EOS 5DmkII users rejoice!

[Albert Armes]

As much as a good image is down to lighting and direction, not the camera, it is important that the camera performs well. All the nice looking 5D2 movies have been with shallow DOF, for which it is best at with it's large sensor. Because of the current automatics, that means low light too, to get the camera to open up the lens aperture fullly. In brighter scenes, you see what is wrong with the camera - edge sharpness, video looking colors, aliasing. I can't help but think that allowing manual operation will only allow you to see the 5D2 at it's worst, not it's best.

Albert

 

[Joel Kaye]

I agree that it may impact sales for the novices

Novices buy 20,000 cameras a month. Pros don't. I'm sure Jim knows that... he already owns almost as much of the the pro market as he's likely to get with RED One.

(edit - there is the prosumer market too - wedding, corporate work etc. I wonder if the EX1 is the camera they need due to the very fast workflow. I'm not sure they are switching up for a Scarlet, but maybe.)

If the 60D does 24P that might be my next camera. Potentially great for B roll and adding a second camera to conversation scenes. I could shoot wider and locked off with it. Also, you could steal shots in public places with a camera like that... not so with a RED rig.

RED will need a $3200 Camera that blows the 60D away (which will have interchangeable lenses - I've proven to myself that Canon glass is well up to the task of moviemaking).

$3-$4K seems to be the magic number going back to the Sony VX1000.

 

[Tom Lowe]

The story went like this:
Canon's industry moles (mostly recruited from the world famous Watanabe-clan) discovered that Nikon is expanding it's liveview with recording capabilities. That was just the moment when Canon's Chief of marketing Masamitsu Ito had to hurt his competitors badly and was forced to develop a kick ass marketing campain for the 5D MII for General Manager Fukashi Takashi in order to not loose his middle finger and the forefinger of his son Bruce Ito who studied law in California. Masamitsu screwed it up because he was too greedy. However, Canon's management team didn't find his son on time, because he was involved in a special brand name case at the moment with a digital camera manufacturer from Las Vegas. It didn't take long until Masamitsu Ito had to absorb a loss. His only son "Blues Ito" has been beaten to death by an agressive dog called Oakley. The Las Vegas Police stated that only his forefinger was left of him. Masamitsu Ito sweared outraged and by the life of his wife to distroy this american company and designed a provocative internet banner to frighten them and their customers. And if you look closely he is still wearing two forefingers on his right hand.

hahhaha. :smilielol5:

Novices buy 20,000 cameras a month. Pros don't. I'm sure Jim knows that... he already owns almost as much of the the pro market as he's likely to get with RED One.

Epic can own a much, much larger chunk of high-end, cinema market than R1. Jim is building Epic as a no-holds-barred cinema camera that will compete more directly with Genesis, F35, Arri D-21, and film cameras. In fact, Epic should be heads and shoulders above all other cameras, making it a first choice for many DPs, directors and producers.

 

[Joel Kaye]

hahhaha. :smilielol5:
Epic can own a much, much larger chunk of high-end, cinema market than R1.

How big is that market? 5000 cameras and RED already has 4000 units out there? The F-900 sold less than 2000 units in it's entire life. Meanwhile, JVC claims they sold 12000 eng style HD-100s in the first year. The ENG market is much bigger than high end film market.

You're right that a lot of RED owners may upgrade to EPIC and I'm not saying "don't make EPIC".

What I'm really saying is Canon and Nikon have literally millions of cameras and lenses out there. How many Sony video cameras are out there? Must be many millions.

RED is a long way from playing in that game from what I can see. My camera still has a playback bug. You think Canon's going to release a camera that doesn't play back every 3rd clip? RED is a hero niche camera company... but man, mainstream retail? I'm skeptical. It'll be years, and that's IF Canon, Sony and Nikon don't wake up. Those guys have complete and total retail support worldwide.

RED with Scarlet is just playing a different game right now. It's the game of trying to sell the very avid enthusiast semi-pro early adopter. They appeal to the rebel in all of us... but we are a niche crowd.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Joel, I think one of the main ideas behind Epic is to dominate actual cinema productions -- TVCs, TV shows, music vids, but especially feature films. That market will be wide open to Epic if it comes through as promised. Part of this delay from Red is probably trying to double- and triple-check everything, so they can put out a finished camera that is ready to dominate cinema productions from Day 1.

