@ Josh Snyder - I disagree with your broadsweeping generalization.
I'm going to generalize that in my opinion, viewing on a high definition monitor, on a set, that the Alexa looks more like a High Definition Video Camera. Why? Because of the motion characteristic, and the fact that it is slightly more than 1080p being downsampled to 1080p - so really it is a "digital video camera" as defined by the fact that it is producing "video" images as its output (barring arri-raw of course).
The Epic is A Digital Cinema Camera - because of the imaging philosophy behind what it does. See, it records a series of digital negatives - raw stills - at 24 or more frames per second. This is much more akin to "real" "film" "camera"
It is the Imaging Philosophy behind the Red system that makes the pictures so good.
The "Smoothing" characteristic of Red's even higher oversampling is what makes it look "like film."
Anyone can see this evident in the "Milk Girls" clip produced with the original Red One Prototypes. In fact, when I saw that footage at first, I was one of the people who said "There is no way this came out of a digital camera - this must be film and this can't be real. This was a long time ago. Needless to say color science and other technologies have improved since then.
I would reckon, and I'm sure that Graeme Nattress could add some deeper fill-in here, the reason Red looks like film is that it closer emulates MTF characteristic of how film emulsion sees and records an image, when compared to a digital grid with a relatively closer level of real detail to perceived detail - i.e. the pixels in a 2.5k/1080 pixel image can actually be visibly picked out by our brains, where as a 3.5k or higher image "overwhelms" our brain stem and rings the "magic bell" in our brain that says "this is the intersection of reality and fiction that sparks our imagination" sort of the uncanny valley of the dream-world, if you will.
Two reasons that assistants, and generally hype-ists on the internet prefer Alexa:
One: "traditional" ergonomics - really "tradition" in general. Motion picture workers are notoriously averse to change. They are cranky. Learning anything new is often very painful and difficult for people who have "always done it by the book" - this is where Motion Picture industry workers and the military share some characteristics. We are often a bunch of surly misfits, but we have been told that:
1. There is a book of traditions we should always follow
2. There is no other way but the "right way"
3. It must done QUICKLY and with High Precision.
Arri is a name that carries over from the film days - days that many assistants, and some camera men and women yearn for - they built a camera that looks like an arri film camera. It works much like an arri film camera. It is literally idiot proof. It almost doesn't matter where you set your T stop. Almost. You will still get a picture
Two:
People hype Alexa. Name brand people, recognizable people. People that even non-industry types would recognize. The same could be said of Red. There are plenty of names that tout Red. It's a fine line between being The Rebel and being The Establishment. It's very hard to have it both ways. Nine out of ten times, Traditionalists - assistants espcially, want to go with the name they trust.
I've actually heard assistants say that Red is what killed their days of working with film.
This has created a vendetta in their minds. They hate Red. They don't understand or know Red, but they hate it.
And let me tell you - film workers are a surly bunch. They hold grudges - in fact many are so unwilling to even attempt to learn that they bad mouth the camera. You never hear anyone bad mouth an Alexa. Never mind that they didn't have playback when it came out, never mind that I've seen them crash and burn as many times (literally) as I've seen a Red One crash and burn. Once you upset a film-workers traditionalist world-view, it is very hard to gain ground. Yet, Red still has gained a phenomenal traction in this industry.
I for one, am deeply, deeply involved in it now as a "Red Person"
Why?
Because I spent a lot of time with it, and I find its image just so pleasing and rewarding to work with.
I don't feel that way about Alexa. Sure - I think Alexa is neat, and actually the dynamic range blew me away when I first saw it - but if you dig a little deeper you will say - well why is there a sort of constant Halation - OH I SEE - it's that ULTRA CONTRAST FILTER THEY USE FOR AN OLPF! Now I GET IT! That is if you are a technical nerd, like me.
Well - Mr. Snyder - it's time for me to go to bed because in the morning, I have to go to work, You see - I'm working with the Alexa tomorrow - and because Editors Still use Avid - and they want a Rental on their Adrenalin, or obnoxious Nitris or whatever confounded OLD as hell Avid hardware accelerator they have that doesn't support Prores, I have to ingest a supposedly ready to edit Prores format into the computer, apply a color transform, and then output Avid MXF files - so yep - I have to go from one compressed format, to another stupidly compressed format just to make the footage editable because someone doesn't want to change their workflow pipeline - oh, and since there isn't really decent hardware acceleration for that, its going to take me Time. So, now I have to work with a camera I personally don't think is the bees knees to make a crappy, old as hell workflow work, so that I can afford to continue the Semi-Luxe lifestyle I've gotten accustomed to.
But, Mr. Snyder - before I go I'd like to offer up a free invitation to you.
If you want to come to Los Angeles, and Rent or Borrow an Alexa from someone here, I will provide An Epic M, and a Lens package and we can shoot something - really - anything you choose - and I guarantee I can make the results from the Epic M better or indistinguishable from the Alexa. You can even choose the audience you want to vote on the blind-boxed images - and you can also judge for yourself.
I will handle the imaging pipeline for the Epic, and you can handle the image pipeline for the Alexa - or have the person of your choice do that for you.
I just need a one-week notice before we perform your test shoot.
If your test-audience finds the Epic images indistinguishable or better than the Alexa images, then you must publicly apologize for your hyperbolic statements.
If your test-audience finds the Epic images somewhat lacking, then I will eat my words and publicly state that the Alexa is "more film-like" in the eyes of the average viewer.
