Arri Alexa and Mysterium-X...

[Jeff Coatney]

With robust development programs that are growing day by day, the future of all digital camera manufacturers is in good hands. It is clear that we have reached a tipping point. Finally, filmmakers at nearly every budgetary level in nearly every part of the globe can make amazing images.

There will no doubt be a battle over who's camera is best, but that question won't sink any ships anymore as long as development continues.

I'd love to see Arri and Kodak team up to make CYM separation archiving more affordable-- this is the best, most relevant use of analog film technology, IMO. This will be a very interesting NAB, I can't wait.

 

[Martin Stevens]

If someone could prove this Summer that the Alexa produced better images than a Scarlet S35 or an Epic S35, I really think the Red would still be the winner, because of it's pricing.

I will be buying a full Scarlet S35 package this Summer when it is available, because the price is very, very affordable compared to Alexa, and the imagery almost identical.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Guarantee that you'll get more features for your dollar on Scarlet and Epic, and more features regardless of price. More fps, and vastly more fps * pixels / dollar! While one camera cannot be everything to all people, I'm very confident on how applicable the RED cameras to cinematographers and to a wider variety of users beyond. And then there's image quality, for which you'll just have to wait and see what the magic pixies have been cooking as it is smelling rather good at the moment.

Graeme

 

[I Bloom]

Guarantee that you'll get more features for your dollar on Scarlet and Epic, and more features regardless of price. More fps, and vastly more fps * pixels / dollar! While one camera cannot be everything to all people, I'm very confident on how applicable the RED cameras to cinematographers and to a wider variety of users beyond. And then there's image quality, for which you'll just have to wait and see what the magic pixies have been cooking as it is smelling rather good at the moment.

Graeme

A man on a mission! Mr. Nattress sounds fired up for NAB.

IBloom

 

[Miltos Pilalitos]

And then there's image quality, for which you'll just have to wait and see what the magic pixies have been cooking as it is smelling rather good at the moment.

Damn! The teasing never stops with you guys! :emote_happyhappy:

 

[Peter Strietmann]

We are talking about an art form here, and artists, and these are highly emotional people who don't always make decisions based on logic and rationality.

Well, this certainly is an interesting take on art. While I often throw logic and rational to the wind, I don't find it is good practice.

Best, Another irrational, illogical artist

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't mean to imply that this is a bad thing, that artists are emotional creatures with tastes and opinions that cannot always be rationally justified... it's just the nature of art and artists, it's not a science.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

I think I hear Mr Da Vinci turning over in his grave.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

I would also like to say if it were not for people like Mr Mullen, I would certainly be far less scientific.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

This is an enlightening thread, which to me proves forever that film will always be the master ~ as I just had this conversation with a wonderful and brilliant film director in NY who Im trying to convince to shoot RED and he said...

"but Tim, with film there is an organic reactive process in exposing a film negative. Light strikes the emulsion and an explosion takes place at a visible, molecular level, those reacting agents create a facsimile of life... in a process that is as unpredictable and as organic as the actor's performance" ..Film is just more pure for capturing actors performances - you cant get that from 1,000,000 lines of digital resolution" - ___ Warner

Back to Alexa vs M-X - the fact that this is even being mentioned after 3 years rocks! Congrats to the bright minds at RED (and the wisdom of DM who always keeps posts like this in perspective.) :emote_hippie:

ALEXA and RED will never be for everybody, even those of us who love to shoot any cool camera we can get our hands on.

the affinity for film is not something that will likely disappear anytime soon

 

[Graeme Nattress]

If film has a soul through the wonders of chemistry, then a digital camera like the RED has soul through the creative minds that conceived, designed and created the camera. Every RED product has blood, sweat and tears in it's very fabric of being. Each RED image on the screen is the product of wonderful creative minds working at all levels through the image from the design of the optics, filters, sensor, compression and image processing. It is not a soulless image devoid of life. It is different to a film image, but it is in no way lesser through being digital just as film is not lesser through being just chemistry.

Graeme

 

[David Rasberry]

Well said Graeme.

 

[Deanan]

If film has a soul through the wonders of chemistry, then a digital camera like the RED has soul through the creative minds that conceived, designed and created the camera.

Graeme

likewise, sensors are created through chemistry and react to photons just as grains react to photons in an analog way. At the end almost everything is scanned on a digital sensor anyway...

silver vs silicon: which one has more soul?

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Did I miss something? Do the laws of physics and chemistry not apply within the realms of sensors?? And was DI abandoned and I missed it?

If you don't think digital is up to par with film in any particular way, ok, but that sounds like very poetic BS to me.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

likewise, sensors are created through chemistry and react to photons just as grains react to photons in an analog way. At the end almost everything is scanned on a digital sensor anyway...

silver vs silicon: which one has more soul?

If the soul continues to live on after death, Then I believe both silver and sillicon would share equally in their importance in the everafter. I have spent my whole life believing this and it just occured to me how seriously messed up it would be if I were wrong.

p

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I think this director's comment just proves my point, that artists have opinions that are more emotional than rational, so it's not really something you can debate using logic, even though artists are prone to throw pseudo-science to back up their opinions.

Personally, silver reacting to light, collecting photons, causing electrons to jump orbit, etc. -- how is that any more "soulful" than silicon reacting to light, causing electrons to flow, generating a signal, etc.? You could even argue that the electronic method is more like how the eye-brain works.

The only aspect of film that is truly different than digital is that the "photo-receptors" are randomly placed on each frame, thus reducing possibility of aliasing.

--

I will say, however, in this director's defense, that we too often break down images into neat, simplistic technical categories like resolution that doesn't paint the whole picture, so to speak. There are aspects to images that are harder to quantify & measure, or even describe, but that doesn't mean the differences aren't there.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Random sampling is a curse and a benefit for film - not a free lunch. On the digital side we deal with aliasing through bandwidth limiting the system and higher pixel counts. Before long we'll all be worrying about diffraction limits and thoughts of aliasing will be gone Perhaps.

Either way, film is as much "soulless technology" as digital is. The soul of a movie comes from the people who make it, the creative minds, not the technology they use. The technology plays a part for sure, but it's only through the interaction of creator + technology does the movie appear for us to enjoy.

Graeme

 

[Mark Pugh]

it's only through the interaction of creator + technology does the movie appear for us to enjoy.

Graeme

Exactly. I find shooting digitally allows for much greater creative spontaneity on set, and for all sorts of soulful chemistry to develop. You're not waiting for a lab to develop the image - you're responding more viscerally to the final image right there on the set. I'm absolutely sure about that. More magic happens when capturing digitally.

 

[ChristopherKenworthy]

Either way, film is as much "soulless technology" as digital is.

For over thirty years I have shot (and watched others shoot) with everything from 8mm and Super-VHS, through to 35mm and Red One. Image quality varies from format to format, but the level of "soul" or talent is entirely down to the people who shoot.

If your work lacks talent or "soul", film will not bring it out. If you have "soul", silicon will not disguise it.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Just last week I had to match some film with some digital animation, I used the RANDOM grain generator in color. I was very surprised to see how well it matched. Not much soul involved in the correction just trial and error.