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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 :)

alexa mini VS red weapon the hope is over

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Demetri Zuev said:
Mini is cool and hot on rental markets right now. But I wouldn't buy it today for one simple reason - that sensor is at its' last days, a new one is going to be out in a year or so, so it's wiser to wait.

And knowing ARRI, there won't be any generous sensor upgrade programs.
Click to expand...


that was a major reason ironically why i bought in. cuz my red will always be a rental unit via upgrades if i stay true to the never ending cash-flow of that plan. the arris rent and retire, so I'm planing on having a real fun former top sensor as my personal camera. ill also hopefully get in shape from the Red One like weight/size of my amira too lol! thats a side bonus, but a good way of approaching lifes problems as a challenge too. also, totally buying an easy rig, totally...

but I'm not sure what to do strategy wise...why would they be releasing SXT if a new sensor is this close to a release? and anyone with a mini or SXT will probably still be making cash hand over fist even as the new sensor shipments started to trickle out...some people have thought for years arri was on the brink of the new sensor, and its just repackaging/better technology the entire time. i was very critical of their frame rate limitation and coloring on set (in camera without a bunch of third party crap as looks/LUTs), they have taken notes from red too, and as competitors they along with our good old fashioned bitchin' have resulted in better products time and time again. our public and direct complaints improve product for us, the end users. so now my arri does a good looking 200fps at 2k, and has nifty coloring options...now they took the red small form factor on with the mini, its all good stuff for the market place, and I'm glad i have lots of choices in the market place.

I'm waiting to buy my way out my arris finance deal so i may just grab the SXT instead of mini due to being stuck in this deal another few months...also someone told me its a good idea market saturation wise too. the best idea is probably just buying my way out and waiting but afraid that the new sensor could drag out on me vs make money today is another issue to figure out. like its always a risk man, getting too heavy on this generation late in the game, but how many of us thought arri would still have this sensor out now with just new feature sets and hardware tweaks? regardless I'm sure one day ill be happy to have both the new and old arri/red sensors and even happier to shoot on "outdated" models...
 
Vadim Bobkovsky said:
Making fun of spelling is always hilarious, in any tongue.
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It's not the spelling. He spelled 'gorilla' correctly. I've never made fun of anybody's spelling.

It's the use of the word that doesn't mean what people think it means.
Not only that this word is being misused over and over again but people actually started production companies that contain the word "gorilla" in it.

Just thought was funny. Carry on.
 
Les Hillis said:
In response to the comments about the Dragon images not being film-like.

A couple of throwaway shots, just because they were there and I happened to be looking at them.

Scarlet Dragon
5K
24fps
1/48th
STH-OLPF
f/2
Last rays of sunlight
Adjusted in REDCINE-X
Uploaded as 4K MP4's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJPwty65fA

Same thing, but darker -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyFhS4dSei0

That's film-like enough for me.
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Without wanting to be confrontational - the colours don't look especially film-like to me but this is all opinion of course. Your impressions may vary and are totally valid. It depends on your definitions.

With a view to selecting a camera system for an upcoming shoot (where shooting Dragon makes a lot of sense for various reasons) I rewatched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night and it has a very "Red look" (as does Gone Girl) particularly in the non-continuous spectrum scenes (Her apartment at night , night exteriors, her hallway - scenes lit with fluorescent, sodium. LED) where there is a very saturated green spike and desaturated skin tones. Red 's gamma response is different - the shadows are harder and desaturated than the Arri. In fact Red seems to be more desaturated and crushy generally. Like a bleach bypass film print. Watch Ben Affleck's dark T-Shirt in Gone Girl - it's dropped off the bottom of the exposure range into a kind of grey or the scene where they meet at the party - the shadows are super crushed - his jumper etc. This is what I define as the Red look (David Fincher and Ridley Scott love it by the way so this is all by-the-by) - Red's colour/shadow response has a very strong signature look which I've never seen it escape. I think it's a fallacy that you can get any look out of a system just because it's Raw. Lighting plays a huge part of course but so does the inherent sensor response.

In The Martian trailer look at Jeff Daniels' face in the press conference (last shot) - he's an ashen grey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue4PCI0NamI

Now compare it to the skin tones in this (shot on film): (please skip the ads)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE

There's a huge richness to the skin tones in the second example and an openness to the shadow colour (even though it used Deluxe's CCE contrast enhancement process). Red always seems way more desaturated and crushed by comparison. This is not a bad thing of course but it is a signature that is ever present. Whether you like or dislike either look depends on your taste.

