Bought a Scarlet MX package. Can't decide where to go from here...Raven / Scarlet-W

[Felix Klein]

Hey friends, So I finally jumped on the RED bandwagon.

I was really set on getting the Raven as my first RED, but as I talked with them over the phone, it seemed like there was no real idea as to when it might ship other than "March or April 2017".

I found a pretty silly deal on used Scarlet MX package with absolutely everything, so I decided to do that in the meantime. Something that I've discovered is the MX's ability to window the sensor and allow me to use PL mount S16 glass and get an extraordinary look I would never otherwise get with the Raven, a fixed EF mount body with no ability to window the sensor.

Now I'm wondering what I should do. In terms of your average 24p film style shooting, the MX seems to hold up pretty damn well to just about everything I'm seeing from Dragon. Dragon seems to have more DR, more resolution, just better everything... but MX is simply not all that far behind in overall iq, but rather most improved in functionality and features, FPS, low light, physicality of the camera body itself, all that.

Are any of you guys holding on to an MX body for windowing your sensor in order to use different glass options like S16 stuff?

I'm trying to work out in my mind what I should do here...

Either hold on to Scarlet MX and save up for a Raven in the meantime and then use both.

Sell the Scarlet MX once the Scarlet-W is in stock regularly and forget about using my S16 glass altogether.

On a side note, any good guesses as to when Raven might be availble for purchase without pre-ordering? I'm thinking summer or later of 2017, but maybe it'll never just be available.

 

[John Brennick]

Sell the Scarlet MX once the Scarlet-W is in stock regularly and forget about using my S16 glass altogether.

I'm confused, why cant you use the s16 glass with the Scarlet-W?

 

[Felix Klein]

I'm confused, why cant you use the s16 glass with the Scarlet-W?

Oh well maybe I've misread. I was thinking there was no S16 window / crop mode, it only downscaled resolution and not the actual frame of the image. If there is a S16 2k windowed mode on Dragon sensor cameras, then that would be fantastic.

 

[John Brennick]

Oh well maybe I've misread. I was thinking there was no S16 window / crop mode, it only downscaled resolution and not the actual frame of the image. If there is a S16 2k windowed mode on Dragon sensor cameras, then that would be fantastic.

Hey Felix,

The way RED works is all lower resolutions are all windowed to allowed for higher frame rates. So on dragon, 6K being FF, everything below is windowed. The only problem with that is the noise appears to be larger as you window since it's cropping in on the noise and not taking advantage of the scaled down noise. That being said, your S16 glass should just as good and better on Scarlet-W. Hope this helps!

 

[Felix Klein]

Hey Felix,

The way RED works is all lower resolutions are all windowed to allowed for higher frame rates. So on dragon, 6K being FF, everything below is windowed. The only problem with that is the noise appears to be larger as you window since it's cropping in on the noise and not taking advantage of the scaled down noise. That being said, your S16 glass should just as good and better on Scarlet-W. Hope this helps!

Awesome, thanks for the info! Looking forward to upgrading to Dragon later next year.

 

[Richard Williams]

[/QUOTE]I'm trying to work out in my mind what I should do here...

Either hold on to Scarlet MX and save up for a Raven in the meantime and then use both.

Sell the Scarlet MX once the Scarlet-W is in stock regularly and forget about using my S16 glass altogether.

On a side note, any good guesses as to when Raven might be availble for purchase without pre-ordering? I'm thinking summer or later of 2017, but maybe it'll never just be available.[/QUOTE]

Sorry I have no insight regards when it will be available.
For me I chose Raven due to;
4.5 K is adequate resolution for what I do.
EF is adequate lens mount for me.

In my case I decided that to spend an extra $5000 or so for an extra 0.5 K resolution and the flexibility of changing the mount was not worth it for me.
But for you the extra $5000 to get the Scarlet W may be worth it as you have and like to use your PL S16 glass.

 

[Felix Klein]

Funny enough over the past few days I think I convinced myself to just enjoy MX for a while. It's kind of still amazing with the glass I'm using at the moment. Hell, I may just outright upgrade to Helium in a year or 2.

 

[Fabricio Morato]

On dsmc2 cameras you can record raw, raw+prores/dnx or just straight prores/dnx.
When below the full resolution of the sensor, in raw is always a crop. Now the proxy's will have FOV of the mode you are in.
To see exactly what's the required resolution to use the 16mm glass just take a look at the tools at Red.com or phfx.com.