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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 :)

Arguments for Dragon over Arri Mini?

Arri has a very robust rental market. Probably very few owner/operators compared to RED. RED makes it impossible not to have ownership at some level. And have given back to its customer base a boat load of production value, that usually aggregates other opportunities.

Whatever the choice, it's a win/win. Own A and rent B. Own A and B. Own neither, rent A and B.
 
Sidney L. Plaut said:
well you cant really use "cheap" cfast cards on the alexa mini. only the Arri approved San disk and lexar x3600 models....
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I would be upset if RED offered a CFast adapter, similar to AJA CION. Certify it only for low bit rate applications.
 
Troy Smith said:
It's often times more then just seeing a few frame grabs, it's seeing how it feels in motion. All I know is when I watch movies shot on different cameras
they give a inherent different feel. Even if similar style and graded movie. Different film stocks have inherent characteristics, different digital sensors also have inherent characteristics.
Even the motion of arria and red feels very slightly different. Lets drop what is better, all i'm saying is they have inherent different qualities, i prefer one of the other, it's
a personal taste thing. You can also under certain lighting condition throw a 5d, hell even a iphone still in there.
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Sorry but this is just bull... time and time again have this been debunked by testers who tested out footage on people and asked about what camera was used and the answers are almost always totally random. You change the fact that you first tell us you can spot the difference through color and when I give examples you change it to that you need to see it in motion in order to tell the difference. My point is that the differences between the cameras are so small that if you choose primarily based on a loose idea about skin tones you prioritize the wrong things for a production. The two cameras are very different in their operation and workflow and THAT is what the choice should be based on.

Adrian Jebef said:
You do realize that those CFast cards are twice as fast as Red Mags, right? And they cost half the price?
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...and not as reliable. The speed of the media has nothing to do what the camera can do. The sensor and processing is not limited by the media, the Redmag are as fast as needed. This the same as people saying that they want faster cables like Thunderbolt2 for their external drives that consist of only one 7200 RPM drive. I feel like a broken record.
 
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Ugo Del said:
Well it's not that easy to guess bad graded alexa footages for sure. But just watching a few seconds of the video 6 and you can immediately tell it's alexa, nice colors separation, soft skins with great colors, nothing harsh.
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Or you might know before hand what it was shot on :tongue_smilie:
The point being is that these are high budget productions and the "look" that they went for on these show that it doesn't matter what camera. Most of the time, Red has been used on productions which have featured a lot of heavy pushed grading and people seem to connect that look to Red, which is insane. The look that is being created in post removes all characteristics of a certain cameras internal gamma. Yes, if you just blasted on the Redgamma4 and rec709 on the Alexa you will see a difference, but all productions go through color grading and after it's done there are few who can without first hand knowledge, tell the difference when sitting down in front of a movie.

So the bottom line is; to choose Arri or Red based on color science and "a look" is the last thing people should do. They should choose based on the operation of the camera, what resolution that is needed, size, RAW, proxies and so on. What camera works best for the project you will do through a purely workflow-based perspective. If you don't get colors that look good on either camera you aren't experienced enough with color grading as a profession and that has nothing to do with the camera chosen. I've seen shit form both cameras and works of beauty from both sides as well, it all comes down to the competence of the team and post production workforce. The debate on what camera gives the "best images" is just bullshit today, seriously.
 
It doesn't take a lot of time to make Alexa footage look like RED, but it takes much much more to make RED footage look like Alexa, and it's still not quite there. This I know from experience
 
As mentioned earlier, rent both and choose the best for your situation. You wouldn't buy a new car without test driving it first would you?
 
Christoffer Glans said:
...and not as reliable. The speed of the media has nothing to do what the camera can do. The sensor and processing is not limited by the media, the Redmag are as fast as needed. This the same as people saying that they want faster cables like Thunderbolt2 for their external drives that consist of only one 7200 RPM drive. I feel like a broken record.
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Why its not reliable? Alexa Mini uses Cfast cards.
 
