Epic-W Owners Having Moved from Dragon - Update

[Derek Doublin]

I am curious, early on there were a lot of Epic Dragon owners that voiced their concerns over moving to Epic-W and losing the high frame rates (without the severe crop) that they had grown accustomed to with the Dragon. These concerns were mainly from folks that shoot commercials, music videos and productions that rely heavily on high speed. I would love an update from some of those people that made the jump to Epic-W and have now been shooting with it for a while. Are you satisified or do you often feel like you should have stuck with the Dragon’s wider FOV when overcranking? There are plenty of threads on this topic that were posted during the Epic-W’s first announcement, but I’m really looking for feedback from experienced users that have been shooting with the Epic-W for a while now. What is your opinion now that it has been out in the wild?

 

[Russ Fill]

Are you taking about the 8K S35 Helium sensor you looking to move to from a Dragon sensor?
I was in the same kind of boat.
I was worried that going to the Helium 8S35 sensor I would lose some ability to have over crank ability and some wide lensing due to the smaller format that I would have to use and how that would affect my end results compared to what I was getting from Dragon sensor.

I have to say that after using the 8Ks35 Helium for a while now on several projects and talking with post about the results in comparison with the Dragon sensor work I use to do. The results are pretty amazing. I would even say that the ability to color and match other formats that we used on the shows was much easier and looked better with the Helium sensor...

I don't feel I have lost anything except the ability to have a little wider selection of lensing on smaller formats... With the increase of pixels on the Helium and cleaner image it seems almost like a wash. Now Im not expert and a lot of my work and comparison is purely ballpark comparison but from talking with post they seem to feel the same that with the different pixel pitch and newer sensor tech it hasn't made that big of a difference and even made the image better for those shots we use to shoot at 3K on the Dragon sensor.
For what its worth..

All of that said I am supper excited to move to the Monstro sensor after starting to see some of the results from Phils test. Only time will tell but I can believe that RED hasn't thought that we can't put out a sensor or sensor tech that just moves horizontal. And from the quick Phil test with the high ISO's it seems like thats pretty obvious.

 

[Robert Gustafsson]

I am curious, early on there were a lot of Epic Dragon owners that voiced their concerns over moving to Epic-W and losing the high frame rates (without the severe crop) that they had grown accustomed to with the Dragon. These concerns were mainly from folks that shoot commercials, music videos and productions that rely heavily on high speed. I would love an update from some of those people that made the jump to Epic-W and have now been shooting with it for a while. Are you satisified or do you often feel like you should have stuck with the Dragon’s wider FOV when overcranking? There are plenty of threads on this topic that were posted during the Epic-W’s first announcement, but I’m really looking for feedback from experienced users that have been shooting with the Epic-W for a while now. What is your opinion now that it has been out in the wild?

I ended up getting a lot of new glass to accomplish those wide slomo shots that otherwise would have been impossible with my old glass I used on the Epic Dragon. The crop is not severe but of course there is a difference compared to Dragon. Besides that I'd choose Epic-W any day over the Epic Dragon. (IPP2 in camera is just pure gold!)

 

[Derek Doublin]

I appreciate the feedback. 6k on the Helium sensor is APS-C, so it doesn't seem like the crop would bother me that much. But since you are windowing the sensor, it seems like you'd lose a little bit of the sparkle you get from shooting full frame. I always shoot at around 5k-6k on the Dragon and rarely ever need to over crank past 75fps. But I do use 60-75fps quite often. Seems like the consensus across a lot of this forum is that people that were once hesitant to move to Epic-W are now happy they did so.

 

[Sergio Perez]

I went Full Helium because of this and dont regret it one bit. having said that, don’t underestimate the power of twixtor. It works incredibly well for 50% slow motion reduction in most shots. It takes time but can give an extra boost to the Epic W for above 6k slow motion. Specially for 7K.

 

[Adam Montville]

All of that said I am supper excited to move to the Monstro sensor after starting to see some of the results from Phils test.

I would be too.... If I could afford the 20k to upgrade to Weapon, the 6k to get Armor-W, and then the 30k to get the Monstro sensor..... This is why I started dreaming of winning the lottery. XD How else would I pay for that?

Going to 6k for slowmo has not been an issue for me at all, as the 6k looks so good with min compression. HUGE upgrade from what I was seeing in Scarlet Dragon. (Where even just 30fps at 5k, being forced at 10:1 killed shots for me).