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Dragon Vs Alexa Low Light Tests - Someone?

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Adam Howden

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Hi All,

Sorry to throw a cat amongst the pigeons but I'm curious.

Background
I own an Epic and love it. Recently I shot a music video, all shot at night, for two nights. The shoot had limited time and resources, although I was able to pull out a few bigger lights - Arri M40 and a K5600 but running 2.5k lamps. I ended up hiring an Alexa body to team with my Ultra Primes as I just wasn't confident with the Epic in low light. I know the sensor from the MX very well and I ended up shooting some 2nd unit shots on my Epic and to be honest the difference was chalk and cheese.

The Alexa looked great at night, the nuances of the image were impressive. The Epic just didn't compare, it was noisy and lacked the depth that I got from the Alexa.

At the moment I'm plotting my next move gear wise and the Amira is looking like a great option assuming it's near $50k.

I'd love it if someone could post some side by side tests of the Dragon Vs the Alexa in low light or night situations. I've watched, reviewed and eeked all I can from Toia's, Pete Collister's and others tests but I need some side by side.

Jarred, Red Team and others. If this sensor is as good as you guys say it is, shoot some comparisons and post some high res jpegs and video for us to see. Or send me one and I can do it for you :-)

I'm sure I'm not the only one that is champing at the bit to see an honest, open and fair comparison of these two great cameras.

Thanks in advance :-)
 
my hunch is that ths is amongst the first thing anyone who went with the dragon would have tested. And that there will eventually pop up plenty of these tests.

Hillmar and offhollywood probably have some relevant material.
 
And hats off for saying "champing at the bit" as is correct, rather than "chomping."
Ok the English major in me will at down now.
 
It would probably not look very good om RED did such a comparison.
Remember when they announced the "test of all tests".
Noisy shit.

But the Dragon has been chosen for a few projects already, and my hunch is that both the extremes contribute to that, combined with color/skin renderition and over all "feel".

Formfactor and ease of use comming in as a good number four.

But as I said many will have the chance to play with tis and compare.
I wil, too. But now it is Christmas.

As a sidenote, I get a bit confused with the Amira comparison...
Not bashing it, just curious about the thinking behind it.
 
Adam Howden said:
Hi All,

Sorry to throw a cat amongst the pigeons but I'm curious.

Background
I own an Epic and love it. Recently I shot a music video, all shot at night, for two nights. The shoot had limited time and resources, although I was able to pull out a few bigger lights - Arri M40 and a K5600 but running 2.5k lamps. I ended up hiring an Alexa body to team with my Ultra Primes as I just wasn't confident with the Epic in low light. I know the sensor from the MX very well and I ended up shooting some 2nd unit shots on my Epic and to be honest the difference was chalk and cheese.

The Alexa looked great at night, the nuances of the image were impressive. The Epic just didn't compare, it was noisy and lacked the depth that I got from the Alexa.

At the moment I'm plotting my next move gear wise and the Amira is looking like a great option assuming it's near $50k.

I'd love it if someone could post some side by side tests of the Dragon Vs the Alexa in low light or night situations. I've watched, reviewed and eeked all I can from Toia's, Pete Collister's and others tests but I need some side by side.

Jarred, Red Team and others. If this sensor is as good as you guys say it is, shoot some comparisons and post some high res jpegs and video for us to see. Or send me one and I can do it for you :-)

I'm sure I'm not the only one that is champing at the bit to see an honest, open and fair comparison of these two great cameras.

Thanks in advance :-)
Click to expand...


Adam,
I've never seen differences between Alexa and Epic night, all have been shown to have the same latitude. The cancer MX in low light with light under the 3200kelvin, but if you shoot with daylight all goes fine.
Then please let Adam give examples or still R3D and some still with Alexa, always filmed in the same location at the same opening, so we can see the big difference.
Personally I do not believe that it is more noisy if everything was shot with m40 5600kelvin, under the same conditions for opening and location.

Dragon is definitely better than Alexa, a camera is the latest generation.
 
My lowlight comparisons between MX and Alexa also came out pretty similar, but there is a diference which make me understand what the OP says.
 
RED said Dragon is cleaner at 2000 ISO than MX was at 800. If that is to be believed, then it should be better than Alexa, also rated at 800 ISO. I saw some jpegs online somewhere, the name of the site escapes me, but it was Red One, Epic, Alexa, 1D-C and maybe one other camera. I don't remember lens information either, unfortunately. To the point, it had all the cameras at 3200 ISO. Frankly, the Alexa looked terrible. It was noisy, and felt almost video-y. I'm talking videotape camcorders from the 90's when you tried to shoot your kids birthday party and the only light was the candles on the cake. Epic looked slightly better to my eye, as did the Red One, not much difference since they were the same sensor. The 1D-C blew the other ones out of the water. Totally clean. Made the Alexa, the camera that costs 5 times as much look, like I said, awful. That being said, on one of the numerous Dragon thread, I saw a still that was supposedly taken at ISO 5000, and it looked completely clean. A match was the only light. Frankly I can't see anybody coming up with anything better than Dragon anytime in the near future. I hate to say it, but I feel like Arri is falling behind. All they want is "the film look" whereas RED seems to be going above and beyond what is achievable with film. Now granted, we're still in 35mm land, as Dragon isn't even as big as 35mm full-frame (a la 5D). That was a big problem I had with Jannard's yammering, was that he claimed Dragon was like 65mm film. No. If it was like 65mm film we wouldn't be able to cover the sensor with any of our currently owned lenses, not even the ones that work with the 5D would cover it. That always bothered me about his big announcement.

