RED Raven against Canon 1DX Mark II

[Guilherme Belchior Afonso]

Hi guys,

Just wondering what are your thoughts about the announced Canon 1DX Mark II and how it stand against RED Raven. I was a Scarlet Dragon owner until 4 months ago and now I´m looking for another camera. The Canon 1Dx Mark II caught my attention regarding some features that bothered me with my old Scarlet. I like very much the RED system don´t take me wrong but the portability of the camera, the batteries longevity and all the preparation needed to shoot in those quick production situations got me thinking on other camera much more ready to shoot and portable.
For me the RED look is unbeatable. I never saw footage from Canon that comes closer to Red´s. But it´s hard to have the Red camera ready when you need it.
One thing that I´m worried with Raven is the size of the sensor and Redcode settings. With my Scarlet Dragon I got several noise issues with not that much ISO. In that field I guess the 1Dx has an advantage, at least the footage I saw are pretty clean.
My Scarlet didn´t had ProRes recording, that would be great for me and that´s a very positive Raven feature, much better than the Canon options.

It would be nice to see a side by side testing of these 2 cameras. I know that they stand in very different places and have very different target clients but at least for me and for now these are the 2 cameras that I feel go towards my wishes for a camera, despite being so much different and needing different approaches when using.

About the price, I see a big difference. To have a ready to shoot Red Raven I would have to spend almost the double, comparing to Canon. 12 000€ against about 6 500€.

What do you guys think? Anyone have similar thoughts?

Thanks!

Cheers

Guilherme

 

[Nick Morrison]

Raven should be significantly cleaner than Scarlet Dragon, for two main reasons:

1) The new DSMC2 boards are much cleaner (auto blackshade helps too). Better/newer boards = less noise

2) Raven has much lower compression, due to its 140mb/sec boards (vs 72mb/sec for Scarlet Dragon.) Less compression = less noise.

Expect to shoot approx 2000iso clean.

Remember, the Canon will most likely be denoising in camera to improve lowlight. Raven does not denoise (no RED does), which only adds to image quality and fidelity.

 

[Guilherme Belchior Afonso]

Hi Nick, thanks for your reply!

I had the LL OLPF but even so it was difficult to have a nice image without good lighting. I guess that you are saying that you can raise the iso much safer with Raven. I never went upper than 800 iso. And it was really difficult to shoot in low light conditions.

On other subject, about the crop factor, when you lower the format for instance to 3K, does it crop the image? Or you get the full image from the full sensor but in a lower resolution?

 

[Marco Hanna]

I can pitch in here. First, The 1DX is not really aimed for filmmaking. It's more of a run-n-gun type of camera meant for documentaries. Also, its a professional stills camera. There is a lack of any type of log recording which is a huge downside, something the 1DC had. If you really want crazy good low-light, the Canon C300 is probably the cinema camera for you. If you want an ENG type camera that's good in low-light, the Sony FS5 and FS7 offer fairly good performance. However, the Sony A7SII is the cleanest looking image in low-light.

Now on to the Raven. The Raven has a 4.5K image sensor, slightly smaller than your typical APS-C or Super 35mm sensor. So when you select anything lower than 4.5K, you are not going to see downscaling. It crops in on the sensor. So at 4.5K 2.1:1, you are using the full sensor. That is a 1.66X crop. At 4K, you are at 1.89X, at 2K, you are closer to 3X. 3K would be in the middle, probably a 2.4, 2.5X crop. I would never recommend cropping down. If you need smaller files, use a higher compression setting.

Lastly, the sensor on the Raven is definitely better in low-light. Reasonably, you can go to 2000 ISO with no problems. 3200, you'll start seeing more noise at higher compression ratios. Though, if you are downscaling to deliver a 2K production from a 4.5K image, you'll get the noise much tighter. It looks pleasing to many. Though, the grain itself is really fine grained.

Let me know if you have more questions.

 

[Guilherme Belchior Afonso]

Thanks Marco! You were pretty clear.

I never understood why in the specs they call Full frame (ex: 3K Full Frame (3072 × 1620)) I guess it´s full frame within the 3K format. Before they had FF (Full format) I think this can miss confuse some people like me.

What about the Apple Prores? It´s always a downscale right? Even from 4,5K to Apple Prores 2K. It doesn´t crop right?

About the sensor, if we put a Scarlet Dragon side by side with a Raven with 2000 iso and all the same other specs we get a cleaner image on Raven?

Another question that I have is about audio input, Raven as I understand has 2 microphones incorporated right? That was a big lack on Scarlet, I had to get a external microphone just for reference audio.

Thanks!

 

[Marco Hanna]

FF just stands for full frame of that picture. 5K FF means you are using an exact 5K sensor area. ProRes is still going to be a crop. You aren't going to escape that. ProRes is a wonderful delivery codec, though I would not recommend using to capture. REDCODE is meant to be as flexible as you need it to. I would always recommend shooting in RAW, it just gives you more creative control in post. So other than shooting in 4.5K 2.1:1, you will always have some sort of crop in any codec.

