ELQ vs LQ vs ProRes

[scorsesefan]

I bought the Komodo to use alongside my fx6 to do higher quality talking head work. Is ELQ good enough for interviews or should I shoot Prores? I do long form docs and the interviews are usually about an hour. Is LQ the minimum? I'm worried about data piling up. Thoughts? Thanks

 

[Brian Timmons]

LQ works great and I use it 99% of the time for anything 5K or 6K.
Below those resolutions things can start exhibiting the "codec crunch" with slight macro blocking in LQ mode.

I filmed 4K stuff (for slo motion) on the Komodo and typically use MQ for that.
For 2K filming I use HQ.

I honestly only shot one thing in ELQ by a mistake in 5K and while it looked ok it felt on the cusp of
showing some macro blocking. Perhaps 6K on ELQ would work a little better.

Depending on the flavor of ProRes you might actually have a greater data footprint if filming in 4K ProRes plus you
lose a lot of the benefits of R3D.

Definitely best to test but I can at least say I've shot docs (specifically feature length) with a lot of talking
heads with 2 Komodos typically filming in 5K on LQ compression and works out well with media managment,
backups and archiving to LTO.

I also shot a feature with a similar approach and had no issues with the color correction or QC so I feel pretty confident with LQ.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[scorsesefan]

Thanks, Brian. I should probably just play it safe and stay in LQ mode... Did you shoot your Eisman doc with the Komodo?

 

[Brian Timmons]

Thanks, Brian. I should probably just play it safe and stay in LQ mode... Did you shoot your Eisman doc with the Komodo?

actually no that was primarily RED One MX with a few other cameras as that was shot a good while ago and is still in post.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[scorsesefan]

Cool. Love to see it when it's done. I DP'd a doc about an artist named Art Pinajian who had his start in comics and was pretty innovative...

 

[Dustin Schmidt]

I will weigh in here to say that I've shot many, many an interview in ELQ and it was fine for my uses. This was mostly for corporate talking heads that ended up on the web and the clients were all perfectly satisfied.

That being said, if you have the storage for it, both in camera on the cards and at home on your RAID storage, etc. then the higher quality modes will of course be better.

 

[Brian Timmons]

Very interesting he seems to also be from the Golden Age of comics and grew up in Union City near where I live.
Let know the name of the doc. Will look out for it,

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[scorsesefan]

Very interesting he seems to also be from the Golden Age of comics and grew up in Union City near where I live.
Let know the name of the doc. Will look out for it,

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

Yes, he was an Armenian who was born in Union City. Supposedly he innovated characters breaking the frame... The film isn't officially out, but I'll send you a screener...

 

[scorsesefan]

I will weigh in here to say that I've shot many, many an interview in ELQ and it was fine for my uses. This was mostly for corporate talking heads that ended up on the web and the clients were all perfectly satisfied.

That being said, if you have the storage for it, both in camera on the cards and at home on your RAID storage, etc. then the higher quality modes will of course be better.

Thanks, Dustin.

 

[Brian Timmons]

Yes, he was an Armenian who was born in Union City. Supposedly he innovated characters breaking the frame... The film isn't officially out, but I'll send you a screener...

Yes that would be cool.
He sounds like an interesting artist.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Brian Timmons]

Last month at the B&H Bild expo I spoke a little with James Lucarelli who is the Director, Technical Sales and Training at RED and he gave a bit of insight on REDcode.

I'm paraphrasing from memory but he explained how the codec basically targets more higher frequency detail (i.e sharper finer line parts of an image) for compression and that at lower settings (LQ and ELQ) you might see more signs of compression in those higher detailed areas of the image.

REDcode's compression is much more subtle in low frequency (lower detailed parts of an image like an out of focus area) and there might be little difference in compression settings in those situations.

If one is filming a talking head interview with minimal detail (no crazy clothing patterns) with shallow depth of field and an out of focus background the differences between ELQ and HQ might be less compared to a highly detailed deep focus image like a forest full of leaves, branches, etc.

Lucarelli did mention he and many others actually filmed quite a bit in ELQ for most personal stuff and reserved MQ and higher for the higher end paid gigs.

About a month ago I did shoot a gig primarily in ELQ and have to admit it held up pretty well even with pushing the ISO for some shots.

I still believe 4K and definitely 2K is pushing things a bit at ELQ. I don't go below MQ for those resolutions and usually HQ just for the peace of mind.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[scorsesefan]

Thanks for the info, Brian. If I knew you were at BILD I would have said 'hi"

 

[Brian Timmons]

Thanks for the info, Brian. If I knew you were at BILD I would have said 'hi"

Yes that would have been cool to meet up.
I was really only there for a few hours on the first day but it looked like a very good show.
Let me know if you plan on attending other events in the area.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[scorsesefan]

Yeah, it was packed, too, that first day. I'll let you know if I plan on any other events. Also, if you're in the city we can grab a cup of coffee at some point...