This greyish skin tone occurs quite a bit in The Martian trailer but the last shot is certainly the most striking example. Red's colour response seems like the shadows lose a lot of saturation as they diverge from a perfect exposure - this means that low-key photography is especially susceptible to this monochromatic effect on Red.

Alexa uses some trick to keep the saturation up as the shadows get more dense - making the skin tones look at lot more open and "full colour" and this is what I would essentially describe as the "film look" . I suspect some version of Red's HDRX (which the Alexa innately is through two distinct streams of sensor gain) might counter this desaturation effect but I can't test this as my cameras are out on a shoot at the moment.

In daylight all camera systems are harder to tell apart. The Arri is more forgiving in off-continuous situations in my experience (to wit - the sodium hued opening scene of Drive for example). Alexa seems to homogenise non-continuous lighting - LED's pop spiky green on the Red, more pastel on the Alexa. Same with Sodium. Again, your personal taste will determine which you prefer.


I'd love to find a way to get these low contrast but full saturation shadows on the Dragon. Maybe HDRX is the key - or flashing using a varicon? If anyone has any good stuff they've shot HDRX I'd love to see it. Any suggestions welcome.
 
to play devils advocate...if arri drops a new sensor at NAB next year (or 2017) do you still think the mini is a steal? or do you think getting ROI by this years NAB will be okay (bearing in mind current backorders don't ship to Feb)? That is the what if factor of the purchase, and how long can the previous generation chip stay a hot rental item...
 
Internal NDs are a "good thing" for sure when it comes to convenience. However, I am freaked out by the audience who says "it's a deal breaker", because it really shouldn't be. Front of the lens filtration is "overall" a better solution in reality when it comes to image quality.
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Phil, why are front of filters technically better?

I'm interested as in the world of smaller sensors they have offered less distortion when used with ultrawide lenses. Ditto very long focal lengths and at all focal lengths secondary reflections bouncing off the front filter are not a threat.
Since the filter wheel is sealed it means there are two less surfaces to gather dust and adversly affect image quality.

For jobs where time is critical the speed of changing nd equals getting the shot at the optimum aperture and or exposure.


All of the above effect image quality, the filter wheel like so many of our tools is more essential on some jobs than others.

The problem with an inbuilt nd filter wheel is that it generally can't be added to the kit list like a high hat or a long lens, so whilst you say it shouldnt be a deal breaker, for some, it is.

Perhaps Red is bound by something (technical or legal ) that wont allow a ND wheel in the optical path of their cameras, or that the electronic variable ND is still on the drawing board.

I hope it is the latter:)


Michael Brennan
 
I believe the word was that the swappable OLPF system was stopping red from putting internal ND's into the epic or Weapon bodies. It was an either or situation. (Personally I think they picked correctly but that is a topic for a different discussion)

That does beg the question though, if the RAVEN does not have swappable OLPF's why can't it have internal ND's? And that probably comes down to a simple costs issue. The main reason RAVEN is so cheap is that it took very little R&D (compared to Epic or Weapon) to get it off the ground. Adding in Internal ND's probably would have cost more then adding something like ProRes to RAVEN.
 
James T Mather said:
Without wanting to be confrontational - the colours don't look especially film-like to me but this is all opinion of course. Your impressions may vary and are totally valid. It depends on your definitions.

With a view to selecting a camera system for an upcoming shoot (where shooting Dragon makes a lot of sense for various reasons) I rewatched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night and it has a very "Red look" (as does Gone Girl) particularly in the non-continuous spectrum scenes (Her apartment at night , night exteriors, her hallway - scenes lit with fluorescent, sodium. LED) where there is a very saturated green spike and desaturated skin tones. Red 's gamma response is different - the shadows are harder and desaturated than the Arri. In fact Red seems to be more desaturated and crushy generally. Like a bleach bypass film print. Watch Ben Affleck's dark T-Shirt in Gone Girl - it's dropped off the bottom of the exposure range into a kind of grey or the scene where they meet at the party - the shadows are super crushed - his jumper etc. This is what I define as the Red look (David Fincher and Ridley Scott love it by the way so this is all by-the-by) - Red's colour/shadow response has a very strong signature look which I've never seen it escape. I think it's a fallacy that you can get any look out of a system just because it's Raw. Lighting plays a huge part of course but so does the inherent sensor response.

In The Martian trailer look at Jeff Daniels' face in the press conference (last shot) - he's an ashen grey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue4PCI0NamI

Now compare it to the skin tones in this (shot on film): (please skip the ads)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE

There's a huge richness to the skin tones in the second example and an openness to the shadow colour (even though it used Deluxe's CCE contrast enhancement process). Red always seems way more desaturated and crushed by comparison. This is not a bad thing of course but it is a signature that is ever present. Whether you like or dislike either look depends on your taste.

