Ok, so here's my setup, what do you think Gibby?

[JD Holloway]

When you need more telephoto just switch the RED Camera to the 35mm sensor mode and continue shooting with the S16 lens which will thereby be turned into quite a long tele lens. This will be because you are only recording the inner windowed area of the larger sensor. This will not be dissimiliar to switching the B4 lens to doubler, but there will be no optical quality loss as there is with most doubler lenses in tele. Of course you will be recording quite a bit of image beyond the area of the S16 lens, which you will just crop off in post. Now you have a nice light weight lens, and the focal range needed for the EFP type stuff you have been doing.

um...TJ, this technique will leave you with nothing but vignetting around a s16 mm sized image. You can use 35 mm lens and shoot s16 cropped to achieve this effect...or just do it in post. Its like a Digital Zoom on a stills camera.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong....I wouldn't be too surprised.

 

[TimothyD]

I think you are right JD. I was half asleep when I read TJ's post, and wasn't thinking it through properly.

The only way you could do that is with a larger lens that is normally shooting 4k.

With an S16 shooting 2k you could theoretically scale down to 720 to achieve more "zoom" in post. That might be a workable solution.

Tim

 

[JD Holloway]

Absolutely,

The zoom factor or crop factor/field of view can also be used for re framing. This might be interesting for people who shoot with tilt/shift lenses or fish eyes and are trying to generate some interesting lens effects by centering off the sweet spot.

 

[Steve Gibby]

Tobeorx – Reply Part 1:

I’ve been on the road heavily doing production for about 10 days, thus my delayed response to your post. I have time today to post my input, so here it is:

This is a very long thread here and in at least one other forum. At the risk of plowing the same field over and over, I'll make my observations.

Tim, I fully understand that you want the most capable camera you can possibly obtain, one that will serve your needs for as long as possible. We all want that, but we are best served choosing the right tool for the job.

Unfortunately, from your description of your tasks, the Red is not the appropriate choice. You're doing ENG with a crew of one. That's the bottom line.

Yes, this has been “plowed” between us before. For those reading this thread that would like to view your statements about the limited use of RED One, and my exchange with you on that thread correcting your misconceptions of the design intention and uses of RED One, here is a link to that thread: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2194&page=2

Tim’s description of his work at the university, over multiple threads on RED User, fits a definition of Non-hardlined EFP, with scattered elements of ENG-style – not ENG because he doesn’t work for a news station and doesn’t have the turnaround requirements of such. If you like to review the definitions I’ve made on my EFP/ENG for RED FAQ at the top of this forum you’ll find that my analysis of Tim’s work is accurate, when applied to that FAQ.

Some of the lenses you are discussing are very limiting, you don't have the range of coverage you'll need, whereas a 2/3" camera can have a lens that covers every angle from very wide to sufficient telephoto to capture most jobs, and one additional zoom can handle most of the very long needs.

A mixed bag of glass won't match, so you'll be doing a great deal of color grading to try to fix it and that may not be enough. There are quite likely to be profound differences in contrast and sharpness in addition to color.

You could go with something like a 20 - 100 or 18 -100 Cooke, and a 25 - 250, but those lenses are big, heavy beasts; might be a challenge for a crew of one.

If you analyze Tim’s posts over multiple threads on RED User, he has asked exploratory questions about the use of the following lens types with RED One: B4 2/3” HD ENG, B4 2/3” HD cine (zoom & prime), 35mm still, S35mm cine (zoom & prime), and S16mm cine (zoom & prime). Those are the kinds of questions all RED One adopters need to ask themselves as they define how RED One could/should fit into their own workflow and genres of production they do. As Tim asked the questions many of us have stepped up to offer advice on the pluses and minuses of him using those lens types for what he wants to do. The fact remains, as myself and many others have advised Tim, that leaving his budget restrictions aside, for the type of work he describes he wants to do with RED One, a B4 adapter/B4 2/3” HD ENG zoom is the best lens selection. He has budget/time restrictions so he has continued to explore the other possible lens options with RED One – something everyone should be doing.

 

[Steve Gibby]

Tobeorx - Part 2:

I strongly feel that running around screwing in ND filters every time you encounter a different lighting level is going to be a major pain. Filter a bit dusty? Stop and clean it; put the camera down somewhere and use both hands to work on the filter. Drop one of those babies and you'll really suffer. They are expensive and you'll be carrying three of them and a polarizer plus your cleaning kit.

