It begins, rumors of 4k camera challengers.

[Meryem Ersoz]

So... going into NAB, the mark is 5K at 120fps RAW with an upgrade path. Measure all the new entries against this.

I am guessing and hoping that, going into NAB, the mark is going to be an end to end affordable 4K+ acquisition and DELIVERY system. hopefully, a delivery system which will invite all of these so-called challengers to become customers as well. can't wait to see what aces are up the sleeve....

 

[Demetri Zuev]

So... going into NAB, the mark is 5K at 120fps RAW with an upgrade path. Measure all the new entries against this.

Jim

I really hope that Dragon will bring 5K to my gunship grey beast)

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

So... going into NAB, the mark is 5K at 120fps RAW with an upgrade path.
Jim

Jim,

sorry but somehow that was exactly the story from NAB last year...then it was missing that upgrade and I was already disappointed (and because of that feeling also banned from the forum).

And to repeat this time again the crucial Hamletesque attitude expression and also the question:

To be or not to be (a Dragon upgrade at NAB this year)?

 

[Shane Betts]

Funny! http://t.co/m7NXhvt0

 

[Scott Crawley]

Funny! http://t.co/m7NXhvt0

HA! Smegma nails... That is funny!

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

So... going into NAB, the mark is 5K at 120fps RAW with an upgrade path. Measure all the new entries against this.

Jim

Mmmm... well for Scarlet-X owners the benchmark is 4k @ 30fps RAW. Which is honestly what most of these cameras are trying to one-up since they're in the same price-bracket. But we'll see what Dragon brings to the table as well.

 

[Jeffrey Loewe]

Mmmm... well for Scarlet-X owners the benchmark is 4k @ 30fps RAW. Which is honestly what most of these cameras are trying to one-up since they're in the same price-bracket. But we'll see what Dragon brings to the table as well.

Agreed. And you have to think of it this way too. We've already spent 10 grand on a body, then are spending another amount to upgrade our sensor as well. Yes RAW is great and you get to keep that, but the Scarlets price bracket and competition could get interesting. I doubt some of the other cameras offer upgrade paths, but you have to look at value and price, we've spent 10K already plus whatever an upgrade will cost, where the others can beat, or do better than what you'd get with a upgrade at a lower price, not hey may not have RAW, but just saying it could save some money. I doubt this happens though, just speculating at a possibility. Just saying that is the market that is really interesting when you look at the competition, since thats where the majority of sales will be.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

They should have used a proper chart. Fact is if you can't see aliasing, then you're either not in focus or you're not presenting the camera with enough fine detail. Showing an image with no aliasing is therefore not testing anything, and with such a tricky job to remove the filter you "just know" that every single possible aspect that could effect image sharpness was "utterly identical" between the shots, don't you.

Graeme

I'm not saying I bothered reading it (seems an April 1st joke) but just commenting on what people said, obviously it does not make much sense that a fixed low pass filter affects video but not stills. Maybe the guy was across the dateline and it was April 1st there but 31st at the server location.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Agreed. And you have to think of it this way too. We've already spent 10 grand on a body, then are spending another amount to upgrade our sensor as well. Yes RAW is great and you get to keep that, but the Scarlets price bracket and competition could get interesting. I doubt some of the other cameras offer upgrade paths, but you have to look at value and price, we've spent 10K already plus whatever an upgrade will cost, where the others can beat, or do better than what you'd get with a upgrade at a lower price, not hey may not have RAW, but just saying it could save some money. I doubt this happens though, just speculating at a possibility. Just saying that is the market that is really interesting when you look at the competition, since thats where the majority of sales will be.

Yeah. If the Dragon upgrade is $6k... some of these cameras are being bandied about as retailing for $6k. So yes you can't upgrade them, but... you could just buy a new one for the price of an upgrade. Competition in the Scarlet-X price bracket is going to be much more fierce than in the Epic price bracket just because you get so much more per $ for epic. (About 20x the pixels per second for 3x the price).

