Camera shootout 2011

[Timothy Eaton]

I recall that was with Epic, without HDRx. The numbers could really be roughly 12 stops for R1 MX, 13 stops for Epic MX and 14 stops for Alexa, based on what i've heard / read.

That could be true Eric, but then why is Red MX very close or equal to Alexa in the highlight test, and better than Alexa in the shadow test? Camera settings were said not to have changed, and the two tests were supposed to have pushed the limits of dynamic range on the cameras. If so, then the Alexa should either hold more in the highlights and/or in the shadows, but it's not there. How does that square with putting out the claim that Alexa has nearly 3 stops greater DR?

Tim

 

[David Mullen ASC]

How does that square with putting out the claim that Alexa has nearly 3 stops greater DR?

Tim

How does the difference between 14.1 and 11.9 equal nearly 3? That's a 2.2-stop difference.

 

[Timothy Eaton]

How does the difference between 14.1 and 11.9 equal nearly 3? That's a 2.2-stop difference.

My error - the shootout bar graph puts MX at 11.9, not 11.3, so it's a 2.2 stop difference. Better than 2.8 stops, no question David. But it's still at odds with the test charts the Red guys shot a while back, and it still doesn't square with what the SCCE team is showing in the highlight and shadow scene test videos, where MX appears to show more detail in the shadows and maybe a little less in the highlights. 2.2 stops should be easily visible in the evaluation.

Let me say again, the goal is not to skewer Bob Primes and the other people who staged the test. Kudos to them. The goal is to make sure that information that is widely disseminated to large numbers of industry professionals is held to a rigorous standard. It would be great, if along with the video, Zacuto or SCCE published the methodology, settings, and any hard number results that were used in generating the 2.2 stop claim.

 

[Medavoym]

 

[Ash Worth]

Either way though, I know that no one is declaring a winner or loser but M Most your argument is that all these cameras are great artistic choices for different projects etc etc. That's all fine and dandy but you forget one important thing, is that a lot of the livelihoods of guys here at Reduser comes from owning and operating and getting jobs using the Red MX. As such, the Alexa has already made huge enough inroads into Red's market that it is a major competitor and making some of us lose money/gigs/jobs. Therefore it is a bit troubling when false information is spread about our beloved camera because it is only giving the various ignorant producers out there more ammo to choose Alexa over Red on gigs. Last year's Zacuto SHOOTOUT was one of the most widely quoted presentations all year long all over the industry. Anyone in the lower indie markets I spoke to would say "Oh yea wow did you guys see that Zacuto shootout and how DSLR's did so well against ... etc etc".

Obviously there are more factors that go into choosing which camera will be used for a project other than just performance. If the test has shown one thing it is that there is not one camera that stands out. One factor maybe how the 'producer' is perceived by the camera owner / operator. A prevailing feeling I get here is the disdain that RED operators show anyone who doesn't think that their camera is the best out there. So then its more about who I want to work with rather than equipment, charts and numbers.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Medavoym,

this is a forum that requests using of real names!!!!!!!!!!!!

So give us your real name!!!!!!!!

Greek text is from the beginning of Apology by Plato:
Translated from Ancient Greek into English>>>
"And yet, of the truth, they have spoken, one might say, nothing at all."

LINK>>

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Carsten, I've got to think you're right when you spot lights changing, and resolution figures making no sense etc. etc. In the end, I'd advise you as I'd advise anyone - shoot you're own tests with your own methods. Indeed, when people produce test results that are inconsistent or just plain obviously wrong, they're going to be met (rightly so) with criticism. If I'd produced resolution measurements for the RED One or Epic that said "we have more resolution than we have pixels" I'd have been rightly roasted alive and laughed out of the industry.

Graeme

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I totally missed this resolution blunder Graeme. Was it a camera with sharpening?