Ugo Del said:
Well, I guess everyone has different tastes, think differently, or see differently. I shoot on Red because they make good cameras, and they're kind of cheap. But I watch all the shot-on-red movies I can find and I've never been in love with any of them regarding the image. But there are tons of movies that look gorgeous to my eyes shot on alexa. No need to patronize or tell people what they should think or do, just do it your way and respect others' way.
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Yes, definitely, but you tell these things as facts, like there is a difference that everyone can tell miles away, which simply isn't the truth since I've fooled so many people so many times who think they can see what's what. It's far from any hard fact and the trend of praising Arris skin tones is so over the top that it hurts businesses who shoot Dragon. There are so many idiot-producers who just listen to baised people and can't ever possibly think of shooting Red because that camera isn't as godlike as Arri. It's a jargon that creates so much problems by putting the real hard facts, the workflow and workings of the cameras in shade and I'm tired of always having to prove to producers because of all these people who tell subjective opinions as hard facts.

And that cinematographers are idiots is something you are saying now, that has never been said in here. I don't know why you twist words and sentences like that, but the idiots mentioned are perhaps the incompetent people I'm referring to? The ones who tell producers that they are colorists and cinematographers when they have little to no actual field experience, lighting experience or color grading experience. The magnitude of wannabies who rage online with their truths is hurting actual professionals businesses.

To choose a camera primarily based on a "look" IS not recommended on the professional arena. HOW a camera works on a production is everything. Arri, Sony and Red all gives enough color information for you to reach whatever look you want.
To say that Arri is easier to grade than Red is also not true. This are comments from the old days of the One and MX sensor, which were hard to pull into nice colors, Dragon isn't like that. It takes the same amount of energy, creatively and time to get a look from Arri material as Dragon material. And if anyone struggles it's probably because of experience. I've worked with Sony, Arri and Red material for 9-10 years now and I don't have any problem when grading. The problems are always the creative choices, NOT that the cameras have limited performance.

Kemalettin Sert said:
Why its not reliable? Alexa Mini uses Cfast cards.
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Because the Red Mags are made strictly for the workings of a Red camera. Third party media is always a greater risk in reliability. Mixing firmware and many different companies between media and camera is by all numbers more unreliable. Yes, you can get reliable CFast cards, but if actually comparing reliability, the statistics don't lie. Also, how good is the data recovery on the CFast? People seem to forget that Redmags can be almost completely destroyed and you still have a chance of saving the material.
 
Thanks this is great.. As per your suggestion .....Yesterday and last night we did a side by side test with the cameras. It was a great test and I think everyone was shock at just how close the cameras looked. I did notice that Dragon had a slight green tinge to it, but when we shot at night it wasn't there. I now think it was coming from the Tiffin NDs we were using during the day. The internal ND in the mini seems to be really true with no hue change. I wish we put a matt box on the Arri and used the same NDs as I am sure it would have given us a most closer result. I will let you know what the out come of the test is after post is done and management looks at it. For me its a no brainer ,you have two cameras that look so similar and one of the cameras shoots 6K with all kinds of other advantages like frame rates etc.
But I would like to know is there any NDs that are out there that don't have a color shift to them that we can use in a matt box?
Does anyone know who makes the ND inside the Mini as that glass has no shift at all.

Thanks for everybody's help ...This site really rocks.
 
An other thing I did notice playing back the footage we shot yesterday it looks like the Mini has some sort of sharpening going on. On the close shots we did I noticed that the Mini has some sort of electronic look to it not smooth like the Red. I thought with shooting 6k the Red would be the camera that would look super sharp and not as pleasing on extreme close shots but to my surprise the Red was the camera that looked smooth and the Arri mini looked electric. Does anyone know if Arri has any built in electronic sharpening. I looked in the camera menu which is a pain compared to touch screen and could find any adjustment for sharpening.
Thanks Again
 
richiel said:
An other thing I did notice playing back the footage we shot yesterday it looks like the Mini has some sort of sharpening going on. On the close shots we did I noticed that the Mini has some sort of electronic look to it not smooth like the Red. I thought with shooting 6k the Red would be the camera that would look super sharp and not as pleasing on extreme close shots but to my surprise the Red was the camera that looked smooth and the Arri mini looked electric. Does anyone know if Arri has any built in electronic sharpening. I looked in the camera menu which is a pain compared to touch screen and could find any adjustment for sharpening.
Thanks Again
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What format did you shoot with the Mini? There are sharpening options in the menu for higher than HD acquisition. And what display are you viewing the material on?
 