I have a friend who is currently camera shopping and I'm obviously pushing Scarlet-X but in the ~$10k price range there is stiff competition if RAW is a liability not an asset for you.

 

[Bob Gundu]

I wonder how many professionals working in this industry looks at just a cameras specs to decide their future path? I have been mostly a Panasonic guy from the time 24P was introduced. Even after 4 Pana cameras, it still took me a about 6 months to really know it inside and out to squeeze every bit of goodness out of them. But all of the Panas had their own learning curve. That's why I have to laugh when I see these online comparisons of cameras from them taking them out of the box! It simply takes so much testing to know the limitations of any gear to make an informative decision. After investing in my first RED, I have patiently been doing my testing and research to again squeeze the best from it. But the difference is.... (drum role please) having a camera that truly grows with you and not have to learn a new camera every year or two. I'm also very impressed with Redcine X. It's truly an extension of the camera. I've never had that luxury before. For me the power of RAW is unquestionably liberating and I'm getting very comfy in my new shoes. Can't wait to see what NAB brings.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Jim isn't making products for sheep Wayne. He very deliberately chose to serve a niche market instead of a larger consumer market. You seem to be forgetting that.

I'm talking about professionals, most professionals are not cine people (unless you include amature consuner hobbyists), despite the elitest universe around here.

15,000 cameras (see NAB thread) is a remarkable achievement, but after second and third camera sales, is that less than 10k of owners, or is it just reduser board membership? At 10k users, how fast are we approaching saturation, where will the next 90k users come from to keep it going? I can guess what might be coming, but I don't want to Osborne Red.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Yep Bob, but most amature reviews (and some some professional) are done by numb skulks (even if they, or most people, think they are not). When I wanted to start doing community related reviews some years ago, I asked for information on appropriate tests etc first, so I could do it properly (obviously people where not smart enough to help). You can learn alot about how a camera should perform by accurate comprehensive specs (you never ussualy see, like the variouse performance factors over the range of illumination and gain for two, helpfull in getting an idea of how the image should perform). You can learn a lot from examining the images. But in reality, a reviewer needs to systematically perform comprehensive accurate tests and handling, with standard set and naturalist scenes thrown in, which could be done in a week, personal boot camp style, to get to know alot of the cameras range. For consumer stuff I don't bother too much, I pixel peep the image for problems, and what sort of problem (including lens abberations) look at motion rendering (a issue for consumer cameras that usually leads me to reccomend higher data rates) visibility of noise, exposure, and see if color is naturalistic or pleasently so (minor over satuation) and how the image rendering looks (skin tones are a bad one, even with some cameras seemingly set to render asian or cuacasian skin tones, deoending on where they are sold) and see what handling/functionality issues, consumer technical specs tend to have little comprehensive information. But I suppose that I'll have to get to learn it properly one day for my camera blog I am looking at doing.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

BTW, being feeling finally much better over the last three days or so in health, right up to this morning. So, I'm thinking of doing bigger things, like the blog, but mainly for DIY, alternative, open and unique cameras.

 

[Scott Crawley]

I'm talking about professionals, most professionals are not cine people (unless you include amature consuner hobbyists), despite the elitest universe around here.

I didn't mean to suggest that everyone else whom Red has not targeted were consumers. It would have been more clear for me to say that they chose to remain concentrated on the cine market. If you were referring to me as cine elitist then I am flattered, as I am a professional who shoots ENG type work, but aspires to do cine work at a professional level.

Many of those things you mentioned;

no16 bit, noraw, no colorisation steps needed...

may not be important to other professionals but are key to many cine people, and they make up Red's target segment. The things that you find important:

... the low end, a $2k shd camera ...no special rig, no decoder card...

are not their concern.

Maybe at some future date you will get your wish and Red will turn it's attention to other, shall we say ENG friendly workflows, but right now they are called the Red Digital Cinema Camera Co..

