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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Zacuto camera shootout 2010 EP3: Surprising insights on 4K and Raw

Brian Timmons said:
A limitation of this shootout is that it kind of treated the DSLRs as if it existed in it's own vacuum compared to other digital formats.
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They absolutely do exist in their own vacuum. These cameras are the only products offering this kind of performance to price ratio at the moment. Hence the hype and popularity.
 
Oliver Peters said:
Everyone seems to be missing some important facts. First off, sure, it's a lot of Zacuto promotion. It's on their website and they did the production. Any test like this will have some bias, simply through selection. They stated from the very beginning that this was a test to compare HDSLRs - nothing more, nothing less. Film was included as the "control".

Second, they already did a shootout over a year ago that compared various digital video cameras against film, including a Red One.

Third, Scarlet doesn't exist yet. Until shipping cameras are on the market, no one knows what the real deliverable specs will be. Part of the mantra. Remember?

For the moment, HDSLRs are a hot item and they are trying to capitalize on that, as are many others.

- Oliver
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though I would see film as a good reference for the industry standard, I would believe that the red one, or even a Sony f35 would be much better controls for a digital acquisition system (a film control for digital doesn't seem right to me even though it is the standard). I'd think you would want to compare HDSLR's to another digital acquisition format and not film. I would assume if you wanted to fully test and compare HDSLR's to other similar capture devices they would compare them to other digital camera's and not only to film.

As was already stated the comments about the 2/3" not being mentioned were referring to the fact that they were talking like raw acquisition was way down the road in the future, without pointing out the red program and the likely hood that they will have the first sub 10k raw acquisition camera (not that they would do better in the shootout). I believe that the stated specs already will be the minimum for the most part, so far we have only seen them get better once again for the most part. I find it hard to believe that scarlet will turn into a camera that will not outperform these HDSLR's and even potentially their subsequent generations. (unfortunately we have no specs on these future cam's so we have no idea whatsoever....that's why I like red's business model, though it is also the reason some don't)

perhaps the test was only meant to show HDSLR'S (mainly canon's) and how they match up to 35mm film, though I would think it would be much more educational to see them against a range of other digital cameras as well as film.....ah well.

have a good one.
 
Sami S said:
They absolutely do exist in their own vacuum. These cameras are the only products offering this kind of performance to price ratio at the moment. Hence the hype and popularity.
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Like I mentioned, the $1,000 camcorders like Panasonic TM700 or the Canon HF S21 are far superior in every respect except sensitivity, shallow depth of field and the option for interchangeable lenses. Be it resolution, colour accuracy, manageable wobble, controlled aliasing, etc.
 
Sean Rawls said:
This entire video seemed like an amazing advertisement for Red. "Imagine if we have RAW in these cameras!!?!?!" Believe it or not this already exists! But, not for 2,500. There are trade offs to every camera system.
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Exactly. I think it's so funny that people are talking of Red and DSLR's in the same context without a mention of the huge difference in what these systems cost.
 
Subhadip Sen said:
Like I mentioned, the $1,000 camcorders like Panasonic TM700 or the Canon HF S21 are far superior in every respect except sensitivity, shallow depth of field and the option for interchangeable lenses. Be it resolution, colour accuracy, manageable wobble, controlled aliasing, etc.
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This is totally true. For me I chose a camera exactly with these things in mind, low light sensitivity being most important, secondly being able to use cheap prime lenses at amazing speeds of f1.2 and f1.4 and thirdly the crop ratio shouldnt be more then 1.6 to 2 as otherwise it's real difficult to find good wide angles. Oh, and price no more then 2500-3000 euros ;)
 
Stephen Matthews said:
though I would see film as a good reference for the industry standard, I would believe that the red one, or even a Sony f35 would be much better controls for a digital acquisition system........
......were referring to the fact that they were talking like raw acquisition was way down the road in the future, .....
......perhaps the test was only meant to show HDSLR'S (mainly canon's) and how they match up to 35mm film, though I would think it would be much more educational to see them against a range of other digital cameras as well as film.....ah well.
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All valid points. I guess the choice of film as a "control" would be mainly because it is a know and accepted standard, regardless of its actual deficiencies. It's also a medium that can be very well "optimized" in film transfer. True also, of course, of RED, but not quite as true with HD video cameras.

I agree about your points regarding RAW. My guess is this was more of a desire to poke at Canon and Nikon in order to spur some interest in that type of development.

Cheers,
Oliver
 
Subhadip Sen said:
Like I mentioned, the $1,000 camcorders like Panasonic TM700 or the Canon HF S21 are far superior in every respect except sensitivity, shallow depth of field and the option for interchangeable lenses. Be it resolution, colour accuracy, manageable wobble, controlled aliasing, etc.
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I'm not sure about this. The consumer camcorders are sharper, for sure. But they lack a certain something that goes into DSLR images, and I think it's more than shallow depth of field. The Dynamic Range and colors on the DSLRs seem to be better. I've used an HFs100 and a GH1 side by side quite a bit, and the GH1 image is almost always preferred.

I'd rather have an Epic, though :D!
 
There was a big pink elephant standing in that projection room. Why wasn't anyone talking about it?

Actually, I change my mind, I think not talking about it is 'louder' than talking about it.

It was a deafening silence.

Can you say red mx ?

the only thing those dslr's have on it are size and price.

I'm not a red zealot at all... (I've got both a red and a 5D), but come on man !
 