I'm not talking about the 4,000 people who bought R1 (I assume many will upgrade). I'm talking about the next Michael Bay movie. I'm talking about Epic being THE go-to camera for major productions. It's a small market, but the prestige factor is through the roof.

In terms of volume, I think the 2/3 will sell like hotcakes, mainly due to overcranking ability -- something all these DSLRs sorely lack.

 

[Joel Kaye]

Joel, I think one of the main ideas behind Epic is to dominate actual cinema productions ...
In terms of volume, I think the 2/3 will sell like hotcakes, mainly due to overcranking ability -- something all these DSLRs sorely lack.

I think we agree about EPIC's potential... but down at the music video and tv commercial level I think we'll see much less expensive 35mm DOF cameras dominate in a few years. One area of huge market growth should be corporate video on the Internet. What camera will shoot that stuff? Probably ones that cost a few thousand dollars.

How much do you think most people are willing to pay for overcranking? I'm not sure they are willing to pay an extra $3k on a $3k camera. A lot of DVX's sold with no overcranking.

First company with a real $3K camera that can shoot a 35mm movie, get good audio and has a friendly post solution wins.

RED's post still completely blows in comparison to something like the EX1 (for fast turnaround with nice quality).

 

[Tom Lowe]

I personally think overcranking is a huge, very underestimated factor in all of this. This is why I'm constantly harping about overcranking on this forum. Overcranking will be THE factor in my decision to go with FF35 Scarlet or to wait for something else, maybe Canon's rumored 4K RAW 60fps camera. Then again, the 2/3 fixed is always an option for the $5,000 crowd.

Another thing to keep in mind, for larger cinema productions, is that Epic very squarely aimed at replacing film! That's huge. If Epic replaces much of film production, that is a substantial market.

 

[Joel Kaye]

I personally think overcranking is a huge, very underestimated factor in all of this. This is why I'm constantly harping about overcranking on this forum.

Another thing to keep in mind, for larger cinema productions, is that Epic very squarely aimed at replacing film! That's huge. If Epic replaces much of film production, that is a substantial market.

Based on your key points it appears we agree. RED is after niches. Which is fine.

Time will tell, but I don't think the vast majority or prosumers will pay much for overcranking. It's just not used in 99% of normal low budget production of normal little things. I think people would probably pony up an extra grand maybe. Even then, that's $1000 of lights or lenses they could have purchased. Would they rather have $1k in accessories or some slow motion if they have to choose? I'm skeptical high frame rates are worth a ton of money.

When a million units of a camera capable of making 35mm movies sells it'll be one of the majors doing to the selling. I'm betting they all are sitting on the chip technology and could deploy in 6 months if they wanted to. Sony's got post figured out pretty well. Owning Vegas can't hurt them. They could include Sony Vegas LE with every camera. I usually just shoot but over the past month I posted 8 little RED shorts I shot. I've had to work through a fair amount of little weirdness. I don't think consumers are going to handle that very well.

I also don't believe the film camera sales market is that big. How many 35mm film movies are shot a year? A few hundred? And many of those share the same cameras almost all owned by the rental houses. Those rental houses already own RED's too. How many film cameras are purchased every year? Or all the same old ones maintained?


Meanwhile, 6,000 features will be shot this year. Digital already owns indie movies.

 

[tfg]

I disagree with many of you folks here ... I think this firmware update has potential to etch into Scarlet sales. I've been waiting to buy a Scarlet for more than a year now and I'm growing tired of waiting. I know that there are plenty of perks to the Scarlet that need not be mentioned, but at the utter-most basic level I just want my 35mm DOF with a half decent codec. 5DM2 delivers on these most basic elements and price is right. Whether that makes it worth the purchase is debatable, but to think that this camera is not in the same playing field is being naive.

 

[enrique]

I just took the plunge and started price shopping (I hate/love ebay) for a 5D MarkII now that some improvements are made and the firmware is on its way to be hacked/expanded.

I'm not a professional (anymore), nor do I think I'll ever will. All I want is to shoot hollidays, family, landscapes, scuba, etc. Thought the Scarlet could be the best thing for the price, but now think the 5DMKII is a better choice for me.

But if I ever have to shoot something at a professional level, I would no doubts take a look at RED's offerings again.

