Alexa vs. EPIC...

[Tom.Wong]

I think the primary advantage, RED has always has, has always been int he R3D. Nobody, and I say this again, NOBODY, has anything like it. Competitors can make cameras that can win in certain areas, like native dynamic range, have giant pixels but low res to gain intense low light abilities. Or super sample to death to gain everything. But R3D is the #1 reason (along with many others) for going with RED. It's as simple as a DSLR raw file brought into photoshop, and now with the new compression ratios, it also has all the information of your high end uncompressed recorders.

I'm probably gonna love the images out of the F65, just as I love the images out of RED too. but their only 4k recording solution is a bulky SR deck, that will cost half the price of the camera, and their SR storage (i call them the Hershey bars) will be several times more expensive than any SSD RED puts out when it reaches to their capacities (1 TB)

But i think all this leads back to another post Jim wrote. The cameras are here now, at every price point, there's no excuse of you not getting Hollywood quality images other than you not performing your craft correctly. Meaning back to the basic, as it always should have been. Lighting, story, acting, editing, the whole 9 yards.

[Elsie N]

I think the primary advantage, RED has always has, has always been int he R3D. Nobody, and I say this again, NOBODY, has anything like it. Competitors can make cameras that can win in certain areas, like native dynamic range, have giant pixels but low res to gain intense low light abilities. Or super sample to death to gain everything. But R3D is the #1 reason (along with many others) for going with RED. It's as simple as a DSLR raw file brought into photoshop, and now with the new compression ratios, it also has all the information of your high end uncompressed recorders.

I'm probably gonna love the images out of the F65, just as I love the images out of RED too. but their only 4k recording solution is a bulky SR deck, that will cost half the price of the camera, and their SR storage (i call them the Hershey bars) will be several times more expensive than any SSD RED puts out when it reaches to their capacities (1 TB)

But i think all this leads back to another post Jim wrote. The cameras are here now, at every price point, there's no excuse of you not getting Hollywood quality images other than you not performing your craft correctly. Meaning back to the basic, as it always should have been. Lighting, story, acting, editing, the whole 9 yards.

BINGO!! You get it Tom. It's not only the camera, but all things RED.

[Subhadip Sen]

I think the resolution numbers are accurate and measured resolution for both cameras. The only problem is that it seems to be an Epic 5K measurement vs Alexa 1080p ProRes measurement. The 2.8K Arriraw option will close the gap a bit but there's no doubt the Epic has several times the resolution of an Alexa. Eitherway, look forward to an updated measured resolution comparison - 5K Epic vs 2.8K Alexa debayered. Another field leveler would be measuring native DR on the Epic with a low-contrast filter like the one in Alexa.

Oh - and what about the price difference?

[James Brundige]

What do I suggest!!?

Simple either both cameras bayer figures, more comparable and less open to opinion, or debayer for both but this is open to opinion/interpretation.

Just a level playing field.

My question was more specific. I believe Epic debayers to about 4.5 K. What figure do you have in mind for Alexa? maybe 2 K? anybody? Of course there's much more to a look than that.

[Magnus Peterson]

In the sense that:

RED post is often considered "hard" while Alexa is considered "simple" - not really kidding.

Both can be very straight foreward to work with, and both often go through an offline in Rec/online in Cineon with some kind of transcode step in between. The beef in the RAW files is just much more fun, once you've done ythe exposure and lightening thingy you mentioned.

People often forget that working directly with the redcolor/redgamma image from set (which is NOT a good way to keep DR, but have some other advantages for simple workflows...) is very compareable to working with the Alexa at rec 709 (where the DR of the R1 MX and Alexa is actually very similar...)

the good thing for RED is the additional flexibility if you want it and know how to take advantage of it.

I get the same opinion from people shooting with Alexa," - Oh, the workflow is SO easy and the image look GREAT right away!" It's basically killing a lot of business. Last two months has been SLOW due to people prefering to go with Alexa instead of a RED MX camera.

[Ivan McCullough]

My question was more specific.

Actually it wasn't, your question was "What figures do you suggest?"

Geoff responded to that, as to accounting for filtering etc, Geoff stated clearly that its open to interpretation.

What Geoff was saying is that the playing field should be level, ie not looking at one of the cameras through rose-tinted glasses.

[Gunleik Groven]

What Geoff was saying is that the playing field should be level, ie not looking at one of the cameras through rose-tinted glasses.

Thus either:

Alexa is a 2.8k vs the Epics 5k (before debayer)

Or:
Alexa is 2k vs the Epics 4k or more, fully debyered

NOT:
Epic is 5k vs Alexa 1080, which are the extreme options on both cams.

One thing that speaks for the last example, though - is that these are the ways both cameras will probably mostly be shot:

Thus:
"4k debayered vs 1080 debayered" is probably the most practical meaningful comparison of resolution only for 95% of the shoots...

The next meaningful thing (as to resolution) is to look at compression artifacts and debayering artifacts.

[Ivan McCullough]

Thus either:

Alexa is a 2.8k vs the Epics 5k (before debayer)

Or:
Alexa is 2k vs the Epics 4k or more, fully debyered

NOT:
Epic is 5k vs Alexa 1080, which are the extreme options on both cams.

One thing that speaks for the last example, though - is that these are the ways both cameras will probably mostly be shot:

Thus:
"4k debayered vs 1080 debayered" is probably the most practical meaningful comparison of resolution only for 95% of the shoots...

The next meaningful thing (as to resolution) is to look at compression artifacts and debayering artifacts.

exactly

[IAN SUN]

The complication is that strictly based on frame sizes currently packaged by the cameras we are indeed looking at 1080/2K vs 5K.
This of course does not address measured resolution.

[Maz Mawlawi]

In the sense that:

RED post is often considered "hard" while Alexa is considered "simple" - not really kidding.

Both can be very straight foreward to work with, and both often go through an offline in Rec/online in Cineon with some kind of transcode step in between. The beef in the RAW files is just much more fun, once you've done ythe exposure and lightening thingy you mentioned.

People often forget that working directly with the redcolor/redgamma image from set (which is NOT a good way to keep DR, but have some other advantages for simple workflows...) is very compareable to working with the Alexa at rec 709 (where the DR of the R1 MX and Alexa is actually very similar...)

the good thing for RED is the additional flexibility if you want it and know how to take advantage of it.

The reason why Alexa is considered " simpler" is because people are still using an old outdated NLE like FCP than cannot handle native R3d...(hopefully this will change with FCPX)... those of us who have moved on to a more modern NLE, Alexa and red are no different when it comes to workflow and editing. Ironically, I find working with red and especially color grading red files much simpler. The flexibility in working with Raw files and 4k size is something I can't live without now... ;)