Red vs Genesis vs Alexa

[Martin Melnick]

Wrong Forum for this post

[Gunleik Groven]

True RGB -:)

That's the Genesis, I guess....

The 2k Alexa... Not yet I guess... But probably will be in a while.

I have been testing the MX vs the Alexa quite extensively.
What can I say? They are different... -:)

They're good at displaying the others weak sides, but the advantage with RED, is that with just a couple of colorscience updates to the RAW development, a lot of Arris strengths are gone. (Not all). But The RED has much more flexible options as to higher fps and different workflows + flexibility of image in post, that I'd say they are pretty even now.

As systems, the Alexa I tried was more buggy - which is not unnatural that early in a digital product-cycle...

But you obviously want a more heated debate, I guess... -:)

[Martin Melnick]

No, that's the kind of info that I'm looking for. lol Thanks for the input.

[Mike N]

@ Gunleik Groven
From your post I understand that the Alexa is not yet out for purchase? I was sure you can buy it for some time now...I heard people have shot with it, were they referring to pre production models ?

[Gunleik Groven]

Alexa is definitely purchaseable...

[Graeme Nattress]

Hey,
I know this is probably a ridiculous post considering everyone on here is a Red enthusiast, but I wanted to get a discussion going about the pros and cons of Red and its major competitors: The Panavision Genesis (although obviously not a camera for purchase) and the new 2k Arri Alexa.
Any thoughts on bayer vs true rgb? Or comparison shots?


-Martin Editor/DI

F35 is not "true RGB", no matter what Sony says. This is a close up of a F35 zone plate shot. The zone plate is pure black and white - no colour in it, but the F35 shows rainbows because it's R, G and B channels don't line up with each other.

The F35 produces a more detailed image than the Alexa, from what I've seen, which always looks rather soft to me.

As for the RED, go ask someone who isn't biassed in it's favour!

Graeme

[Gunleik Groven]

As for the RED, go ask someone who isn't biassed in it's favour!

Graeme

I love those "asss"'es -:)

I don't know if you'll get totally unbiased info anywhere. Check Arris forum, and Sony's, too...

Graeme is right in the soft appaearance of the Alexa.
I think it may well be a concious choice, to make the image more "stretchable", sort of the same philosphy as RED but with the opposite solution...

Of the three, RED has the lowest datarate, the most recording options as to framerates and image-formats, the highest resolution and the most flexible codec for post if you know how to handle it.
RED is also the camera that again and again has surprisingly improved greatly in quantum leaps over its lifetime, which is mostly due to two factors:
It records and gives you RAW AND the above quoted poster... -:)

REDs flexibility in post has also used to be its achilles heel, which I happen to think it isn't anymore. You can do fairly "batchy" operations, and get very good baselineresults, and those should only be improved by "fiddeling" with the default settings.

Earlier on, fiddeling was a neccesity.

There are of course good things to be said about the other cameras as well. The Alexa is the only of the three I have spent some time with.

But generally I'd say it's very hard to let go of RAW as soon as you have had the first couple of successfull hits of the RAW juice + Graeme's ongoing work for constant improvement...

[David Mullen ASC]

You could go see "Secretariat" if you want to judge current Genesis photography.

Because the Red technology keeps changing, it's very hard to make any sweeping comparisons. Right now, I'd say that Red photography increasingly has the edge on sharpness/resolution, DR is now similar across the board between the current cameras (with Alexa having the edge -- but I'm not counting HDR-X), but I generally have never had much issue with the color of Genesis movies per se, for some reason they haven't had that problem with looking brown-magenta with cyan blues that some images I've seen in the past shot on the Phantom, ARRI D21, and Red One... but I suspect that's more to do with color science issues than inherent sensor design issues. But from the start, Genesis-shot movies have been fairly full in color spectrum, looking at movies such as "The Forbidden Kingdom" for example. Perhaps it is just due to how well PanaLog was designed from the start, as opposed to how long it took to get the color science behind the other cameras to get up to speed. Certainly I suspect that the output from an RGB striped sensor is simpler, faster to process into RGB, essentially needing a less sophisticated or complex algorithm.

But, as I said, color science keeps evolving, and recent Red-shot movies seem more natural and realistic in color rendition than ever before, and dynamic range seems better with the M-X sensor (and of course, HDR-X will be a major leap). And Red tops them all in terms of resolution, and usually more resolution, i.e. oversampling, gives you more flexibility in post.

But when I saw "Secretariat" in a 35mm print, I noticed basically that the colors were fairly film-like, but there was a lot of softness to the image. Now some of that was lens diffusion in order to give it a 1970's look, but I also think there are just limits to 1080P photography which are becoming more noticeable over time as our standards get raised.

Now in terms of edge sharpness, I prefer the look of Red photography, which is has the look of more resolution / less edge sharpness (i.e. more like 35mm film) versus the F35 and Genesis image, which seems to have less resolution but more edge sharpness, but sort of a twittery edginess, which makes the image feel more electronic.

[Tim Whitcomb]

Martin! I thought we trained you better than this!

No worries, Ill tug his ear on Monday ;)

[Graeme Nattress]

I think a lot of what you mention in colorimetry is actually grading choices. Perhaps not all, but when I look at the colorimetry of the various cameras, to me, RED, Arri, Canon stills all look and measure really well. I wasn't impressed on the F35 from the available charts from CML. With better charts I could be more confident on that. Arri basic image seems to be very under-saturated though, but accurate enough on hue.

Graeme