This greyish skin tone occurs quite a bit in The Martian trailer but the last shot is certainly the most striking example. Red's colour response seems like the shadows lose a lot of saturation as they diverge from a perfect exposure - this means that low-key photography is especially susceptible to this monochromatic effect on Red.

Alexa uses some trick to keep the saturation up as the shadows get more dense - making the skin tones look at lot more open and "full colour" and this is what I would essentially describe as the "film look" . I suspect some version of Red's HDRX (which the Alexa innately is through two distinct streams of sensor gain) might counter this desaturation effect but I can't test this as my cameras are out on a shoot at the moment.

In daylight all camera systems are harder to tell apart. The Arri is more forgiving in off-continuous situations in my experience (to wit - the sodium hued opening scene of Drive for example). Alexa seems to homogenise non-continuous lighting - LED's pop spiky green on the Red, more pastel on the Alexa. Same with Sodium. Again, your personal taste will determine which you prefer.


I'd love to find a way to get these low contrast but full saturation shadows on the Dragon. Maybe HDRX is the key - or flashing using a varicon? If anyone has any good stuff they've shot HDRX I'd love to see it. Any suggestions welcome.
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I tend to agree with James. I think you need more fill when shooting with MX or Dragon in order to get more dark area saturation as well as low-end tonal response. RED sensor tech has also had that unfortunate tendency (IMO) to simply leave out certain tonal and color response. The sodium vapor test I did a couple of years ago really makes this obvious. Both the Alexa and F65 could reproduce orange/red but the Epic only saw yellow/green.

https://vimeo.com/69557367 at the 05:32 mark

Things have gotten better with Dragon so I'm hopeful for more in the future.
 
@James

I think you're onto something with the two sensor gains. As to DR and saturation it has been a good way to compensate for linear light response.

Been a while since I have systematically looking into this on Dragon. Mostly just ben happy camping, but one of the things I remember I really loved about it when getting the beta, was the saturation response throughout the exposure range. But your comment makes me want to re-visit that.

Highlights and color are what I love the most about the Dragon sensor, though. The different OLPFs I have had (3) have affected the image to a larger extent than I would have thought

r
 
James T Mather said:
Without wanting to be confrontational - the colours don't look especially film-like to me but this is all opinion of course. Your impressions may vary and are totally valid. It depends on your definitions.

With a view to selecting a camera system for an upcoming shoot (where shooting Dragon makes a lot of sense for various reasons) I rewatched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night and it has a very "Red look" (as does Gone Girl) particularly in the non-continuous spectrum scenes (Her apartment at night , night exteriors, her hallway - scenes lit with fluorescent, sodium. LED) where there is a very saturated green spike and desaturated skin tones. Red 's gamma response is different - the shadows are harder and desaturated than the Arri. In fact Red seems to be more desaturated and crushy generally. Like a bleach bypass film print. Watch Ben Affleck's dark T-Shirt in Gone Girl - it's dropped off the bottom of the exposure range into a kind of grey or the scene where they meet at the party - the shadows are super crushed - his jumper etc. This is what I define as the Red look (David Fincher and Ridley Scott love it by the way so this is all by-the-by) - Red's colour/shadow response has a very strong signature look which I've never seen it escape. I think it's a fallacy that you can get any look out of a system just because it's Raw. Lighting plays a huge part of course but so does the inherent sensor response.

In The Martian trailer look at Jeff Daniels' face in the press conference (last shot) - he's an ashen grey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue4PCI0NamI

Now compare it to the skin tones in this (shot on film): (please skip the ads)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE

There's a huge richness to the skin tones in the second example and an openness to the shadow colour (even though it used Deluxe's CCE contrast enhancement process). Red always seems way more desaturated and crushed by comparison. This is not a bad thing of course but it is a signature that is ever present. Whether you like or dislike either look depends on your taste.

This greyish skin tone occurs quite a bit in The Martian trailer but the last shot is certainly the most striking example. Red's colour response seems like the shadows lose a lot of saturation as they diverge from a perfect exposure - this means that low-key photography is especially susceptible to this monochromatic effect on Red.

Alexa uses some trick to keep the saturation up as the shadows get more dense - making the skin tones look at lot more open and "full colour" and this is what I would essentially describe as the "film look" . I suspect some version of Red's HDRX (which the Alexa innately is through two distinct streams of sensor gain) might counter this desaturation effect but I can't test this as my cameras are out on a shoot at the moment.

