Hasselblad vs RED Epic for stills.

[Bill Anderson]

What is "missing" is the "decisive moment". That place where years of experience, intuition and ineffable qualities culminate. That is not to say that these qualities, so important to the art, can't be applied to an Epic for stills approach: but it is a beast that needs to be tamed a bit.

 

[Scott Crawley]

In addition to initiating capture of the decisive moment, a pre and post roll of user specified rate and duration would be optimal.

 

[Sean R.]

I believe we will get to the point where this practice feels the same as before with frame-tagging during record. But I also hear from some folks that reject the idea of constant capture as if it takes something away from the process. To consider the other side of the coin I would like to share a memory that went something like this...

A well known and highly-coveted photographer shooting a cover and spread for one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world. I was there to help him comfortably walk across the bridge of shooting the EPIC for his first time (for a small portion of the day). He was resistant for personal reasons but towards the end of the day he was ready to give it a try. We previewed the footage immediately after he shot it and I was volleying my glance from the monitor to his face in search of a reaction, since he tends to keep positive emotions reserved for the most part. I watched his jaw drop immediately followed by his knee-jerk response as he blurted out, "Stop! Go back a couple frames...THERE!". He just gazed at the monitor, regaining control of his normal stolid manner and calmly said, "Right there. That's a moment I would have never seen as time to hit that shutter. I would have never saw that in the environment we were shooting in. But there it is, we captured an incredible moment that I didn't see at the time and I love that frame even more than the moments surrounding it which I intentionally recorded." And then with renewed confidence and fresh excitement he said, "Let's shoot the EPIC on the next set-up as well".

I feel that constant capture is an incredibly powerful tool to add to the poetic practice of selectively tagging frames as you are recording. A change in mindset, which IMHO is very exciting.

 

[Dr. Kevin Parker]

I believe we will get to the point where this practice feels the same as before with frame-tagging during record. But I also hear from some folks that reject the idea of constant capture as if it takes something away from the process. To consider the other side of the coin I would like to share a memory that went something like this...

A well known and highly-coveted photographer shooting a cover and spread for one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world. I was there to help him comfortably walk across the bridge of shooting the EPIC for his first time (for a small portion of the day). He was resistant for personal reasons but towards the end of the day he was ready to give it a try. We previewed the footage immediately after he shot it and I was volleying my glance from the monitor to his face in search of a reaction, since he tends to keep positive emotions reserved for the most part. I watched his jaw drop immediately followed by his knee-jerk response as he blurted out, "Stop! Go back a couple frames...THERE!". He just gazed at the monitor, regaining control of his normal stolid manner and calmly said, "Right there. That's a moment I would have never seen as time to hit that shutter. I would have never saw that in the environment we were shooting in. But there it is, we captured an incredible moment that I didn't see at the time and I love that frame even more than the moments surrounding it which I intentionally recorded." And then with renewed confidence and fresh excitement he said, "Let's shoot the EPIC on the next set-up as well".

I feel that constant capture is an incredibly powerful tool to add to the poetic practice of selectively tagging frames as you are recording. A change in mindset, which IMHO is very exciting.

yes, with frame tagging and with constant capture, you get the best of both worlds.

but how do you get around the fact that video and stills oft seek out two different shutter speeds for high quality results? stills, especially in action, oft seek shutter times of 1/1000 s. video, oth, oft likes shutter ties closer to 1/60 s or 1/120 s.

 

[Zeb B]

1/1000th second + is no problemo with strobe flash. Once movie camera makers figure out how to get there (much, much higher native ISO) then the convergence will happen IMHO. Meantime look out for the stills camera and strobe makers to offer higher frame rates to close this competitive gap. Fun times for us shooters - hard to place large bets though.

 

[Dr. Kevin Parker]

1/1000th second + is no problemo with strobe flash. Once movie camera makers figure out how to get there (much, much higher native ISO) then the convergence will happen IMHO. Meantime look out for the stills camera and strobe makers to offer higher frame rates to close this competitive gap. Fun times for us shooters - hard to place large bets though.

yes josh, but then, once you hook a strobe flash to your RED, will you still be shooting film? i mean i though DSMC meant digital stills and motion capture at the same time?

because if stills are what you are after, the Nikon d800/D4 Canon 5D Mark III/D1X seem the way to go. no?

5k video? RED hell yeah! just stills? hmmmm, maybe a hasselblad or nikon/canon.

 

[Brad Allen]

You write, "You might be able to make the case that the scarlet and it's HDRx mode provide a unique selling point for stills." How/why might one be able to do this? The new Nikons and Canons and Sony all have HDR mode too, as well as better autofocus I believe?

I'm not an expert on stills cameras (so correct me if I'm wrong), but from the lite research I have done most HDR modes on stills camera's force you to create a blended JPEG in camera don't they? This would mean that you would miss out on some of the flexibility in controlling that blend in post, plus all the goodness of RAW.

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

As both a stills photog and a cinematographer, it took less than one shoot day to get over the fact that there was no shutter sound.. But once we got over the lack of sound the process was still the same. My clients immediately loved working with red cine x, and the ability to scrub through thousands of frames. Once the sound of a shutter is removed, the stills process and motion process are still the same. A human behind a lens... its really not much different because you press a button lots of times when you see what you think is the money shot... If you need that tactile connection of pressing a button every time you see the image you like, versus only pressing once to start and again to stop, may i suggest you attach a "big easy" button sold at Staples and press away....

 

[Zeb B]

yes josh, but then, once you hook a strobe flash to your RED, will you still be shooting film? i mean i though DSMC meant digital stills and motion capture at the same time?

because if stills are what you are after, the Nikon d800/D4 Canon 5D Mark III/D1X seem the way to go. no?

5k video? RED hell yeah! just stills? hmmmm, maybe a hasselblad or nikon/canon.

I meant Still/Stobe or Movie camera . . . you can't hook-up a flash to the RED sync port you silly. BTW, on this forum RED is always the right tool for the job unless you want to be beaten with a virtual rubber hose for suggesting otherwise

 

[Ketch Rossi]

I believe we will get to the point where this practice feels the same as before with frame-tagging during record. But I also hear from some folks that reject the idea of constant capture as if it takes something away from the process. To consider the other side of the coin I would like to share a memory that went something like this...

A well known and highly-coveted photographer shooting a cover and spread for one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world. I was there to help him comfortably walk across the bridge of shooting the EPIC for his first time (for a small portion of the day). He was resistant for personal reasons but towards the end of the day he was ready to give it a try. We previewed the footage immediately after he shot it and I was volleying my glance from the monitor to his face in search of a reaction, since he tends to keep positive emotions reserved for the most part. I watched his jaw drop immediately followed by his knee-jerk response as he blurted out, "Stop! Go back a couple frames...THERE!". He just gazed at the monitor, regaining control of his normal stolid manner and calmly said, "Right there. That's a moment I would have never seen as time to hit that shutter. I would have never saw that in the environment we were shooting in. But there it is, we captured an incredible moment that I didn't see at the time and I love that frame even more than the moments surrounding it which I intentionally recorded." And then with renewed confidence and fresh excitement he said, "Let's shoot the EPIC on the next set-up as well".

I feel that constant capture is an incredibly powerful tool to add to the poetic practice of selectively tagging frames as you are recording. A change in mindset, which IMHO is very exciting.

Perfect Sean!!

One other IMPORTANT reason why I dropped all Still cameras, 35mm and Medium Format alike for the EPIC, even so I do miss the Resolution of the Medium Format, but I'l get by just fine till the EPIC 645 arrives...