Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Stupid Questions from a Still Photographer

Carlos Echenique

Carlos Echenique

Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2008
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Website
www.echenique.com
Hey all,
I've been lurking here for quite a while and have decided to post this question.

I am a stills photographer and I shoot stagecraft, especially dance like ballet, flamenco, etc. I have been following the developments here at Reduser with great interest especially HDRx on Scarlet. I know most of you are video guys, but is there a configuration for stills guys like me? What would it cost and and how would the images compare to my Nikon D700 or the D3s I am planning for? The DSMC with a Nikon mount might make me change my mind...

Thanks,
 
Carlos, GO RED!

Seriously...

If you are looking for integrated video and stills, RED is the only way to go IMHO. Now with HDRx™™ you have more DR than any other camera.

Imagine a DSLR with really high frame rates. You are shooting anywhere from 1-120fps in 5k RAW on an EPIC. (i dont know the exact fps for scarlet off the top of my head) A 1DMarkIV shoots 8.5fps RAW. If you want your client to choose the exact moment for a single frame, shoot RED, no reason for missing the perfect moment anymore. Also, you can deliver video as well.

Video wise, deliver in 4k, grade natively in 4k. Your final output will be so much better compressing 5k into 4k for a release. You are shooting RAW video, you will never want to to go back to anything else.
 
But if you are talking stills only, or primarily stills, the first Scarlets will only be 3K on a 2/3" sensor. You really have to be specific about which model you are asking about to get a good answer. IMO, at this point, a pro quality Canon or Nikon are still likely to be a better choice for stills than a 2/3" Scarlet.
 
Hey Carlos,
I'm a stills/video guy transitioning to video.
First thing you should know is Scarlet 2/3 has only about a 5MP sensor. That may be a dealbreaker right there. The 3K refers to pixels measured horizontally.
2. I would wait to see what the stills mode produces. HDRx and EasyHDR are designed for video, but frames are same resolution as stills. Unclear to me what these will look like with shutter speeds fast enough to freeze motion, and unclear if there will also be a regular bracketing mode for HDR stills.
3. The crop factor for 2/3 cameras is 3.56.
4. I don't believe VR works with the Nikon adapter, though AF and aperture do.
5. The Scarlet S35 has a APS sized sensor, with that 1.5 crop factor. I forget what MP are, but similar to D700, D3s. But WAY more expensive and heavy for minimal kit of Brain, Side Handle, Bomb EVF, Nikon adapter, batteries. Over $12,000 right there. And no idea when it will be available, as it will come after Epic S35 and after Scarlet Fixed, and neither of those release dates have been announced.
6. If everything works well, the burst rate and HDR may be incredible, and you'll definitely pay for it. But shoot with something else until then. If you become rich and successful, maybe you'll be able to consider a $12,000+ tool when it's released. I love my D700 and if I was going to continue with stills I'd also be considering a D3s.
 
Ok, where do I go for more information (besides here)? I need to get some pricing and configurations so I can plan this accordingly. One does not whip out a CC these days with the flagrance of previous years. Is there financing? More importantly, how can I test one to see if it fits for my line of work? Where can I download the manuals? I actually glean a lot about a piece of gear by reading the manuals first. Will my Nikon lenses have AF or will I have to ditch them in favor of RED lenses? How loud is the RED DSMC when filming? My D700 has been banned from a couple of venues for "disrupting the ballet experience."
 
Carlos Echenique said:
Ok, where do I go for more information (besides here)? I need to get some pricing and configurations so I can plan this accordingly. One does not whip out a CC these days with the flagrance of previous years. Is there financing? More importantly, how can I test one to see if it fits for my line of work? Where can I download the manuals? I actually glean a lot about a piece of gear by reading the manuals first. Will my Nikon lenses have AF or will I have to ditch them in favor of RED lenses? How loud is the RED DSMC when filming? My D700 has been banned from a couple of venues for "disrupting the ballet experience."
Click to expand...

I think you are going to have to do your homework. It would probably be helpful for you to start with the fact that there are no shipping Epics or Scarlets, period. You are not going to learn all this overnight or in one place. I suggest you become a student of this subject and scour this forum on a regular basis for several weeks. Then you questions will seem to answer themselves.
 
Thanks Terry, that was the kind of impression I was getting. Looks like i will go forward with my D3s plans for now, keeping an ear to the ground for the Scarlet FF35 when it becomes available. Hell, I'll beta test it as ballet would be an excellent application for it!

For the record, I need to be able to catch images like this:
Les Sylphides by Carlos Echenique, on Flickr
 
Here's a really stupid question that I only ask because I'm sure it's quick and easy to answer: why is a "still mode" necessary at all? Why not just grab a frame you like in post?
 
David Quinn Carder said:
Here's a really stupid question that I only ask because I'm sure it's quick and easy to answer: why is a "still mode" necessary at all? Why not just grab a frame you like in post?
Click to expand...