In daylight all camera systems are harder to tell apart. The Arri is more forgiving in off-continuous situations in my experience (to wit - the sodium hued opening scene of Drive for example). Alexa seems to homogenise non-continuous lighting - LED's pop spiky green on the Red, more pastel on the Alexa. Same with Sodium. Again, your personal taste will determine which you prefer.


I'd love to find a way to get these low contrast but full saturation shadows on the Dragon. Maybe HDRX is the key - or flashing using a varicon? If anyone has any good stuff they've shot HDRX I'd love to see it. Any suggestions welcome.
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Totally agree about the greyish skin tones.

I have frequently graded RED images for both myself and others, including the newest manifestations from their system. Without a doubt, I still encounter "wooden" skin tones (lacking in nuance) compared to ARRI. I am not sure why, but I feel there is still an issue in the red spectrum which results in a lack of contour and depth with faces. Of course if you shoot a close up and fill the frame it's fine, but when going to mid's I frequently encounter this problem. Fine skin tones take a lot of artistry to achieve, therefore when the subject concerns people, I turn elsewhere than RED. However, if you want a more dramatic, action or object driven image, I think RED is a great choice. To make a gross simplification, I would view this comparison like the difference between modern Cooke and Zeiss lenses. Cooke is softer and more forgiving for skin tones and generally more flattering for faces, Zeiss is harder and more attractive for still lives, objects, etc.
 
Dan Kanes said:
Cool.

go shoot some great stuff And post it online or whatever.

Did you know there is even an Arri forum to talk about this with those guys?

Fantastic stuff! Nothing new we are learning here really.
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Yes, the only opinions allowed on RedUser are the ones that lick Red's bum.
 
luigivaltulini said:
It is your humble opinion, rightly so.
But is not the reality. Simply.
If you want to justify your money well spent then we can discuss.
I have owned 3 Alexa, and now I still hold a Ev.
The comparison I should do with Dragon or Weapon, not with Scarlet with that price.
The roll off of Dragon and practically the same, if thou wouldst better than Alexa then you can just use the filters low cow 2 of Kippertie, and you will be happy, simple. And even more organic Alexa. If it is there where you wanted to go.
Be watching for controls integrated WIFI you're right it's a nice system.
But I do the same thing for years ,with Foolcontrol Cinegear, everything going well.
You spent $ 50 thousand and can not import lut3d !! This is a very useful thing to have, if possible, but with the Mini not possibile! con Weapon si..
I did not I would have never spent that money on a mini, I'd buy a nice used Xt or a weapon Cf.
But if you're happy for thee.

I forgot to, another good advice, buy another EVF for what you use on mini or Amira be unwatchable
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Both the Mini and the new SXT's have added support for 3D Luts, which is huge. The old looks-system was absolutely horrid to work with considering you basically have to shell out the money for Pomfort Livegrade to be able to create them when working with ProRes. I think they realized that after Amira.
 
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Christoffer Glans said:
Yeah, an overpriced piece of gear which is marketed as a 4K camera when it's rather a 3.4K camera with a debayer sensor upscale to even the lowest of the HR standards. A camera which needs additional equipment in order to record RAW based on a five-year old sensor tech. Either you are a troll or you are so under-informed on technology that you don't even see how wrong you are. Yeah, the Weapon is an expensive beast, but now with Raven you get a Raw and ProRes camera, capable of TRUE 4K at 3:1 compressed R3D, recorded to on-board media. It even comes as a dedicated drone/gimbal system for less than 10k, all inclusive except the drone/gimbal. I know one company that won't accept your camera, Netflix, because it isn't a true 4K camera.

So, go ahead with your Alexa Mini, while Red is listening and giving exactly what people needed for gimbals, you can continue to complain about them not doing it... weird.
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The Alexa Mini does UNCOMPRESSED Arriraw internally and Orange is the New Black is shot on Alexa.
 
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The XT, SXT, and Mini do it internally or externally. If you need to go longer than 14 min the best bet would probably be an external Codex-recorder. I don't imagine it will take long until CFast cards are available in larger sizes though.
 
Oscar Stegland said:
The Alexa Mini does UNCOMPRESSED Arriraw internally and Orange is the New Black is shot on Alexa.
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You are correct in the future, the Mini will do uncompressed ARRIRAW up to 30 fps internally via the upcoming update (software license required).

You are incorrect in the present day. The most recent season of Orange is the Black is being shot on the Varicam 35 to fit the delivery requirements set forth by Netflix. The show has been "on the air" longer than those delivery requirements, but they have since made the switch.
 
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