Yes. The modern brain in the Raven will give you a cleaner image. The difference won't be huge, obviously, but from what I saw its definitely a more fine grain. You can look at Weapon 6K footage to see what I mean. With the Raven you get a smaller cut of that 6K sensor. The footage between the 3, Weapon, Scarlet-W, and Raven are going to look identical in color science and performance, but obviously resolution, frame rate, and sensor size being the only differences.

The Raven does have a built-in internal microphone for scratch audio. Wouldn't rely on it for work but its there and nice to have. The fans on the DSMC2 cameras are definitely a whole lot quieter so they'll do just fine.

 

[Justin Litton]

...ProRes is still going to be a crop. You aren't going to escape that...

Guilherme might have been referring to the resulting ProRes file when shooting alongside R3D. In this scenario, you could shoot 4.5K in raw but your ProRes file would be 2K and would in fact be down-sampled from the full sensor area instead of cropped in. Or is this actually not the case?

 

[Marco Hanna]

Ah, I see. Sorry, I thought you were referring to shooting ProRes on the camera. Yes, if you shoot 4.5K (or any format in R3D) and choose to record ProRes, you will be downscaling that image. Unless you shoot in 2K in R3D, obviously. But again, ProRes is a really big file so I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you stock up on mini mags. Shoot R3D, deliver in ProRes.

 

[Guilherme Belchior Afonso]

Yes Justin, that was what I was asking

I´m pretty satisfied with the R3D files, I can edit in premiere directly and still have access to the source settings (Can´t say the same for arriraw....) The ProRes option is just for some cases when I need to get a quick file for someone else.

 

[Robert Gustafsson]

R3D vs. Motion JPEG.... pretty simple choice.

 

[Maik Müller]

I agree, pretty simple. The Canon has no chance at all, it's simply not relevant for filmmaking. MJPEG here, crop there, binning/skipping, whatever... it doesn't even need a real closer look, it's no comparison at all. It's a real disappointment for me, even from a pure photographers point of view. Canon dropped the ball with that one.

And don't get tricked into thinking the batteries would hold long when you shoot 4k MJPEG. It will eat through them (and CFast-cards) real quick. Overall, size, weight and maybe DualPixel-AF would be something, but wait, there are better options out there, if those things are really bothering you. IMHO even the Alpha 6300 looks like a way more interesting camera for filmmaking, not to mention the A7R2 and A7S2.

I would go RAVEN (or Scarlet-W) anytime and maybe add a little Sony sooner or later.

 

[Guilherme Belchior Afonso]

Thanks guys!

About the batteries what do you guys prefer? The V-mount or the redvolts? I used redvolts, regular and XL and I was always getting those crazy errors when charging and lost of charge pretty quick. Do you recommend any other V-mount batteries and chargers from other brands? I saw a setup of Raven with V-Mount and it looks like the battery stick to high on the camera body, blocking a bit of the monitor. And how do they compare with revolt XL charge wise?

Thanks!

 

[Andy_Johnson]

R3D vs. Motion JPEG.... pretty simple choice.

This right here. (Even if it's some h.264 derivative).

 

[Marc Pilato]

About the choice of the batteries with Raven,i decided to buy pag slim L90. There are
less wide than Red brick so i think it will be ok and easy travel. About the canon eos 1 dx mk II it's the autofocus which seems to be awesome.

 

[Aaron Nanto]

Now on to the Raven. The Raven has a 4.5K image sensor, slightly smaller than your typical APS-C or Super 35mm sensor. So when you select anything lower than 4.5K, you are not going to see downscaling. It crops in on the sensor. So at 4.5K 2.1:1, you are using the full sensor. That is a 1.66X crop. At 4K, you are at 1.89X, at 2K, you are closer to 3X. 3K would be in the middle, probably a 2.4, 2.5X crop. I would never recommend cropping down. If you need smaller files, use a higher compression setting.

Marco (or anyone) - is this also the case with the Scarlet-W? I didn't realize it didn't downscale when shooting in lower resolutions than FF....

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

Raven better low light camera? No Way.
IDC low light will blow any RED out.......

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

I few points (as an actual 1Dc owner) with Scarlet W deposit paid.

• The 1Dx mkII will shot a 4k crop (about 1.3x) on the full frame sensor. In other words, its a bigger then S35 sensor for video.
• The MJPEG codec will record intra frame, 422 8bit files. The file sizes are equivalent to those of ProRes 422. FCPX auto converts them to ProRes on import and the originals can be replaced, leaving only ProRes). It's a good file format for the 1D series bodies.
• Each frame of video is basically a Canon jpeg with the current picture profile baked in.
• bitrate is 520Mbps around 24-25fps and over 800Mbps for 60fps
• each frame is clean and artifact free: there is no scaling or anything done to the pixels.
• The new AF mode is surprisingly customizable.