By the time you're ready to shoot, a 2/3" ENG style camera will have moved on to the next shot. Are you prepared to bring home fewer shots per day?

If you just use the iris to adjust the levels, you're throwing away one of the most important creative tools, selective depth of field. For most shots, f11 looks terrible.

On the long “White Balance” thread on RED User, after I gave Tim extensive advice on the mobile use of filters, and analyzed what he was used to with his current DXC-637, he expressed satisfaction that his workflow was sufficiently slow to allow him the time to screw ND filters on and off if needed. I also explained the alternative of using a lightweight clip-on matte box and drop in filters for a faster workflow.

If you haven’t read that thread, here’s a link: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2196&page=9

As for DOF, in mobile Non-hardlined EFP and ENG work, shallow DOF is rarely used, and then for selective creative B-roll shots for in-bumps, outbumps, mood montages, some interviews, etc. Tim described his work as almost always in natural light. Outdoors in natural light, and for the non-hardlined EFP work Tim does, apertures between f8 and f11 are usual, plus as noted above he is not generally looking for shallow DOF. If he needs shallow DOF, he simply needs to know the methods of achieving that: open up the aperture through use of ND, get farther from the subject and push with his zoom to a longer focal length, etc. There’s no rocket science involved there and he’s been doing that with his DXC-637 and 2/3” SD ENG zoom for some time now.

It has been confirmed that when using a B4 adapter on RED One, a 2/3” HD lens will cover 2k. What hasn’t been tested is the quality of the image in that setup. If that setup proves to have good image quality, and Tim was to be using that setup, and keeping in mind he mostly does Non-hardlined EFP production (not ENG), he would then have the option to shoot 2k REDCODE RAW with that B4 adapter/2/3” HD lens setup – something that would open a lot of creative options for him. Because of the flexibility of processing options with REDCINE, and his usual lack of need for shallow DOF, the critical nature of using multiple ND’s (screw in or drop in) would be relieved. Also, zebra has been confirmed on RED One, so that gives him another quick exposure setting option in his non-hardlined EFP work.

You seem to be hung up on some image quality issues with the current crop of 2/3" cameras from some technical spec standpoint. The only specification that should concern you is the image quality you see on the display. If 2/3" is good enough to produce motion pictures, it should be good enough for your final product.

IMO the issues of whether a format is intraframe or interframe have direct effect on the post workflow, motion characteristics of footage, etc. I think a position that all 2/3” formats, regardless of their compression scheme, are essentially equal, and that the results should be similar, is not the position Tim should take. IMO he’s right to be asking the questions he is asking about formats and compression schemes. It can be argued for HDTV projects that they all end up being compressed to MPEG2 for satellite delivery, and low bit rates to boot, but I’d counter that with a position that those facts make even more valid the idea that the original dub master the networks use should be as high quality as possible, and that will help the compressed network files to look better. Garbage in, garbage out.

 

[Steve Gibby]

Tobeorx - Reply Part 3:

I am an ardent Red supporter and am exciting about receiving ours because it works perfectly for most of my jobs. For the others, I'll be sending out a different camera.

I think it’s great that you are now an ardent RED supporter. I think it’s important to give this forum some more info on that. Let’s rewind 14 months to April 2006. My groundbreaking interview with Jim Jannard about RED and RED One had just been published in Studio Daily (4/06), and as a member of Creative Cow, I made a post on the Creative Cow High End HD forum about RED, RED One and a reference to the published interview. You were then, and are now a moderator for that forum. The forums response? A cascade of negative “RED is vaporware” posts. When I felt some of the posts on that thread were violating the forum rules there, I appealed to you as a moderator. Though you were professional in your response, you backed the other forum members there, not me. Creative Cow is an excellent tech board, but their policy toward RED through all these months since RED was announced has been to discourage discussion of RED until RED One ships, and indeed to today’s date (5/3/07) there still isn’t a RED Forum on Creative Cow.

In checking the existing and former online RED forums, and their databases on membership, I come with the following reference you (correct me if any of these are wrong):

DVX USER: no membership or participation
DV Info: no membership or participation
RED User: Join date = 4/19/07

I think it is great when anyone supports RED and someone’s start date of support for RED one has no bearing on their status here on RED User, but so readers of this EFP/ENG for RED forum don’t mistakenly assume that you are a longtime supporter of RED, I have posted the info above. Welcome to the RED family of supporters – the more the merrier. Those of us who have supported RED from the very beginning welcome the increase of support for RED with open arms.

