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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 :)

a bit disappointed with the 4K coming from the Scarlet

i shot on 5DIIs for several years and during that time, i read many comments saying that Epic / Scarlet footage scaled back down to 1080p is nearly indistinguishable from 5DII footage.

after receiving our scarlet in march of 2012 i can say that to my eyes, scarlet footage scaled down to 1080p is VASTLY superior to 5DII footage. that's not to say that shooting an identical scene with the scarlet and a 5DII will yield massively different results, but working with the scarlet and understanding the nature of the camera - and indeed 4K and RAW - has led me to produce some of the most cinematic and eye-popping images i've ever been able to create.

having said that, a 5DII and scarlet pointed at the same thing and output at 1080 (scaling down the scarlet from 4K) are indeed vastly different to eyes that know what to look for - but less likely to impart a "WOW" type reaction on the average viewer.
 
chris morgan said:
i shot on 5DIIs for several years and during that time, i read many comments saying that Epic / Scarlet footage scaled back down to 1080p is nearly indistinguishable from 5DII footage.

after receiving our scarlet in march of 2012 i can say that to my eyes, scarlet footage scaled down to 1080p is VASTLY superior to 5DII footage. that's not to say that shooting an identical scene with the scarlet and a 5DII will yield massively different results, but working with the scarlet and understanding the nature of the camera - and indeed 4K and RAW - has led me to produce some of the most cinematic and eye-popping images i've ever been able to create.

having said that, a 5DII and scarlet pointed at the same thing and output at 1080 (scaling down the scarlet from 4K) are indeed vastly different to eyes that know what to look for - but less likely to impart a "WOW" type reaction on the average viewer.
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There's no denying that my friend, but 100% crop is a different story and that's what the OP is asking about.
 
I will upload some samples tomorrow to visually explain what I'm taking about
 
Bob Gundu said:
scale your others cameras up to 4K and them compare them at 100%. Or scale (not crop) 4K to 1080. It makes no sense to compare two different resolutions at 100 percent.
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This! Don't crop.
 
Bob Gundu said:
scale your others cameras up to 4K and them compare them at 100%. Or scale (not crop) 4K to 1080. It makes no sense to compare two different resolutions at 100 percent.
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I don't know you but for me and most people I know thefinal deliver is 1080p maximum. One of the points of 4K is take advantage of the extra resolution for cropping and reframing, I don't think shooting 4K to scale down to 1080p is a good practice or smart move after all my tests. To my eyes cropping Scarlet 4K to 1080p looks very similar to shoot 1080p with the fs100 and scaled up to match the framing of the scarlet crop. I'm not saying 4K is bad but the 4K coming from the scarlet is not good
 
but doing that you loose any benefit of oversampling you are in effect undersampling. The only reason to do that is if there is some beneficial trade of like increased frame rates, ala crop modes. And when shooting in cropped modes you need to apply very specific sharpening as well as noise reduction and start by shooting the lowest possible redcode which is not available(on scarlet) at the higher resolutions like 4k thus if you were to undersample a 4k image it could potentially look worse than if you just shot it cropped with a better redcode in the first place.
 
You're cropping the sensor when you shoot 4K and then re-frame.

But, on your FS100 or GH2 you're using the full sensor to deliver a 1080P image.

You are windowing your sensor when you crop, so you're only seeing a limited benefit on any reframes - especially if you're extracting a 1080 or 2K crop from a 4K image... and, of course, getting a not very good result (as your crop is lowering your resolution).
 
Andy White said:
You're cropping the sensor when you shoot 4K and then re-frame.

But, on your FS100 or GH2 you're using the full sensor to deliver a 1080P image.

You are windowing your sensor when you crop, so you're only seeing a limited benefit on any reframes - especially if you're extracting a 1080 or 2K crop from a 4K image... and, of course, getting a not very good result (as your crop is lowering your resolution).
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I don't think you are understsnding what I'm saying I'm cropping the Scarlet and scaling up (zooming in) the FS100 in theory and what most people expect the scarlet shoot should be better. BTW when scaling up the FS100 to 4K. the scarlet doesn't any better
 
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scale the 4k to 1080, compare to fs100's 1080. Take a scarlet still at 4k and then blow up the fs100 to 4k and compare.

don't crop to test as no one would deliver like that it is not how you use the camera, maybe in extreme cases but for the most part you might use a bit of the extra res to crop and stabilize but not a 400x blow up. You scale scarlet to 1080 from 4k, fs100 you do nothing for 1080 deliver so you compare them there, so if you want crop the scaled scarlet 1080 and the normal fs100 1080. And for fun do the still test of scarlet at it normal res and the fs at a 400x blow up.
 