My 1Dc is personal camera that I just pick up and shoot. If often tags along hanging for a SpiderPro holster - even with a 700-200 f2.8 IS II attached. In my mind RED's products are more like "project cameras". I'm not convinced they are, or can be, as nimble.

A system like RED gives you lots of posibilities in terms of post. When shot right, a fat, flexible file that can be pushed and pulled.

The 1Dc uses Canon Log and it has the cinematic qualities inherent in a Log file. Light distribution is different from the normal photo picture profiles and it can be graded to some extent. Canon Log was designed for 12 stops and 8bit and works within those frames.

The 1Dx mkII will give you files that are ready to go out of the camera. It does not shoot Log. There is no real replacement to Canon Log that you can install yourself. You will not get cinematic light distribution. Given these restrictions, the files will be rich, have great color and tonality and will be very clean. Do not underestimate how beautiful well shot 4k60 footage from this camera will be.

I believe that the 1Dx mkII can be a very powerful tool in the right conditions. It shouldn't be dismissed too quickly (especially no need to bash it just because it isn't for 'you').

Especially since the mkII misses Canon Log (at least at launch) it will serve you well to dig into that time honored bag of tricks like "holding up a diffuser".

I'll get the mkII, but I'm still not 100% sure if I'll act on the call when my Scarlet W number comes up.

 

[Les Hillis]

Marco (or anyone) - is this also the case with the Scarlet-W? I didn't realize it didn't downscale when shooting in lower resolutions than FF....

All RED cameras crop the sensor when lowering the resolution and recording RAW R3D's.

You can record a lower resolution stream without cropping by sending the signal out via SDI/HDMI to an external recorder, or in the case of the new DSMC2 models, by recording to ProRes in camera.

 

[scott devitte]

I few points (as an actual 1Dc owner) with Scarlet W deposit paid.

• The 1Dx mkII will shot a 4k crop (about 1.3x) on the full frame sensor. In other words, its a bigger then S35 sensor for video.
• The MJPEG codec will record intra frame, 422 8bit files. The file sizes are equivalent to those of ProRes 422. FCPX auto converts them to ProRes on import and the originals can be replaced, leaving only ProRes). It's a good file format for the 1D series bodies.
• Each frame of video is basically a Canon jpeg with the current picture profile baked in.
• bitrate is 520Mbps around 24-25fps and over 800Mbps for 60fps
• each frame is clean and artifact free: there is no scaling or anything done to the pixels.
• The new AF mode is surprisingly customizable.

My 1Dc is personal camera that I just pick up and shoot. If often tags along hanging for a SpiderPro holster - even with a 700-200 f2.8 IS II attached. In my mind RED's products are more like "project cameras". I'm not convinced they are, or can be, as nimble.

A system like RED gives you lots of posibilities in terms of post. When shot right, a fat, flexible file that can be pushed and pulled.

The 1Dc uses Canon Log and it has the cinematic qualities inherent in a Log file. Light distribution is different from the normal photo picture profiles and it can be graded to some extent. Canon Log was designed for 12 stops and 8bit and works within those frames.

The 1Dx mkII will give you files that are ready to go out of the camera. It does not shoot Log. There is no real replacement to Canon Log that you can install yourself. You will not get cinematic light distribution. Given these restrictions, the files will be rich, have great color and tonality and will be very clean. Do not underestimate how beautiful well shot 4k60 footage from this camera will be.

I believe that the 1Dx mkII can be a very powerful tool in the right conditions. It shouldn't be dismissed too quickly (especially no need to bash it just because it isn't for 'you').

Especially since the mkII misses Canon Log (at least at launch) it will serve you well to dig into that time honored bag of tricks like "holding up a diffuser".

I'll get the mkII, but I'm still not 100% sure if I'll act on the call when my Scarlet W number comes up.

I also use a 1Dc and C500 Canons. They are a great tertiary compliment to my 2 Dragons(soon to be Weapons). If you are invested in canon ef is lenses the 1DxmkII is going to be a fabulous addition to your image making- because of the incredible auto focus. You will get 4k shots quickly that no other camera on the market will get that will cut nicely with RED with Canon glass. If you are shooting a lot of 6k the IDc and 1dx II being 4k 1.3 give you a very similar lens FOV/DOF if you care about that sort of thing. For example cross shooting the REDs, and flat shooting wide the 1Dc in real time gives you a nice alternative cut, for not a lot of effort when finishing to 4k.

 

[scott devitte]

I can pitch in here. First, The 1DX is not really aimed for filmmaking. It's more of a run-n-gun type of camera meant for documentaries. Also, its a professional stills camera. There is a lack of any type of log recording which is a huge downside, something the 1DC had. If you really want crazy good low-light, the Canon C300 is probably the cinema camera for you. If you want an ENG type camera that's good in low-light, the Sony FS5 and FS7 offer fairly good performance. However, the Sony A7SII is the cleanest looking image in low-light.

About your c300 comment and low light- true but no 4k, but used c500 prices are dropping way down, together with an odyssey and there you have a great low light cine rig.