HOPE

[Gunleik Groven]

I still think (if we think of sensors as film stock) that a Dragon somewhere between the current Epic and the Alexa sensor would be great.

Sure, the sensors are different, but a lot of the differences between Epic and Alexa comes from default optical filtering of many kinds on the OLPF on the Alexa, vs just "straight" OLPF on the Epic.

Them, but to a lesser degree there are the gammacurves (choice-and adjustable on the Epic) and colorscience.

STill think these two images are pretty disclosing (even though they are from R1, which is not as elegant in the top as the Epic...)

Alexa:

R1 MX

These two images tells a lot of stories about both the cameras.

The Epic runs circles around the R1, though...

Note the blooming in the Alexa image...
That is NOT a sensor issue, but a filtering issue.

These two images has madde it really easy for me to see which images comes from which camera...
Alongside a couple of other things...

But in Genereal, I agree with Mark:
I can easilly make a RED look like an Alexa. It is harder the other way around, as you cannot take off the optical filtering on the Alexa...

Both shot with Masterprimes simultaniously at same stop/ISO/WB BTW...
And LogC/RedlogFilm...

But if you by "sensor" mean "camera"...




Here's a very quick and dirty matchtest for the two (R1 MX/Alexa - The Epic is MUCH better for this...)):

http://www.gunleik.com/tests/alexmx/RED1_MX_and_Arri_Alexa/Matching.html

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I don't care what you say Mark - when it comes to insults. But maybe you are right, maybe most Red owners are just shitty photographers, and don't know how to correct their footage, but I does not help me when I want to rent out my cameras to people who would rather use Alexas, or when many of the world finest DP's (at least in Europe) don't use MX based cameras any more.

Maybe many of the Red shot films are made by people who have very different taste than myself, for example, I think both The Great Gatsby and the last Pirates of the Caribbean looks like shit, and I saw both Drive and Melancholia in Lumiere last year, and wow. Prometheus looks fantastic, and Alexa would not suite it, though.

I've not have time to test my cameras (a scarlet and an epic) for finding a look I like yet, but I'm confident I'll find it, but I'll probably need to do some research on lenses. Maybe I'll also find that my starting post in this thread is delusional, who knows.

Mark, can you make some Red footage look like the footage in Drive?

Actually John... I think we need to work a bit together soonish...

And it is NOT about everyone beeing crap photographers.

It IS to a certain extent about preferences though, but also about understanding how to accomplish different looks, and NOT let the camera dictate that.
Which implies optical filtering...

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I really like the MX, too. But it feels a bit more "unorganic". That is of course partly due to less noise, but I don't think that is all that is to it.
I still find the M and MX R1s very easy to match when shot for their common sweetspots.

I agree!

6:17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-VeXLZTm24

 

[Gunleik Groven]

6:17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-VeXLZTm24

Point is...

Beauty is the eye of the beholder...

Think the compression kills off any sensible comment here, though...



Shot a ton of tungsten with the original M...
Thing is (like with filmstocks) that you need to light and post for the camera you actually use, not the camera you don't use.

THAT is the biggest difference. People seem to think that when stuff is "digital" that suddenly is the big equalizer as to photography.
It is not...



Post is allways a thing.
The options and choices on the RED side sometimes create confusion and bad results.

I am really for a suggested baselinesetting from where stuff only can get better...

But RED is not, it seems...

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Actually John... I think we need to work a bit together soonish...

I wholeheartedly agree, I'm planning on doing one of the most expensive and complicated short films seen in these areas. Ridiculously expensive and complicated, I promise! I think you would like to be a part of it, I did not have time to get to Oslo last week, but I'll contact you when my work load settles.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I wholeheartedly agree, I'm planning on doing one of the most expensive and complicated short films seen in these areas. Ridiculously expensive and complicated, I promise! I think you would like to be a part of it, I did not have time to get to Oslo last week, but I'll contact you when my work load settles.

Looking foreward to working with you!

And you know that...

G

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I'm also aiming for pushing the absolutely most out of modern esthetics people really hate. Like stereography, ultra clean lenses and 48 fps, and make it into poetry. That would be fun, yes?

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Jon,

when you have a SHARP, extremely CLEAN, IQ Image, such as those that EPIC can produce when well DP'ed and with good Sharp lenses in Focus, then you can do anything you want, and can achieve anything you want.

