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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 :)

Scarlet for Documentary.

J

james Mallon

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I am wanting a Scarlet for documentary work. I need a camera that is subtle and can be not too much bigger than a DSLR. The fixed lens was what I was thinking. My question is will a fixed lens allow you to get the shallow dof of seperate primes, or will it just function like a high resolution standard video camera?
 
What u feel about the DOF from EX1 and hpx 300 ? but here things are different beacouse This is RED so u can expect something more no one cant say anything right now so let it come out !
 
James - ever shot 16mm? The DOF of the fixed lens Scarlet is going to be pretty much what you would expect from 16. Now, since DOF is also affected by aperture size, you're going to get shallower DOF from the mini-primes which seem to be in the T1.5 - T1.9 range than the fixed lens' T2.8 zoom.

DOF will be shallower than an EX1 or HPX300, but not nearly as shallow as 35mm.

All that said, if you're in situations with uncontrolled lighting, particularly bright sunlight (which could be very likely if you're shooting docs), you're going to need to invest in some ND filters, since you won't be able to control DOF properly if you're only using the aperture to set exposure. Just something to think about. A fast lens isn't going to help you any if you need to stop down to F16 or something to get a proper exposure.
 
Can I therefore still get a small form by getting the sg35 or ff35 and putting the minimal amount of extras to have some thing handheld and DSLR like? I actually would like to use Nikon primes but I have the idea whether right of wrong that the 2/3 fixed lens will be more compact than any other configuration. Am I wrong?
 
james Mallon said:
Can I therefore still get a small form by getting the sg35 or ff35 and putting the minimal amount of extras to have some thing handheld and DSLR like? I actually would like to use Nikon primes but I have the idea whether right of wrong that the 2/3 fixed lens will be more compact than any other configuration. Am I wrong?
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Who knows for sure? I guess you'll just have to wait until the cameras are actually out.
 
Do you really want FF35 depth of field for documentary work? I can see many situations where the depth of field of a 2/3" sensor camera is going to make life easier for you if you are chasing people around and pulling focus on the fly. Super shallow-focus tends to work better for controlled situations and/or for subjects that are not so challenging to focus on (landscapes, products, talking heads, etc.)

In terms of the 2/3" Scarlet, how shallow the focus can get between the primes and zooms is merely a matter of how fast the lens is, how wide-open you can make the aperture. Most zooms tend to be slower than most primes, but often only by a stop.

In terms of keeping the camera down to the size of a DSLR, the brain portion and viewfinder would be a similar form factor, but once you start attaching a recorder (Red Drive or Red Ram) and a battery, it starts to get bigger, unless you want to not attach that stuff and use cables (and/or record to CF cards.) Not to mention a control unit and breakout box, etc.
 
An excellent point, David. You'd have to be incredibly (almost inhumanly) good to focus precisely in a good many uncontrolled situations. Hell, even in many controlled situations.

One of the only advantages I can see to a super wide aperture in much doc work would be for low light situations, where the shallow focus would be a by-product.
 
also it should be noted that the 2/3rd fixed lens is the only camera that will have an auto focus built into it. I don't know how important that is to you, but seeing as its for documentary work I thought I would mention it. I think a lot of people are underestimating the 2/3rd scarlet. What it lacks in shallower depth of field it makes up for with 120 the ability to record at 120 fps as well as the option to buy the kit which should help get the camera working (and light) for cheap. Also super shallow depth of field is not always the best thing for a production, especially where multiple takes are not always an option. The 2/3rd scarlet is still going to have shallow depth of field, it will just be closer to 16mm film instead of 35mm film, cinematic none the less. But ultimately, anything discussed now, unless it is said by jim, or the red team, is just speculation. but I have faith that when the products are released, they will be well worth the wait.
 
Peter Weisberg said:
also it should be noted that the 2/3rd fixed lens is the only camera that will have an auto focus built into it. I don't know how important that is to you, but seeing as its for documentary work I thought I would mention it. I think a lot of people are underestimating the 2/3rd scarlet. What it lacks in shallower depth of field it makes up for with 120 the ability to record at 120 fps as well as the option to buy the kit which should help get the camera working (and light) for cheap. Also super shallow depth of field is not always the best thing for a production, especially where multiple takes are not always an option. The 2/3rd scarlet is still going to have shallow depth of field, it will just be closer to 16mm film instead of 35mm film, cinematic none the less. But ultimately, anything discussed now, unless it is said by jim, or the red team, is just speculation. but I have faith that when the products are released, they will be well worth the wait.
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To the best of my recollection, Jim has stated that the entire DSMC line will have an autofocus function. However, for all non-fixed cameras, it may be a still-only function, and not able to autofocus while shooting motion. Also, it will obviously work only with lenses that support AF. Don't know how much of that has been worked out yet.

EDIT: Please correct me if I've misread or misremembered previous posts regarding AF. I'm pretty sure this is accurate, though.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but lets assume we're talking about the S35 version of the Scarlet for a moment. If one is using the new set of primes that cast a smaller image circle, won't that effectively be giving you an almost identical bokeh to what you would get with 35mm lenses casting a 35mm image circle on a 35mm imager? The apparent loss of narrow depth of field comes as a byproduct of what is essentially a crop of a larger image circle. Once you reduce the image circle to the size of the imager through optics, you regain much or all of that, yes?