Off the top of my head, because some slow shutter speeds will only be available in stills mode, maybe flash syncing.
 
Flash is not an issue as you cannot use it during a live performance. My concern in pulling a frame from the video is that there will not be enough shutter speed to freeze the motion. My current settings can almost completely freeze the action and moving up to a D3s would buy me 3-4 more stops which would be great plus a quieter shutter. I've heard the D3s side by side with my D700 and the noise level is much less.
 
What shutter was that?

I think this will work really well with the S35/FF Scarlet, as it does with the R1 today.

the R1 is a tad heavy and brutal and undiscreet for this kind of work, though...
(My brother is a dancer...)
 
The photo I posted was shot at 1/250 s but I would prefer 1/500th or faster to really freeze the action. By my estimates, I can achieve that with the D3s, but I'm not sure with Scarlet FF35. Historically, motion frames have embraced motion blur to remove the stop-motion effect and that makes them pretty useless to me. I haven't seen any frames from RED Anything showing ballet that I can process and decide for myself.
 
The motion-blur is dependent on the shutter in moving images, too...

Just set your shutter high to have a stream of stills instead of motion images.

If you have the chance, go and play with a R1 on this, treat it like a still-cam and think of it as an early prototype Scarlet FF

I think you may have some fun.
 
Carlos, the D3X has much better range and will give you a leg up there. If that was at 1/250 on a D700, I'm not sure you'll get all the way to 1/500 on the D3s. I want to think so, I love my D3s, but I don't have the D700 for comparison. S

Scarlet FF35 is probably a year away, so it's not something to plan for right now. It will be a bit larger than the D3s too, but not much. Shutter speeds on the current RED One are rather fast -- faster than most mainstream DSLR systems and I expect nothing less from the upcoming cameras. With the DSMC system, you gain faster subsequent frame bursts, continuous frame rates, etc.. Ability to pre-record or pre-capture stills and motion. That's a big one... You can press the shutter release and not only get a burst of high-speed frames from that point forward, but from anything the camera was pointed at before the button press. You may never be half a second too late ever again... Provided you're able to aim and focus in time. :)

I occasionally shoot stage events, but it's typically motion and not stills. If I do shoot stills for that, I take my D3. Previously, I used a D2Xs, but it wasn't worth a crap at ISO 800 and above most of the time.. So I don't really have any RED anything to show. The RED One is difficult to use for stills unless it's tripod mounted. The biggest issue I have with fast motion and stills on the RED One is the lack of a mechanical shutter. Since there is no mechanical shutter to mask off the sensor during initialization and reset periods, we get rolling shutter skew and it becomes more and more apparent with increasingly faster exposure times. The RED One is capable of 1/20000 shutter (no joke), but with the CMOS reset at 9ms, the skew can be quite bad and quite noticeable on moderately fast shutter speeds. The MX sensor cuts the reset time to 4ms, however the speed benefit in the RED One has not been realized yet as RED has rolled the reset timing back to 9ms until they finish tweaking things. Hopefully the Monstro sensor that will be in the FF35 and larger RED cameras will make further strides in this regard. The reset timing of the D3s is around 24ms, so more than 2X as slow as the RED One. However, the mirror shutter masks the sensor during init and reset, so photosites are more evenly exposed; Meaning less skew. D3X/D3s have shutter speeds as fast as 1/8000. But realistically, to push much beyond 1/500 in typical stage lighting will be difficult to do without being too underexposed. The mirror shutter in the D3 series is about 1.4ms per action, if I recall correctly. Or about 2.8ms per cycle, which would be comparable to about 2.8ms in CMOS speak. In other words, it's a good bit faster than what the RED MX sensor can deliver still, so will show less skew under fast exposure situations. I do expect future sensors to do better than this. The technology exists now to give CMOS sensors a uniform or "global" shutter, meaning no skew at all. However, this was not chosen for the RED MX sensor, but rather the 4ms timing as it more closely mimics a motion picture shutter of about the same speed and eliminates the often too-clean and sterile video feel from a global shutter.
 
Last edited:
I have tested images at high-ISO from the D3s. (The D3x does not have enough range ISO-wise for stage work.) ISO 12,800 on the D3s looks like ISO 3200 on my D700, and I let my D700 range all the way up to ISO 6400 and apply Noise Ninja on anything above ISO 3200 in post. The D3s will mean less post processing.

BTW George, I was a lifelong Canon shooter but switched to Nikon for it's better skin tones and high-ISO performance.
 
The Nikon pro DSLRs are definitely the way to go for stills. The ergonomics of the cameras and the quality of the images are excellent. If you NEED BOTH stills and video in one camera, that is another matter. But I truly see that RED, or a higher line Scarlet later, or of course Epic later would be best for motion, and Nikon for still photography.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top