richiel said:
Thanks this is great.. As per your suggestion .....Yesterday and last night we did a side by side test with the cameras. It was a great test and I think everyone was shock at just how close the cameras looked. I did notice that Dragon had a slight green tinge to it, but when we shot at night it wasn't there. I now think it was coming from the Tiffin NDs we were using during the day. The internal ND in the mini seems to be really true with no hue change. I wish we put a matt box on the Arri and used the same NDs as I am sure it would have given us a most closer result. I will let you know what the out come of the test is after post is done and management looks at it. For me its a no brainer ,you have two cameras that look so similar and one of the cameras shoots 6K with all kinds of other advantages like frame rates etc.
But I would like to know is there any NDs that are out there that don't have a color shift to them that we can use in a matt box?
Does anyone know who makes the ND inside the Mini as that glass has no shift at all.

Thanks for everybody's help ...This site really rocks.
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Great that you got around to test both, that's always key to making a choice. The green tint could also have been the actual tint setting on the RAW settings, maybe try and neutralize the image RAW settings in post and see how you feel about the tint then. NDs do affect colors, so I would recommend getting IR NDs if you want to be hundred percent safe about the colors. However, if you shoot with the STH OLPF on the Weapon you won't need to since it caps the IR. The Minis internal NDs already have IR blockers. Was the NDs new or old? Old filters also tend to change a little over the years. Getting Tiffen IR filters is a safe bet though and check the white balance settings on the RAW files, in some lights a good white balance will tweak the tint that in other situations would make the entire image green or magenta.

richiel said:
An other thing I did notice playing back the footage we shot yesterday it looks like the Mini has some sort of sharpening going on. On the close shots we did I noticed that the Mini has some sort of electronic look to it not smooth like the Red. I thought with shooting 6k the Red would be the camera that would look super sharp and not as pleasing on extreme close shots but to my surprise the Red was the camera that looked smooth and the Arri mini looked electric. Does anyone know if Arri has any built in electronic sharpening. I looked in the camera menu which is a pain compared to touch screen and could find any adjustment for sharpening.
Thanks Again
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Ugh, hate in camera sharpening. Thing is that because Red shoots RAW, you can sharpen it in the RAW settings, but the reason it's smooth is because of the OLPF reducing any moire and aliasing, it's almost impossible to get that with a Red camera. Sharpness and resolution are really separate entities though and they all depend on the lenses. If you take Leica Summiluxes or Master Primes and shoot at T4 you will see how sharp Red is. It's also meant to be downscaled to 4K. There's no distribution format that's available in 5K or 6K, the reason for 6K is to enable reframing, stabilizing and manipulation while giving a superb 4K downscale. So try some very very sharp lenses (even the Canon CN-Es are extremely sharp at T4) and shoot at T4-5.6 at ISO 320-800 and see how it feels. If you want, apply some high pass sharpening in Redcine as well, you will see how sharp it really is :)
 
Demetri Zuev said:
It doesn't take a lot of time to make Alexa footage look like RED, but it takes much much more to make RED footage look like Alexa, and it's still not quite there. This I know from experience
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Make me ALEXA's footage as sharp as RED's!
Take Your time...
 
Šabović Adis;1615039 said:
Make me ALEXA's footage as sharp as RED's!
Take Your time...
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I was talking more about color, contrast etc.

I don't like super sharp images anyway, kills the magic for me.
 

This is a short film by a friend of mine, shot on actual film and usually when people talk "film" they have this look in mind, not Fincher film era features. And Alexa looks a lot like that, that is why it's so popular imo. To get RED to this kind of look take a lot of time due to various factors.

And here's another example from a commercials realm. Shot on film too, easy to make such an image with Alexa, not so much with a RED. I personally don't care about sharpness here at all.


Šabović Adis;1615050 said:
Really?!
Do You wear sharpness-softening glasses all day?
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Trolling much?
 
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Demetri Zuev said:

This is a short film by a friend of mine, shot on actual film and usually when people talk "film" they have this look in mind, not Fincher film era features. And Alexa looks a lot like that, that is why it's so popular imo. To get RED to this kind of look take a lot of time due to various factors.
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Have You any idea why digital came to be in the first place?


Demetri Zuev said:
Trolling much?
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Can't see what You wrote there-too blurry.
Try again, and sharpen a bit!
 
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