‘Top DoP’s get their first look at Sony’s new CineAlta camera the F23’

Visual Impact held the first showing in the UK of Sony’s new flagship CineAlta camera the F23 at their head office in Teddington on 8th June. Supporting full 4:4:4 1920 x 1080 RGB acquisition the camera was demonstrated with Zeiss Digi-Prime film style lenses and the SRW1 HDCAM-SR recorder. Visual Impact’s technical staff spent 2 day’s checking the camera’s specifications and its performance against a wide array of camcorders in their hire fleet including Sony’s F-900R, HDW-750P and Panasonics Varicam. On the Friday the DoP’s (primarily from a Features and Commercials background) made their assessment focussing on overall picture quality and usability.

The reaction to the camera from the in-house technical staff and the invited guests was very favourable. With many eager to try it out on a real job !

We also organised for Cinematographer guru Geoff Boyle and Rodney Charters ASC (DoP on the hit US series '24') to give the camera a more in-depth assessment – more of this later when Geoff’s report is published but from his initial comments I think at least one camera manufacture will be very worried so keep checking the website for more details !