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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 :)

Hasselblad vs RED Epic for stills.

It appears that the perspective is quite different based on the lenses used, and the position of the model, which skews the results in my opinion. He appears to be a good 6-8 feet further back on the Epic. It would have been nice to see equivalent focal lengths and f-stops. He'd have had to have been at 250-300mm on the Hasselblad, if I'm doing the math right in my head, to match the perspective on the 100mm on the Epic, if you go by frame height since the sides are cropped. And matching DOF wouldn't have been too difficult either since he was shooting at f/6.3 on the Hasselblad. Even though I don't see a huge difference in DOF. Just seems that the image characteristics could have been more closely matched making the the differences between the two even less apparent, particularly for this purpose.

Also, tell me if I'm just seeing things or if my monitor is funky, but I see more green saturation in the skin tones on the Epic shot. I just posted about my experiences with this in the Gatsby thread, so I don't mean to beat this to death. I know that it's from the kino flos, but it seems that when I look at the Epic image, her face is a different color on each side. Her right half being very green. I see a slight tint in the Hasselblad image. But the green is not as saturated and it rolls off more smoothly; it doesn't look like two different skin tones. And I don't think that it's a make-up issue since I noticed the same results when shooting a white male with no make-up under exactly the same lighting conditions. Just me?
 
Jarred Land said:
that one button marker is the way to do it. Thats getting closer and closer.


About the strobes.. We are finding more and more photographers are using HMI's... Profoto is even coming heavy into that market.. Briese has lived there for along time.

That said.. we do have the Xsync port on the handle.. someday that will actually do something.
Click to expand...

Hi Jarred,

Light and of course the talent in front of the camera are the most important factors of creating great images. And yes, coming from the still photography we bought into HMI as well and really enjoy to work with continous light as an option. But: light spectrum / color rendering of xenon strobes is still better than HMI, far beyond Kinos or LED, also light output is far beyond any continous light, pretty easy to overpower sunlight if necessary and of course you have a short flash duration to freeze action / prevent blur in your still images. It has already been said before, that Hassy 22Mpx is an oldtimer, not even somewhere close to the recent image quality of Medium format still photography. In addition it would need a different lighting to perform well.

It is a complete new approach for us and we really enjoy working with the scarlet (thank you, RED) but excuse me, still photography is much more than taking mediocre frame grabs from motion, at least for what we do.
Thrilled where this all will lead us to, but at the moment we carefully choose the appropriate tools for the job.

Cheers, Ulf
 
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Paris Remillard said:
It appears that the perspective is quite different based on the lenses used, and the position of the model, which skews the results in my opinion. He appears to be a good 6-8 feet further back on the Epic. It would have been nice to see equivalent focal lengths and f-stops. He'd have had to have been at 250-300mm on the Hasselblad, if I'm doing the math right in my head, to match the perspective on the 100mm on the Epic, if you go by frame height since the sides are cropped. And matching DOF wouldn't have been too difficult either since he was shooting at f/6.3 on the Hasselblad. Even though I don't see a huge difference in DOF. Just seems that the image characteristics could have been more closely matched making the the differences between the two even less apparent, particularly for this purpose.

Also, tell me if I'm just seeing things or if my monitor is funky, but I see more green saturation in the skin tones on the Epic shot. I just posted about my experiences with this in the Gatsby thread, so I don't mean to beat this to death. I know that it's from the kino flos, but it seems that when I look at the Epic image, her face is a different color on each side. Her right half being very green. I see a slight tint in the Hasselblad image. But the green is not as saturated and it rolls off more smoothly; it doesn't look like two different skin tones. And I don't think that it's a make-up issue since I noticed the same results when shooting a white male with no make-up under exactly the same lighting conditions. Just me?
Click to expand...

Hi Paris,

Also take in account there are different sensor sizes, comparing RED to Medium Format is about the same step as from small chip video to RED.
Regarding the lighting, Kinos (and Leds) don´t have a good skin tone rendering, no surprise here.

