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Zacuto Great Camera Shootout - and free parking!

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Tom Hamilton

Tom Hamilton

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This from another website, should be interesting;

Some of you may have heard about this year's Zacuto camera test ... officially known as the 'Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout 2012 (RGCSO) ... we had the pleasure of hosting last year's SCCE test supervised by Bob Primes, ASC, and this year we'll be screening two sessions of the RGCSO on Wed May 9th at 4pm and 7pm.

The RGCSO 2012 was devised and managed by Bruce Logan, ASC and covers the following cameras:

• Sony F65 — supervised by Sony Representatives
• ARRI Alexa — supervised by Rodney Charters, ASC
• RED Epic — supervised by Ryan Walters
• Sony FS100 — supervised by Den Lennie & Mick Jones
• Sony F3 w/slog — supervised by Nancy Schreiber, ASC
• Canon C300 — supervised by Polly Morgan
• Canon 7D with Technicolor settings — supervised by Michael Negrin, ASC
• Panasonic GH2 (hacked and non-hacked) — supervised by Jonny Zeller & Colt Seman

It's a different approach and format this year but as usual there will be some surprises in terms of perceived image quality and look as well as the technical responses of the 8 cameras ... Bruce devised an empirical and subjective test to let you evaluate both the technical and artistic aspects of the cameras ... plus, there'll be a 'blind tasting' screening to see if you can really tell the difference between the imagery quality from the different cameras.

More details are available on the Zacuto site ... please note, you can ONLY ATTEND THE SCREENINGS IF YOU PRE-REGISTER at http://www.zacuto.com/shootout-revenge-2012 Seats are limited to 40 per session.

Also note - the Q&A session after the screening will be recorded and possibly used as content in the Zacuto three part documentary web series "Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout 2012" which premieres at zacuto.com on June 15th ... so if you're shy or hiding from the FBI, please don't come along ... you'll need to sign a Performance Release before we let you in ... and no, if you're in SAG and expecting residuals - forget it.

We'll be projecting the RGCSO in the current DCP standard of 2K JPG2000 compression as a level playing field for all cameras ... for those of you that have been to our place you'll know that our DI theater is tightly calibrated and very precise ... there is no where to hide on our screen.

Bruce and some of the DPs and Zacuto guys will be on hand to answer your challenging and piercing questions and we'll have refreshments available.

Free parking will be available in The Lot parking structure.

Remember! .... you must pre-register on the Zacuto site if you want to come along .... unfortunately, I will not be open to bribery or physical threats if you don't pre-register and want to sneak in at the last moment ... unless your name happens to end in Boyle ... know wot I mean, guv.

Hope to see some of you on the 9th - http://www.zacuto.com/shootout-revenge-2012

Cheers,
Neil

Neil Smith
Managing Director
Hollywood DI
digital imagination
West Hollywood. CA.
323 850 3550
www.hollywooddi.com
 
These kind of comparisons and their results don't have any value on this forum; "you have to make your own comparisons if you want to see proper results". Not my opinion but generaly that's what you get if you post comparisons here (and RED won't perform the best).
 
Well, we'll see if the results are truly objective. Lots of folks with agendas out there influencing what people see, or choose not to.
 
I don't to see no stinkin "science" to know my camera and lens is the best in the universe. Any who disagrees is a clearly a terrorist
 
This is like having a Shootout to see who we want for President. Your could run Mickey Mouse against Goofy and the party loyal will find something to love about their candidate and why the other guy is a joker
 
I can image the reaction now:


"I'm so glad I bought camera A because it was clearly the sharpest."
"I'm so glad I bought camera B because it clearly has the most dynamic range."
"I'm so glad I bought camera C because it definitely has the most resolution"
"I'm so glad I bought camera D because it was the cheapest"
"I'm so glad I didn't buy camera E because all of a sudden it doesn't perform as well as yesterday."
"I'm so glad I bought camera F because I can't afford to buy any lights"
"I'm so glad I bought camera G to make my movie because it's going to be so much better now.
 
An interesting note, is that after tuesday, the screenings at NAB were cancelled. They say it was based on "an anomaly" but No idea what that means.
 
The test was a HUGE #FAIL last year.

When there is no control standard there is no "test" being done. It becomes a mere Subjective Exploration.

I have hope that maybe this year "SCIENCE" actually makes an appearance in the "Test"
 
Two problems I detect:

1> Each camera gets 90 min to mess with the lights to perfect the scene for the given camera. Well, that's not a good test, because even an 8 bit camera can have the light optimized for it's crappy limitations. I'd rather see a more stressful test, to see how easy it is to rescue/recover a scene if the lighting was not perfect, and was rushed a bit like on a low budget production.

2> Viewing the results in 2K is so 1990. Like running an F1 race with a 65 mph speed limit and training wheels. 'Most of the world has a 65 mph speed limit, so we decided to run the race at 65 mph'
 
Viewing the results in 2K/1080p is perfect since it's the standard viewing resolution. There's no point to look what camera performs best at 4K because the audience sees 2K/1080p anyways.
 
Josh Beadle said:
This is like having a Shootout to see who we want for President. Your could run Mickey Mouse against Goofy and the party loyal will find something to love about their candidate and why the other guy is a joker
Click to expand...

The blind test will be interesting and obviously not biased.
 
Josh Snyder said:
Viewing the results in 2K/1080p is perfect since it's the standard viewing resolution. There's no point to look what camera performs best at 4K because the audience sees 2K/1080p anyways.
Click to expand...
You are aware there are hundreds (probably over 1000 at this point) Sony 4K projectors out there, right?

I think Zacuto bent over backwards to be as fair as possible, and judging by the list, the DPs doing the segments are all fairly heavyweight people who do very good work.

What if the Epic comes out the overall winner? Will everybody still hate the tests then? I'm particularly keen to see how the audiences do on the blind tests, where nobody knows what specific camera they're looking at until after they vote. And I'm also amused to see how a $2500 camera will compare to a $65,000 camera.

Having worked on projects that used three or four different cameras (forcing us to match them all in post), I can tell you that at the high end, the picture differences become very subtle. So much depends on the lighting and exposure, I'm still not convinced the camera alone is the most important factor. As an old pal of mine likes to say, "it's the archer... not the arrows."
 
I've done a good deal of this type of test already here in sunny LA, but I'd like to see what they did and how.
 
In three years or so, when Costco is selling a 4K TV set, people will be scrambling to resurrect the footage of many films to reconform at 4k.
We are doing that for SD to HD right now at work for multiple shows that were shot years ago and finished on tape. They count there blessings that the shows were shot on 35mm film. The details are there!
We retransfered every single take of all film shot during the season(s) and reconformed to HD. That's a tractor trailer full of film.

But I understand. It would look plain silly to an audience if only two cameras looked full sharp. Upsets the tea party. Disruptive.

Josh Snyder said:
Viewing the results in 2K/1080p is perfect since it's the standard viewing resolution. There's no point to look what camera performs best at 4K because the audience sees 2K/1080p anyways.
Click to expand...
 
4K camera should always look way better ans sharper when downslaced to 2K than 2K camera. If it doens't, well then you have a problem.
 
We just don't understand why the test doesn't also have a 4K finish. The future is 4K delivery... and the future is now.

Do the test with a 4K finish also and we'll be happy to show up and service the EPIC. Otherwise... this should be on DVXuser.

Also... if the RED footage isn't finished R3D to the end... it doesn't count in our eyes.

Jim
 
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