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 :)

Zacuto Camera Test

J

Jagger Christian

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 14, 2008
Messages
274
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Location
Hollywood
Zacuto posted a filmed testing of the following cameras on their website

Arriflex 435ES
Red One
Panasonic AJ-HPX3000
Sony HDW900R CineAlta
Panasonic AJ-HDC27H Varicam
Panasonic HVX200
Sony PMW-EX1 XDCAM EX

Here is the link...
http://www.zacuto.com/ZacutoCameraComparison.mov

Your thoughts on the results...
 
Just a couple...

How was the raw files processed before transfering to D5?
There's quite a lot of we compression going on in there.

Not judging anything here, just curious
 
They made the RED look really bad there.

Made it have more noise than the EX1, it would seem after one view.

I'd like to know more about how this test was done.
 
Essor,

I agree with you. I've seen so much beautiful footage posted from the Red One Camera. I was surprised at the quality of the Red One clip. I'm not that well versed with all those cameras first hand. I was wondering how good of a test it really was. Is it really accurate or did they just not know how to get the full potential out of the Red One Camera?

I don't have any info on the test. Just found the clip on the Zacuto website. They say they showed the footage at NAB 08.
 
First thing I noticed is that the Red footage suffered tremendously in the compression stages. There is obvious posterizing on the girl's neck.

Also some stunning amount of noise in the neck area. A lot of the cameras got noise there. What were the light levels on this test?

Who does all these tests anyway?
 
Yeah RED didn't look very interesting in that test, maybe the way it was set up. But the most interesting is how well the low-end cameras, especially the EX1 compared to 35mm and the high-end HD cameras. The EX1+Letus Extreme and 35mm film comparison looked pretty impressive, at least at this resolution. I can see this set up looking pretty good on a big screen.
 
Interesting. And a good effort, but it has obviously lost a lot after being prepared for download or streaming over the web. Everything looks over-processed, IMHO.

It's like having a competition where the world's best chefs prepare a fabulous meal with the finest ingredients available, only to have it be frozen and then microwaved before being served to the panel of judges.

It'd be nice to see a test like this be made specifically for theatrical projection. Maybe they should have hooked up with the USC Entertainment Technology Center folks for assistance. They'd probably be all over a test like this.

Thanks for the test!
 
Several TIFF stills out of each camera's most uncompressed output available would have been a lot better.

Preferably with film scanned at 4k.
 
Over-saturated and clipped colours; substantial compression noise on all clips - all much more compromising image than ANY difference among the cameras that I could see.

As a comparison - nice and completely useless! :bleh:
 
Yeah. And last time I checked, Soderbergh wasn't planning on using an EX1 with a Letus Extreme 35mm adapter.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Yeah. And last time I checked, Soderbergh wasn't planning on using an EX1 with a Letus Extreme 35mm adapter.

Stephen
Click to expand...

This kind of defensive attitude ruins the mood around here.

The RED footage in that test, and the comparison itself - or any comparison for that matter - can be analyzed without resorting to name-dropping and other manner of childish behavior.
 
Thing is, that if you've worked some (and I have still just worked some...) with RED footage, the result of the RED footage is strange, and then I guess that goes for all the cams. Particularily I find the noise in the window and in the "red water" challenging to comprehend in the Red Shot, and I suspect (but of course I don't know) that it can be a result of a workflow choice...

The HPX stands out as the great cam I think it is, though :)

Gunleik
 
One thing that I noticed is that it doesn't mention a Redcine or Red Alert step. It mentions the 24fps telecine on Spirit2K for the film footage, but no processing step for Red footage. I guess it doesn't say anything about the actual processing of the film, but... As others have said, I'd be interested to know how the Redcode RAW was processed.
 
I'm sorry to say guys but noise is an issue with RED. This seem to be a very straight forward test were they done similar channels in workflow. My guess is film to DPX and RED to DPX etc. They've graded in a very professional suite "Da Vinci" with excellent noise reduction possibilities (I assume).

The compression artifacts such as posterizing exists also in the 35 mm shot, just not as much because the resolution is higher and better in 35 mm.

I love RED but it's far from perfect and it is very noisy. Hopefully this is something that will be fixed in near future. I for one certainly can't wait for Epic and REDCODE 100.

Fredrik Callinggard
 
That much noise?

Haven't seen that until now.

I also haven't played with RED footage myself.

So let's hear more opinions about the AMOUNT of NOISE and POSTERIZING in that shot.

Because frankly, it makes the Red look worse than the HVX.
 
Frankly, the test doesn't reveal anything about the cameras.

However, it does reveal that they didn't know what they were doing.

The list could go on, but to use just one point as an example... What's the point of color correcting with a da Vinci if you don't know how to color correct? Look at the detail of the yellow flower in the HVX200 shot versus Red AND 35mm. You're telling me that Red and 35mm can't do what the HVX200 can in not clipping out all that detail? And watch the "whites" in the highlights, bathtub and wine label... blue, green, yellow, orange... come on... please... some consistency in the neutrals please. Even if the label is a "cream" color... it should be cream in all the shots. And the SKIN COLOR... ???? Was that for the SCI-FI channel? lol! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top