD proxies while the 4K RAW files are archived, colour-
corrected, etc. This is a very attractive feature for producers and directors on busy
sets.’
The F55 additionally possesses an electronic frame shutter (often called a “global
shutter’) that completely removes the wobbly effect that can be seen when fast-
panning a camera with a progressive CMOS sensor chip.
“The F55 can output 4K through its connectors and with the firmware update due in
Sept 2013 will be able to shoot HD up to 180 frames per second for slow-mo effects.
The F55 also utilises a more “filmic’ colour filter array over its sensor than that of the
cheaper F5,’ continues Dalton.
“It will be a success in the local market because it is quite a bit cheaper than both
the RED Epic and ARRI Alexa but has a similar 35mm-sensor with the added features
that have been mentioned,’ Dalton says.
“I have very high hopes for this camera, as there has been a lot of interest in it
worldwide and in South Africa,’ remarks Goedhals. “The F55 is affordable as the
complete camera package is going to be about below half a million rand which is
actually well priced for this level of camera.’
The Sony F55 is now available from Sony’s broadcast dealers such as Jasco, SBSS and
Visual Impact South Africa.
