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Comparing RED vs Everything!

S

Steve Phillipps

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Is it just me or does it seem strange that there are comparative tests and opinion the likes of RED vs Sony F35, RED vs Sony EX1, RED vs HVX200, RED vs 35mm film. Are all these cameras so close in performance that there can by image quality comparisons between all of them and RED?
I'm sure RED is targetted more towards F35 end than EX1 end, but others seem to think the EX1 will stack up. And who am I (not owning either) to doubt them?
Steve
 
They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, it's all just a matter of what level of importance you assign to those various things - and that is subjective, and varies from project to project.

It's certain that there will be jobs in which the EX1 is a better choice than RED or an F35 (Discovery's Deadliest Catch springs to mind)

And to be fair, the EX1 is batting well outside it's grade really, it's got pretty good glass, a great sensor and performs really well. It will definitely 'stack up' to many jobs.
 
It's not that strange when you consider the sorts of people who get excited about the price point of this camera, which makes film scale shooting seem achievable to a whole lot of people who have been 'faking it' (35mm lens adaptors on prosumer and up grade cameras). for a while.

It's even less strange when you take into account the fact that Red is an entirely NEW beast with an entirely new workflow and entirely new technology compared to anything else there that remotely resembles it.

Nothing compares at the moment (in a straight comparison) because Red is so Revolutionary - it doesn't fit the pre-existing molds at all. That doesn't mean it's better than everything out there - and image wise it certainly produce end results that chuck it far more in the deep but narrow end of the pool than the wide but shallow end.

It's just with the price point it has, people who believe they could afford it, or even merely afford to rent it, are starting to believe they have options that were never previously available to them - and will thus of course compare it to the other options they thought were available to them.

For my money - what I have seen first hand from Red blows all comparative price points out the window. What it allows in post workflow for well thought out indie projects blows EVERYTHING else out the window, completely.

It's not a magic bullet - making indie features or high end commercials is still going to cost a lot of money (the amount of labour costs aren't going anywhere due to technology) but the image acquisition and post production pipeline has got seriously broadened by RED and it's potential methodology (even as in beta/buggy/under developed as it still is at this early stage) without necessarily a reduction in quality.

Also, to be fair to other cameras with different workflows - HD on a mass scale is changing the game for everyone and no one has settled on a defacto standard, so without testing and comparison between everything out there it's going to be nigh on impossible for people to figure out what horse to bet on.

Everything gets a look in now, it's a strange new world.
 
Most of the comparisons involve Red throwing away mountains of its critical data during a downrez and then putting what is left up against their camera. However, if you make those cameras uprez to 4k and then look at the images side by side on a big theatre screen you'll quickly realize why Red is branded as a Digital Cinema Camera.
 
It is really so bad quality or is becouse of down convertion or becouse of RED inssue.?
Imige is very noise, especially in the neck area when the caustic play .
Also looks like a lot of collor information is missed.
In this test RED is more similar to EX1 then to 35 mm.
How really big is the noise on the RED pictures?

I have ordered for my red set of new cookes s4i but i'm worry a lit bit now that i have bought ferrarii engine for Fiat body .
I hope i'm mistaken
Please let me know how it looks like, becouse I still have a lot of time to get my RED and no chance now to play with that bt my own.

Thanks in advance
 
a judgement about noise and colors in such a quicktime - compression is a waste of time and says nothing about the quality of the red footage.
all cameras in this downconverted film are similar, no surprise.
let´s have this footage on an 30" apple display in native codecs ...
 
hi
yes i agree , QT makes it wors as it has compresion, but this copresion is equal for 35 mm picture and for RED and Ex1 and so on, so still i shoul be able to compare this.
If the 35 mm had the same noise ( or similar) i would say is a codec from QT , but in this test 35 mm looks very clean, and RED no, so i'm wondering where is the problem, is in RED or in wrong post process or may be is just a QT?
 
Noise

Noise

I have camera 100 and so far have used it to shoot only TV commercials with final out in 1080, 720 and 480 depending on the job. Shooting in tungsten light is noisier than shooting daylight. But I want to go out on a limb and state that the Red One does not have a noise problem. If you rate the camera
at ISO 160 you will be hard pressed to see any noise even if you put your eyes
a few inches from a 50 inch HD plasma. When I have shot at 320 I always see a little noise in the darks. When I shoot 500 I see a lot of noise in the darks. Sure you can gain up the picture by increasing the ISO in Redcine, but at the cost of noise. Perhaps the camera is just less sensitive than we would really like. When shot at 160 it kicks ass with a beautiful noiseless picture.
 
Well, this QT worry me a little... The noise on the red test is really intense, on the neck, but also on the blue window.

The color correction work is different from one test to another, so it's difficult to talk about that but it could have an impact . Scan also. Anyway, the work made on the Red test is really bad concerning colors.

As the post process is not mentionned, it could be a problem with this.

Anyway, the QT codec has an impact on the noise, but the 35mm test is way better.

Difficult to evaluate.
 
Yes, it seems to...

I watched carefully your own tests and let's say we're not in the same world. You did a great job with the RED. Even on nightsghots, the noise is very low, nothing compared to the zacuto test.

We have the same problem in France with the RED. Tests made by some big rental companies and published by the french profesionnal mags are incredibly bad for the RED. Because people don't understand the workflow and the way to use the camera.

Wich luminosity settings and lenses did you used on your tests ?

Thanks to help the thing !!!
 
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