Any GOOD Pst professional, can match the look of this type of footage ton that of any other camera, but it can not be done so back words, unless they too produce the same HIGH QUALITY image, clean and sharp.

You see, you can make a Sharp Image soft, and or a Clean Image with Noise, or any color effects, but you can't make an image that is soft look sharp with good results, and or make an image that is with noise look clean with great results to match the images of the Epic.

Of course I only talk from experience, and I only work with top Industry professionals, so there is no limits to what I can have from my images, and it should be so, if one can't get what they want out of their own images they should get some one that can, or simply change line of work...


Or get a camera like the Alexa, which compresses and codes baked the images and gives a more easy to work with final results, just don't ever expect to make those very same images as good as the ones from an Epic in 4k for Cinema Release, even when the huge extra Box of the Arri RAW is used additionally...

Oh, and of course this images need also to be well DP'ed and taken with a good lens in focus...

Is not just the camera, is also how one lights the scene, and how the lens is chosen is used and focus achieved, and or what kind of filters used, and what camera settings are used and so on.

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

I think some of you are missing Jon's point. As RED camera owner we all know we can achieve amazing pictures (much better than Alexa)...most of us RED camera owners are also our own DP and colorists...so we know exactly how to best use our cameras and we are used to the RAW workflow (which I can't live without)...the problem is the rest of the world...the other DPs and producers, editors etc....who are still stuck in a backward world...who believe you need to transcode everything to prores (instead of working raw natively), people who believe it takes too much work to get a pretty picture out of red in post ((when it takes 30 sec when you know what you're doing)... What is sad is those highly paid proffessional are stuck in a tunnel vision...and refuse to move on with the times and fail to see that there is a whole new world out there that offers so many more options and better picture...in a sad way, we almost need to "dumb" it down for those people...until they catch on. :-/

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Jon,

when you have a SHARP, extremely CLEAN, IQ Image, such as those that EPIC can produce when well DP'ed and with good Sharp lenses in Focus, then you can do anything you want, and can achieve anything you want.

Any GOOD Pst professional, can match the look of this type of footage ton that of any other camera, but it can not be done so back words, unless they too produce the same HIGH QUALITY image, clean and sharp.

You see, you can make a Sharp Image soft, and or a Clean Image with Noise, or any color effects, but you can't make an image that is soft look sharp with good results, and or make an image that is with noise look clean with great results to match the images of the Epic.

I've yet to see any footage from a Red camera that matches the beauty of Drive, even though it was shot with HDcam as the medium. On raw-footage, it's now possible to do that with a smaller and cheaper unit, but it's beside the point. We all know that the next cinema camera from Arri will feature on board raw capabilities and at least a 4k sensor. That will put a further strain on the current MX-based Epics.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I think some of you are missing Jon's point. As RED camera owner we all know we can achieve amazing pictures (much better than Alexa)...most of us RED camera owners are also our own DP and colorists...so we know exactly how to best use our cameras and we are used to the RAW workflow (which I can't live without)...the problem is the rest of the world...the other DPs and producers, editors etc....who are still stuck in a backward world...who believe you need to transcode everything to prores (instead of working raw natively), people who believe it takes too much work to get a pretty picture out of red in post ((when it takes 30 sec when you know what you're doing)... What is sad is those highly paid proffessional are stuck in a tunnel vision...and refuse to move on with the times and fail to see that there is a whole new world out there that offers so many more options and better picture...in a sad way, we almost need to "dumb" it down for those people...until they catch on. :-/

Maz, thank you for trying to defend my argument, but unfortunately it's extremely arrogant to call the teams and DP's that use Alexa trapped in backward world in tunnel vision. Roger Deakins, Newton Thomas Sigel, Manuel Alberto Claro and I guess even our own David Mullen - are not people I would give those characteristics.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Oh my... You miss guided soul... I do feel so sorry for you. Not knowing how to make RED images look like Alexa images... It's so easy.

Send me an ALEXA shot, And I'll match it perfectly.. send me a SONY F65 shot and Ill match it perfectly...
I've shot so many TVC's with mixed camera footage coming in these days, from Alexa, Phantom, Canons, Epics, ... and we grade them all up the same. I can pull RED back to any of these other formats...