I love the RED company and in case it helps them, these are the things that would've stopped me from buying a 5D and wait for a Scarlet:

-A timeframe announcement. RED is some 3-5 months away from the first indications the Scarlett would ship and they are still not updating in its status. To me, a non-professional, that means it's either late or they don't know if it's going to be late. If they knew it would be out on time, I hope they wouldn't be so awkward as to not tell us for no reason that the camera will likely be on the shelves in X/X+2 months.

-A sweeter price point. $3700 is in the upper limit of my budget for my hobby. I much rather have a "full package" (viewer, a bit of flash memory, battery, zoom lens) for around $3k-$3500. And it's non removable lens at that price point.

-A larger sensor with highly available (and inexpensive) lenses and great low light performance. You can never get enough of this, of course, and I like the 5D in this department.

I gather the 5D has too much rolling shutter and aliasing from line skipping and offers burned-in AVC instead of RAW. Did I mention I am not a professional but an aficionado looking to shoot holidays? To me, shooting straight to AVC is almost an advantage. I can take the memory card around and play it back, burn it to a DVD-r disc, etc, almost w/o touching a computer. Eventually, AVC will be a more universal format. With a Scarlet, I would need a computer to grade and recompress from the Redcode to something I can actually watch and share.

Is the 5D perfect? Hell no. I would want it to have better HDMI support, automatic spill over the 4GB file limit (loosing a frame or two is fine with me, as a non-pro), less rolling shutter/skew, less aliasing, more frame rates, more manual controls, digital zoom (i.e. by not skipping over lines but cropping the sensor's central area), zooming-focus-assist, zebras, etc, etc, etc. I guess I would be happy with a Canon 8D Mark III 3 years down the road

I find the Scarlet, for non-professionals, may be too little (no large sensor and difficult lens choice), too late (who knows when it's coming out and what cameras Canon/Nikon/Sony/Panasonic will have then), too "inconvinient" (no-point-and-shoot-and-playback mode in a small form factor, i.e. no AVC option if you are not planning on editing) and too expensive (but just by a couple hundred $$$).

Again, all this, IMHO for non-professional use.

But if I ever wear my a/v professional hat again in the future, then I'm sure RED products would be on the top of my list and I want to thank them for making the market closer to what it should be: full of wonderful choices instead of artificially highly constrained machines only made to force the need to upgrade.

 

[Yannick Hagman]

Red should focus on Epic.

 

[David Doko]

It's been surprising to me how quickly people have adopted VDSLR's for the projects they want to do right now, and how they are willing to put up with the limitations for the sake of cinematic DOF.

 

[Tom Lowe]

It's been surprising to me how quickly people have adopted VDSLR's for the projects they want to do right now, and how they are willing to put up with the limitations for the sake of cinematic DOF.

It's not surprising to me at all. There has been a huge, gaping hole in the market for at least 5 years now. All people want is a 35mm sensor with at least 1080p. The only surprise to me is that it has taken this long for Canon to wake up. Their marketing team has been asleep at the wheel for over half a decade.

The other big hole in the market that is very, very clear, at least to me, is lack of overcranking in 1080p cameras, like the EX3. It completely baffles my mind that no camera company has stepped up to the plate with a 35mm 1080p 60fps prosumer camera. Whoever does it first will sell cameras like hotcakes.

 

[Isaac Brody]

Things like line skipping, skew, limited grading and god knows what else, are thing your average Joe soap don't give two craps about. And as for the "I've seen good and mediocre footage" comment, Isaac would you mind sharing your definition of good and mediocre footage ?. No offense but I don't think you have looked hard enough, there are a few clips that easily compare to RED ONE.

Did you read the rest of my post, because you basically repeated my point almost verbatim?

However, I think the average viewer is much more forgiving then we are and doesn't care or is even aware of these issues. With manual control this just became a much more attractive option.

And when I say mediocre I'm referring to the tons of amateur out of focus shots floating around on vimeo. Focusing on the fly with a full frame sensor is not easy.

 

[Stefan Christou]

I have to chip in here.

Look I've been waiting for Scarlet for a long time. I have a camera so I already have an in-between camera and I'm good to wait. The thing is that FF35 and even S35 Scarlet really excite me because I'm expecting to be able to use it for professional photography as well as pro video work.

