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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 :)

Panasonic's ALEXA killer?

I got to spend some time with the Canon reps while working on "House" and I can tell you unequivocally that the only real interest in the cinema side of DLSRs for Canon is the PR.
They just merged their still and video divisions this year so there is now only an imaging division. So you will see convergence between video/still product lines but indie cinema is of almost no concern to Canon's bottom line, but they really do like the marketing angle. BTW this does not include Canon's broadcast division AFAIK.
 
Jim Retar said:
Well, I see a HD EVF, a HD monitor, pro I/O, large sensor and Battery included in a $6000 camera. Does that sound inspired by RED?

I just don't get why you can't see the obvious.

Panasonic join the 4/3" system.
Panasonic make the GH1 and it is a sucess.
Panasonic listen to the big players that use their products and realise that people want the 4/3" system in a camcorder body.

It is just logical. No conspiracies, no idea stealing, no being pushed by RED. Just common sense, simple progression based on the new technology they are mastering and feedback from GH1 customers.
Click to expand...

You forgot to mention integrated top handle, microphone, autofocus and autoiris, probably a remote control, and available from b&h and multiple other sources.
 
One other point....

If they were really following RED's lead... they would go for the one thing, above all else, that makes RED truly special.... a RAW, low file size codec like REDraw. This is the true ace up the sleeve.

It amazes me that the competitors either don't realise this or can't/wont implement it.
 
Evin Grant said:
I got to spend some time with the Canon reps while working on "House" and I can tell you unequivocally that the only real interest in the cinema side of DLSRs for Canon is the PR.
They just merged their still and video divisions this year so there is now only an imaging division. So you will see convergence between video/still product lines but indie cinema is of almost no concern to Canon's bottom line, but they really do like the marketing angle. BTW this does not include Canon's broadcast division AFAIK.
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to reinforce what Evin said...I spent some time chatting with a Canon rep several years ago. Basically, he said, at the time, that their real bread and butter was lens sales, not camera sales at all. A buyer might buy one camera every few years, but lens purchases provide a constant, continuous revenue stream throughout the life of the camera. He said that every time they release a new lens, they immediately sell hundreds of thousands of copies to existing Canon camera owners worldwide.

I think it is only with the release of the 5D Mark II that they began to see a new camera envelope worth pushing, because the hybrid marketplace opened up new sales opportunities - which translates, for Canon, into new lens sales, which is really what guides their product mix, more than cameras.

DSLR cameras sales are of secondary interest to lens sales, and the video market, for many years was almost an afterthought because it didn't budge the sales of still lenses too much at all - their bread and butter. To continue with the food analogy, video camera sales represent peanuts to the Canon market, that is why they tend to follow rather than lead in that arena.
 
Jim Retar said:
One other point....

If they were really following RED's lead... they would go for the one thing, above all else, that makes RED truly special.... a RAW, low file size codec like REDraw. This is the true ace up the sleeve.

It amazes me that the competitors either don't realise this or can't/wont implement it.
Click to expand...

The others haven't YET. I don't think for a second that the value of such escapes them and I fully expect that they are indeed working on it. Codecs have been in development for decades. It seems that Graeme has some unique ideas in that area. We all tend to underestimate how long these things really take.

My own analysis is mostly on par with Tom's, but I am also influenced by the way Jim & Co. make it look so easy. Red's apparently accelerated development cycle has been in large part, an illusion. It's an illusion that worked very much to their advantage as newcomers to the industry, but a re-alignment of expectations was inevitable. We are all feeling the effects of that as we wait for their sophomore effort... Red Two...the second coming... Epic.

I believe this was all a deliberate marketing tactic with roots that extend right to the heart of their business plan, and at the heart of Red is one man... Jim Jannard. He employed this plan in full knowledge that this day of reckoning would come, but enthusiasm for his product, a tremendous number of R&D hours and the hard work of some really bright people would carry them through.

