A Large Format Cinema Camera Test

[rand thompson]

A Large Format Cinema Camera Test


By
Adorama

AdoramaTV and Adorama Rentals partnered together with director and DP Julien Jarry and his close friends to bring you this large format camera test featuring the Arri Alexa Mini LF, Sony Venice, Red Monstro, Canon C500 Mark ii, Sony A7siii, and Panasonic S1H.

The crew created three different sets and kept most all settings constant as they tested the cameras for color, tone, dynamic range, and overall feel. As Julien states, in 2021, we know camera technology is so good that these tests were really geared towards how a camera and its image made his crew feel and less about which camera might be better than the other.

There are a few large-format camera tests online but this head-to-head really shows the intricacies and differences between the six cameras within the very well-controlled scenes.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

This was quite useful, although I would have liked to see a light source test (in-focus LEDs at various voltages). The only camera that I wouldn't use is the Canon. Although what is the point of the Venice, really? I also noted that ISO seemed to be all over the place - isn't the point of ISO the benefit of having a STANDARD? I liked how they use sodium lights in one of the scenes. That's useful data to have.

Notable is that apparent DOF was different between the cameras. I wonder why that is? Were they not exactly the same distance from the subject?

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Here is my test between the RED Monstro with Low light OLPF and the Sony a7s3.


I've learned (even after using RED 12 years...) Compression is a decisive factor to reduce muddy noise and whenever the scene contains a lot of fine details. Very important to be lower or equal to 8:1.
5:1 to 2:1 the results are very close.
The Monstro with LLO can be easily be used with 3200 and + iso as the picture still is with low noise (don't shoot it at 800iso) this sensors sees in the dark, it's not an Alev.

Slog3-Sgmut 3 with the A7s3 dosen't hold better highlights nor low lights better than Slog2-Sgamut. I rather go Slog2-Sgamut to have a picture closer to 709 than Slog3-Sgamut3
XAVCS-I isn't a better codec if the pictures isn't changing fast from one frame to the other like in a nightclub. Compression holds better in XAVC-S 422 10b 140mb VS XAVCS-I with a higher bitrate.

The a7s3 is impressively good, even if there is some amount of sharpening happening. Monstro has a naturally softer look but I still don't know if it's due to RESOLVE's resizing algorithm used. I would rather use Sharper or Bicubic than Smoother. Color wise the Monstro is very close to a natural reproduction whereas A7s3 has a more "baken in look" to it. You need to know how to treat the r3d to get the most out of it. I prefer to go the RWG/L3G10 route and applay an output lut rather than use the colorspace transform in the RAW tab.

Here is the link to the download.

Tell me what you think. (and be gentle ;-)

new link

https://www.swisstransfer.com/d/c980bd7a-c652-45ed-b18a-58778af7238d


See you
Patrick

Ps: shot with the kippertie revolva and rokinon 50mm lens.
PS2: please use the footage but don’t post picures here. ;-)

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Hell is that A7s3 good for that price point!
Now the devil is in the details. We should see the raw to get into those details.
But tech is at a such level that we need to pixel peep to see any difference.