I cannot believe that you have written this to be honest... ? I've never ever seen this super amazing ALEXA footage that people keep telling me about. I have a lot of it here now stored away in hard drives and it does not look any better than anything else. ?

paused...
ok, Im back...
I'm looking at a string of ALEXA footage right this second, just dragged it up in Premier and I have quite literally dropped a 5k EPIC file next to it... Same shoot, different cameras, different lens.... I'm now spending 30 seconds on grading it to match the Alexa footage. Done.. Perfect. now they are the same. Not very hard... I had to blur the RED footage 1 pixel... as the Alexa footage is no were as sharp... but over all... the tones are identical.
Colour temp a bit warm in the Alexa footage to start with... But hey, it's a colour baked Pro res.. what do you expect. , but still looks fine.

Now I couldn't get the Alexa footage to look as sharp or as clean as the EPIC footage, reason why is because EPIC shoots images 4 to 5x the size of Alexa standard output.

NOW!... If your not grading your footage at all... and just transcoding and using as is, or just using the ALEXA footage as is... not grading that either... Then Alexa has a nicer standard colour lut... But when you get into a grading situation, The EPIC runs rings around PRORES Alexa footage for colour and gamma range... Fact. Why... because one is 10 or 12 bit Prores at MAX res HD... and the other is 16bit, 12 milllon pixels RAW.... So of course to be fair to the Alexa you will have to degrade the RED RAW files to get them down to Alexa spec and look... But once again, so so simple to do.

It's so so easy to drag EPIC footage back to ALEXA spec... Almost impossible for Alexa to look like RED EPIC footage.

While I mostly agree with you, the above example shows a mostly de-sat image. To get poppy saturation out of Red Epic takes some work, both on set and in post. With Alexa it's easier. That said I hate the bloomy softness that Alexa often imposes on you.

With Epic there is no problem with that and that is a big thing. I much prefer to chose my own diffusion filters, thank you very much, not have Arri permanently stick one on for me over the OLPF.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I don't care what you say Mark - when it comes to insults. But maybe you are right, maybe most Red owners are just shitty photographers, and don't know how to correct their footage, but I does not help me when I want to rent out my cameras to people who would rather use Alexas, or when many of the world finest DP's (at least in Europe) don't use MX based cameras any more.

Maybe many of the Red shot films are made by people who have very different taste than myself, for example, I think both The Great Gatsby and the last Pirates of the Caribbean looks like shit, and I saw both Drive and Melancholia in Lumiere last year, and wow. Prometheus looks fantastic, and Alexa would not suite it, though.

I've not yet had time to test my cameras (a scarlet and an epic) for finding a look I like, but I'm confident I'll find it, but I'll probably need to do some research on lenses. Maybe I'll also find that my starting post in this thread is delusional, who knows.

Mark, can you make some Red footage look like the footage in Drive?

I love the Great Gatsby and Pirares (for the look). Those films have really helped us get the green light for shooting Red many times.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

(...)

I much prefer to chose my own diffusion filters, thank you very much, not have Arri permanently stick one on for me over the OLPF.

I think this s a major pont.... A bit of diffusion takes a lot of the "digital" carracteristica out of digital.

It does cost some resolution, though.

What I like with the high resolution still, is not so much the measurable resolution, but the smoothness the resolution gives to the diffused image... If you are not into pin-sharp allways.

Me?
I am mostly not into "allways" as a rule...

But tere is an issue that many (I'd guess more than Alexa/F65) RED users don't have the filmbackground that makes it an obvious hoice to bring out diffusion/less resolution to make an image beautifull.
Many of the "Scarlet isn't sharp" and the pixelcount contests, seems to suggest that. But resolution means more than hair detail. It aso means very smooth gradients, and everyone loves those...

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Maz, thank you for trying to defend my argument, but unfortunately it's extremely arrogant to call the teams and DP's that use Alexa trapped in backward world in tunnel vision. Roger Deakins, Newton Thomas Sigel, Manuel Alberto Claro and I guess even our own David Mullen - are not people I would give those characteristics.

I agree, these are great talents worthy of great respect, as are you.

