Any Hobbyists Buying a Scarlet X?

[Tom Wardrop]

With the cost of the Scarlet X pushing it slightly beyond the reach of many hobbyists and indie film makers, I'm wondering whether there is anyone who's buying a Scarlet without any intention of using it to make money? If so, I'd like to know what you plan to use it for, e.g. short films, documentaries, utility (web videos, family videos, experiments, etc), as a weekend hobby, other personal projects...? Can you also share what exactly you bought as far as accessories go, and what lenses you plan to buy for or use with it.

 

[Malvin Ng]

With the cost of the Scarlet X pushing it slightly beyond the reach of many hobbyists and indie film makers, I'm wondering whether there is anyone who's buying a Scarlet without any intention of using it to make money? If so, I'd like to know what you plan to use it for, e.g. short films, documentaries, utility (web videos, family videos, experiments, etc), as a weekend hobby, other personal projects...? Can you also share what exactly you bought as far as accessories go, and what lenses you plan to buy for or use with it.

I might

 

[Josef Gatti]

To the dismay of basically everyone around me, I am one of those, in a way. I work for a commercial TV network and are a sole trader so it's fully tax deductible to me.

But yeah, my intentions are primarily making shorts to an eventual feature. I'm sure I'll make money off it, but that's not it's purpose. Don't get me wrong, it took a lot for me to hit that order button, has taken me 18 months to save this much. Figure I'll just go for broke. What's the worse that can happen?

 

[Nick Wernham]

I suppose that in a sense my brother Simon and I might fall into this category. I am a director who to this point has shot almost exclusively on film (16mm in film school and two perf 35mm for our production company's first project) and probably will continue to do so on our more elaborate projects. Simon is the producer in the team and he loves film too (yes, they exist... producers who love film). The Scarlet-X will see professional use on those shoots as a B-camera, but largely its role will be to serve as a workhorse for our company's small and medium-sized projects as well as our own personal work. We'd been planning on investing in a camera package for a while and the Scarlet is the one that we were waiting for. It came out in our price range and we'll get a lot of use out of it even if that use doesn't happen to fall on the "money-making ventures" side of things a lot of the time. Who knows though? I might love the thing so much that it winds up getting more prominent use on our main projects.

 

[Philipp Straehl]

I'm not decided yet because I would prefer Epic's higher frame rates - and Epic is out of reach for a personal camera. The same with lenses. I am not experienced enough to tell beforehand how lenses would perform with a cropped sensor in low light situations. When I have this information, it is possible that I will order a Scarlet. For personal use, learning, and eventually realising my cinematographic ideas. But it is also possible that I will keep my money and wait a couple of years until technology has advanced further.

 

[Sergio Perez]

I think there are hobbyist owners for even Epic cameras...It's not that expensive for the wealthy...(not me, by the way. I'm in the sweat and tears camp )

 

[Lars Wikstrom]

I am in the camp of opting out of this camera, although I might rent it for any large spots. I make local commercials for restaurants and shops. I added a 7D to my HVX-200 collection and shoot most of my high end work on the 7D, which I and my clients are very happy with the quality. I love the fact of adding the Scarlet to my work flow but I could not charge any more for mom and pop shops. Plus with the Scarlet work flow I would be adding many hours to shooting and editing with all the processing. If the camera were about half the price I could see adding it for the rare project. But none the less, I am happy Red finally released it and wish them much deserved success.

I am sure that Red is designing an even lower end, lower priced high quality camera sometime down the road. The Scarlet will kill the C300 Canon camera before its even released, but it won't touch the Canon 7D / T3i market because of simple price point. I could see Canon in panic mode right now and cutting the cost of C300 in half to try and compete.

 

[Nick Wernham]

I am in the camp of opting out of this camera, although I might rent it for any large spots. I make local commercials for restaurants and shops. I added a 7D to my HVX-200 collection and shoot most of my high end work on the 7D, which I and my clients are very happy with the quality. I love the fact of adding the Scarlet to my work flow but I could not charge any more for mom and pop shops. Plus with the Scarlet work flow I would be adding many hours to shooting and editing with all the processing. If the camera were about half the price I could see adding it for the rare project. But none the less, I am happy Red finally released it and wish them much deserved success.