Cheers, Ulf
 
U guys at Red are certainly going in right direction. Massive steps since the first Red Ones. This is an interesting comparision. Epic/Scarlet seems to be a decent stills camera too. It sure loses this battle 4-0 (detail, noise, sharpness, color), but I'm really curious to see a new test with dragon chip installed.

What would be great is to have an option of real raw stills mode - a better quality file shot with a lower fps. (r3d is still quite far from the quality of still raw files). Another feature which would be useful for stills photography is 5 sec recording buffer similar like Nikon 1 has.

here's a still from my first ever test shot with Scarlet. It is a great camera, but I'm not going to sell my Canon gear. At least for now.
 

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Cool test
But in terms of sharpness it seems like the Hasselblad wipes the floor with the Epic
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But there's no question it can be used with smaller prints!
 

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For my clients, the ability to pull high quality stills from the video is a major plus and very attractive to me because I detest sharing a shoot with a stills photographer. Client's think the stills guy can just jump in and click off a few shots in seconds, but we all know it never, never works out that way. They futz around burning daylight, bugging the talent, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

For almost every use, such as a magazine ad or poster, the Red shots are more than adequate. On the other hand, I really don't see the using an Epic for a stills job; it is inferior to a high-end DSLR in every category, particularly ergonomically, and DSLR's are very inexpensive by comparison.

My apologies to stills photographers; I am mostly, but not completely, kidding about having you on my set; I have great respect for your talent.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
Casper Warnich said:
Cool test
But in terms of sharpness it seems like the Hasselblad wipes the floor with the Epic
attachment.php


But there's no question it can be used with smaller prints!
Click to expand...


You absolutely can't say this, as it depends entirely on lens used and on the perfect focus on both shots with both cameras using the same lens.
 
Ketch, I tested my Epic and old Nikon D50 7mpx with same lens Nikon 50mm 1.8 - DSLR was little bit sharper.
I expected that Epic will be superior, but was not.

Same f-stop, 400ISO, 1/160s, same lighting.
Nikon RAW, REDCODE RAW, developed in RCX and Aperture.

From Epic I had bigger picture, but I decided to make prints from Nikon.
 
Why do you suppose Peter Hurley didn't see the same results comparing to his Hassy as you did with the Nikon? Do you think it may have been operator error, or do you think the Nikon body and lens are more fine tuned for one another, skewing the results? Did you sharpen the Epic file at all?

Laco Zamba said:
Ketch, I tested my Epic and old Nikon D50 7mpx with same lens Nikon 50mm 1.8 - DSLR was little bit sharper.
I expected that Epic will be superior, but was not.

Same f-stop, 400ISO, 1/160s, same lighting.
Nikon RAW, REDCODE RAW, developed in RCX and Aperture.

From Epic I had bigger picture, but I decided to make prints from Nikon.
Click to expand...
 
Ok, just my test and surprise for me too.
Please, read discussion under article where many people see that Hassy is visible sharper.

And don't forget that Epic has OLPF filter.
 
Interesting. Great video Peter.

To be fair, the Hasselbad used here is several generations old. But still, remarkable to be comparing video frame grabs to MF captures.

I love both the Epic and H4D, use both frequently. Depends on the priorities of the shoot. But sometimes the extra time of switching systems is not worth it for the stills. Other times you need the very best still captures. And resolution does matter (don't have to tell this to Red users).

The biggest advantage of the Epic over the Hasselblad is in low light performance, and again time savings when you need stills from a video shoot but the stills are a secondary priority. Nice to know Epic captures are viable for publication.

And now Hasselblad USA has merged with Bron Imaging group, which provides a lot of lighting synergy between the extensive Broncolor strobe light modifiers and their Kobold HMI line. Interesting times.

I find Red and Hasselblad the ideal combination when ultimate quality is required across the board.