My analysis to this point has been a little cynical. I am certain that Red's success has as much to do with Jim's habit of reaching far beyond what is good enough, and beyond our expectations. He might be called an overachiever with a keen business sense and a passion for lenses and photography. If that is true, then Red is his logical evolution.

Sure the compression is key, but one trick ponies don't shake an industry. There is more than one genius at Red. ;-) In conclusion, what I am saying is that yes, tech is valuable and that can be reverse engineered and duplicated, but it is the unique vision of the people that is the real value of Red, and that can't be copied.
 
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Michael Hastings said:
And one reason Sony/pan aren't likely to agonize over larger sensor motion picture cameras is that EVERY trend is toward smaller sensors now that 4K and above with low noise, highDR is easy on 4/3 and smaller sensors.
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Those are not the trends I'm seeing. Just the opposite.
 
The limitations on competitors releasing raw motion solutions is the processing power needed to implement them. One can see where the DSLR's stand by looking at their raw frame rate specs. It will take a few more Moore's law cycles before you get the power needed in a low cost low power form that will fit the market range for most DSLR's
With the AF100, Panasonic could have impelemented a 10 bit 4:2:2 codec and a P2 card solution, but by their own admission it would up the price of the camera by $2k. These companies build to target markets and tailor engineering solutions to meet a price that the market segment will tolerate.
Red's approach seems to be set a high quality/performance target, engineer it out and figure what it will cost to make, then price it accordingly. Let the market fall where it may with a keen eye on what competitors are actually doing.
 
Tom Lowe said:
Those are not the trends I'm seeing. Just the opposite.
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The optimum imager size range for general purpose high quality motion acquisition falls between 16mm/2/3" size to S35 size IMO.
2/3" has been the backbone of broadcast production for 50 years. There have been occasional forays into larger formats up to the 4/3 range, but they were never very broadly accepted.
 
Sony and Panasonic's Pro Video divisions have typically tailored to the ENG market, where smaller sensors make sense. You aren't going to see a 20x Zoom with a constant apeture anytime soon for a 4/3 or S35 camera.

I believe they have undestimated the demand for large sensor video cameras in the market, thinking only small budget cinematographers would want them. I've seen plenty of wedding, corporate, and documentary work being done on Dslrs/DOF adapters/Reds.
 
Then again if you get shallow DOF and decent low light sensitivity not too mention affordable lenses with M4/3- do you really mind that your sensor is not quite FF35? I'm guessing a *lot* of folks don't...

Noah
 
Tom Lowe said:
Those are not the trends I'm seeing. Just the opposite.
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I meant the technical trends. Combined with the fact that sufficient shallow dof (of the sort used in major motion pictures) is easily achievable on 4/3" with the combination of faster lenses and higher usable ISOs (again, see David Mullen's discussions).

I think you are looking primarily at a small subset of the motion picture universe. Of course, RIGHT NOW, EVERYBODY is playing with shallow DOF because they haven't had it before and all of a sudden it is free with your new, better, cheaper dSLR - so cheap ($750 for a t2i) that ANY pro or serious amateur can readily afford it and it only costs you a couple hundred dollars to own and use it for a few months and then and sell it, if necessary - so there is none of the fear of obsolescence/depreciation that you have with more costly cameras.

And for an example of what I said about fast lenses being much easier for 4/3 check out this thread:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=49754

F.95 50mm (equivalent to 100mm on ff35.) for $699.00 I font know how much the leica full frame is - but it's a lot!


After everybody has shot their shallow DOF short and posted on vimeo/youtube, things will settle in and people will realize the benefits of smaller sensors and go back to them for most of their work - knowing that they can get the occasional supershallow DOF shot easily with a cheap vDSLR or for more critical apps by renting a specialty camera from RED or Arri.

It is highly unlikely that major televisions shows (except for a few experiments) will shoot on 645 Epics (again, except in windowed mode) even if there is no price difference. It simply isn't necessary or very efficient.

