Canon 7D looks quite Nice

[David Rasberry]

I'm pretty sure the 7D w/h.264 will put an HVX to shame for resolution, color and low light performance (not to mention DOF).

I would not agree with this as far as resolution is concerned. H.264 does not look better than a frame accurate codec designed for editing. The still cams do have better sensitivity and shallow DOF potential, but any frame that is in sharp focus with fine detail and motion , especially fast motion, looks better on the production video codecs.

Personally I very much prefer 2/3" format in a pro grade motion camera over these VDSLRS.

 

[David Nardini]

David, can you direct us to any clips in particular where you noticed aliasing and artifacts?

DPReview sample clip .. look at the grill of the car as it advances in the shot ;-( ... advance frame by frame and it's struggling. Interistingly the brick work is showing no moire.

Nothing major (and probably not as bad as the 5Dii) BUT ... not good.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

DPReview Canon 7D video clip 1920x1080 HD LINK>>>

 

[Joel Kaye]

H.264 does not look better than a frame accurate codec designed for editing.

I'm not a codec or color space or any tech specs believer. I'm a "my eyeballs after I've tweaked the camera, shot it and watched at playback speed" believer. Frankly, I'll just have to shoot it and see.

Also, remember I'm making a cost/benefit argument. Is it worth $8K extra to most people to have a codec that looks 10% better? Is it worth $4k? $2k? I don't know the answer. My guess is it's worth a grand or two.

Ultimately most stuff is going to get delivered in H.264. Anything web or BluRay, right? I'm not sure it's the codec so much as the data rate. Are consumers screaming BluRay is not good enough?

Having said all that, I think Canon should be developing a compressed raw codec or just license Cineform and get it over with. That's sure what I'd do if I was them. Sure seems like they could write a check and eliminate a huge argument against their system.

 

[Joel Kaye]

DPReview Canon 7D video clip 1920x1080 HD LINK>>>

Come on that clip is the worlds worst video ever.



I'd like to see this clip at 1080P:
http://vimeo.com/groups/8432/videos/6379026

I don't know why in the hell anyone uses a tilt-shift lens in a demo like this but whatever - people are going to use this thing. How much stuff gets delivered via the web these days? 80%? Try to find a music video that isn't primarily web delivery. Maybe this ends up being a 720P and under camera. That's more useful than 4K right now for 90+% of all video content. Again, reality vs. theory.

I don't think anyone's thinking these should be used for a movie with any kind of a budget when RED is out there. Well, other than Crank 3.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Come on that clip is the worlds worst video ever.



I'd like to see this clip at 1080P:
http://vimeo.com/groups/8432/videos/6379026

I don't know why in the hell anyone uses a tilt-shift lens in a demo like this but whatever - people are going to use this thing. How much stuff gets delivered via the web these days? 80%? Try to find a music video that isn't primarily web delivery. Maybe this ends up being a 720P and under camera. That's more useful than 4K right now for 90+% of all video content. Again, reality vs. theory.

I don't think anyone's thinking these should be used for a movie with any kind of a budget when RED is out there. Well, other than Crank 3.

Higher sensitivity (ISO) is a key usability for new Canon 7D.

Also don't forget that the most visited tread at REDUser forum is one about Birger mount (that can swap all Canon EF lenses on RED1).

So all those shooters that simply could not handle low light situations with RED1 could easy buy (cheaper that Scarlet!?) Canon 7D

and do their shots at available light, at night, indoor and outdoor...

Hope you've got it now.

 

[Tom Lowe]

and 6K or 4K viewing? Wait 5 years and have that discussion. Applying a little sharpening to RED 4K will get you nice 4K. Consumers aren't really buying BluRay DVDs yet. Only when their price approaches DVD pricing do they begin to sell.

IMHO, 4K display is coming a WHOLE lot sooner than most might think. And I'm not talking only about the thousands of movie screens that are already on the way (which cameras are going to shoot those 4K films?) I'm also talking about 4K LCDs at home.

If you want pristine 4K, you simply cannot use a 4K Bayer camera. The numbers do not add up.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

But the 5D2 1080p failed to measure even that in tests - horizontal rez was less than 1440. As soon as someone can point a 7D at a nice zone plate, I can tell you what it actually measures. Looking at the images, I doubt it'll be much different from the 5D2.

