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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 :)

HOPE

Gunleik Groven said:
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...
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I'm not looking down on newer DPs. All I'm saying is our clients are very exacting and demanding, and when a tech gets a "bad smell" because its' been seen being badly used too many times, that smell is hard to deodorize. Diversity is great - I love the oddball quirky anything- but that is not at all the same as trite incompetent crap.
 
Rob Ruffo said:
I'm not looking down on newer DPs. All I'm saying is our clients are very exacting and demanding, and when a tech gets a "bad smell" because its' been seen being badly used too many times, that smell is hard to deodorize. Diversity is great - I love the oddball quirky anything- but that is not at all the same as trite incompetent crap.
Click to expand...


Agreed...
We all learned somehow.
I, mostly by my mistakes. At least at first....
 
Rob Ruffo said:
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.
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One of my strongest points that some still continue to completely ignore, and choose or argue about a PERSONAL taste, which well, personal means only your destruction if you don't be careful on choosing the best system.

And surely to me NOW that system is the EPIC, ABSOLUTELY NOT the Alexa, and have proved many times with EXPENSIVE on set testes.


Thanks for making such a great POINT Rob, at times I get really bored of repeating my self... ;)
 
Does anyone publish market-share figures for movie cameras? Would be interesting to see what the facts say about who is winning the battle in the commercial, cine and rental sectors.
 
Josh Beadle said:
Does anyone publish market-share figures for movie cameras? Would be interesting to see what the facts say about who is winning the battle in the commercial, cine and rental sectors.
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I'm not sure. But there is a drift away from the Red systems in the segments of cinema I care the most about, unfortunately... I'm thinking about international prestige films, but I actually guess a lot of the DPs and directors will come back to Red and the Epic, when they realize that the Alexa shot films look too much alike.

But still, I wish the Dragon makes the Epic somewhere in between the look of the current Epic and the Alexa, that was my starting point :) Anyways, I hope this has been an interesting discussion so far!

Best,
Jon M.
 
Maz Mawlawi said:
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...
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I understood, you tried to be diplomatic on the reducer forum about diversities in shooting formats. I just tried to point out a small absurdity in that politeness.
 
Jon MIchael Puntervold said:
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?
Click to expand...

Firstly sorry, did not mean to insult you. I am more worried for you... thinking that you cannot make RED footage looking like ALEXA footage.. Very easy to do. Like I siad, It's easy to go backwards, Easy to match it. Alexa footage carries no more information or color than EPIC... Mimicing it all so easy..

Regarding DRIVE.... Yes. Not a problem at all.... Great film by the way, but what makes you think DRIVES look is so hard to match ?

Ryan-Gosling-Drive-movie-image-8.jpg
 
Rob Ruffo said:
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.
Click to expand...

Ill dig up this shot and pump the Sat up for you... I think I can spare one more color corrector node :)

Being able to select areas or bring defined areas of choice in saturation, brightness density etc, is very very easy. Don't be thinking its hard or let people tell you it is...

Like I said, it's easy to make RED images look like ALEXA images... not the other way around.
 
I think THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 set to release in may 2014 will be the first production to shoot on DRAGONIZED RED EPICS!!!!! Lets see.............
 
Jon MIchael Puntervold said:
I'm not sure. But there is a drift away from the Red systems in the segments of cinema I care the most about, unfortunately... I'm thinking about international prestige films, but I actually guess a lot of the DPs and directors will come back to Red and the Epic, when they realize that the Alexa shot films look too much alike.

But still, I wish the Dragon makes the Epic somewhere in between the look of the current Epic and the Alexa, that was my starting point :) Anyways, I hope this has been an interesting discussion so far!

Best,
Jon M.
Click to expand...

But why between Alexa and red epic????? Why not ahead of both epic n alexa?????
 
On set at the moment for an international TVC... gaffer, key grip, camera op all agree, "you can't match the Alexa tonal range, the 13 stops and skin tone quality don't exist on Red," you have to think what can be done about the in-camera image. We talk about producers and post, but the on-set perception of the image is almost more important than the final.

