I own a GH-1 and MKii and this is how RED can truly seal the deal

[Gerald Menclik]

announcement not too early

announcement not too early

Am I the only one who thinks that Red kinda screwed itself by announcing Scarlet so far in advance that it gave the competition time to respond and put out products that would tempt potential Scarlet users? The bombshell needed to be giving the specs of the camera 2 months before shipping. Something tells me if they had gone this route the 5D would still be nothing more than a curiosity and not morphing into a semi-functional video camera.

The bottom line is that Scarlet needs to hit the streets to quell much of the noise these other cameras are making.

Personally I think RED is going to somewhat mislead the opponents in the market and as they say "everything changes" the release of the SCARLET WILL be a bombshell but with much further developed specs and abilities ...

 

[David Rasberry]

I wish I had the budget to grab a GH1 for the interim. It is an interesting camera in its own right, probably the best video camera of the bunch when one considers operating features as well as performance. Personally I like the 4/3 format. Being an open multi-manufacturer standard, Red could produce an intermediate model to fill the gap between 2/3" and S35 that could support the lens functions and give say 4k or quad HD resolution in a package at lower cost than the S35. So far Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, Kodak, and Sigma are among the 4/3 licensed manufacturers. With this standard RED would not have the intellectual property issues of supporting full lens functions as they are standardized across brands.
4/3 should be the super 16mm format for digital cinema. Maybe the GH1 will give this new format the necessary market interest for it to succeed.

 

[Kholi Hicks]

I thought the Lumix GH-1 was pre-order only right now. People are taking delivery already?

I got a japanese one delivered to me the day after it came out. They're just now beginning to ship stateside.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Honestly, these still cameras are not designed for shooting hours and hours of motion picture images with a minimum of compression artifacts. It's one thing to talk about shooting sequences or effects plates or other short bits with one, but entire features?

David, you might be surprised what people will put up with to achieve the so-called "cinema" look. A lot of indie shooters get it stuck in their head that they MUST have shallow DOF, and there's no talking them out of it. They will go to any length to achieve this. Plus, you have to consider how convenient and inexpensive shooting on a 5D2 is. Setup time is nothing. Boot time is fractions of a second. Recording space on cheap 32GB CF cards is essentially endless. The batteries last all day and cost almost nothing.

I know you have a Nikon, but I would really recommend that you pick up a 5D2, David. Every DP should have one, IMO, if for no other reason than to start fooling around with FF35 video. Not to mention that it's pound for pound the best DSLR still camera ever made, a real dream come true for stills shooting.

Then again, like you say, those people who are shooting features on 5D2 are going to be in a very rude awakening in post production, if they try to manipulate or grade the 5D2 footage. The DP will have to absolutely nail it on location, and the editor will have to learn to live with what was captured, more or less. Those filmmakers might also find themselves victims of an even ruder awakening -- that some of their footage is damaged by moire and other artifacts that can't really be fixed. :violent:

This is why Graeme and Jim design their cameras to be able to shoot even the worst, most challenging zone cards, etc.

 

[Kenneth Elkington]

Not to mention that it's pound for pound the best DSLR still camera ever made, a real dream come true for stills shooting.

Well, maybe dollar for dollar, but for stills only, the D3x classes it.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

David, you might be surprised what people will put up with to achieve the so-called "cinema" look. A lot of indie shooters get it stuck in their head that they MUST have shallow DOF, and there's no talking them out of it. They will go to any length to achieve this.

I have no doubt about that, but it seems people are ignoring that it's going to be a lot easier to shoot (and edit, color-correct, etc.) movies on cameras like the Scarlet designed to shoot movies. They talk as if a still camera that shoots video and the Scarlet are more or less the same thing.

 

[Jan Pfeiffer]

I have no doubt about that, but it seems people are ignoring that it's going to be a lot easier to shoot (and edit, color-correct, etc.) movies on cameras like the Scarlet designed to shoot movies. They talk as if a still camera that shoots video and the Scarlet are more or less the same thing.

David,

I agree with you that DSLRs and Scarlet are very different beasts.

Scarlet is purpose built to shoot motion capture, with variable frame rates, cine-style connectors, and a robust capture codec. The only problem is it's not available yet, and although I still have every hope that end of summer (or early fall) means end of summer (in the Northern Hemisphere), I think a lot of people are excited by the latest batch of DSLRs because:


1. they are are available now
2. they offer a glimpse into what the future holds (including all flavors of RED DSMC) in terms of shooting with a very different form factor

Does that mean we should all rush out and shoot features with these DSLRs? No, of course not. But some might just be inspired to see what they can do - and what they can't. I'm curious to see, too.

There's little doubt in my mind that DSLR capture will become more and more common in the Indie world, especially as DSLR (or to be more precise 'still' style cameras - since the GH1 isn't really DSLR) and motion capture cameras converge into the DSMC paradigm. I also think RED will be on the leading edge of this convergence, though I wonder if it's losing some ground as other manufacturers play catch up (at a certain point, the technology will hit a point of diminishing returns - is 6k really that much better than 5k is that much better than 4k? etc, etc - especially as the ultimate aim is to create compelling stories that people want to watch.

Just my 2c.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't think the Canon and Lumix have already saturated the market for low-budget indie shooters, so what's going to happen is that when the Scarlet is released by the end of the year, everyone is going to be talking about how Canon, etc. better catch up with RED, and when the competitors put out their next generation, everyone will be wondering how RED will respond, etc.

IT'S A NEVER-ENDING CYCLE. It seems new customers keep appearing for these products.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Speaking of post, the still cameras beat RED for me in terms of:

- getting footage into Avid easily and without crashes / workflow hiccups
- be able to double click on the footage and play through it

Can't do that on my PC with RED. Crazy, eh?