Andy Corleone said:
I don't think you are understsnding what I'm saying I'm cropping the Scarlet and scaling up (zooming in) the FS100 in theory and what most people expect the scarlet shoot should be better.
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You're doing it wrong. It is bad practice to shoot a 4k frame and just extract a 1080 selection from it. It wasn't designed to be used this way. You can use the extra res to crop/reframe for a 1080 deliverable, but you aren't supposed to take exactly a 1080 crop from the 4k image (better to try extracting a 3k frame from the 4k image, and scaling down to 1080p if that is what you are delivering, it will look great at 1080). You have a little room to reframe without it being noticeable, but the way you are working with it right now is definitely not the way to go.

You should always try to frame in camera, the extra res should be thought as a luxury for slight reframing. The point is not to shoot 4k and just extract a tiny portion of the pixels from the sensor, which is what you are doing
 
This guy is joking right? C'mon this has to be a joke.
 
If the final output is 1080p, the whole point should be to oversample or leaving maybe a little room for reframing. Red is all against line-skipping (therefore you have cropping the sensor at 3K, 2K and 1080p modes). I'm very curious what's 100% crop looks like on F5.
 
I did some test during the weekend, and find the 4K coming from the scarlet a bit disappointing. I don't even know if they are really 4K. When I compare 1080p vs 720p there is a considerable step up in resolution. but when I compare 1080p to Scarlet 4K the improvement is very minimal. I'm not saying is not improvement what I'm saying is very minimal.
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I'm loving the RAW format and all the potential of Grading and Adjustment but the advertised resolution I don't find it realistic. Just wondered if with the upcoming sony 4K cameras we re going to see something different and that was one of the reason of the sub-real price cut.

Don't take me wrong, I'm just wondered If I'm missing something?
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Oh c'mon!, don't tell me that you cannot see the difference from 1080p, take a look at those two images below, one is 5K resized to 720p, the other one is a 75% zoom resized from 5K to 720p too.
I almost can smell that woman in the second one, (just joking!). Try to do the same with a 1080p image, and see what happens. The resolution you are using, is probably fooling your eyes. Try 4K.
 

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With your workflow the Sony 4K cams won't even cut it. You should look into IMAX.

Andy Corleone said:
I did some test during the weekend, and find the 4K coming from the scarlet a bit disappointing. I don't even know if they are really 4K. When I compare 1080p vs 720p there is a considerable step up in resolution. but when I compare 1080p to Scarlet 4K the improvement is very minimal. I'm not saying is not improvement what I'm saying is very minimal.

I'm loving the RAW format and all the potential of Grading and Adjustment but the advertised resolution I don't find it realistic. Just wondered if with the upcoming sony 4K cameras we re going to see something different and that was one of the reason of the sub-real price cut.

Don't take me wrong, I'm just wondered If I'm missing something?
Click to expand...
 
I think anyone can do this Now:
grab a 4K RAW frame from the scarlet and load it to photoshop:
1) in Photoshop with the frame open Go to Layer tap /"duplicate Layer" and select "document" new
2) this new document select Image/Image Size/ and change it to 1920x960 pixels
3) Go to the Layer tap and select again "Duplicate Layer" but his time you wil sellect the original 4096x2048 pixel Image as the destination
4) you will end up with two images one 4K and the other one 1920x960 pixels in a different layer
5) Now select the Small 1080p one and scale up to match the 4096x2048 size

from now you can switch off and on the layers to compare the 4K Scarlet to the 1080p "Zoom in" Scarlet. you will notice some extra minimal resolution on the 4k but nothing great

For Comparison you can do the same with a 16MP to 8MP DSLR or with a 1080p to 720p and you will see how different the resolution is. while with the scarlet 4K o 2K is not that great.

Hope this make sense.
 
Joe Minuni said:
You're doing it wrong. It is bad practice to shoot a 4k frame and just extract a 1080 selection from it. It wasn't designed to be used this way. You can use the extra res to crop/reframe for a 1080 deliverable, but you aren't supposed to take exactly a 1080 crop from the 4k image (better to try extracting a 3k frame from the 4k image, and scaling down to 1080p if that is what you are delivering, it will look great at 1080). You have a little room to reframe without it being noticeable, but the way you are working with it right now is definitely not the way to go.

You should always try to frame in camera, the extra res should be thought as a luxury for slight reframing. The point is not to shoot 4k and just extract a tiny portion of the pixels from the sensor, which is what you are doing
Click to expand...

I shot 4k last Friday and punched in at 100% for some closeup shots when editing. You would not know the difference. Looks great. Get a good sharp lens and practice. <this last point is directed to the TS.
 
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