This is the basic principle behind that silly Olympus line of still cameras.
 
Bokeh, sure... but not depth of field. Lenses made for smaller sensors create a smaller circle because they don't need to fill a larger area... but the rules of FOV and DOF remain the same whether or not the lens projects a large image or a small one. A 50mm lens designed for a 16mm camera has the same view and depth of field as a 50mm lens designed for a 35mm camera that is now mounted to the 16mm camera.

The reason you get more depth of field with smaller sensor cameras is that in order to maintain the same field of view as with larger sensor cameras, you have to shorten the focal length. The fact that the lens was designed only to fill a smaller image circle doesn't really matter in terms of depth of field because the field of view is the same whether or not that focal length casts an excess area outside the sensor or not. Otherwise one 25mm lens, for example, would have a different field of view than another 25mm lens on the same camera.

In other words, on the 2/3" Scarlet, it wouldn't matter whether you used a Mini-Red or a regular Red lens if they were the same focal length -- the depth of field issues would be the same.
 
Thanks for the clarification. That's a little disappointing, however. I was hoping to save a little money by going with the S35 and the 32mm lenses as a compromise. The last time I made a compromise with imager size, I was sorely disappointed and wound up selling a small fortune in gear and reinvesting in a different manufacturer.

While the DOF of 35mm would be a pain in the butt to focus on the fly for my documentary work, I can't help but feel like I'd never be satisfied working within the constraints of S35. Besides, it sounds like the Red Electric lenses will have some autofocus capability that should help out in that regard when needed.
 
I don't want to oversell the problems of focusing a 35mm image because it obviously it is being done every day out there, it's just something to factor into whether you want to get the 2/3" or S35 Scarlet for doc work. Most docs are shot on smaller formats than 35mm -- Super-16, 2/3" video, and even 1/3" video. So while 35mm depth of field would be prettier, it's not exactly demanded for doc work.
 
My background is in photojournalism, and I found the look and feel of 35mm format imagers so superior to what I was getting from my 1.3, 1.5 or 1.6x cameras that it made the extra effort to focus absolutely worth it. Granted, it's a little more difficult with film because you have to not only find focus but keep it in focus for hundreds of frames at a time.

I'm anxious to see a comparison between the images from the S35 epic and FF35 epic with the same lens and wide aperture to see if the S35's DOF will bother me as much as I expect it will.

The other thing to consider the quality and amount of noise as higher ISOs. If the noise/banding problems at higher sensitivities is acceptable one could compensate for the shallower DOF by bumping the ISO and stopping down at a cost of dynamic range. That's the other thing I'm waiting for - a real test of noise quality on these things.
 
James, unless your documentary is nothing but talking heads, you'll be glad that you have more, rather than less, DOF. And it's not even clear that the aesthetics of shallow DOF are all that suitable for documentaries. So few documentaries are shot on 35mm these days that, if anything, the expectation runs to greater DOF, otherwise it may not look "real".
 
It's probably impractical, but it's a stylistic preference. The extra cost in lenses and risk of soft focus probably outweigh my desire to achieve a true 35mm appearance. I'll likely wind up compromising on the S35, which leads me to want to play around with it a little or at least get my hands on a thorough review.
 
Jason Murphy said:
To the best of my recollection, Jim has stated that the entire DSMC line will have an autofocus function. However, for all non-fixed cameras, it may be a still-only function, and not able to autofocus while shooting motion. Also, it will obviously work only with lenses that support AF. Don't know how much of that has been worked out yet.

EDIT: Please correct me if I've misread or misremembered previous posts regarding AF. I'm pretty sure this is accurate, though.
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ya i think that does sound correct, when i was talking about auto focus, i was referring to shooting video as opposed to stills. So does that mean the autofocus is only for stills in everything but the fixed lens? or is the autofocus workable with some video lens providing they have it?
 
Peter Weisberg said:
ya i think that does sound correct, when i was talking about auto focus, i was referring to shooting video as opposed to stills. So does that mean the autofocus is only for stills in everything but the fixed lens? or is the autofocus workable with some video lens providing they have it?
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No clue how they're going about implementing autofocus for motion. Though personally, I've always found autofocus to be more of a nuisance than a help for motion work, assuming that the manual controls on the camera/lens are even halfway decent. But I definitely see where it can be useful.
 
Jason Murphy said:
No clue how they're going about implementing autofocus for motion. Though personally, I've always found autofocus to be more of a nuisance than a help for motion work, assuming that the manual controls on the camera/lens are even halfway decent. But I definitely see where it can be useful.
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don't get me wrong, i'm not advocating autofocus over manual, but if you do a lot of run & gun stuff autofocus can be your best friend. For me I know I am going to need to have auto focus some of the time, and other times i'm going to need manual focus, thus having both is the best choice for me.
 
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