Just watched first part of zacuto shootout....

[Tom Gleeson]

Josh thanks for your considered words among the over excitement. People should forget the conspiracy theories. I saw the test last night and yes the Epic looked pretty average but an evel plot? Based on my real world shooting experience i expected Alexa first with Epic and possibly the F65 nipping at his heels. That was not the result of this test yet we do not see too many experienced DOPs choosing the GH2 or FS100. I have been involved in multiple camera tests and they are extremely difficult and complex to do and frankly the results only supply a limited amount of valuable information.

The real winner of the night is the colorist who made that terrible GH2 footage look as good as it did after its grade.

[Peter Moretti]

The flaw in your logic is that Zacuto does not primarily sell to the "old guard film community" or big studio productions but to smaller digital productions... so there is no motivation to only make $100K+ cameras look good. If anything the reverse would be true, they'd make the $100+ cameras look worse.

Second, an Epic package is not cheap and the camera itself falls closer to the high-end, price-wise, of the cameras Zacuto tested, not the low end.

Zacuto sells more gear to Epic owners than Sony F65 owners.

True, but most of the cameras that I see kitted out with Zacuto are Sony F3's, AF100's, DSLRs, etc. So an F3 beating out an Epic is conceivably more beneficial to Zacuto than the other way around.

I do find these tests entertaining. And they make me feel smarter than I actually am, LOL, b/c I can't believe the utter nonsense some of the people in the audience say.

I think the format as it's been explained, will create a good half hour of camera porn. But it will be horrible for decision making.

If I were going on a safari, I wouldn't watch a documentary about a bunch of hunters on a Texas game reserve given a variety guns, and decide whomever comes back with the most dead animals... it's his gat that I'm going to use to shoot lions and charging cape buffalo.

I've been told that there is a Zen saying that roughly translated means "No one can take a shit for you." I don't know if new koans get released from time to time, but I think the same can be said for camera tests.

[Peter Moretti]

...

The real winner of the night is the colorist who made that terrible GH2 footage look as good as it did after its grade.

Maybe Sanjin was right afterall, LOL!

[Gunleik Groven]

Having not seen the test yet, I think it will be hard to judge much from it independently of who was the dop for the individual cameras, if I have understood the methodology right.

Considering to reconsider doing a comparison between F65/Alexa/Epic.
But I just don't see the point at this time.

G

[BRANDON JAMESON]

Hey at least the Epic beat the Iphone. That's something, right? (suck it, Apple)

I can't help but wonder how much better looking Spiderman would have been had they opted to shoot on the Gh2...

Frucking Brilliant,Sid!!!

[Jon Jones]

That is not a flaw in my logic, that is what I'm saying. It is in these venues that they try to make RED look bad... as we have obviously seen. Don't be fooled by the fact that the "contest" was held by Zacuto. If the contest was held at ARRI would there be GH2's there? No probably not, but at Zacuto where it's sort of a third party, all are welcome. My logic isn't flawed by what you think it's flawed by.... Maybe it's too conspiratorial, but that would be it's only flaw, lol.

The flaw in your logic is that Zacuto does not primarily sell to the "old guard film community" or big studio productions but to smaller digital productions... so there is no motivation to only make $100K+ cameras look good. If anything the reverse would be true, they'd make the $100+ cameras look worse.

Second, an Epic package is not cheap and the camera itself falls closer to the high-end, price-wise, of the cameras Zacuto tested, not the low end.

Zacuto sells more gear to Epic owners than Sony F65 owners.

[PatrickFaith]

I can't figure out this test, for example, my scarlet is the first camera I have been able to touch (i.e. in the "old days" money guys are NOT allowed to touch the camera's) that has a PL mount. The PL mount opened up an entire world to me of cinematic glass ( I new about the glass, based on the humongous expense, but really had no appreciation for it). Anyway, is there a Arri Master Prime on the iphone or canon ... i doubt it ... so are they saying lenses do no't matter either? To me, if the only difference between a canon camera and my scarlet was the PL mount, I would go with the PL scarlet. So what is up with the shootout ... it's like people changing the spectrum of the game during the match.

RED is changing the landscape on about every front, also RED is the camera to beat ... so the RED label is now a bull's eye. Red need's to step up it's game by being the industry leader in digital cinema camera information - the goto place with wiki's, white papers, and EXACT how to's - otherwise "people" will view redlog/raw as a handicap rather then a advantage.

[Nick Morrison]

I actually kind of feel bad for Ryan Walters, because I got the sense he tried really hard, and did the best he could.

From what I remember...some of the other DP's at the shootout were ASC Guild members...ie Industry Heavy Weights...

How fair a fight was this, really?

I mean...because the shootout puts so much emphasis on the choices each DP brings to the table...what are we really seing?

How good the Epic or Alexa is? Or how good the DP lighting the scene was?

That's the main FLAW with this test.

If you read his blog, RYAN clearly did the best he could. But when you read his blog, you also get a sense that were other DP's there with vastly more experience than him. I think it was unfair position to put him in, and a silly way to compare the cameras. Zacuto should have waited till every camera had an ASC guild member at the helm, then it would be fair. Anything less is not acceptable.

[Jake Wilganowski]

What a silly test. Really. What a silly bunch of people that don't have enough experience to know that RED performs better than this. It's like that SNL skit "Really". Some of the biggest movies arpund are shooting epic for f's sake. Really?!

[David Mullen ASC]

That is not a flaw in my logic, that is what I'm saying. It is in these venues that they try to make RED look bad... as we have obviously seen.

See, that's where I have a real problem, the notion that the guy shooting the Red footage and the guy coloring it deliberately sabotaged their Red footage. Generally these people are professionals (odds are high that I know the person who shot the Red footage for the Zacuto test) and are not trying to "make Red look bad". Zacuto asked Red to participate in the test, which is not the action of someone with a nefarious plan to make something look bad.

The only "shoot-out" I've seen to date is the older PGA-ASC test and the pre-MX Red footage was fine, not perfect, but the flaws were flaws that I've seen in other people's Red footage, there were no surprises there. Maybe some of us knew that Red could be made to look better but the mixed results were not atypical either. Rather than cry foul I think it would be better to learn from the mistakes in the testing methodology so that one didn't repeat them on one's own projects. And a lot of the problems with the footage were fixed in the later MX-sensor and the later color science, which just shows that there was room for improvement after all.

I just don't see the need for character assassination here, to suggest that the results were due to dishonest behavior. That's taking things too far.