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Nope Roberto - it was a few cameras for sure that are wrongly shown to have greater resolution than they're actually capable of: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/nab_2011_-_scce_charts/ and I think others on the list were wrong too because for instance the DSLRs and F35 have wildly different horizontal to vertical resolution, whereas the tester said " The lp/ph numbers are the average of horizontal and vertical measurements (although these were very close for all cameras measured)"

Graeme

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

4.5k M-X has less resolution than film??

Are they messing up their transcodes and measuring those?

 

[David Diperstein]

If you look at the legs of the lamp on which it is standing on the table, they are completely in different position in relation to how the legs are situated in the MX and Film frames. This means that for some bizarre reason things were moved around during the Alexa shoot of that scene.

This adds to the strangeness/mystery because in the high contrast window scene there is also evidence that the Alexa had things moved around. For instance the missing highlight on the couch that is present in all the other cameras but not in the alexa. Why did Alexa get its scenes shot differently both times? There seems to be something going on here

I totally missed the forest for the trees on that one. I don't see the validity of this test at all in regards to benching the Alexa, but that's been done substantially already. I'm guessing they had a technical problem with the Alexa, but had already shot the 35 stock and didn't budget a reshoot.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

If the conditions change, it's not a test - it's disinformation. As I said - do your own tests, do them right.

Graeme

 

[Eki Halkka]

That could be true Eric, but then why is Red MX very close or equal to Alexa in the highlight test, and better than Alexa in the shadow test? Camera settings were said not to have changed, and the two tests were supposed to have pushed the limits of dynamic range on the cameras. If so, then the Alexa should either hold more in the highlights and/or in the shadows, but it's not there. How does that square with putting out the claim that Alexa has nearly 3 stops greater DR?

I don't think those high and low light scenes tell much about the dynamic range of any of the cameras. They tell more about what one arbitary exposure, using one arbitary color correction happened to produce in this case.

As said, a more telling test of the camera's capabilities would be to match the point where sensor clips on all of them, and then see how much can be extracted from the shadows with acceptable image quality.

 

[Martin Stevens]

The good news is that we all know the Red One MX and the Epic MX are FANTASTIC to say the least
and a worthy replacement for 35mm film negative.

And with HDRx even better than 35mm film in most cases.

 

[Benoît-Joan Clariana-Roig]

Yeah, light conditions are different in almost every shoot in both tests !

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

I'm not associated with the SCCE test, and it's always been my very humble and personal opinion that if you want to learn about any camera or tool, the only tests that are really valuable are the ones you run yourself. I've never trusted clips posted by camera manufacturers or by film stock companies, or boring charts, although sometimes those clips can be interesting and can at least show something about the camera or the film stock.

However, what I don't get, and I apologize if that's just me, is the "heat" shown in this thread: I've only seen part one of the documentary and I haven't seen the SCCE in a theater, but many times during the clip it's stated that 1) it's not about "winning" and "losing", or "finding the best camera", and 2) that in the right hands, many of the cameras tested can produce amazing results. The point of the SCCE test is not to get the best looking footage, and we can argue if it that's a good or bad approach as much as we want, but to think serious professionals like Bob Primes and so many others intentionally skewed the results in order to have one camera look better than others, it's, at least to me, not really fair and almost paranoid.

 

[Martin Stevens]

I don't think anyone intentionally skewed the results in order to have one camera look better than other.

But sometime is skewed.

 

[Timothy Eaton]

I'm not associated with the SCCE test, and it's always been my very humble and personal opinion that if you want to learn about any camera or tool, the only tests that are really valuable are the ones you run yourself. I've never trusted clips posted by camera manufacturers or by film stock companies, or boring charts, although sometimes those clips can be interesting and can at least show something about the camera or the film stock.

However, what I don't get, and I apologize if that's just me, is the "heat" shown in this thread: I've only seen part one of the documentary and I haven't seen the SCCE in a theater, but many times during the clip it's stated that 1) it's not about "winning" and "losing", or "finding the best camera", and 2) that in the right hands, many of the cameras tested can produce amazing results. The point of the SCCE test is not to get the best looking footage, and we can argue if it that's a good or bad approach as much as we want, but to think serious professionals like Bob Primes and so many others intentionally skewed the results in order to have one camera look better than others, it's, at least to me, not really fair and almost paranoid.