It's going a big advantage at ringside or lakeside or curbside outside a celeb hotspot or wherever, because more important in photojournalism than depth of field or even DR, is getting the shot. And 30fps makes a big difference compared to 12.

And for shooting documentaries the thing that people who watch them care about is story telling above all else and then clarity of image, depth of field comes last. 2/3 Scarlet will be perfect for this – perhaps using S/FF35 for staged interviews and 2/3 for the rest.

I can't see any canon offerings that can do the same at the Scarlet price points.

 

[Tom Lowe]

The 5D2 is absolutely perfect for documentary filmmaking and interviews. It's really a dream come true for that application. Setup takes about 1 minute, the image is extremely clear and the DOF is beautiful. Right now you really need an external audio device, though, and sync can be an issue.

When I am out shooting, I can jump out of my car and have my 5D2 shot set up and the camera rolling in under 60 seconds! Maybe another minute or two if I want audio -- using the zoom H4n.

Another great advantage, as others have pointed out, is that the camera is very inconspicuous, so you can shoot in public places without anyone even knowing you are shooting video. Most people assume you are shooting stills. Plus, the battery life and record times on the 5D2 are stunning. I can shoot all day with a pocket full of cheap 32GB CF cards and walnut-sized batteries.

 

[David Swan]

30p may be hardwired into this particular Digic IV implementation. But maybe not.....

 

[Zack Birlew]

I don't know how to feel about all of this. On one hand, I want to sell my two D90's and put the money towards a 5D Mark II and on the other hand, I want to just sit and wait for RED/Panasonic/Nikon's response.

The GH1 has failed me already, after seeing and hearing all of the issues and letdowns with the camera, I just don't want one. I would have loved to have been able to use Leica M lenses with 1080P video but that will have to wait.

As it stands now, I don't know how I feel about Scarlet. It's obviously going to be the best camera in that price range but I can't sit and wait for it like I did with the RED One, which ended up fizzling anyway becaus of film school. If RED can release the Scarlet on time then that would be the end of it, however, it's just looking more and more like we're going to have to wait even longer.

I would hope that Nikon would stick with 24p and bump up to 1080P in full frame. If they released a manual control firmware update for the D90, that'd be great, especially if they tossed in a quality control menu (Low, Med, High, High+, etc.) so you could basically set the bitrate. If not, the next camera has to at least match the 5D Mark II in features and performance, all the while maintaining 24p. However, the price has to be there, they can't pull another D3x debacle.

Now, I like the image quality of the 5D Mark II, just like practically everyone else, and I LOVE that it looks like a DSLR and nobody will ask too many questions. My D90 has helped me get guerilla shots in places that I would normally be barred from filming in. Fantastic! However, the 30p thing still ticks me off to no end. Just add in 24p, I'll even take a pulldown scenario at this point. I like that I'll be able to use all of my Nikon glass as well with the various Nikon mount options. Granted, I'll loose the lens mount flexibility of the GH1, but the image more than makes up for it.

Thankfully, I don't need anything right now. I'd like to have stuff, but I don't need it. School just got out last week and I'm going to be doing a lot of writing. Things are getting pretty interesting right now, I will say that.

 

[Rick Darge]

This is why I want one...

The 5D2 is absolutely perfect for documentary filmmaking and interviews. It's really a dream come true for that application. Setup takes about 1 minute, the image is extremely clear and the DOF is beautiful. Right now you really need an external audio device, though, and sync can be an issue.

When I am out shooting, I can jump out of my car and have my 5D2 shot set up and the camera rolling in under 60 seconds! Maybe another minute or two if I want audio -- using the zoom H4n.

Another great advantage, as others have pointed out, is that the camera is very inconspicuous, so you can shoot in public places without anyone even knowing you are shooting video. Most people assume you are shooting stills. Plus, the battery life and record times on the 5D2 are stunning. I can shoot all day with a pocket full of cheap 32GB CF cards and walnut-sized batteries.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Scarlet is going to open a whole new market.

A lot of people who bought Z1 and EX1 will make the change to Scarlet. This camera is no longer adressed to dop's like RED ONE was, but will clearly be in the hands of a lot of directors willing to shoot their documentries or features.

And I, as a dop, will be very pleased to use another tool.

RED (if I may...) should not only focus on Epic.

Patrick