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Dragon upgrade or 2 new URSA Cams?

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Steffen Baermann

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Hi all, we are a little independent film production : 4k-images.com and have bought 2 Scarlets from Red. Now we are in the row after +12 month of waiting to upgrade one of the scarlets to Dragon for 9500 USD.

Big question : Is this really gonna help ? We read a lot of different talk on the new Dragon sensor and are a bit scared if this is really a good investment. For that money you get 3-4 Canon 5D Mkiii or 2 Ursa Cams.

Now you can say the Dragon is the best sensor around. On the other hand is it clever from a business point of view. With 2 Ursa's I can shoot same quality image at the same point of time (S35 too). I have everything in one camera incl. global shutter, screens, xlr etc. And it makes the production more easy to take a shot from two angles at the same time - which massively reduces production costs.

I am a bit disappointed by the comms strategy of Red too - They could be more proactive with their customers too. And yes I know Blackmagic is worse, still the camera costs only 1/4 of the price of a scarlet.

So Red-Users. What do you think ? Sell the scarlet, cancel the Dragon and invest into Blackmagic ?

Finally will the impact on screen later so much different ?

Thanks for your ideas.

Steffen
 
Steffen Baermann said:
With 2 Ursa's I can shoot same quality image at the same point of time (S35 too).
Click to expand...

The Ursa does NOT produce the same quality imagery as a RED.

Why on earth would anyone who already has two scarlets compromise down to a Canon Mark III even if you got 4 or more camera bodies for it ?
Are you guys producing for quality or quantity ? (this is a fair question and not meant as insult, a lot of production houses do and kudos to them and their market). Looking at your website you are marketing yourself as a "high quality video and image film company", so why not offer your clients the best possible system available to you ?

Dragon is 16/19 Bit Raw...Ursa is 12.
Dragon has 16+ stops DR Ursa has 12.
Global shutter is not an issue for 90% of all shooters and has never really bothered anyone who shot high end feature work on RED in the past either.
Looking at your existing work on the website I cant see any shooting scenarios that expressively would have required a global shutter system.

When the camera was first announced there was talk that the Ursa actually utilises the same chip as the Blackmagic Cinema 4K camera....and this camera is far away from the RED look and image quality. Not even to mention the awful handling and ergonomics of the camera and media. Blackmagic has got to be the worst company when it comes to firmware upgrades and complexity of camera firmware.
No other company listens more to their customers concerns and tries to resolve issues as quickly and painlessly as possible...and is involved so directly and regularly with its customers and client base like RED. Have you ever spoken to the CEO from ARRI or Sony imaging division ? Jarred is right here on the forum and his email address is no secret.

Shooting from two angles at the same time gives you more coverage but certainly does not necessarily reduce production costs when you have to have a second camera crew/ operator/ focus puller. 2 cameras at the same time means compromising lighting setups since you can only really light "ideal" for one angle at a time ...unless you use more lights...which increase production costs. Not to mention twice as much data meaning more postproduction work.
Sorry but comparing an Ursa to a Scarlet and specially a Dragon is pointless. Two entirely different systems for different markets.
Trying to justify the purchase of several Canon Mark III's for the same price would...at least for myself...be a compromise on the quality of my profession and clients. Id go Dragon any day.
 
Don't forge that DRAGON is simply an upgrade for an existing camera. An URSA is a totally new camera which if it is not replacing something else needs a whole new set of accessories with it - which will cost much more than the camera!
 
that does not convince me though

that does not convince me though

Hey, thanks for the reply. First of all, A Red Camera is not needed for every production. I think the current discussion is quite like if one hifi-freak is talking to the other. Only they can hear or in this case better "see" the difference. The audience at the end does not feel the difference at all, as there are so many other factors making a good film.

Still my understanding is :

- Blackmagic 4k Sensor and camera is S35 at 4k vs. Scarlet Dragon is 5k with smaller sensor
- Blackmagic comes with XLR (Red needs extra)
- Blackmagic comes with affordable memory, Red needs overpriced SSD
- Blackmagic comes with button based control for audio (red needs touchscreen or complex reprogramming of side handle
- Dragon seems to come with low light challenges above 250 ISO (and with that needs a lot of lights)
- Dragon is not there yet for Scarlet upgraders and no communication from Red when (precise time) it will become available
- Red-Scarlet is the end of the food chain - change of sensor in the future not possible (at least following the announcements from Red)
- Ursa has replacable sensor to come
- Blackmagic offers integrated workflow e.g. with Resolume whilst Red CineX is an offline process


so a lot of arguments to be discussed and please not blamed. And yes no-one needs 4 x 5Ds on Set - on the other hand we shot with more than 2 cameras same time already and it was fun. So I think it is do-able.