Francesco, I don't think anyone in this thread has suggested that Bob Primes or anyone else intentionally skewed the results. However, the fact that the video claims "it's not about 'winning' and 'losing,' doesn't make sense when in the same video they post a bar chart showing the Alexa a clear "winner" in the DR test, besting Red MX by 2.2 stops. Dynamic range is very important to DPs. So they did, in fact, pick a winner in the DR portion of the test. But Peter has already explained the cause for frustration. A portion of his post:

That's all fine and dandy but you forget one important thing, is that a lot of the livelihoods of guys here at Reduser comes from owning and operating and getting jobs using the Red MX. As such, the Alexa has already made huge enough inroads into Red's market that it is a major competitor and making some of us lose money/gigs/jobs. Therefore it is a bit troubling when false information is spread about our beloved camera because it is only giving the various ignorant producers out there more ammo to choose Alexa over Red on gigs. Last year's Zacuto SHOOTOUT was one of the most widely quoted presentations all year long all over the industry. Anyone in the lower indie markets I spoke to would say "Oh yea wow did you guys see that Zacuto shootout and how DSLR's did so well against ... etc etc".
So the point is, for these "facts" to make their way deep into the industry and get ingrained into the minds and hearts of producers it does irreparable damage to us little guys who are trying to make a living with the Red. I can imagine a producer turning me down for a Red MX job by saying "Sorry, didn't you see the Zacuto shootout? The Alexa has an astonishing 3 stops more DR! Sorry bud we can't use your puny MX because the commercial we will be shooting will be very contrasty."
Or how about this one, "Sorry pal but according to the Zacuto shootout, Red MX has just about the same latitude as a Canon 5dmkii so why would we hire you for $ xxx when we can hire the 5d guy for 1/4 the price and get the same dynamic range!"

etc etc.

So this isn't a knock on the Alexa or any other camera, this is just us protecting our reputation, when there is clear evidence from the actual tests that the Red is holding highlights even better than the Alexa and film, it is just quite perplexing that it is rated at 11 some odd stops. "

 

[Steve Dent]

I'm not associated with the SCCE test, and it's always been my very humble and personal opinion that if you want to learn about any camera or tool, the only tests that are really valuable are the ones you run yourself. I've never trusted clips posted by camera manufacturers or by film stock companies, or boring charts, although sometimes those clips can be interesting and can at least show something about the camera or the film stock.

However, what I don't get, and I apologize if that's just me, is the "heat" shown in this thread: I've only seen part one of the documentary and I haven't seen the SCCE in a theater, but many times during the clip it's stated that 1) it's not about "winning" and "losing", or "finding the best camera", and 2) that in the right hands, many of the cameras tested can produce amazing results. The point of the SCCE test is not to get the best looking footage, and we can argue if it that's a good or bad approach as much as we want, but to think serious professionals like Bob Primes and so many others intentionally skewed the results in order to have one camera look better than others, it's, at least to me, not really fair and almost paranoid.

That's true, but dynamic range is an important marketing number for a camera, and is thrown about particularly often by Arri as a benefit or advantage of its product. I think people here just want to be sure it's absolutely fair, because the test chart seems to differ from the test shoot, particularly in the area of highlights, at least according to the images they showed in the video. It almost seems like the people in the video, who saw the tests in a theatre, saw something else, judging by their comments.

Also, it does seem, as Sanjin pointed out, that if the Arri is 14.1 stops and the Kodak film is 14.5 stops, the charts look a bit far apart from each other for that to actually be the case. In other words, the interpretation of the chart looks a bit off for the Alexa.

 

[Deanan]

Anyone know what format the film was shot in?