I'll look in from time to time to see how your decision making it coming along and will be very interested to see how the Red performs for you in the field should you decide it's the way to go.

Actually Tim was my “student” here before he became yours on Creative Cow. As linked above, and on multiple other threads here on RED User, I have given him a lot of my time and insight to help him out, and it was accurate insight offered simply to bring him up to speed on the diversity of possibilities with RED One. He has done the right thing in asking questions, and experienced veterans like you, me, and others have offered many opinions. If he does adopt RED One, it will indeed be interesting how it works out for him. Fortunately we won’t have to wait for Tim to get a camera in order to analyze RED One’s real world performance in cine-style and EFP style production. I have one of the first RED One cameras (#8), and it will be heavily tested in L.A. shortly after delivery by a highly-experienced team of professionals from the cine, EFP, DSLR, and post industries. Immediately after that I’ll be putting #8 into action on an assortment of cine and EFP projects. As usual, I’ll share my impressions here on RED User.

These are my opinions based on what we think Red will be when it ships; I'd love to be wrong so I could use the Red camera for every job and ditch my VariCams, but I would bet I'm right.

You’re a relatively new adopter of RED One, as I’ve outlined above, and if you own Varicams I would guess that you have a vested interest in maximizing your investment in them. Panasonic recently made a major price reduction in the Varicam (AJ-HDC27H). In checking the going price of used Varicams, it is apparent that they are commensurately dropping in sale price. As someone in your position, you can either hold onto the Varicams and continue to milk them for their utility life, or dump them before their used price drops any further. That’s a choice only you can make. BTW, I have a high opinion of the Varicam and it has been used extensively in some of my projects. With my adoption of RED One and with RED one’s lowest resolution format (720p) being the format the Varicam shoots, and RED One’s significantly lower price and upward mobility to 1080p, 2k, 4k, and 2540p, to me it was an easy choice to pass on the use of Varicams on my EFP style productions in lieu of RED One. I hold Panasonic in high regard. I was one of the very first pros to do a full magazine review of the HVX200 (4/06), and just last week I was invited by one of the major tech magazines to do the first full magazine review of the new Panasonic HPX500 – something I regrettably had to turn down because of my busy ongoing production schedule.

I think you need to look at the latest renders of RED One in an EFP configuration and add that to the lens options, format options, and accessories becoming available for RED One. RED One’s EFP versatility and usability are becoming more clear with each week.

You say you’d love to be wrong about RED One’s EFP/ENG style use. I’ll be one of the guys who will most likely prove you wrong on that, in view of my early camera number (#8), the L.A. testing mentioned above, and my intention to plug #8 into multiple high-profile EFP series and one-offs.

I also think it would be wise for Creative Cow to establish a RED forum as soon as possible. They have a lot of catching up to do concerning RED and RED One. As a moderator for the Creative Cow High End HD forum perhaps you could be a catalyst in helping establish a RED forum on Creative Cow. Food for thought…

 

[Steve Gibby]

TimothyD,

The work you have described that you do is obviously EFP with some elements of ENG-style – not ENG because you don’t do news and don’t have the quick turnaround requirements of newsgathering work. I’d suggest that you go back to my definitions page of EFP (non-hardlined) and ENG, review my recommendations there, clearly define your job mission requirements, and make a decision on whether RED One will satisfy them.

IMO you made a mistake by mentioning RED One on the Creative Cow High End HD forum. As I’ve illustrated above, though Creative Cow is a very good quality tech board for multiple forums, their refusal to have a RED forum until RED One ships has left the membership there very deficient in knowledge about the tech or uses of RED One, unless those members also joined one of the online RED forums (DVX RED User, DVi RED, or RED User) and stayed current on knowledge about RED One. I’ve been a member of Creative Cow for several years, but their lack of having a RED forum, and the policy of no discussion of RED One until the camera ships has left me no choice but to seek RED knowledge and discussion elsewhere. Perhaps when RED One ships, and if/when Creative Cow establishes a RED forum, it will be a good RED forum. But by that time, the members there, unless they’ve gotten their RED knowledge elsewhere, will be a full 20 months behind the rest of the online tech forums that have had operating RED forums.