And as I said before, the VAST majority of subjects that pros actually shoot, BENEFIT from greater depth of field. Precise focus isn't as tough with stills, but with motion, when you are shooting macro, or subjects hundreds of yards away with a telephoto, the stop or two greater dof of a smaller sensor still leaves very shallow DOF, but makes it a little easier to actually have it focused.
 
Btw I'm fully committed to epic-x and probably 645 after that, this is all just general discussion for me.

Out of curiosity anybody know what the resolution of the epic-x sensor will be at the largest that would be covered by the 4/3 diagonal?
 
Michael Hastings said:
After everybody has shot their shallow DOF short and posted on vimeo/youtube, things will settle in and people will realize the benefits of smaller sensors and go back to them for most of their work - knowing that they can get the occasional supershallow DOF shot easily with a cheap vDSLR or for more critical apps by renting a specialty camera from RED or Arri.
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That seems likely enough in the short term but when the day comes that stopping down is no longer a problem, then we will have tools that can offer a broad range of DOF and a large sensor will once again be desirable. I know I can't wait for the day when my digital cine cam is NO compromise.
 
Michael, the thing to keep in mind is this: Once you go FF35, you never go back.

All these tens of thousands of shooters and film students and indie filmmakers, etc, who have now become accustomed to 5D2 (or even Red) will feel that any smaller sensor is a "compromise." In other words, FF35 is now their gold standard. Their baseline standard. And for this, I praise Canon!

I know guys who will not even use a 7D right now, because it feels like a compromise with its "small sensor"! I agree with you that there is a lot of pent up desire now to shoot shallow DOF, precisely because companies like Panasonic and Sony held back larger sensors for a decade. And yes, people will eventually get it out of their system, to an extent. But shallow DOF can be beautiful, and quite useful in cinematic shooting. ISO/ASA is now heading toward 6400, and when that happens, it's easier just to stop down on a FF35 sensor, while still retaining the ability to open it up whenever you want. That's a lot of flexibility to make beautiful images. :cheers2:
 
David Rasberry said:
2/3" has been the backbone of broadcast production for 50 years. .
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I think you will find it's about 30 years rather than 50. I remember those tiny 2/3" cameras being looked down on by TV companies in the Mid 80's
 
Scott Crawley said:
The others haven't YET. I don't think for a second that the value of such escapes them and I fully expect that they are indeed working on it. Codecs have been in development for decades. It seems that Graeme has some unique ideas in that area. We all tend to underestimate how long these things really take.
Click to expand...

Eh... I would disagree. It's as hard or harder to implement an AVC codec as it is to roll a new JPEG2k compatible file based format.

It's less a question of technical as it is practical.

Remember how it was when REDCode came out initially to start editing if you weren't in FCP? The target audience for these cameras is more interested in editing than in transcoding. Nor are they honestly technically savvy enough to trailblaze. REDCode itself isn't *bad* but it's also nothing earth shattering.

What's set RED apart imo is its willingness to abandon old, tired and broken systems. "You want RGB Output? Too bad! We would rather a better image than a perfect monitor solution. You want 1080p? Too bad! We're going to make a box with a shutter and framerate menu and a record/stop button that focuses on image quality."

If anything I would say REDCode was initially RED's only concession to their otherwise very high standards. The only real compromise they made.
 
Stephen Williams said:
I think you will find it's about 30 years rather than 50. I remember those tiny 2/3" cameras being looked down on by TV companies in the Mid 80's
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No, it's been 50. The original image orthicon tube cameras were basically 2/3". It's been the form factor for broadcast television cameras since long before solid state imagers.
 
M Most said:
No, it's been 50. The original image orthicon tube cameras were basically 2/3". It's been the form factor for broadcast television cameras since long before solid state imagers.
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2/3" became popular because the image area was virtually the same as the telecine projection aperture for 16mm film. Those early video cameras could use the same 16mm c-mount lenses as the film cameras.
16mm film remained the mobile aquisition medium of choice until the mid 70's when relatively portable video cameras, 3/4" u-matic, and the old Ampex 1" reel to reel portable recorders made ENG and EFP viable options.
 
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