Also, I have to say, in every example--Gunleik's old MX-Alexa tests, Mark's recent post here--the Alexa image stands out to me as more neutral, more human. Purely opinion! Everybody likes something different. When Mark posted his A/B, I immediately thought "dammit, A's gotta be Alexa."
I say this as a Red owner, happy to be making money and great work with it. I'm pretty happy that a $25,000 camera from a 5-year-old American company gets me 90% of the way towards a $90,000 camera from a 95-year-old German company.

And when I say "90% of the way," I mean 90% of the way towards a look I personally like. Directors, art directors and producers I know prefer the "punchier" look from Red to the "creamier" look from Alexa, resolution be damned.

For a while, I was convinced I needed Cooke lenses and a filter package to diffuse the image for projects needing a more "native Alexa" look. Then last week, budged forced us into my Contax primes. With the right filtration--some homemade, some classic stuff--we achieved a look that captured the milky softness of the Alexa with the sexy otherworldliness of Red. Making no money on a friend's project with incredible dancers, great production design, and the best of both cameras, best job of the year.

It's all about the color and range. I don't know how to express in scientific terms what I'm looking for, but "neutrality" comes close. Red skin tones, especially in tungsten light, still leave me wanting more. Regardless of color space and grading in post.
 
Indeed, especially skin looks pretty and easier to correct. With an Alexa you spend less time in color correction and I understand every DP going for an Alexa.
Additionally the ease of use does the rest. Every 'classic' 1st AC loves Alexa and prefers it way over [any] other electronic camera, but especially REDs, including Epic (though it became much easier on Epic/Scarlet).
The LogC footage is a dream for a colourist and post people where REDraw still and again seems stubborn. No MC6 ? Now you just came over RED footage and you beloved editorial needs to upgrade again...("Then it's all easy guys, promise!")
I still look for an REDraw to LogC-curve to ease up workflow for people used to Alexa footage.

Btw. Gunleik, the examples you posted couldn't be worse.
I'd prefer the Alexa footage everytime over the RED by your images.
The fact that both are obviously shot on the best lenses available and the RED ones are clipped, bloomy (sorry, not the Alexa, it is the RED here being bloomy, look at the halo on the around the bulb) and the skin tones looking clearly more artificial and needing correction whereas the Alexa may go off after LogC-deLUT without any further correction (e.g. for editorial).

Gunleik Groven said:
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:
Bulb_alex.jpg


R1 MX
Bulb_r1MX.0000000.0000000.jpg


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...
Click to expand...
 
A lot of people still don't know about the built-in optical filter on the Alexa.

Graeme
 
Hi Gunleik

Thanks for posting.... But every time I see this comparison I feel the Red comes off worse. My worry is that one of the main reasons for this is the subject to bare bulb distance being so different between shots. Where there any frames that where closer.?

Thank you for sharing

Michael L

Gunleik Groven said:
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:
Bulb_alex.jpg


R1 MX
Bulb_r1MX.0000000.0000000.jpg


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
Click to expand...
 
The diference is in the filtering...

Can you see how the highlights bloom on the Alexa?


And the Epic is superior ro the R1MX IMHO

I have and have seen the two be matched very closely.
And THAT was the conclusion of the test, in my view.

One comes in unfiltered (except for OLPF) the other has a lot of optical and "other" preprocessing on as default, which I can easilly mimic.

The LUT on the monitors otoh...


Cheers!

:)
 
Mark Toia said:
Ill dig up this shot and pump the Sat up for you... I think I can spare one more color corrector node :)

Being able to select areas or bring defined areas of choice in saturation, brightness density etc, is very very easy. Don't be thinking its hard or let people tell you it is...

Like I said, it's easy to make RED images look like ALEXA images... not the other way around.
Click to expand...

I have worked as a by the hour colorist on very expensive TVCs . I fully understand how to use Davinci. Problem is, nice-looking saturation is not that easy. You're exaggerating color flaws and deficiencies. This can look off in a hurry. It's not impossible to get Red to look as good, color wise as Alexa, but it's not as simplistic as adding a node with jacked saturation, not if you are seeking a refined result.
 
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