Tobeoryx (Leo Ticheli) is a very knowledgeable professional DP and a capable moderator of the Creative Cow High End HD forum – but he is a recent adopter of RED One, and by his own words in the thread links above is just beginning to get up to speed on the capabilities and uses of RED One – something I took my time to help him with on the threads I linked above.

 

[TimothyD]

Sorry I didn't manage to reply to this sooner Gibby. I have been a bit busy lately.

The reason I posted on the Cow was because I just wanted to see what people thought of some of the other cameras I am looking at, and figured that reduser wasn't getting me much of any response on that front...

I didn't feel like Leo was unfair, he was just stating his opinion. There are definitely others there who are nothing but rude, dare I say, jackasses... Before posting there I had read a lot of stuff and knew there was a bias against Red that really basically amounts to prejudice based upon speculation. I did get a few responses of that type, but Leo was open-minded about it, as was Mads. Steve Wargo's posts, not to me, but in general, were just Red bashing and complaining that the camera would cost more than the body alone (I would think he would know that about cameras since he apparently owns some high-end cameras


At any rate, I still haven't written Red off, but I am definitely in major deliberation still. Everything I look at seems like it has many compromises built in, including the fact that I need an adapter to use a lens with a built in zoom rocker with the Red. That does seem like perhaps the smallest compromise, but now I have to weigh the benefits of being able to grow into the camera against the drawbacks of having to deal with swapping filters...

In terms of workflow Red wins hands down, same for the efficiency of the codec, the resolution, the modularity, you name it. The only place it doesn't shine in my opinion is the ENG/EFP support. I guess in my opinion there is just too much focus on trying to make this the best digital cinema camera out there, and take over in that realm, and too little focus on the fact that this is hands down the best VIDEO CAMERA ever made...

Anyway, I am doing what I can to line up cameras to get hands on with, but it is difficult because everything I'm interested in is either not out yet, or just barely shipping, Red of course in the prior category...

I can only cross my fingers that you get #8 and do some hands on work in my stead before I have to make a choice.

Thanks again for taking the time to try to help me out. And like I said before, there is definitely a Red camera in my future, but I don't know if I have the stomach to bet my job on it. (If it didn't work out I would be the laughing stock of the video specialists at the university, all of whom think it is a very bad idea to gamble on a camera/company this new.)

Tim

 

[WesG]

hang in there

hang in there

heh Tim,

Been reading this thread and following everyones thoughts closely.
I'm in a similar situation in terms of being a solo operator; the majority of the time with ENG/EFP needs.

As you have been exploring there's a range of cameras available with different advantages and disadvantages. I wouldn't get too hung up on shooting formats, specs and codecs - the range of cameras you're looking at can all produce beautiful images for your needs.

I think you should focus on your long term objectives and what you hope to achieve as a professional producer - whether that be your skill as a camera operator, editor, producer, director. Concentrate on developing your skills set and what tools will give you the ability to get to where you want to go.

If you really want to open up a world of possibilities I'd encourage you to persist with RED for your uses. I believe RED will be able to be configured to make one man ENG/EFP doable. It sounds like your shooting environment isn't always high pressure and a one-chance environment - in other words if you spend 2 minutes dropping in a ND filter you won't miss something you can't get later.

In the end if you can throw yourself into the deep end with a RED camera (sounds like the budget is there) then I reckon you should jump.
This is what I'm doing - so just my 2 cents worth - good luck

PS - Gibby - hurry up and get that no.8 would yu!!!!!!!

 

[TimothyD]

Hi Nalu,

The reason I worry so much about codecs is that editing is a bigger part of what I do than shooting is. I want to be sure I have the codec, specs, etc. that allow me to accomplish the most with the fewest compromises. That is one major reason I have been looking at Red. Based on everything I have learned so far, here and elsewhere, it seems that Red will provide me with the best image quality, the best workflow, and room to pan and scan, zoom, and stabilize my 2k footage to my hearts content.

I am still on the fence, and I have very little time left until I have to make my decision. I think I may just contact Red and see if I will be able to pay for the camera, but with the option of a refund if something comes up that makes me change my mind before it is delivered (months and months from now I assume.) That way I can have the best of both worlds. I will have my order in, but if Gibby and others report that it is not so good for run and gun then I can get my money back and buy the second choice setup. (at this point either a HDX-900 or a HPX-500 and an HVX-200 as backup. Maybe the Infinity though, who knows.)

Thanks for the feedback,

Tim