I am sure that Red is designing an even lower end, lower priced high quality camera sometime down the road. The Scarlet will kill the C300 Canon camera before its even released, but it won't touch the Canon 7D / T3i market because of simple price point. I could see Canon in panic mode right now and cutting the cost of C300 in half to try and compete.

Let's say that somehow in March we're at a point where for $20k you can get a Scarlet-X with a couple of nice lenses and most of the basic accessories that you'd want (including a Redmote, some extra Redvolts and some extra Redmags) and you can get an EOS 300C with a similar set of extras for $10k (not bloody likely, but bear with me here). Is there anybody who could honestly say that the Canon represents a better value even at that kind of difference in price? Does the AF100 offer a similar priceerformance ratio to the Scarlet-X? Not really. The 300C is better than the AF100, but it's not so much better that it can cost 2.5-3 times as much as the AF100 to get out the door and shooting comfortably.

Canon's camera is fine. In my opinion they just misread the market badly and priced it very poorly.

 

[Tom Wardrop]

I think there are hobbyist owners for even Epic cameras...It's not that expensive for the wealthy...(not me, by the way. I'm in the sweat and tears camp )

Yeah, if I was the type who could drop $60k on a car, I would have my $10k second hand car and $50k EPIC + Accessories in no time.

 

[Denis Haineault]

As a serious hobbyist, I've been waiting for 4 years for Scarlet to come out. Scarlet-X is a kick-ass camera, but it's out of my reach.

I'll be making a decision in the next month or so as to what alternative I'll get...something like the Panasonic AF100 is a likely candidate.

 

[Janos Potecki]

i would drop just $2k on a car and the rest on a epic + accessories ;-)
but now I just can affort a Scarlet-X

I am one of those hobbyists and I am going to shoot mainly wakeboarding vids and mybe some amateur short storys..

 

[Lars Wikstrom]

Let's say that somehow in March we're at a point where for $20k you can get a Scarlet-X with a couple of nice lenses and most of the basic accessories that you'd want (including a Redmote, some extra Redvolts and some extra Redmags) and you can get an EOS 300C with a similar set of extras for $10k (not bloody likely, but bear with me here). Is there anybody who could honestly say that the Canon represents a better value even at that kind of difference in price? Does the AF100 offer a similar priceerformance ratio to the Scarlet-X? Not really. The 300C is better than the AF100, but it's not so much better that it can cost 2.5-3 times as much as the AF100 to get out the door and shooting comfortably.

Canon's camera is fine. In my opinion they just misread the market badly and priced it very poorly.

I agree. I was waiting for the Scarlet 2 years ago and got tiered of waiting and bought the 7D. I can see a huge difference from my HVX-200 to the 7D with dynamic range and low light capabilities. But I don't see a crazy huge difference from the 7D to the Scarlet when looking at the final product on TV (I should say epic footage and test shots of the scarlet from the past posts.) I wish I was back in college 15 years ago when I could think big and buy a hobby camera but today they need to make me money to justify. Mom and Pop shops don't care. I think that inner film making nerd still lives in my which is why I like the thought of owning a camera. But the end product will more then likely add more time then a big noticeable difference in quality. I will be curious if rental houses will have a reasonably priced rates for that one job I get every couple of years. I do know we live in a very exciting time where we have lots to pick from.

 

[David Dwyer]

I'm trying to set up from my Sony Z1 - I've had it for 6 years and film outdoor motorsports. The Z1 really holds up well but I'm looking to improve the image quality and future proof my camera.

I'm unsure about Lens - Is the zoom automatic ie via the camera? Or is it a manual movement? Of course depends on the lens
Audio - Not sure what to do there. I see there is a XLR mount but will the mic attach to the camera?

Weather Protection gear - This is the big one for me as I film in very dusty locations and then the following month I'll be filming in the cold/raining so I need to be able to protect the camera/lens/audio etc

 

[Petr Dvorak]

Yep lot of very rich soccer moms will buy it :biggrin:

 

[Emanuel A.]

I have plans to buy two EPIC-X also as hobbyist I have a Canon 5D Mark II (not as practically but) as new as in April of 2009 when I bought it. 100% selfish with it. Nobody else touches the Lady, only the resident Canon 'hobbyist' here And I love the camera but not for all the shots such as motion, for example. Aside a few of GH series. The hack has become the Little Lady a senior professional motion one Great small size factor camera BTW.