Personally I'm sitting this one out. Judging by the RED ONE, I fear Scarlet's 2/3 sensor will probably be too noisy to work with without applying NR to every shot (which I do with RED ONE currently). They should have gone 4/3 IMHO (as Matt Uhry said ages ago). Combine that with the ongoing PC workflow issues and it's a non-starter for me. I'll rent RED for big projects but don't want that kind of pain for everyday use.

I'm not buying a still camera either right now because I think the next generation will do a proper scale down and look a ton better.

So I decided to upgrade my Pro Tools rig instead. Have a nice weighted-key MIDI keyboard from the 90's that hasn't been improved on since, plus now I can mix 7.1. That's all I'd ever need for audio and it'll still be all I'll need 2 years down the line when this camera craziness has sorted itself out.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Tom Lowe]

Well, maybe dollar for dollar, but for stills only, the D3x classes it.

I've seen some tests that say otherwise. :sifone:

Of course, it depends on what you're shooting. In terms of auto-focus, fps, etc, no doubt the Nikon wins. A more fair matchup for those functions would be 1DsM3 vs D3x. But for low light shooting, believe it or not, the 5D2 has bested the D3x and the 1DsM3 in some recent tests. :gun:

 

[P Andersson]

low light and full frame sensor FTW

 

[Sergio Perez]

I don't think the Canon and Lumix have already saturated the market for low-budget indie shooters, so what's going to happen is that when the Scarlet is released by the end of the year, everyone is going to be talking about how Canon, etc. better catch up with RED, and when the competitors put out their next generation, everyone will be wondering how RED will respond, etc.

(Speaking in a Benicio Del Toro in "Snatch" accent) "So, David, what do you know?"- concerning the Scarlet revised delivery date? End of the year?

 

[Kholi Hicks]

I agree with Bruce. It's so easy to cut this stuff in comparison to RED footage. RAW is obviously superior, how often do you really need to shoot RAW, though?

As far as the VDSLR and SCARLET not being similar, what have I missed? It seems to be that they are hyper-similar in several ways, the major difference being recording format and modularity: purchase more RED devices to stack on your camera.

From there, though, how different are they? Are processing power to capture images at super high resolutions and near-to-RAW compression the only differentiating factors?

Perhaps 120FPS internally, that's another.

But what else?

 

[Pascal Scheffers]

... Most people won't be able to see any noticeable difference between 2k and 4k from the middle of a typical theater house due to the limits of their own eyes. Enough is enough.

True enough. However, we're talking capture format here, not output. I guess there are two groups of shooters on these premises now. Those who like to push their captured material to the limit in post, and those who do not. I am a newb at motion, but in stills I crop/re-frame and push the color around in post for almost every single image I care about. The few minutes of video I've produced so far have been the same, if my input is 1080p ... well, output is going to be less. I'd like to start out a bit higher. 3K trumps 1080p. Different tools for different people.

Still, I'm utterly amazed at the stuff people put out with their inferior H.264 toys Must get me one, I think

 

[Deanan]

I agree with Bruce. It's so easy to cut this stuff in comparison to RED footage. RAW is obviously superior, how often do you really need to shoot RAW, though?

That's like saying how often do you shoot RAW vs Jpeg for stills.
Mostly everyone I know shoots RAW for stills almost all the with the exception being when they're shooting stuff they don't care much about.

I often ask people at parties (from parents at kids parties to serious shooters) what they shoot and if they aren't stuck in auto mode all the time and know how to setup their cameras, they're shooting RAW.

IMHO, shooting massively compressed 8bit video has it's place but not when you're serious about the images you capture.

 

[Yannick Hagman]

That's like saying how often do you shoot RAW vs Jpeg for stills.

RAW for stills is super easy and you can do that on an iMac. With Video RAW, well you can't do that in realtime. So I disagree. It's not comparable. Journalists and Newsfolks won't have the time or ressources for color-correction.

 

[J Davis]

Journalists and Newsfolks won't have the time or ressources for color-correction.

True ... but scarlet specs offer internal debayering which the RED ONE doesn't so this work could be done with FF1080p and rgb redcode (hopefully to be supported by quicktime).
FF720p would be helpful for these situations as well.

 

[David Swan]

The big advantage of the 5DII for me is that I can afford it, and I can edit the footage on my laptop. Oh yes, and my wide-angles stay wide.
As for raw, when shooting stills for myself I always go raw, when shooting for school, where I'm going to put stuff on teh network, nearly always jpeg.
I think I'll P/Ex my 5D for a 5DII when finances permit, but I may have to sell my MF and LF kit as well. That will be a real break with the past, and I don't know if I want to yet.

 

[Yannick Hagman]

The big advantage of the 5DII for me is that I can afford it, and I can edit the footage on my laptop. Oh yes, and my wide-angles stay wide.
As for raw, when shooting stills for myself I always go raw, when shooting for school, where I'm going to put stuff on teh network, nearly always jpeg.
I think I'll P/Ex my 5D for a 5DII when finances permit, but I may have to sell my MF and LF kit as well. That will be a real break with the past, and I don't know if I want to yet.

I guess the 60D will rock 25FPS and feature an articulated screen as well.

 

[David Rasberry]

I expect that the FF1080P mode for the Reds will output broadcast standard encoded HDSDI for normal video style work flows, not raw. RED one does this for monitoring at 720p. The new models should take this to a more stable production capable level. Add an outboard tape or solid state recorder, and a B4 servo lens to the 2/3" or shoot with the fixed with electronic lens controls and you have a normal HD camcorder system.

Major differences from the VDSLRS: poor ergonomics for motion shooting, poor audio support, no SMPTE timecode and limited continuous recording times. The 5d is also hampered by the anachronism of a reflex mirror, a totally useless mechanism on a digital camera.