Alexa vs. EPIC...

[Ivan McCullough]

Jim, I find messages like this regrettable.

The Epic is a terrific camera, as will be the F65 and is the Alexa and next year I look forward, finally, to Penelope.

But please, don't play games, using debayered numbers for one camera and undebayered for another, you're way ahead in any form of measurement so why play games?

Alexa can most certainly be owned, I know a number of DP's who own their own, this has always been part of ARRI's approach, I used to own a 435.

I don't understand when you're so far ahead and responsible for so much positive change in our industry why you feel the need to do this.

+1

Also being bluntly honest, for the next few months unless you are a RED customer already an Alexa is more ownable than an Epic.:coolgleamA:

These kind of pissing matches are silly for me. I totally understand why you are are so proud of your baby, but you do not need to defend it. We all make choices on which platform to shoot on based on our own taste and experience. We do not and should not listen to the advice of sales-people (not referring to Mr. Deakins) we trust ourselves.

 

[James Brundige]

Not sexy, but there are a lot of us

Not sexy, but there are a lot of us

Red has clearly succeeded in their mission to replace film, and is blowing away all others when image quality is the main concern. I use my Red whenever IQ is primary. However, there are still times when I use my Sony for two reasons: ease of audio and quick workflow.

If the news or episodic tv markets are important to Red (neither is film - based any more), you may want to consider two actions:
Make a pro res module or DNX module. (I know RAW is way better, but a good shooter can get it close enough for an RGB grade.)
Put audio pots on the Pro I/O module.

I'm not complaining about Red or the products which I love. Red has made the best film-style camera in the world. But there is an opportunity here to further penetrate other segments of our industry without touching the camera brain - the brilliant modular design makes this possible. If we an build out a Red to function as easily and quickly as a betacam, that may pay off in sales and industry-wide acceptance of Red. I know betacams are not cool, but there's a reason they were an industry mainstay for almost 20 years. People like Gibby can do this with a Red, but it requires some adaptations and a learning curve that not everybody is interested in. Here's a normal assignment: shoot an interview and 4 B roll setups in a morning, put files in Fedex by 5. I'd rather do this with my Red. I've owned an operated 5 Sonys, and I'm ready to sell the last one as soon as I can.

 

[Evangelos Achillopoulos]

One more... RED has a fast and really good forum... ALEXA has a good forum but woowww... veryyyy slowwww....

 

[John Bellari]

Is "Assembled in the USA" not an important difference?

(Not that anybody cares about Americans anymore, except Trump...

 

[James Brundige]

Jim, I find messages like this regrettable.

But please, don't play games, using debayered numbers for one camera and undebayered for another, you're way ahead in any form of measurement so why play games?

What figures do you suggest? How do you account for the extra filtering in Alexa, which helps DR but impacts resolution?

 

[James Brundige]

Is "Assembled in the USA" not an important difference?
)

only to Americans

 

[Gunleik Groven]

What figures do you suggest? How do you account for the extra filtering in Alexa, which helps DR but impacts resolution?

well. As it actually helps DR and and works pretty well, I see no reason to not just aknowledge that... It is hardly cheating...
And use some similar filtering on the RED whenever that is appropriate...

 

[Solomon Nero]

only to Americans

haha, honestly, being an American, I don't mind being proud when seeing a... i dunno...a fork...make in the usa, or something like that...but my camera? ...most of the best things made come from elsewhere...I don't care where its made honestly...as long as it functions as needed and advertised!

 

[David Dennis]

Alexa is made in Germany, is it not? Germans are known for making wonderful things.

I actually think it's more important to say that, in both cases, the cameras are made by people who care specifically about cameras, and not by Chinese contract manufacturers who don't know or care what the product is as long as it fits the spec.

D

 

[geoffboyle]

What figures do you suggest? How do you account for the extra filtering in Alexa, which helps DR but impacts resolution?

What do I suggest!!?

Simple either both cameras bayer figures, more comparable and less open to opinion, or debayer for both but this is open to opinion/interpretation.

Just a level playing field.

 

[Tom.Wong]

I think the primary advantage, RED has always has, has always been int he R3D. Nobody, and I say this again, NOBODY, has anything like it. Competitors can make cameras that can win in certain areas, like native dynamic range, have giant pixels but low res to gain intense low light abilities. Or super sample to death to gain everything. But R3D is the #1 reason (along with many others) for going with RED. It's as simple as a DSLR raw file brought into photoshop, and now with the new compression ratios, it also has all the information of your high end uncompressed recorders.

I'm probably gonna love the images out of the F65, just as I love the images out of RED too. but their only 4k recording solution is a bulky SR deck, that will cost half the price of the camera, and their SR storage (i call them the Hershey bars) will be several times more expensive than any SSD RED puts out when it reaches to their capacities (1 TB)

But i think all this leads back to another post Jim wrote. The cameras are here now, at every price point, there's no excuse of you not getting Hollywood quality images other than you not performing your craft correctly. Meaning back to the basic, as it always should have been. Lighting, story, acting, editing, the whole 9 yards.

 

[Elsie N]

I think the primary advantage, RED has always has, has always been int he R3D. Nobody, and I say this again, NOBODY, has anything like it. Competitors can make cameras that can win in certain areas, like native dynamic range, have giant pixels but low res to gain intense low light abilities. Or super sample to death to gain everything. But R3D is the #1 reason (along with many others) for going with RED. It's as simple as a DSLR raw file brought into photoshop, and now with the new compression ratios, it also has all the information of your high end uncompressed recorders.

