RED Monstro 8K VV & ARRI Alexa LF 4.5K Camera Test 2019

[Jacobo Martinez]

I downloaded the full 4k 60GB file. Did anyone notice the fixed noise pattern of the xyla with the Monstro? Also it looks more blocky.

 

[Tom Gleeson]

Phil,

Many thanks for the unbiased and detailed testing as this is a breath of fresh air on the internet. Also thank you for uploading a 4K copy as 2K is no longer good enough when critically looking at modern top end cameras. Two amazing cameras although I was a little surprised to see how clean the Monstro was in the shadows in the comparisons. Although the noise in both cameras should be understood in context when viewing at a 184% magnification. Michael I can see the desaturation in the green jumper with the Monstro in the skintone test (5:02 - 6:02) but its hard to directly compare as the models have shifted position and the girl with the green jumper looks shadowed both by the other girls from both key and fill light. Even the green shift in the tool board frame in the BG is possibly explained by the lighting shift in only the Monstro shot where the position and ratio of key to fill light subtly changes. Just toggle back and forth on the edit and you can see the lighting change on the Monstro shot. (Sorry Phil)
A colour variation I spotted was on the bolts of cloth where the Red cloth looked a tad more vibrant/saturated on the Monstro. My take out from these tests is the camera are more similar than different. I am sure Phill would agree that these cameras are complex beasts and there are many more scenarios that might illustrate the cameras differing responses but kudos to Red for building a sensor that can go toe to toe with the Arri LF.

 

[David J. Buchanan]

A colour variation I spotted was on the bolts of cloth where the Red cloth looked a tad more vibrant/saturated on the Monstro. My take out from these tests is the camera are more similar than different. I am sure Phill would agree that these cameras are complex beasts and there are many more scenarios that might illustrate the cameras differing responses but kudos to Red for building a sensor that can go toe to toe with the Arri LF.

That's what I was thinking. If someone really wanted to cut between the two, I bet no one would notice. Again, it feels like a preference of brand at this point. Although, the specs are better in the Monstro, the features of the Alexa (NDs, CS) are better.

 

[Sean Keen]

omg

 

[paulcurtis]

Hi Phil,

Firstly the well deserved thanks for all your time and work on this.

Both are awesome cameras.

I was looking at the ProRes version.

But curiosity - at the beginning with the skin tones under the yellow light i am under the impression that the Red footage was graded to match LF? (it says color matched, but what was the process?). On the test overall this is where i see the biggest differences with skin. The red footage has much lower contrast in the faces, there is a lot more definition in the LF footage - but that could just be contrast rather than the sensor not picking it up? Later on, under normal white lights, the skin is much closer overall, it's under the saturated yellow light that skin shows the biggest difference. Also in the warehouse bit with the torch, it is interesting how the LF skews towards teal/cyan in the torch light rather than the blue and neutral highlights of the Red.

I'd be curious to see how the standard IPP2 differed in that yellow section.

So the question is just checking on the workflow of that first bit...

cheers
Paul

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Halfway through the video and I kinda had a "stop the presses" moment in the skintone test (5:02 - 6:02). And it's not about the skintones. If you look at the many other colors in the background, especially the blue frame around the pegboard and the green sweater on the model 2nd from the right, you'll notice that the Alexa has IDENTICAL colors for 5600K and 3200K. The Monstro really matches Alexa well at 3200K on those two colors, but under daylight, those colors shift--a lot! The green sweater really desaturates and the blue border shifts from ever-so-slightly aqua to very much a non-greenish blue. Hmm...

Interesting, seems like the daylight version on Monstro has significantly raised black levels compared to 3200k Monstro and both LF shots, to the point where the 5600K Monstro shot has washed out black levels compared to Alexa and the 3200K is much closer to Alexa and even a little bit crushed compared to the LF.

 

[John Meese]

Hi Phil,
THANK YOU for doing this tests!!

seeing if you could post the flat ungraded files even just as a still DPX frame. I understand this is more about resolution, but would like to see how it looks with different grading.

and thank you again for doing this.

 

[Aharon Rothschild]

Phil thanks so much for the hard work on putting this test together! Could you please link to a raw frame of the xlyla for Alexa LF and Monstro? Thanks again!

 

[Aharon Rothschild]

Assuming the Alexa LF was shot Raw to the Codex....

 

[Roman Alaivi]

Where's the Log frame grabs ? Feels like this has been avoided when people bring it up, something doesn't feel right with this test..

I appreciate the effort that went into though, just kinda weird for a test of this scale with these cameras to not show any before grade footage in the video or at the very least share some log frame grabs. Like... that would be the useful aspect to a test like this, no?

 

[DJ Meyer]

Where's the Log frame grabs ? Feels like this has been avoided when people bring it up, something doesn't feel right with this test..

I appreciate the effort that went into though, just kinda weird for a test of this scale with these cameras to not show any before grade footage in the video or at the very least share some log frame grabs. Like... that would be the useful aspect to a test like this, no?

If i had to guess I suspect that the fact that the industry's largest annual trade show just began might be contributing to the outrageous inconvenience of your demands not being met quite quickly enough for your taste.

 

[Antony Newman]

Phil,

This is an awesome test.

Do you think people have got used to the sharpened look that Alexa bake in?
The vividness adds a degree of ruggedness to the mans beard.
It seems to distribute a sheet of highlighted species where the (unsharpened) Monstro footage has none.
The my eye this makes the skin look more shiny on the Alexa footage.

