RED vs ARRI

[Michael Pyon]

Thanks for the input guys.

[Malvin Ng]

It's an old argument, "my camera is better than your camera", "my child is smarter than your child", "my daddy is stronger than your daddy" the list is endless but it all boils down to this: "I'm better than you"! It's part of the human condition that, in it's finest form, allows us to push the limits and achieve remarkable things by not settling for mediocrity, in its worst form, causes us to kill one another.
I gather you did your research and made an informed purchase, now you are letting the darker side of the above conceit and other folks' twisted need to impose superiority get to you. These are all professional tools we are using, so where would you prefer to concentrate your attention now, the tools or the work?
You now have your shiny new racecar, do you go out and race? Or do you stay in the pits listening to folks verbally chip away at your confidence: "Your car is not as fast as ours". You know what? Your car is fast enough! Now go and work on what's important, learning how to race! Impress us, I dare you!

Well said :)

[Rob Ruffo]

Ever since I received my RED Scarlet, I have been bombarded by ARRI enthusiasts telling me I wasted my money on RED and that I should've invested my resources into an Alexa. I looked at the specs of the Alexa and I found it to be similar if not worse than the RED Epic. It's true that some ARRI Alexa shot films look great, Drive in particular, but I think RED has done a fantastic job in making its mark in the film industry with spectacular products.

It looks like I've been sucked unwillingly into a war between RED and ARRI and right now I stand with RED.

Both cams have plusses and minuses. However, the plusses of an Alexa, very slightly wider dynamic range, in my opinion are not worth the loss of post flexibility and 4X price difference. A good DP could for sure produce something that looked as nice as Driver with any current Red cam model.

[Dave Blackham]

Might nice pictures not have more to do with the Cinematographer than the camera ?

Some things important to our company are, ability to shoot high speed, small size of camera, supported Underwater housings, 4k or greater resolution, small recording device to capture full sensor data amongst many others.

I dont think there is much doubt Alexa is a very nice camera but then so it Red Epic, Our money is on Red.

[Ash Worth]

Season 2 of Downton Abbey was shot on Alexa and it looks terrific. Alexa is really hitting the sweet for episodic tv it seems. However, the trailer for Promethius looks like nothing I have ever seen. I am so happy to be a Scarlet owner, and have a true 4K cinema camera for my independent work. What Red has delivered in Scarlet is still for me a total game changer. I can't even look at 2K video capture any more let alone some kind of cooked "4K" mumbo jumbo. I can see the Raw data in Red Cine and its awesome how many looks I can create, ahem...for free!

You are a documentary filmmaker and you can't look at 2k video? Really? What kind of documentaries are you making? What's your set up for shooting documentaries and please list all the equipment you have to use for a typical doc shoot day. I think this would help other potential documentary filmmakers. I'd also like to know how much documentary work is being shot at 4k. Thanks.