As said I bought 2 Scarlets and am pretty happy with it- Still wonder if a system change maybe the opportunity now ?
 
I went for Epic cuz I am a frame rate junkie...Its kind of a personal preference kind of thing. Even now with the best Red cameras on the market, I still am not happy, I am going to buy an Alexa... Cuz in the end I make a lot on rentals, and diversification can only help. Might grab glass instead, but regardless, variety is the spice of life. I would consider a GH4 or A7S over Ursa personally...but again different strokes for different folks :)
 
Hey Steffen,

I believe the Dragon with the new OLPF will still destroy the Ursa in low light performance. Blackmagic only very recently smoothed over the Fixed Pattern Noise in that sensor it uses, however it's still very visible. Ursa (and the Blackmagic 4k) are the worst 4k cameras for lowlight, period. You would be better with a GH4 or A7S (both with an external recorder, obviously).

All of that said, why not just sell one of your Scarlets? I definitely wouldn't sell both until you've tested another system very thoroughly. Blackmagic Cameras are notoriously buggy, and that's been the only reason I don't own one. Even when the Pocket Camera was $500 brand new, I didn't buy one because I was afraid of a bad pixel or the HDMI port frying (both extremely common issues).
 
Hey there, yelp did consider the GH4 and the A7. But have quite some Canon EF glass so the canon mount is the right thing to stay at. :-) I am currently just thinking of dropping the Dragon upgrade vs. the URSA purchase. Know a couple of Blackmagic cam owners here in Berlin and ask them about their happiness !
 
Hi Steffen

We chose Reds because we Love shooting Raw, if you don't need Raw then maybe you'll be ok with the Ursa, if you like Raw then I'm not sure Ursa would be a good choice. Red code is amazing at compressing Raw footage, I imagine your data rates on the Ursa would be at least double that of your Scarlett's if shooting raw. This will cost you a lot of money in terms of backup, archiving etc.

If you already own 2x Scarlett's why change ?

I agree it's good to review these things, however Red has an amazing upgrade program, so why don't you keep shooting on your Scarlett's and then maybe upgrade 1x of them to an Epic? Eventually they could both become Dragon sensor cameras. Alternatively as a small business you might be better off investing in Lighting, lenses, faster computers.

For the money the Ursa looks very good but I personally wouldn't want to go into production with anything so new. We have 2x Epics and 1x Scarlett, the Epics are now eligible for the Dragon upgrade, which we will do at some point, but we love the footage from the MX sensors so we aren't in a rush, yes I know the Skin tones, colour, dynamic range is better on Dragon, but many beautiful films have been shot on MX sensors.

Lastly, once we get the option to have interchangeable OLPFs with the Dragon sensor, I think the Red Dragons will possibly be the most versatile cameras on the market.

Good Luck!
 
Hello Steffen

I went to the black magic show in Burbank and saw the URSA, My recommendation is to ether stick with your Scarlets or upgrade to Dragon sensors.

Even if you stick to the Scarlet it is a much better camera then the URSA, The spec that Black Magic does not like to mention is the camera is 16.5 pounds!

The URSA sensor is only 3840 x 2160 the Scarlet in HD is 4096

The URSA is 400 ISO the Scarlet is 800 ISO

The URSA uses two CFast card that are 128GB with two cards you can record 256 GB in RAW mode it uses 10GB per minuite you only get a max of 25 mins record time. Scarlet can take 512GB at 6 : 1 you get 175 mins

The URSA is a 12bit RAW. The Scarlet is 16bit RAW

For me there is no choice, Scarlet or Scarlet Dragon is the only way to go.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Craig
 
I finished shooting a feature last month with Blackmagic cinema and pocket camera, the footage looks amazing due to prores, but as a camera, it is a pain. production with them just simply slows dawn and you need a lot of accessories to make them work properly. the screen on them is really bad, battery life, the form factor and many software issues. overall it makes the filming a painful and unhappy experience. I would strongly stay away from them, maybe in few years but they are not a camera, yes they do record good image but really hard to work with. I personaly am debaiting to bye a RED myself, but have shot with all of them many times and beside some issues, overall have been happy.
good luck
 
Hello That's my setup.