Let me know.
I'm going to generalize that in my opinion, viewing on a high definition monitor, on a set, that the Alexa looks more like a High Definition Video Camera. Why? Because of the motion characteristic, and the fact that it is slightly more than 1080p being downsampled to 1080p - so really it is a "digital video camera" as defined by the fact that it is producing "video" images as its output (barring arri-raw of course).
The Epic is A Digital Cinema Camera - because of the imaging philosophy behind what it does. See, it records a series of digital negatives - raw stills - at 24 or more frames per second. This is much more akin to "real" "film" "camera"
It is the Imaging Philosophy behind the Red system that makes the pictures so good.
The "Smoothing" characteristic of Red's even higher oversampling is what makes it look "like film."
Anyone can see this evident in the "Milk Girls" clip produced with the original Red One Prototypes. In fact, when I saw that footage at first, I was one of the people who said "There is no way this came out of a digital camera - this must be film and this can't be real. This was a long time ago. Needless to say color science and other technologies have improved since then.
I would reckon, and I'm sure that Graeme Nattress could add some deeper fill-in here, the reason Red looks like film is that it closer emulates MTF characteristic of how film emulsion sees and records an image, when compared to a digital grid with a relatively closer level of real detail to perceived detail - i.e. the pixels in a 2.5k/1080 pixel image can actually be visibly picked out by our brains, where as a 3.5k or higher image "overwhelms" our brain stem and rings the "magic bell" in our brain that says "this is the intersection of reality and fiction that sparks our imagination" sort of the uncanny valley of the dream-world, if you will.
Two reasons that assistants, and generally hype-ists on the internet prefer Alexa:
One: "traditional" ergonomics - really "tradition" in general. Motion picture workers are notoriously averse to change. They are cranky. Learning anything new is often very painful and difficult for people who have "always done it by the book" - this is where Motion Picture industry workers and the military share some characteristics. We are often a bunch of surly misfits, but we have been told that:
1. There is a book of traditions we should always follow
2. There is no other way but the "right way"
3. It must done QUICKLY and with High Precision.
Arri is a name that carries over from the film days - days that many assistants, and some camera men and women yearn for - they built a camera that looks like an arri film camera. It works much like an arri film camera. It is literally idiot proof. It almost doesn't matter where you set your T stop. Almost. You will still get a picture
Two:
People hype Alexa. Name brand people, recognizable people. People that even non-industry types would recognize. The same could be said of Red. There are plenty of names that tout Red. It's a fine line between being The Rebel and being The Establishment. It's very hard to have it both ways. Nine out of ten times, Traditionalists - assistants espcially, want to go with the name they trust.
I've actually heard assistants say that Red is what killed their days of working with film.
This has created a vendetta in their minds. They hate Red. They don't understand or know Red, but they hate it.
And let me tell you - film workers are a surly bunch. They hold grudges - in fact many are so unwilling to even attempt to learn that they bad mouth the camera. You never hear anyone bad mouth an Alexa. Never mind that they didn't have playback when it came out, never mind that I've seen them crash and burn as many times (literally) as I've seen a Red One crash and burn. Once you upset a film-workers traditionalist world-view, it is very hard to gain ground. Yet, Red still has gained a phenomenal traction in this industry.
I for one, am deeply, deeply involved in it now as a "Red Person"
Why?
Because I spent a lot of time with it, and I find its image just so pleasing and rewarding to work with.
I don't feel that way about Alexa. Sure - I think Alexa is neat, and actually the dynamic range blew me away when I first saw it - but if you dig a little deeper you will say - well why is there a sort of constant Halation - OH I SEE - it's that ULTRA CONTRAST FILTER THEY USE FOR AN OLPF! Now I GET IT! That is if you are a technical nerd, like me.
Well - Mr. Snyder - it's time for me to go to bed because in the morning, I have to go to work, You see - I'm working with the Alexa tomorrow - and because Editors Still use Avid - and they want a Rental on their Adrenalin, or obnoxious Nitris or whatever confounded OLD as hell Avid hardware accelerator they have that doesn't support Prores, I have to ingest a supposedly ready to edit Prores format into the computer, apply a color transform, and then output Avid MXF files - so yep - I have to go from one compressed format, to another stupidly compressed format just to make the footage editable because someone doesn't want to change their workflow pipeline - oh, and since there isn't really decent hardware acceleration for that, its going to take me Time. So, now I have to work with a camera I personally don't think is the bees knees to make a crappy, old as hell workflow work, so that I can afford to continue the Semi-Luxe lifestyle I've gotten accustomed to.
But, Mr. Snyder - before I go I'd like to offer up a free invitation to you.
If you want to come to Los Angeles, and Rent or Borrow an Alexa from someone here, I will provide An Epic M, and a Lens package and we can shoot something - really - anything you choose - and I guarantee I can make the results from the Epic M better or indistinguishable from the Alexa. You can even choose the audience you want to vote on the blind-boxed images - and you can also judge for yourself.
I will handle the imaging pipeline for the Epic, and you can handle the image pipeline for the Alexa - or have the person of your choice do that for you.
I just need a one-week notice before we perform your test shoot.
If your test-audience finds the Epic images indistinguishable or better than the Alexa images, then you must publicly apologize for your hyperbolic statements.
If your test-audience finds the Epic images somewhat lacking, then I will eat my words and publicly state that the Alexa is "more film-like" in the eyes of the average viewer.
Let me know.