 

[Mike P.]

I have a feeling a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of r3d RAW... I wonder if there are any people who've placed an order without actually taking clips into RedCineX and tinkering around with them; sure they're much more flexible than prores-converted-h264, but it's not some secret sauce that allows you to shoot in absolute darkness without grain or make a bad shot look good. Plus the processing involved is longer/slower than pretty much any other "prosumer" format, even with a $5000 RedRocket, and I doubt all hobbyists have consider that.

I just anticipate people blindly buying and than finding out it doesn't magically make their shots look like Hollywood. Like Lars said, if you get a Scarlet and shoot pretty much exactly the same as you do now with your 7D/FS100/AF100/etc, there won't be a substantial difference in your final 1080p output... at least not enough for mom & pop to notice.

 

[Antonio Ribeiro]

i would drop just $2k on a car and the rest on a epic + accessories ;-)
but now I just can affort a Scarlet-X

I am one of those hobbyists and I am going to shoot mainly wakeboarding vids and mybe some amateur short storys..

You know what? just get rid of the 2K car (at that price it probably isn't worth having) :idea:and just buy some more accessories and keep the change for some soda. That's what I would do.

 

[Philipp Straehl]

I have a feeling a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of r3d RAW... I wonder if there are any people who've placed an order without actually taking clips into RedCineX and tinkering around with them; sure they're much more flexible than prores-converted-h264, but it's not some secret sauce that allows you to shoot in absolute darkness without grain or make a bad shot look good. Plus the processing involved is longer/slower than pretty much any other "prosumer" format, even with a $5000 RedRocket, and I doubt all hobbyists have consider that.

I just anticipate people blindly buying and than finding out it doesn't magically make their shots look like Hollywood. Like Lars said, if you get a Scarlet and shoot pretty much exactly the same as you do now with your 7D/FS100/AF100/etc, there won't be a substantial difference in your final 1080p output... at least not enough for mom & pop to notice.

in my case, the r3d file format is one of the main reasons why I want a Red camera. In 2008 you could download a lot of r3d's from redrelay, and I've been using those files excessively since then. Some clips I know frame by frame. The selective debayering makes it possible to edit r3d files on a netbook (which is not recommended, but technically possible)! That is, I believe, unique in the world, to have the full version and proxies of your choice in one single file. You can't do that with DNG or Cineon. This saves a lot of storage space and processing/time.

 

[Michael Dalton]

I think there are hobbyist owners for even Epic cameras...It's not that expensive for the wealthy...(not me, by the way. I'm in the sweat and tears camp )

I met a guy in Africa a couple of years ago who bought a Silicon 2k to shoot his hobby of airplanes. I think he had money to burn though. How many 5d's fully kitted out with all the L series lenses do you see. I would not be surprised if there is hobby Epic-M'er in the group.

 

[Yoav Yerushalmi]

I'm unsure about Lens - Is the zoom automatic ie via the camera? Or is it a manual movement? Of course depends on the lens
Audio - Not sure what to do there. I see there is a XLR mount but will the mic attach to the camera?

Two questions there:

Lens: No. Zoom is not automatically controlled by the camera. PL-mounts are really just a 'screw-in and lock' mount. No electronic connections at all, so the camera can't do anything with it. The Canon EF mount does support electronic control of the lens, but only the focus and aperture (and most likely you will NOT want focus running continuously).
There are electronic zoom controls that you can attach to the lens to 'rotate it to zoom', and then mount it where you can easily press it while shooting. Remember that this is intended as a 'narrative film camera'. You will normally have someone pulling focus, and setting zooming for you, while you shoot.

Microphone mount: The mic will not 'attach' to the camera unless you make it attach (it's not a built-in mic -- you have to buy your own mic). Remember that the camera is a little box, with possibly a handle, and possibly a monitor on top. Everything else will come from whatever you mount the box in/on. At the red store you can see a bunch of options under 'RAIL COMPONENTS'. Or you can find systems made by zacuto, redrock micro, and many others (as well as cheap knock-offs from India/China on ebay). Again, lots of configuration options, for lots of money.