All that aside, unless Arri has something huge up their sleeve, nothing will be able to touch Dragon for at least a year, in low light or otherwise. Just peruse the Dragon forums, and you'll know exactly what I mean.
 
Daniel Christensen said:
That was a big problem I had with Jannard's yammering, was that he claimed Dragon was like 65mm film. No. If it was like 65mm film we wouldn't be able to cover the sensor with any of our currently owned lenses, not even the ones that work with the 5D would cover it. That always bothered me about his big announcement.
Click to expand...

Daniel - Jannard's comments comparing Dragon to 65mm was with respect to image quality - not lens coverage. And I certainly would argue that a Dragon -> 4K DCP finish is going to compare better than any other digital camera to a 4K DCP finish vs. 65mm film ->4K DCP finish.
 
Daniel Christensen said:
RED said Dragon is cleaner at 2000 ISO than MX was at 800. If that is to be believed, then it should be better than Alexa, also rated at 800 ISO. I saw some jpegs online somewhere, the name of the site escapes me, but it was Red One, Epic, Alexa, 1D-C and maybe one other camera. I don't remember lens information either, unfortunately. To the point, it had all the cameras at 3200 ISO. Frankly, the Alexa looked terrible. It was noisy, and felt almost video-y. I'm talking videotape camcorders from the 90's when you tried to shoot your kids birthday party and the only light was the candles on the cake. Epic looked slightly better to my eye, as did the Red One, not much difference since they were the same sensor. The 1D-C blew the other ones out of the water. Totally clean. Made the Alexa, the camera that costs 5 times as much look, like I said, awful. That being said, on one of the numerous Dragon thread, I saw a still that was supposedly taken at ISO 5000, and it looked completely clean. A match was the only light. Frankly I can't see anybody coming up with anything better than Dragon anytime in the near future. I hate to say it, but I feel like Arri is falling behind. All they want is "the film look" whereas RED seems to be going above and beyond what is achievable with film. Now granted, we're still in 35mm land, as Dragon isn't even as big as 35mm full-frame (a la 5D). That was a big problem I had with Jannard's yammering, was that he claimed Dragon was like 65mm film. No. If it was like 65mm film we wouldn't be able to cover the sensor with any of our currently owned lenses, not even the ones that work with the 5D would cover it. That always bothered me about his big announcement.

All that aside, unless Arri has something huge up their sleeve, nothing will be able to touch Dragon for at least a year, in low light or otherwise. Just peruse the Dragon forums, and you'll know exactly what I mean.
Click to expand...
Is this the test you are referring to?
https://vimeo.com/24488998
 
MX looks damn good! I'm quite surprised, actually, at how well it compares to the Alexa and 35mm film!
 
Adam Howden said:
I'd love it if someone could post some side by side tests of the Dragon Vs the Alexa in low light or night situations. I've watched, reviewed and eeked all I can from Toia's, Pete Collister's and others tests but I need some side by side.
Click to expand...
I think there's a lot of "it depends" on this, but this has been discussed quite a bit on the Cinematographer's Mailing List over the last few weeks. The Sony F55 is also a contender as well, and I've seen some very impressive night scenes on NBC's The Blacklist​.
 
Rest assured, now DRAGON is best at everything.
Surely MARK Pederson next week show the movie DRAGON vs. ALEXA, so we put an end to these discussions usual.
Who will have Alexa or F55 must wait for the next generation of Arri or Sony to be compared to DRAGON, or sell it and buy DRAGON :)
 
I think it goes down to physics. Larger photosites means better light capture, less noise. Red is challenging those sensors that have fewer pixels with the Dragon. But if Arri stays with less pixels policy they will always perform better (if they push their sensor technology) with less resolution/photosites.

What do you think?

Regarding the camera as a tool, I prefer the Epic.

Pat
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
Daniel - Jannard's comments comparing Dragon to 65mm was with respect to image quality - not lens coverage. And I certainly would argue that a Dragon -> 4K DCP finish is going to compare better than any other digital camera to a 4K DCP finish vs. 65mm film ->4K DCP finish.
Click to expand...


The RED Dragon sensor needs to be directly compared to 65mm film.

The Dragon has more resolution than 65mm film when scanned at 4K!!!!!.

The Dragon has more dynamic range than film... by a lot. 65mm film has about 14.5 stops. The Dragon has an easy 16 stops... without sweating.

The EPIC Dragon will shoot nearly 100fps. 65mm film cameras... not so much.

Cost to shoot the RED Dragon vs. 65mm film... ridiculously not close.
Click to expand...


Dragon 6K Sensor with its size and resolution is like "50mm" film.

65mm can be scanned at 11K and 65mm 11k -> 4K DCP would look terrific.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
I think it goes down to physics. Larger photosites means better light capture, less noise.
What do you think?
Click to expand...
Photon shot noise is the dominant noise source at lower ISOs, and read noise the one at higher ISOs. (thermal noise for really long exposures)
All else being equal (quantum efficiency, fill factor etc.) photon shot noise per picture height doesn't depend on pixel density
But the higher proportional read noise of smaller pixels is a big issue(same read noise, weaker signal of smaller pixels).

The canon 1dc has a very low 1.2 e- rms of read noise. [1] Combined with larger pixels, this is the main reason for the big difference in high ISO performance.
From what I've seen so far I'd guess Red Dragon's read noise to be around 2-3 e-, but time will tell.
 
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