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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 :)

Just watched first part of zacuto shootout....

The fact that each "DP" got to relight for their camera took the "scientific" aspect out of the equation. It basically becomes a lighting test and those who lit the best for their camera's win. It's no longer a scientific camera test because the variables are adjusted between camera's, WTF? Their should have been one master lighting setup and every camera expose for the given shot. The fact that they gave each camera it's own "grade" is ridiculous. What does that show? It show's that you can make any camera look half way decent with an agressive grade. Terrible "test."
 
Jon Jones said:
The old guard film community does not like RDC with their low prices, fantastic images, and cutting edge tech. So they use venues like this one to discredit RDC to the public and to blind the eyes of possible future RED owners. It happens all the time in the corporate world. If you can't beat them, discredit them. Now if the EPIC was $100k then their would be no problemo, but $30k!! Unthinkable.
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The flaw in your logic is that Zacuto does not primarily sell to the "old guard film community" or big studio productions but to smaller digital productions... so there is no motivation to only make $100K+ cameras look good. If anything the reverse would be true, they'd make the $100+ cameras look worse.

Second, an Epic package is not cheap and the camera itself falls closer to the high-end, price-wise, of the cameras Zacuto tested, not the low end.

Zacuto sells more gear to Epic owners than Sony F65 owners.
 
Matt Ryan said:
The fact that each "DP" got to relight for their camera took the "scientific" aspect out of the equation. It basically becomes a lighting test and those who lit the best for their camera's win. It's no longer a scientific camera test because the variables are adjusted between camera's, WTF? Their should have been one master lighting setup and every camera expose for the given shot. The fact that they gave each camera it's own "grade" is ridiculous. What does that show? It show's that you can make any camera look half way decent with an agressive grade. Terrible "test."
Click to expand...

Well, in their defense, the most common criticism of earlier tests by Zacuto and other people was that the Red footage was not posted and graded in a way that was specific to the needs of Red footage, that it was "forced" into a common workflow and forced to match other cameras. So you can't have it both ways, argue that these tests all need to use the same parameters and argue that Red needs to be posted in whatever way is best for Red footage.

But I agree that a test where everyone does whatever they need to do in order to improve the camera image by relighting, etc. is not scientific, but it's just another type of test that some people may find interesting.

No single test is going to satisfy everyone, particularly people who have a vested interest in certain results before the test is even shot. And if someone makes a decision to drop $50,000+ of their own money based on a single test that someone else performed, then they are not very bright, are they? And if they are not very bright, they aren't going to make good decisions no matter what you tell them.
 
Hey at least the Epic beat the Iphone. That's something, right? (suck it, Apple)

I can't help but wonder how much better looking Spiderman would have been had they opted to shoot on the Gh2...
 
I think that the high quality imagery in "PROMETHEUS" proves scientifically
that the Red Epic can produce......high quality imagery.

:)
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Well, in their defense, the most common criticism of earlier tests by Zacuto and other people was that the Red footage was not posted and graded in a way that was specific to the needs of Red footage, that it was "forced" into a common workflow and forced to match other cameras. So you can't have it both ways, argue that these tests all need to use the same parameters and argue that Red needs to be posted in whatever way is best for Red footage.

But I agree that a test where everyone does whatever they need to do in order to improve the camera image by relighting, etc. is not scientific, but it's just another type of test that some people may find interesting.

No single test is going to satisfy everyone, particularly people who have a vested interest in certain results before the test is even shot. And if someone makes a decision to drop $50,000+ of their own money based on a single test that someone else performed, then they are not very bright, are they? And if they are not very bright, they aren't going to make good decisions no matter what you tell them.
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I agree with you David. I don't own anything so I shoot with whatever works best for the given shoot.

The problem with these "tests" are that even though most shooters do their own tests, producers, directors, and non shooters base decisions on "tests" like these. I am shooting with a camera this weekend because the production company heard from another company that it is the best camera there is. I gave my input and the differences as well as pro's and con's in a spreadsheet of each camera for them to review. In the end they went on the experiences of another company and based their decision on that alone despite the breakdown I gave them. So for many, these tests will be what companies, etc. base their decisions on.
 
The Zacuto tests are just another dot on the scatter plot which paints the complete picture for anyone who takes the time to looks at all the data to make informed decisions.
 
It's truly, incredibly simple, like in the good ol' days.

Run.Your.Own.Tests.


(and maybe it's just me, but I believe we've come to a point where if you take any higher-end digital camera and put it out there in the real world in the hands of someone who knows how to use it and what he/she wants to achieve with it, the differences between cameras are far less than the similarities).

p.s. I mean no disrespect to the ones involved in the Zacuto or in the PGA/ASC tests. I'm sure they spent a great deal of energy and time to have the best results.
 
I could sadly see this coming a mile away...

Sorry guys. I was asked by Zucato to perform the test of the RED EPIC for this Doco... Sadly I declined due to work commitments.

I feel like I have let everyone down.

It's a sad day for all of us RED EPIC owners when shit like this happens.

Such a great camera it is, with great images coming from it... so easy to use and post... and people still manage to fuck it up.
 
Josh thanks for your considered words among the over excitement. People should forget the conspiracy theories. I saw the test last night and yes the Epic looked pretty average but an evel plot? Based on my real world shooting experience i expected Alexa first with Epic and possibly the F65 nipping at his heels. That was not the result of this test yet we do not see too many experienced DOPs choosing the GH2 or FS100. I have been involved in multiple camera tests and they are extremely difficult and complex to do and frankly the results only supply a limited amount of valuable information.