Zacuto Gunner
Metabone
Rokinon
Audioroot battery and adapter (home soldered) (1 day shooting without changing battery)
Zacuto finder for Pocket (without eyecup as you can't see the whole picture with it...)
Mic (with home made metal connector for the camera shoe)

 
HI Steffen

Also wanted to mention URSA only 12 stops of Dynamic Range. Scarlet 13.5 stop of Dynamic Range.
 
This is a weird comparison and you already believe the media is over priced and the side handle is difficult to program. Just buy an URSA, Dragon is not for the easily deterred. Its more difficult to use than the MX in many ways, but can yield even better results when you cater to its strengths. Plus both cameras have different looks, in fact looks that most likely can't be matched, so shoot on both correctly and decide which one you like better. For me its not much of a competition. I shot some footage just yesterday that both the MX and any black magic would not be able to handle.
 
If you need more cameras, buy a used Scarlet kit, to have the workflow and image quality the same. To shoot with several cameras, interoperability is certainly key -- not to have a colorful mixed collection of cameras on set.
If you like to have Dragon quality, you know the answer.

My 2cents.
 
i would try and upgrade to epic, the extra speed and especially the compression makes a huge difference....
as for ursa: it is big and heavy and media is expensive right now....but i would not be surprised to see a new plug in sensor for it in less then a year....and i a m sure black magic will keep the prices for those very low....but there is still the issue of weight.....
funny that people here moan about the size and weight but red one is still considered great....
bmc is 12 stops, scarlet/epic maybe a little more and dragon maybe a little little more....if you shoot it right 12 stops is a lot....
the ursa has a lot of advantages in a real production environment and the interchangeable sensors are a great promise.....
A7s is the dark horse here....the 4k with external recorder looks really, really, really nice....

but in reality, since you already bought into the red system i would upgrade to epic which is proven and working and pretty awesome and look into dragon when that is a little more mature....
 
...the same chip as the Blackmagic Cinema 4K camera....and this camera is far away from the RED look and image quality
I mentioned in a different Thread that I did some informal side by side comparison (Epic MX and BMC 4K Raw) and with the exception of the purple blow outs of the Sun with the BMC, I believe any colorist can match one camera to the other. I am up for the Dragon upgrade, but once I saw some of the issues, mainly the purple lines with the highlites, plus the fact that there are only few, if any, pro zoom lenses covering the format, I decided to wait. Got the BMC because of weight and size and was very surprised about the picture quality. If anybody is inclined to check it in After Effects Projects here is the Drop box URL:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g3mruzs11vp0i92/AADIF9B3jX3ghzeWRCVQgtcta
Click to expand...
 
I think the op is really asking a business question, not a technical question or comparison of tech. If so, it boils down to this: are you building a high end marketing image because you want to attract higher dollar clients, or a commodity business that relies on a lot of mid to lower budget customers?

The panache of a Dragon, even if you clients can't tell, will work for a business that is priced high and positions itself as doing high-end work that matches the price. If you have lower budget clients and you can't already shoot enough to fill demand, save the money, get more crew and cheaper cameras so you can do more business to fill that demand.
 
I find the Blackmagic Ursa fascinating. It's like after he designed a car Homer Simpson designed that camera.

Now that sounds like a dig at them but I do like what they are doing. It's kinda crazy.
 
Mark Kern said:
I think the op is really asking a business question, not a technical question or comparison of tech. If so, it boils down to this: are you building a high end marketing image because you want to attract higher dollar clients, or a commodity business that relies on a lot of mid to lower budget customers?

The panache of a Dragon, even if you clients can't tell, will work for a business that is priced high and positions itself as doing high-end work that matches the price. If you have lower budget clients and you can't already shoot enough to fill demand, save the money, get more crew and cheaper cameras so you can do more business to fill that demand.
Click to expand...

Agree.

Its an Apples to Oranges comparison. The Dragon is a true DSMC. Red, through Wolf magazine, is doing High End Fashion with it. This can attest the quality of each and every frame coming out of the camera. Does it have certain issues? Yes. But as it is its still something unique that is in a league of its own. Going Dragon means being on the Top of the food chain. And that opens possibilities, potential clients.

But that is not to say that buying URSA's is a bad business decision. I rarely see myself in multi camera shoots. When those happen, I outsource. Really depends on what you primarily shoot. I will get the Dragon in a couple of weeks to continue the work I have done with my Epic MX, which I could've not done in any other camera on the market. However, I am also, for example, getting a A7s with an external recorder as a B cam, and potential Hexacopter use. Its cheap enough to justify a purchase. Different tool for different jobs!
 
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