EPIC being challenged by the 5D people...

[Ryan De Franco]

To everyone cruising through, just wondering if they should use a 5D over a Red for their next night exterior:

The MX sensor has pleasing grain, good color reproduction and low light performance similar to an unadjusted human eye. No blocking. Noise reduction and a subtle colorist can pull incredible information from shadows, truly way more than any realistic scene needs. Work in RedLogFilm and RedColor2.

The 5D and other DSLRs excel in low light stills. Their image processors and codecs are terrible. If you have an exposure at a sub-800 ISO, they can look good--in the right light, without too much motion, where the color cast and softness work for the scene. A Nikon in the right hands is better.

Tungsten light produces more noise on both systems. Sodium vapor and metal hallide (street) lights wreck havoc on 5D codecs, ridiculous shutter speed sometimes fixes this but often not. Supplementing these lights with homemade fixtures, creative DC solutions, or just a little eyelight will work wonders for any guerilla scene.

Stills pulled from motion reveal little about moving grain and compression. Test your location and have a look on your final screen--laptop, TV or projection.

[Daniel Pitta]

understatement

[Robert Ruffo New]

Im tired of all those people saying their Canon 5D cameras can do better low light than any RED epic/red... then making those vimeos and youtubes to prove it..
Seriously.. is it true? Or are the epic videos they use to compare with just not post-produced?
Is the 5D really better at low light?

No it isn't. Low light is all about noise floor, and what you can pull in post. Add an external recorder to an Epic and you are blowing away the 5D right there (because you are compressing AFTER gain, like most cameras). Or, use the RAW file off the SSD and add noise reduction in post, on a 5K image and you are killing 5D by a long shot. Otherwise (without these techniques) a 5D and Epic are about equal in terms of low light usage. I'm only talking about low light here, there are obviously many other advantages to an Epic and its image quality than just that., that's assuming the 5D footage does not crap out with hot pixels and other issues. I've had very good experiences with 2o00iso Epic and Red One Mx footage - it was totally fine. The 5D stuff had tons of artifacts of various natures, including weird macrblocking, moire, bad dynamic range... You name it.

All this to say the only advantage the 5D has is... Its' dirt cheap.

[Robert Ruffo New]

Guys... These questions are getting me real curious as they pop up...

How many of you are shooting dramaticals without lights?
How's the distribution model and box-ofice results for these non-lit features?

No spite intended, but just really, really curious.

Repeating myself here, but what I find relaving with the Epic, is that you can really light for it, NOT that it doesn't ned light...

Cheers!

I have exactly the same question as Gunleik.

[Robert Ruffo New]

No. Disagree! :)

Lighting (in a dramatical/feature/fiction production) is about storytelling, moods and giving focus to what you want your audience to see and interpret.

It is not about "being able to see what was in front of the lens" but about telling a story, giving a mood and support the actors, the plot and the story.

Sometimes that is done in available light. Sure.
But even then you choose a solution that fits the story....

Exactly and- well, if all you do is frame you're a camera op, not a DP - not that there is anything wrong with being a camera op - but be honest about what career you want. Being a DP is mainly about lighting, more than any other one thing.

[Robert Ruffo New]

I totally agree Gunleik.. but thats what i meant by artistic expression or storytelling.. mood giving etc.. giving focus or molding the truth.. But it all started in my opinion because the first film stocks needed lots and lots and lots of light to get anything.
I always found make-up and lamps-free filmmaking more fascinating. Lamps will remain but for exactly that.. mood giving and focusing us on certain things.. but real life doesnt do that.. its fiction. Which is ok if thats what you want the audience to sense.
I dont know.. make-up and certain lights always made me conscious i was watching a film.. but thats me of course. I mean.. like those women who wake up with make-up on..

Sitting in a theater and watching a 2D image, watching characters who cannot see you, is not "reality". You watch a good Hollywood film and it feels like reality, even though its not. Distracting pimples from no makeup do not help your story, in fact makeup often helps actors look more normal, so you focus on their acting, not their blemishes.

There has never been a single successful film, that reached an audience of any real size, that is like what you describe. The brief forray of mumble-core now looks hopelessly dated and was never very successful even when it was a trend for cafe-society types. You are headed for certain failure, by giving audiences what they clearly do not want, never wanted.

[Robert Ruffo New]

I don't think Jorge is crazy and I've had the same fears for a while myself. It's a natural extrapolation of the pace of current camera development, and the reasoning behind current trends like 3D and 48fps. A future of 'naturalistic' cinema is certainly possible, but it won't be DOPs driving it. At the point where camera sensors are able to react to light in the same way as the human eye, I can see why many directors will want to shoot that way for reasons of authenticity and placing the audience in what feels like a very real scenario.

I hope not though because at that point most of us will be out of a job.

that's just nonsense, because study after studio-sponsored study shows that audiences prefer a slick, romanticized image, they simply do not like the doco look - and for a slick pretty look you need lighting.

As it is, even at night, we often have to use ND on our Epic, because say a Kino at the right distance, and the right size, is just too bright for the f stop we like. This even on small sets with plug-in, no tie-in. This is also a function of fighting city lights - at ISO 800, they are already leaking into your scene quite a bit, so you fight them with brighter lights, and then on goes the ND.

[Marc Wielage]

All this to say the only advantage the 5D has is... Its' dirt cheap.

Well, I'd also say if I had to strap a camera to a skydiver's helmet and send him out a plane, I'd rather it be a 5D than an Epic. Especially if the chute doesn't open.

[Timothy Carr]

Youtube seems to kill the light on this, but trust me the original file has about 1-1.5 more stops of light, and still basically grainless (no removal, but a small curve seems to hide it). Amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n8zq_SX1FQ

[Robert Ruffo New]

Well, I'd also say if I had to strap a camera to a skydiver's helmet and send him out a plane, I'd rather it be a 5D than an Epic. Especially if the chute doesn't open.

Well there you go cheap, and a lighter in way that in this particular circumstance is useful (it isn't when it's on a dolly, on your shoulder or on a Steadicam - then the 5D is much too light, and teh Epic is just fine). And how often do you do that? I suppose for some types of pros, this is a frequent situation, but we've never actually done that.