It doesn't really matter what bit rate you throw at the codec in the 7D, it's still 8bit, which means you're probably going to get issues with posterization on smooth gradients / skies and things, just like you get with other 8bit camera codecs. Of course, just like with the aliasing and chroma moire, they don't matter too much until they ruin a shot. And then the cost to fix it or re-shoot it means you'd have been better off spending that money up front and getting the improvements on every shot. Of course, if you don't care less about picture quality...

--

Tom - it's worse than that, because for pristine resolution, you always need a good OLPF which means you must have more pixels than you want measured resolution. Doesn't matter if it's bayer CFA, 3chip, or anything else - that basic rule of sampling theory still applies. It might be a bit trickier with a Bayer CFA, but it doesn't mean it's that much easier for any other type of camera.

Graeme

 

[Joel Kaye]

Of course, if you don't care less about picture quality...

So if I like RED right now do I care about picture quality or not? j/k.

It's always a cost/benefit thing. I just try to figure out what average people might do. There were a lot of average users who thought the HVX was good. And still do. I hated that cam personally and I think I was right.

Hats off to you with Build 20 color science. For me, that was a bigger deal than build 16. I just shot an all tungsten day and the results were very pretty.

Shooting and posting 6K for 4K display? I don't know. Just seems theoretical to me when you consider VFX, CG, post processing all the processing power through the entire pipeline. I need to see a quality 2K uprezzed to 4K projected next to a pristine 4K.

Genuine Fractals has made a living off the idea that once you have enough resolution then a very high quality uprez is possible. Is it bunk?
http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2

 

[Graeme Nattress]

We've done 2k v 4k in the RED office, and there's a benefit on 4k, not just in the detail, but in the smoothness / continuousness / naturalness department. It looks more like a window and less like an electronic display. That's my impression, anyway.

Cost / benefit is always an issue. Should Ardbeg be disappointed that people still drink Teachers and Bells? If you just want the alcohol content, a cheap blend works great, but if you actually want a nice drink, you'll pay more, even though in both cases the major content of both bottles is alcohol and water.

Graeme

 

[David Nardini]

Come on that clip is the worlds worst video ever.

I do not disaggree ... BUT to check the behaviour of the 7D sensor there is not much out there shot with lots of depth of field ;-( ... to try and see how the aliasing / moire behaves (on the 5Dii its terrible).
For sure users throw out of focus what can be predictably expected not to behave (not easy to predict BTW) but it's not going to tell us the native capability of the system.

More clips @ [http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10042-10239-10240] which again illustrate the 7D struggling to deal with high contrast edges ...

 

[Raul Quintanilla]

Here in Mexico TV is still SD. I just exhibited a movie I made in the Monterrey Film Festival and I made it with the DVX100a and ended with a DVD format. If the 7D is better than HVX200, and is even cheaper than the DVX100a, then I don't see a problem with that camera. Of course, we all want Scarlet, but it might be a year before some of us can get one (since the first cameras are all practically sold). I'm very happy with technology as it is and really appreciate Red for changing the industry forever. Now please, release the RedRay so that every cinema can buy one and we can bypass the distributors. There's your real revolution.

 

[David Rasberry]

Also, remember I'm making a cost/benefit argument. Is it worth $8K extra to most people to have a codec that looks 10% better? Is it worth $4k? $2k? I don't know the answer. My guess is it's worth a grand or two.

Ultimately most stuff is going to get delivered in H.264. Anything web or BluRay, right? I'm not sure it's the codec so much as the data rate. Are consumers screaming BluRay is not good enough?

Dedicated chips to encode H.264 real time at moderate quality levels are pretty cheap.

There is a lot more to the functionality and price difference of a pro camera like RED than the codec.

 

[jimhare]

Also, remember I'm making a cost/benefit argument. Is it worth $8K extra to most people to have a codec that looks 10% better? Is it worth $4k? $2k? I don't know the answer. My guess is it's worth a grand or two.

Ultimately most stuff is going to get delivered in H.264. Anything web or BluRay, right? I'm not sure it's the codec so much as the data rate. Are consumers screaming BluRay is not good enough?