But on the other hand, whether we readily admit it or not, we all cling to habits based on what we know works. There are so many unpredictables on a set, so many new challenges every time, that if we can have some aspects be familiar/known, this is a welcome stress reducer. This becomes our set of back-pocket tricks we don't have to worry about, and to gravitate toward these methods is only human nature, as it makes us feel safer in situations that are often rather daunting. For me, who is relatively very young/new, it's Kinos and Joker Bugs. One day these will maybe be superseded by new techs, and I will be accused of being stuck in the past because it's quite possible I will crutch on my know methods of using these devices.

I would also say (sorry, but...) an awful lot of Red footage looks really bad. Few no-budget no-experience no-training projects use Alexa due to cost. But LOTS of those types of projects use Scarlets, used Red ones, etc. The cumulation of all this awful material makes Red look worse every day in the eyes fo our clients.

Fair or not (those projects would look just as bad shot on Alexa), perception is reality.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I think this s a major pont.... A bit of diffusion takes a lot of the "digital" carracteristica out of digital.

It does cost some resolution, though.

What I like with the high resolution still, is not so much the measurable resolution, but the smoothness the resolution gives to the diffused image... If you are not into pin-sharp allways.

Me?
I am mostly not into "allways" as a rule...

But tere is an issue that many (I'd guess more than Alexa/F65) RED users don't have the filmbackground that makes it an obvious hoice to bring out diffusion/less resolution to make an image beautifull.
Many of the "Scarlet isn't sharp" and the pixelcount contests, seems to suggest that. But resolution means more than hair detail. It aso means very smooth gradients, and everyone loves those...

I agree. 100%. I also always use glass filtering of some kind - including some home-made filters - I just like to chose it based on the situation.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

But resolution means more than hair detail. It aso means very smooth gradients, and everyone loves those...

I've noticed, the resolution itself gives a lot of organic life into the image! Btw: I've never shot film, but when I did HD-stuff, I always used low-contrast filters. It made the images beautiful, especially when combined with the damage a dof adapter and some old nikons does to an image!

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I agree, these are great talents worthy of great respect, as are you.

But on the other hand, whether we readily admit it or not, we all cling to habits based on what we know works. There are so many unpredictables on a set, so many new challenges every time, that if we can have some aspects be familiar/known, this is a welcome stress reducer. This becomes our set of back-pocket tricks we don't have to worry about, and to gravitate toward these methods is only human nature, as it makes us feel safer in situations that are often rather daunting. For me, who is relatively very young/new, it's Kinos and Joker Bugs. One day these will maybe be superseded by new techs, and I will be accused of being stuck in the past because it's quite possible I will crutch on my know methods of using these devices.

I would also say (sorry, but...) an awful lot of Red footage looks really bad. Few no-budget no-experience no-training projects use Alexa due to cost. But LOTS of those types of projects use Scarlets, used Red ones, etc. The cumulation of all this awful material makes Red look worse every day in the eyes fo our clients.

Fair or not (those projects would look just as bad shot on Alexa), perception is reality.

Yes, very true! There is perhaps even more conservatism than red fanboyism. Even though I think Alexa makes a lot of sense in the examples I mentioned.

And on the footage. Shit, what some people post. They should sell their cameras and spend the money on schools and education...

I sincerely believe that the format, should never surpass the quality of content and artistic integrity. A great film shot on Hi8 is so much better (and original!) than a shitty film shot in 4k.

Somehow I feel that digital cinema killed grunge, or it needs be reinvented.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Not looking down at those who never shot film. I haven't (for moving images) either, even though I have spent an unhealthy period in darkrooms for stills.

But the userbase on RED (and C300/F3/DSLRs) is a bit more diverse... is my impression, without comparing the systems. Only the userbases.
I like the mixed userbase a lot, BTW...

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

Maz, thank you for trying to defend my argument, but unfortunately it's extremely arrogant to call the teams and DP's that use Alexa trapped in backward world in tunnel vision. Roger Deakins, Newton Thomas Sigel, Manuel Alberto Claro and I guess even our own David Mullen - are not people I would give those characteristics.

I obviously wasn't trying to insult those great DPs ...I am talking about the ones who flat out say "RED suck, it doesn't produce a pretty image...plus the workflow is too complicated...it needs to be prores etc...."... Those are the ones that I am referring to...