I'm probably gonna love the images out of the F65, just as I love the images out of RED too. but their only 4k recording solution is a bulky SR deck, that will cost half the price of the camera, and their SR storage (i call them the Hershey bars) will be several times more expensive than any SSD RED puts out when it reaches to their capacities (1 TB)

But i think all this leads back to another post Jim wrote. The cameras are here now, at every price point, there's no excuse of you not getting Hollywood quality images other than you not performing your craft correctly. Meaning back to the basic, as it always should have been. Lighting, story, acting, editing, the whole 9 yards.

BINGO!! You get it Tom. It's not only the camera, but all things RED.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

I think the resolution numbers are accurate and measured resolution for both cameras. The only problem is that it seems to be an Epic 5K measurement vs Alexa 1080p ProRes measurement. The 2.8K Arriraw option will close the gap a bit but there's no doubt the Epic has several times the resolution of an Alexa. Eitherway, look forward to an updated measured resolution comparison - 5K Epic vs 2.8K Alexa debayered. Another field leveler would be measuring native DR on the Epic with a low-contrast filter like the one in Alexa.

Oh - and what about the price difference?

 

[James Brundige]

What do I suggest!!?

Simple either both cameras bayer figures, more comparable and less open to opinion, or debayer for both but this is open to opinion/interpretation.

Just a level playing field.

My question was more specific. I believe Epic debayers to about 4.5 K. What figure do you have in mind for Alexa? maybe 2 K? anybody? Of course there's much more to a look than that.

 

[Magnus Peterson]

In the sense that:

RED post is often considered "hard" while Alexa is considered "simple" - not really kidding.

Both can be very straight foreward to work with, and both often go through an offline in Rec/online in Cineon with some kind of transcode step in between. The beef in the RAW files is just much more fun, once you've done ythe exposure and lightening thingy you mentioned.

People often forget that working directly with the redcolor/redgamma image from set (which is NOT a good way to keep DR, but have some other advantages for simple workflows...) is very compareable to working with the Alexa at rec 709 (where the DR of the R1 MX and Alexa is actually very similar...)

the good thing for RED is the additional flexibility if you want it and know how to take advantage of it.

I get the same opinion from people shooting with Alexa," - Oh, the workflow is SO easy and the image look GREAT right away!" It's basically killing a lot of business. Last two months has been SLOW due to people prefering to go with Alexa instead of a RED MX camera.

 

[Ivan McCullough]

My question was more specific.

Actually it wasn't, your question was "What figures do you suggest?"

Geoff responded to that, as to accounting for filtering etc, Geoff stated clearly that its open to interpretation.

What Geoff was saying is that the playing field should be level, ie not looking at one of the cameras through rose-tinted glasses.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

What Geoff was saying is that the playing field should be level, ie not looking at one of the cameras through rose-tinted glasses.

Thus either:

Alexa is a 2.8k vs the Epics 5k (before debayer)

Or:
Alexa is 2k vs the Epics 4k or more, fully debyered

NOT:
Epic is 5k vs Alexa 1080, which are the extreme options on both cams.

One thing that speaks for the last example, though - is that these are the ways both cameras will probably mostly be shot:

Thus:
"4k debayered vs 1080 debayered" is probably the most practical meaningful comparison of resolution only for 95% of the shoots...

The next meaningful thing (as to resolution) is to look at compression artifacts and debayering artifacts.

 

[Ivan McCullough]

Thus either:

Alexa is a 2.8k vs the Epics 5k (before debayer)

Or:
Alexa is 2k vs the Epics 4k or more, fully debyered

NOT:
Epic is 5k vs Alexa 1080, which are the extreme options on both cams.

One thing that speaks for the last example, though - is that these are the ways both cameras will probably mostly be shot:

Thus:
"4k debayered vs 1080 debayered" is probably the most practical meaningful comparison of resolution only for 95% of the shoots...

The next meaningful thing (as to resolution) is to look at compression artifacts and debayering artifacts.

exactly

 

[IAN SUN]

The complication is that strictly based on frame sizes currently packaged by the cameras we are indeed looking at 1080/2K vs 5K.
This of course does not address measured resolution.

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

In the sense that:

RED post is often considered "hard" while Alexa is considered "simple" - not really kidding.

Both can be very straight foreward to work with, and both often go through an offline in Rec/online in Cineon with some kind of transcode step in between. The beef in the RAW files is just much more fun, once you've done ythe exposure and lightening thingy you mentioned.

People often forget that working directly with the redcolor/redgamma image from set (which is NOT a good way to keep DR, but have some other advantages for simple workflows...) is very compareable to working with the Alexa at rec 709 (where the DR of the R1 MX and Alexa is actually very similar...)

the good thing for RED is the additional flexibility if you want it and know how to take advantage of it.

The reason why Alexa is considered " simpler" is because people are still using an old outdated NLE like FCP than cannot handle native R3d...(hopefully this will change with FCPX)... those of us who have moved on to a more modern NLE, Alexa and red are no different when it comes to workflow and editing. Ironically, I find working with red and especially color grading red files much simpler. The flexibility in working with Raw files and 4k size is something I can't live without now...