 

[Wayne Morellini]

No, not you, just the whole self-reinforcing fan thing that is going around the forums, it s hard to notice unless one is not part of it. Many of these aditions are simple additions, but many should go for just that. The market is small, whoo to those that depend on the market (fictional Sun Tzu's modern guide to economics ). Now there is a good idea for a movie, maybe a mockumentary, filmed near Sony's head quarters.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

I'm not saying I bothered reading it (seems an April 1st joke) but just commenting on what people said, obviously it does not make much sense that a fixed low pass filter affects video but not stills. Maybe the guy was across the dateline and it was April 1st there but 31st at the server location.

OK Graeme, my bad, don't know who I got the video only shows improvement without olpf off of, but the article says both video and stills do, so less likely that it is a April fools joke than before.

If I was sort of person to do this sort of April fools joke I would try to convince people that it enables 4k resolution as well

Funny, still, that it would make much difference to 1080p if it makes difference to much higher resolution stills also.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

OK Graeme, my bad, don't know who I got the video only shows improvement without olpf off of, but the article says both video and stills do, so less likely that it is a April fools joke than before.

If I was sort of person to do this sort of April fools joke I would try to convince people that it enables 4k resolution as well

Funny, still, that it would make much difference to 1080p if it makes difference to much higher resolution stills also.

Stills we can understand being different through removal of an OLPF - but when that OLPF is set for the pixel pitch of the sensor, not the extracted much lower resolution video, it's hard to see how removal of an OLPF would produce such a large result. What would produce such a large result is operator error, and given the nature of the "test", I'd suggest operator error is the more likely explanation.

Graeme

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Sounds like this Sony FS700 is no longer a rumor... available in June for <$10k with 4k sensor and output and 300fps at full frame with crop options up to 960fps? For less $ than a Scarlet? Must say I'm a little worried I'm going to have to sell my Scarlet and my FS100 unless Dragon shows up soon at a reasonable price. I'll be interested to see what RED's response is. Might be worrisome to EPIC owners too at those specs...

I'd love to have the low-noise sensor of an FS100 but with 4k options and ridiculously high framerates. It won't have HDRx though and we'll see how the sensor does, but if it's no longer a crippled version of the F3 sensor, it could get interesting. Anyone know how they are doing 4k over hd-sdi? blackmagic seems to have a card that does it, is it multiple sdi connections?

 

[Ivan Kovax]

Noah...
Why is this camera not a threat to Red?
It is a 4:2:0 colourspace.
It only does highspeed at HD for 16 seconds, then 8 seconds...
At 4K, whenever that comes around, you seriously think it will still be able to do these speeds?

This is a suitable replacement for the EX3 imho and nothing more. This camera will not become the go-to camera for commercials, video clips or movies any more than the fs100 was.

A massive failure on their behalf is to not have created an option for a canon lens adapter at a time when the entire indie world went to the 5D and had heavily invested in lenses... this is one reason why this camera will fall in a strange place. Neither wil it be picked up by the indies, nor high end productions. It may very well find its home in the eng and efp world where camera ops are looking to upgrade to a next gen camera.

The reality is that there is no way in hell sony will release a camera with specs anything close to its F65, their flagship camera... they would be stabbng themselves in the foot. This camera will be usable in its niche, but dramatically hobbled compared to the big boys...

Sounds like this Sony FS700 is no longer a rumor... available in June for <$10k with 4k sensor and output and 300fps at full frame with crop options up to 960fps? For less $ than a Scarlet? Must say I'm a little worried I'm going to have to sell my Scarlet and my FS100 unless Dragon shows up soon at a reasonable price. I'll be interested to see what RED's response is. Might be worrisome to EPIC owners too at those specs...

I'd love to have the low-noise sensor of an FS100 but with 4k options and ridiculously high framerates. It won't have HDRx though and we'll see how the sensor does, but if it's no longer a crippled version of the F3 sensor, it could get interesting. Anyone know how they are doing 4k over hd-sdi? blackmagic seems to have a card that does it, is it multiple sdi connections?

 

[Graeme Nattress]

"Why is this camera not a threat to Red? " - ay 4k camera is a verification of the philosophy that we've been progressing on that resolution is important.

Graeme