The real point is that H.264 is a FINISHING CODEC, not a PRODUCTION CODEC. In other words, yes, it looks great, but don't try to do anything with it after it's been encoded because it has thrown away most of the color information to keep the file small.

As a RELEASE device, I love H.264 and will happily submit my Red footage on it. But as an ACQUISITION format? Yech...

 

[Ian B. Johnson]

A new 7D short that popped up on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/6487566
Creatively, pretty awesome. As far as quality goes, I'm downloading the original QT to pore over it. I'm personally pretty impressed for the price point, and am really having trouble holding back rather than waiting an undetermined amount of time for Scarlet. I really didn't think things would get to this point, but it seems like RED may actually have someone creeping up and potentially stealing budget customers from them.

Don't get me wrong, Graeme, I fully understand your arguments... but for $1900 what can you expect? 12 months ago the cheapest way to get an image like this would be an HDV rig w/letus, which all told would end up running you roughly $5000.

Blah blah blah, in the end I guess what I'm really hoping for is for RED to respond and blow us all out of the water.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Totally understand you on price, Ian. That's why RED One came in at $17.5k, rather than $64k or $100k.

However, I'm pretty adamant that the 5D2 and probably the 7D too are only able to produce "nice" looking images under "wide open" circumstances, where the lack of sharpness keeps the aliasing at bay and you can't see that the resolution is more like 1400 than 1920, the shallow DOF keeps the the detail low in the background so that the codec doesn't feel the stress, and you don't have to grade much as the codec just can't cope with that.

That the 5D2 movies look so nice as web movies proves the point that what you're seeing, primarily, is shallow DOF and nice contrasty glass. You're hardly seeing the sensor at all.

If you have one of these cameras you can do an experiment - take a small video, keep the camera locked off and shoot the same thing as a burst of stills. Make the stills into a movie, crop and downscale to match the movie crop and compare. World of difference. The stills version, even though low fps knocks the socks off the video. Night and day difference.

Fact is, for the most part, the 5D2 / 7D could be shooting widescreen SD and it wouldn't look hardly any worse than the HD they shoot now when blown up to HD sizes.

And that's why the RED DSMC philosophy rocks - motion and stills are not second fiddle to each other.

Graeme

 

[Tom Lowe]

If you have one of these cameras you can do an experiment - take a small video, keep the camera locked off and shoot the same thing as a burst of stills. Make the stills into a movie, crop and downscale to match the movie crop and compare. World of difference. The stills version, even though low fps knocks the socks off the video. Night and day difference.

Yep. I do this experiment all the time, shooting timelapse. It is definitely a night and day difference. The 1080p video coming out of the 5D2 is not even qualified to the polish the shoes of the 1080p renders I make from 5D2 stills.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Tom, I knew you'd get my point. When you see how good the movies could look, but don't, then to me, that's rather telling.

Graeme

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

And that's why the RED DSMC philosophy rocks - motion and stills are not second fiddle to each other.

I totally agree, but the waiting is certainly getting harder.

The 7D certainly has me reconsidering SCARLET - something I did not expect could happen. But the idea of snapping on my existing Canon lens collection and running around with a still cam, shooting video, at this price point...hard to resist...

I'd really rather give my money to RED - the 5DII trickleware to the 7D in such a short time frame is really annoying. You know that Canon can do better, but they won't until someone else does...love their products, loathe their business model...

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Can they do better? How many years have pros asked for a mirror-lockup button on the pro bodies, and what did we get - a "picture style" button. And auto-focus that ought to focus. And a 50mm F1.2 that has focussing issues. I've had more er99's than I've ever had issues with my RED One. Seriously. And my optical finder-C just fell apart in my hands. And my 50mm F1.4 has a sticky focus motor again after being "fixed" once already.

Or my favourite problem is a optical viewfinder that positively lies about focus. I like to shoot shallow DOF as do so many, especially when I'm taking shots of the kids. But although your lens is wide open while you're viewing (unless you have the DOF preview button pressed), your lens might be F1.2, but the ground glass might have an effective aperture of around F4, making the effective DOF you see around F4, thus making you think you're in focus when you're absolutely not. Couple that with the recent 1D focussing issues and I'm unhappy. I've not spent as much on Canon gear over the years as Jim has, but I've spent enough.

Graeme