The only thing they really have going for them is their size. Even in these tests, they had $5000/day DOPs working on $8000/day sets with the best techs in the industry, then give the footage to $900/hour color timers.

Is it any surprise they look great?

But if they are paying big bucks, I can't imagine the rental cost of a camera is going to factor in at all.

As for whacking a camera in the corner with gaff tape? Absolutely, I get it.

Scarlet and Epic should do really well in this market.
 
I have to admit, I think it might be fun to fool around with one of these DSLRs while waiting for Scarlet. It would work especially well for me since I really need to replace my old Canon DSLR still camera anyway. In the end, I think these are great for stills but for video... Scarlet, where are you? :confused5:
 
jimhare said:
Scarlet and Epic should do really well in this market.
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HDSLR systems are rapidly picking up consumers who previously would have bought Scarlet fixed or Scarlet cinema. I too felt that at one point Scarlet would dominate the ultra-indie or shoe-string budget production world, but the longer RED takes to actually ship the more and more you'll see people settling for HDSLR systems because for the price, it's a massive amount of quality. Sure, HDSLR systems are not perfect cameras - but no camera is perfect. And I think the question about whether or not it is capable of broadcast quality HD imagery has been answered with the recent House MD finale which was shot entirely on 5Ds. While I wouldn't say the 5Ds looked better in terms of image quality in comparison with other digital cameras that are prevalent in television, it certainly held its own. Again, the longer that RED waits, the more HDSLR cameras will be bought by its crowd.
 
jimhare said:
...
Scarlet and Epic should do really well in this market.
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For people like those around here yes. For the vast majority of vDSLR buyers, not. Red is not a consumer camera company. Most people are going to see the name Canon and buy it.

IMHO, the "DSLR Killer" DSMC announcement was ill advised. I really think Canon and Nikon were not concerned with advancing video. But when Red announced it was going into the STILL camera market, those guys perked up. Still cameras are their bread and butter, and they will defend that space to their dying breaths.

IMHO, in their eyes, Red went from being the pet project of an excentric billionare to a gathering threat to their core business.
 
Peter Moretti said:
For people like those around here yes. For the vast majority of vDSLR buyers, not. Red is not a consumer camera company. Most people are going to see the name Canon and buy it.

IMHO, the "DSLR Killer" DSMC announcement was ill advised. I really think Canon and Nikon were not concerned with advancing video. But when Red announced it was going into the STILL camera market, those guys perked up. Still cameras are their bread and butter, and they will defend that space to their dying breath.

IMHO, in their eyes, Red went from being the pet project of an excentric billionare to a gathering threat to their core business.
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I agree with much of what you've posted. I'm a massive fan of Red and what it has done to elevate the production value of my latest feature film, but it's ironic that Red's "DSLR killer" for the prosumer market will be a 2/3" chip camera. We really can't consider the Epic in this comparison and it sounds like the S35 Scarlet is a ways away.

If Red delivered a S35 for $5500 or under, I think that would destroy all the serious DSLR buyers. It would have the same size chip as most of the DSLR market (FF is still rare in that market on the Prosumer level) and a matching form factor.
 
Just hold on a little bit longer we should have some new on scarlet real soon (as in the next few days).
 
Yankuba Jarju said:
Can som1 please advice me about The Scarlet Camera, This Camera in question wud fit all my needs. All I need to know is when is it gonna be available to buy.
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you and over half the people on this forum want the answer to this question
 
Keep in mind that the 2/3" scarlet only competes on price and RAW. the digial slr movie cameras still have the depth of field advantage. So we have to compare the s35 scarlet with them as far as that goes. Who know when that will be out.
 
Thomas Koch said:
Keep in mind that the 2/3" scarlet only competes on price and RAW. the digial slr movie cameras still have the depth of field advantage. So we have to compare the s35 scarlet with them as far as that goes. Who know when that will be out.
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...and compression, and resolution, and image quality, and read-reset times, and modularity and... well, the list goes on.
 
Peter Moretti said:
For people like those around here yes. For the vast majority of vDSLR buyers, not. Red is not a consumer camera company. Most people are going to see the name Canon and buy it.

IMHO, the "DSLR Killer" DSMC announcement was ill advised. I really think Canon and Nikon were not concerned with advancing video. But when Red announced it was going into the STILL camera market, those guys perked up. Still cameras are their bread and butter, and they will defend that space to their dying breaths.

IMHO, in their eyes, Red went from being the pet project of an excentric billionare to a gathering threat to their core business.
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The DSLR's would have acquired HD video features even if Red did not exist. It was a logical progression to add these features that have existed in the cheaper point and shoot consumer cameras for years. Something that has been requested by photo journalists in particular. The massive adoption of these cameras by filmmakers caught Canon by surprise. They have created their own market.
Except for high end pros, Red DSMC is not a threat to the consumer DSLR market as it would never have been in the sub $3k price range, even with 2/3".
It was specifically the S35 and FF35 Scarlet models that were given the DSMC label and these are priced against high end Leicas and the very top of the line Nikon and Canon offerings, not the typical consumer range cameras. True quality and performance costs real bucks.
Red is making true high resolution pro motion cameras capable of replacing film as a practical acquisition medium, not consumer video or still cameras. The quality of footage coming from MX Red 1 matches or exceeds 35mm film in most important respects. Personally I think the emergence of the HDSLR's has freed Red from the pressure to compromise their quality and features to meet a low end consumer price point. That market is being served well by many different kinds of cameras.
 
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