The jump in colour of Monstro footage between 3200 & 5600K is very noticeable.
The Alexa nails ‘DeWalt’ Yellow at both temps. Monstro : only nails at 3200k.
Monstro : There are other differences that jump about (oranges / Blues) at the different colour temps,

Skin : I found the absolute hue of the girls cheeks more believable on the Alexa.
However, there is insufficient graduation on the Alexa as colour moves to the eye sockets (the colour breaks up and is replaced by a darker colour). Where the surface of the skin changes direction and more directly points at the light (eg side of cheeks) - the Alexa colour is not able to correctly render the colour (it looks like the sides of the faces were lightly bleached).
The absolute colour of facial skin on the Monstro footage I found less convincing than the Alexa. However, I found the Monstro colour as the skin changed orientation to be far more consistent across the frame. There were also more convincing 3D texturing, and colour graduation on the Monstro.

Thanks again!

AJ

 

[RJ_Ortiz]

Where's the Log frame grabs ? Feels like this has been avoided when people bring it up, something doesn't feel right with this test..

I appreciate the effort that went into though, just kinda weird for a test of this scale with these cameras to not show any before grade footage in the video or at the very least share some log frame grabs. Like... that would be the useful aspect to a test like this, no?

Calm down, dude. Phil is meticulous in his efforts. I'm sure he'll address this. No one is avoiding anything.

 

[Phil Holland]

It's 2:44am and I'm in Las Vegas for NAB, my "day" just ended and I've been up since 6. I'll post up some side by side LogC and Log3G10 stuff at some point, but do bare in mind they are different gamma curves. I'm speaking each day at NAB, sometimes twice, but I'll tend to whatever is needed. You're not getting my raw files though. You can fund you're own test on that front.

 

[David Peterson]

I apologize for going a little off topic in a camera test thread, but this has been on my mind and I was wondering if anyone else can relate...

Something I really hope camera manufacturers work on is cooling. I respect that DSMC cameras are doing a lot in a small space, and the bigger RED bodies like Ranger and DXL probably run silent all day long, but I grit my teeth every time we get in to dialogue heavy setups because I know there's a good chance the fans are going to spin up at a bad moment. From a sound department perspective, nothing breaks my heart more than having to tell my director that the dialogue was contaminated.

Yes, we're using Adaptive Quiet Record. Yes, we've tried dialling in manual settings that will at least give a consistent sound, if not a quiet one. Yes, I encourage things like tail-slating for long takes so we can squeeze every second from these bodies. Yes, I always bring it up in pre-production. Inevitably, it always becomes an issue anyway. I implore camera manufacturers everywhere; please, throw us a bone. We're fighting so many battles to capture the performance and we need a little more help on this front.

Sorry if this came off a little melodramatic--I just got off a feature with a Monstro body and it was a punishing shoot for this very reason.

110% support this being talked about more often!

Even if cameras are not as bad as the old RED ONE (and I'd the sound for a feature film with them for the 2nd time in 2018!), many of them could still be better. Would be nice if they were also quiet while NOT rolling as well, so we can more easily detect any subtle problems with the setting which might be hidden under the fan noise. Nothing worse than realizing a problem only at the first moment action is called

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

where can i download prores file?

 

[rand thompson]

Kemalettin,


You can go to the first page of this thread

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Yes, we're using Adaptive Quiet Record. Yes, we've tried dialling in manual settings that will at least give a consistent sound, if not a quiet one. Yes, I encourage things like tail-slating for long takes so we can squeeze every second from these bodies. Yes, I always bring it up in pre-production. Inevitably, it always becomes an issue anyway. I implore camera manufacturers everywhere; please, throw us a bone. We're fighting so many battles to capture the performance and we need a little more help on this front.

I've been tackling heat issue of the DSMC1 & 2. I created the fanplate for DSMC1. For DSMC2 I've found that shooting with the highest sensor temp and calibrate for it gave me the most silent camera. I don't shoot adaptive quiet record but just adaptive. Using prores encoding at the same time as shooting cooks the camera a bit more. Peaking also tend to heat the camera.

But YES! I would be pleased to have a body created for heat dissipation and NO fan noise!


Pat

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Great work, Phil! Thank you for the effort and posting it here for all of us ... and for hosting the 4K file!

And a big thank you for keeping it as unbiased as possible.

Talking about unbiased, let me do the opposite and state my own personal preference I don't want to open pandoras box, or step on anyones toes, but I definitely am pro RED on the skintones. Especially the greenish tint of the Arri sensor is not something I care for. To me it definitely shows how far RED has come in refining and tweaking the image.

But that's my own opinion and if somebody feels different about it, fair enough. And of course the tint seems easily removable or tuneable to each and everyones preferences.

 

[M Most]

- One raging critique towards Codex - ARRI doesn't make their media, Codex does. Dear Codex, Please get your $5,000 SXR Docks/Ecosystem working with Windows. It's 2019. Other than that, love you guys. I'm not saying that the RED Mini-Mag Reader is sub-$200 and works with everything, but I sort of am saying that. P.S. For the tech savvy, you can get this to work, but come on.

There is a Compact Drive Reader that is USB3 and about $600.

You're welcome..... :001_cool:

PS - Of course, the software is Mac only. So there is that.....