The real winner of the night is the colorist who made that terrible GH2 footage look as good as it did after its grade.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
The flaw in your logic is that Zacuto does not primarily sell to the "old guard film community" or big studio productions but to smaller digital productions... so there is no motivation to only make $100K+ cameras look good. If anything the reverse would be true, they'd make the $100+ cameras look worse.

Second, an Epic package is not cheap and the camera itself falls closer to the high-end, price-wise, of the cameras Zacuto tested, not the low end.

Zacuto sells more gear to Epic owners than Sony F65 owners.
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True, but most of the cameras that I see kitted out with Zacuto are Sony F3's, AF100's, DSLRs, etc. So an F3 beating out an Epic is conceivably more beneficial to Zacuto than the other way around.

I do find these tests entertaining. And they make me feel smarter than I actually am, LOL, b/c I can't believe the utter nonsense some of the people in the audience say.

I think the format as it's been explained, will create a good half hour of camera porn. But it will be horrible for decision making.

If I were going on a safari, I wouldn't watch a documentary about a bunch of hunters on a Texas game reserve given a variety guns, and decide whomever comes back with the most dead animals... it's his gat that I'm going to use to shoot lions and charging cape buffalo.

I've been told that there is a Zen saying that roughly translated means "No one can take a shit for you." I don't know if new koans get released from time to time, but I think the same can be said for camera tests.
 
Tom Gleeson said:
...

The real winner of the night is the colorist who made that terrible GH2 footage look as good as it did after its grade.
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Maybe Sanjin was right afterall, LOL!
 
Having not seen the test yet, I think it will be hard to judge much from it independently of who was the dop for the individual cameras, if I have understood the methodology right.

Considering to reconsider doing a comparison between F65/Alexa/Epic.
But I just don't see the point at this time.

G
 
That is not a flaw in my logic, that is what I'm saying. It is in these venues that they try to make RED look bad... as we have obviously seen. Don't be fooled by the fact that the "contest" was held by Zacuto. If the contest was held at ARRI would there be GH2's there? No probably not, but at Zacuto where it's sort of a third party, all are welcome. My logic isn't flawed by what you think it's flawed by.... Maybe it's too conspiratorial, but that would be it's only flaw, lol.

David Mullen ASC said:
The flaw in your logic is that Zacuto does not primarily sell to the "old guard film community" or big studio productions but to smaller digital productions... so there is no motivation to only make $100K+ cameras look good. If anything the reverse would be true, they'd make the $100+ cameras look worse.

Second, an Epic package is not cheap and the camera itself falls closer to the high-end, price-wise, of the cameras Zacuto tested, not the low end.

Zacuto sells more gear to Epic owners than Sony F65 owners.
Click to expand...
 
I can't figure out this test, for example, my scarlet is the first camera I have been able to touch (i.e. in the "old days" money guys are NOT allowed to touch the camera's) that has a PL mount. The PL mount opened up an entire world to me of cinematic glass ( I new about the glass, based on the humongous expense, but really had no appreciation for it). Anyway, is there a Arri Master Prime on the iphone or canon ... i doubt it ... so are they saying lenses do no't matter either? To me, if the only difference between a canon camera and my scarlet was the PL mount, I would go with the PL scarlet. So what is up with the shootout ... it's like people changing the spectrum of the game during the match.

RED is changing the landscape on about every front, also RED is the camera to beat ... so the RED label is now a bull's eye. Red need's to step up it's game by being the industry leader in digital cinema camera information - the goto place with wiki's, white papers, and EXACT how to's - otherwise "people" will view redlog/raw as a handicap rather then a advantage.
 
I actually kind of feel bad for Ryan Walters, because I got the sense he tried really hard, and did the best he could.

From what I remember...some of the other DP's at the shootout were ASC Guild members...ie Industry Heavy Weights...

How fair a fight was this, really?

I mean...because the shootout puts so much emphasis on the choices each DP brings to the table...what are we really seing?

How good the Epic or Alexa is? Or how good the DP lighting the scene was?

That's the main FLAW with this test.

If you read his blog, RYAN clearly did the best he could. But when you read his blog, you also get a sense that were other DP's there with vastly more experience than him. I think it was unfair position to put him in, and a silly way to compare the cameras. Zacuto should have waited till every camera had an ASC guild member at the helm, then it would be fair. Anything less is not acceptable.
 
What a silly test. Really. What a silly bunch of people that don't have enough experience to know that RED performs better than this. It's like that SNL skit "Really". Some of the biggest movies arpund are shooting epic for f's sake. Really?!
 
Jon Jones said:
That is not a flaw in my logic, that is what I'm saying. It is in these venues that they try to make RED look bad... as we have obviously seen.
Click to expand...

See, that's where I have a real problem, the notion that the guy shooting the Red footage and the guy coloring it deliberately sabotaged their Red footage. Generally these people are professionals (odds are high that I know the person who shot the Red footage for the Zacuto test) and are not trying to "make Red look bad". Zacuto asked Red to participate in the test, which is not the action of someone with a nefarious plan to make something look bad.

The only "shoot-out" I've seen to date is the older PGA-ASC test and the pre-MX Red footage was fine, not perfect, but the flaws were flaws that I've seen in other people's Red footage, there were no surprises there. Maybe some of us knew that Red could be made to look better but the mixed results were not atypical either. Rather than cry foul I think it would be better to learn from the mistakes in the testing methodology so that one didn't repeat them on one's own projects. And a lot of the problems with the footage were fixed in the later MX-sensor and the later color science, which just shows that there was room for improvement after all.

I just don't see the need for character assassination here, to suggest that the results were due to dishonest behavior. That's taking things too far.
 
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