________

August Bradley
http://www.AugustBradley.com
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I think the point of the article and thread is that the picture quality is remarkably close, not that it matches exactly.
Click to expand...

+1
I think the quality is now comparable. It was not a few years ago.
Its a huge improvement.
Still, I prefer the Phase One over the EPIC for stills... for now... It surely will change in the future.
This useful test should motivate photo users to compare the tools they own. I now would like to test a simple color chart and see what the results are between the epic the phase and a 5d... :P
Hope to have the time and compromise! Suggestions appreciated...
 
It's just marvellous that we can shoot video and pull very usable stills (for the overwhelming majority of purposes) from that video. The fact that it isn't quite as good for some very select purposes as a similarly expensive camera which is entirely dedicated to stills should not diminish from how wonderful the Epic is (and, by extension, how fantastic the Scarlet is). Of course, there are other reasons to use a DSLR (size and weight being the biggest ones), but this really is a great development.
 
Jarred Land said:
that one button marker is the way to do it. Thats getting closer and closer.


About the strobes.. We are finding more and more photographers are using HMI's... Profoto is even coming heavy into that market.. Briese has lived there for along time.

That said.. we do have the Xsync port on the handle.. someday that will actually do something.
Click to expand...

Pulling still from motion will certainly have its applications. But strobe lighting is cheaper, lighter, and has higher light output (especially per dollar) vs constant source. Try to overpower the sun on an exterior with any HMI and then try with a strobe. Try to rig a super soft backlight that puts out a lot of light in constant source and do it again with strobe. The difference in price for gear and manpower is huge. Seems like some sports or extreme sports photographers would latch on to DSMC. Never miss that perfect shot of snowboard in mid air!
 
Total Bollocks!! Stobes will always have there place - and I have the science to prove it

There is no way a continuous light source (other than the sun or an arc welder) can reproduce the clarity and intensity in the specular highlights in hair, make-up and costume that is crucial in high fashion photography. I have run a series of tests that are at the same intensely scientific level as Fstoppers and have concluded that strobe photography is far from dead. There is a quality to the photo image that is unobtainable with cinema style lighting equipment. See my results below:



7263878868_eee93f2131_b.jpg
 
I'm not sure I understand your meaning.

I'm just trying to understand the reason why some would find their images less sharp while Hurley doesn't even mention it. The reason I suspect, is the OLPF and the failure of some to compensate, or allow for sharpening before making a comparison. That is why I asked you if you did or not. I assume that Hurley did. Were he involved in this discussion I would ask him too.



Laco Zamba said:
Ok, just my test and surprise for me too.
Please, read discussion under article where many people see that Hassy is visible sharper.

And don't forget that Epic has OLPF filter.
Click to expand...
 
Laco Zamba said:
Ketch, I tested my Epic and old Nikon D50 7mpx with same lens Nikon 50mm 1.8 - DSLR was little bit sharper.
I expected that Epic will be superior, but was not.

Same f-stop, 400ISO, 1/160s, same lighting.
Nikon RAW, REDCODE RAW, developed in RCX and Aperture.

From Epic I had bigger picture, but I decided to make prints from Nikon.
Click to expand...


I have stopping using both 35mm like my Canon 1D IV, which I sold, as well as the Hasselblad and the Mamiya, and only kept the Canon 1Ds III for BTS work, because I have been more then happy with the shots I get form the insane choices given by my new style of shooting with Epic, as well as I have been extremely happy with the Sharpness, in fact I tend to soften a lot in Photohsop and a variety of different programs I use prepping for print, including Painter.

It was not too difficult as i was already working with HMI and other continuos lighting even with the the still cameras, but now it has become exclusively Continuos lighting and only use Flash for very large BG's.

I can't tell you how much I love to avoid the annoying flashes, and so do my models, no more blinking form the strong flashes and more shots become keepers.


But this type of workflow will not be for every one, thanks RED for the additional choice... ;)
 
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