Buying Varicam in UK from Europe

[Thai Christen]

I spent these last 2 weeks comparing the 2. I already sold my scarlet-D a few months ago, waited for my scarlet-W order, and finally got the LT. The pros for the Scarlet (that is just my opinion of course) are the slowmo capabilities and the size (I don't add Raw because, after a few hours playing with the Panasonic, I find the LT to be a delight to play with in post, much much more than my Scarlet, you can push the cursors anywhere, it's still clean, ultra sharp, and the freedom is impressive, you get tons of different looks super easily, it always looks cinematic. And they will add Raw output very soon). The LT pros are the 5000iso feature, crazy DR and colors, really Alexa like, internal ND filters (it makes life so easy), XLRs & SDIs, batteries mounts (I don't have to change my GMP Vmount batteries because of the expander not supporting them or because of the handle), no blackshade (well, you do one when you just get the camera the first time but it last less than 10 seconds), the double P2/SD card for proxies, infrared capabilities out of the box. The price is way better than people think, the scarlet-W is more expensive if you buy the modules that will bring it on par with the LT, and we have the 5 years free warranty in Europe (maybe it's worldwide I don't know). The 5000iso feature can also bring down the cost of lighting. I added to my thinking the fact that so many Red cameras are flooding in (or will). People already killed slowmo by putting it in every video on any shot, it looks now almost homevideo. So I thought it was nice to be limited to 60fps (which is already great) for non cropped slowmo and to get a different look than the huge future crowd of Red. I don't see many cons so far. Maybe the fact to reboot to change the codec if I'm picky, but it's quite fast. And if I'm more picky, there was no power supply in the box, I had to find a Vmount to Anton Bauer adapter, and still need to find a power supply to do the firmware upgrades.

+1
Too bad body size and weight is not ideal for my drone work :-(

 

[Fabricio Morato]

I spent these last 2 weeks comparing the 2. I already sold my scarlet-D a few months ago, waited for my scarlet-W order, and finally got the LT. The pros for the Scarlet (that is just my opinion of course) are the slowmo capabilities and the size (I don't add Raw because, after a few hours playing with the Panasonic, I find the LT to be a delight to play with in post, much much more than my Scarlet, you can push the cursors anywhere, it's still clean, ultra sharp, and the freedom is impressive, you get tons of different looks super easily, it always looks cinematic. And they will add Raw output very soon). The LT pros are the 5000iso feature, crazy DR and colors, really Alexa like, internal ND filters (it makes life so easy), XLRs & SDIs, batteries mounts (I don't have to change my GMP Vmount batteries because of the expander not supporting them or because of the handle), no blackshade (well, you do one when you just get the camera the first time but it last less than 10 seconds), the double P2/SD card for proxies, infrared capabilities out of the box. The price is way better than people think, the scarlet-W is more expensive if you buy the modules that will bring it on par with the LT, and we have the 5 years free warranty in Europe (maybe it's worldwide I don't know). The 5000iso feature can also bring down the cost of lighting. I added to my thinking the fact that so many Red cameras are flooding in (or will). People already killed slowmo by putting it in every video on any shot, it looks now almost homevideo. So I thought it was nice to be limited to 60fps (which is already great) for non cropped slowmo and to get a different look than the huge future crowd of Red. I don't see many cons so far. Maybe the fact to reboot to change the codec if I'm picky, but it's quite fast. And if I'm more picky, there was no power supply in the box, I had to find a Vmount to Anton Bauer adapter, and still need to find a power supply to do the firmware upgrades.

Hey Ugo,

Thank you for this write up. Those are some of my thoughts exactly. If I'm wearing my producers hat, having the ability to cut in half the lights required is really a plus, not only saving a little bit of money on the rental (which BTW here is not as cheap as you would think), but also giving the DP more options to choose (light wise).
The codecs doesn't bother me, raw is nice, but a great codec will hold up really well if no one really screws up on set (it happens, but with all these new cameras you need a MAJOR screw up).
The slow motion worries me a little bit, only because its good to have the option to go 120/150fps at 4k. But then the Scaret-W to achieve this FPS needs to compress a lot, so you need great lighting. But yeah, most of the time 60fps will be more than enough. And the current 240FPS LT footage has something weird going on (which was said it's a software - Resolve - bad interpretation of the codec), so its something I'm waiting for just to see if it can be usable (most of what I do is still in HD land).
The size difference means that you would need a bigger gimbal, which is alright, but something to think about (or going with a traditional stabilizer). And flying on a drone you will need those bigger ones (or going with a different system like the Inspire Raw), while with the Scarlet-W the new DJI one could fly it.
Once you use your camera a little bit if you could share your thoughts on it would be great!

At the end of the day it's great to have choices!

 

[Gaston Fazio]

Btw:

Anyone here at Refuser forum is invited to HD House, here in Miami, to play, test, or just look at any camera: Weapon, Alexa, Varicam, Sony. Nice glass available also.
Just let me know so I can prepare good coffe.
Ps: cooke anamorfics arraving next week

G
305-522-5751
Info@theHDhouse.com