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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Dragon upgrades

Wendell Adkins said:
I wondered how much longer Arri was going to let Red dominate the high end aerial market.

http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/02/23/the-arri-announce-the-alexa-mini/

This does complicate our upgrade decision a bit.
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The Alexa mini (4k camera) is going to retail for 35-45,000.00. That price is essentially just for the body, add accessories and you end up closer to 55, 60k. A flexible and functional Red Scarlet Dragon (5k camera) package cost around 30k, add an 8 to 10k upgrade to Weapon a year from now for presumably a functional 6k Red Scarlet Weapon. After several years of use and one upgrade, a Red Scarlet Dragon owner finally approaches the price of the Alexa Mini Body.

Next year when the Scarlet Weapon becomes fully 6k capable camera package, the Alexa Mini will still be a 4k camera. Both Red & Arri have their strengths and weaknesses, direct comparison can only go so far, personal taste becomes the major deciding factor.
 
ryan peters castañeda said:
The Alexa mini (4k camera) is going to retail for 35-45,000.00. That price is essentially just for the body, add accessories and you end up closer to 55, 60k. A flexible and functional Red Scarlet Dragon (5k camera) package cost around 30k, add an 8 to 10k upgrade to Weapon a year from now for presumably a functional 6k Red Scarlet Weapon. After several years of use and one upgrade, a Red Scarlet Dragon owner finally approaches the price of the Alexa Mini Body.

Next year when the Scarlet Weapon becomes fully 6k capable camera package, the Alexa Mini will still be a 4k camera. Both Red & Arri have their strengths and weaknesses, direct comparison can only go so far, personal taste becomes the major deciding factor.
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Arri could charge 100k and people would still choose it over Dragon. Their reputation is simply better.
Not bashing red (i own both Alexa and Epic) but i can see them losing tons of market share to the Arri Mini.
 
Jarred Land said:
The Alexa Mini is not a 4K camera. We may suck at naming things but at least we are honest about our specs.... :)
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My bad, 3.5 or 2k camera body for the price of a scarlet dragon package plus the price of a weapon upgrade.
 
Jarred Land said:
The Alexa Mini is not a 4K camera. We may suck at naming things but at least we are honest about our specs.... :)
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True 4k or not... The final image resolution is not much worse than Red's 4K. That's the only thing that matters.

Ofcourse Red has 5K and 6k. :- )
 
The Team is working on it now, i will post when pricing has been updated on the web.

Joshua Hoareau said:
Does anyone know what time the Dragon upgrade price will change today? Thanks :)
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ryan peters castañeda said:
The Alexa mini (4k camera) is going to retail for 35-45,000.00. That price is essentially just for the body, add accessories and you end up closer to 55, 60k. A flexible and functional Red Scarlet Dragon (5k camera) package cost around 30k, add an 8 to 10k upgrade to Weapon a year from now for presumably a functional 6k Red Scarlet Weapon.
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The AlexaMini though is Carbon Fiber so you would need to compare to Carbon Dragon which starts at $50k. Then again AlexaMini is also only 3.5k not 6k. Then again the Alexa image is great. Then again the AlexaMini is clearly targeted at rental houses. Who is going to buy an extra Alexa just for Gimbal and Aerial shoots? It has none of the IO that you want/need for a regular shoot. And it's even more difficult to rig from the looks of it than an Epic which is one of the reasons ACs and crews like the Alexa. The AlexaMini looks to be making all of the "mistakes" that RED is trying to correct with Weapon. But those are only mistakes if you're trying to be a general purpose body.

I'm hoping Wep fixes all of the hastle/ergonomic issues with Epic.
 
JANNARD! just posted "We are at war with conventional thinking." Leave the name as it stands.
 
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It make me smile that Arri has built their own Epic after bashing so much about it. Even in the advertisement you can see the sarcasm.
As for price, you can have a whole package of a Scarlet Dragon + lots of accessories for 30 000$. 35-45000$ the body only makes the Alexa Mini much pricier.

It's useful though as we can foresee what Red has in their oven using the specs of Alexa Mini.
 
Dunkan Wolf said:
True 4k or not... The final image resolution is not much worse than Red's 4K. That's the only thing that matters.

Ofcourse Red has 5K and 6k. :- )
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The real power with Red is the true debayering and the ability to reframe and work with the image in post. The Alexa upscaled 4K may look good, but you can't really work with it in post.
It's good for all those cinematographers and directors who think there's only one brand you can use, who can't get over their own lack of insight into the possibilities new technology gives you. There's a reason why Red is lacking from the movies nominated for best cinematography at the Oscars is because those cinematographers comes from film and want exactly "film" but in digital form. Arri digital made it's name for trying just that. But that wind will change with better color science for Red and better handling of DR like with Dragon. The days of the unreliable Red camera is about to go away and when that happens there will be some questions asked to cinematographers... "why aren't you using Red?" and they can't really answer more than "because I like Arri more", which isn't going to be enough in the future.

If filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick were alive today he would absolutely use Red, there's no question about that. Even filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman would have done it. These masters of filmmaking always had an eye out for new technology that would give the options when working. Arri doesn't give you much options. It gives a nice handling of colors on the fly, it's pretty much an over-expensive cinema-LUT-applier upscaled 4K. But even with color handling, the F65 blows Alexa away.

Yes, Arri's images are easy to grade, but I cannot do anything with them otherwise. The filmconvert plugin for Resolve together with Red Epic MX footage gives me almost the exact colors of film.

Wendell Adkins said:
I wondered how much longer Arri was going to let Red dominate the high end aerial market.

http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/02/23/the-arri-announce-the-alexa-mini/

This does complicate our upgrade decision a bit.
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How so? You get upscaled 4K. Don't you want 6K that can be stabilized and worked with after the aerial shots? Why would the Alexa Mini be a better choice? I'm really interested in why the quality the mini gives is better than the Dragon 6K?
 
Jarred Land said:
The Alexa Mini is not a 4K camera. We may suck at naming things but at least we are honest about our specs.... :)
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Funny. If you want to keep a macho name and dig at Arri, alliterate specs to pects, as in Arri "specs" vs. Red Pects
 
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Tony Lorentzen said:
This post lacks a considerable amount of information about your newly announced camera ;-) Heh heh heh...
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+1, now that the only real competitor has announced order opening in March, it could be wise to announce the weapon specs
 
I'm anxious to see new specs as well, but what I REALLY want to see is the form factor itself. Current dragon specs are fine and I'm sure they will be improved considerably... but this is the form factor we go to war with in the future, so I have high hopes of it being "futuristic!"
 
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