RED Scarlet Fixed VS EX-1

[Nicholas Montgomery]

Can somebody offer up some much valued comments as to the major differences between the EX-1 and the Scarlet with fixed lens?

Looking to upgrade from the trust EX-1, which I love very dearly, it's a fine piece of equipment. What I would like to know is if it would be a worthwhile upgrade or not? From what I'm hearing, the image sensor's the same, fixed lens...no difference, aside from shooting in Redraw, what else does it have on the EX-1?

 

[Manjeet Singh]

The sensor size (1/2 inch ) is smaller compared to Scarlet (2/3 inch) as far as I remember.

 

[morgan_moore]

Scarlet .. surely it and loads more resolution and framrate
From
"http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27573"

They can shoot 3K (3072x1728) RAW up to 120 fps (scarlet)

1920*1080 = 2 073 600 PX (EX1)

compared to 3072 X 1728 =5 308 416

This gives you space to crop even if your output is 1080

Of course with an EX1 if you F**K up your exposure or colour balance it is very hard to recover because the look is baked into the file

And at 60FPS the Ex1 is 720PX - even smaller

Really after a little cropping some WB/CC and some 60p your (and my) EX1 is really an SD camera

3k RAW is true 1080 after the most brutal Post Production

of course the Ex1 has nice touches like the built in ND filters (evf and monitor both crap IMO) etc

S

 

[Stephen Lovett]

I own both an EX-3 (same sensor, compression, codec etc.) and a RED One.

It's really a horses for courses discussion. The EX series is capable of producing very nice images. It's easy use, easy to edit, lightweight, super long battery life, and can go a couple of hours on SxS cards.

Much of the comparative data wrt Scarlet has yet to be seen regarding weight, battery run times etc. but the Scarlet is doing a lot more heavy lifting, so you should expect the logical consequences of that.

The accessories of the EX series are prosumer so very nice tools like the bebob zoom controller are comparatively inexpensive.

In summary the EX-1 is a great tool. It's particularly good for very short turn around projects, like if you have to show a rough edit at the end of the shooting day as a one man band. (No debayer, firewire drive and laptop are sufficient etc.)

Having said all that, it aint no Scarlet / Red One. It's greatest weakness is the lack of RAW, and the subsequent constraints this places on post. You have a lot less latitude to adjust the negative before it starts to look like crap. Morgan also touches on another sore point. 60 fps looks good but it sucks that it's limited to 720p.

For folks with the time and expertise, Scarlet will provide you many more degrees of freedom, and the capability to generate a image that is superior. Period. It will require more expensive media, post processing, and more computational horsepower. But you'll gain lots of utility and options.

e.g. Moving from one light source to another in a continuous take (say exterior day to interior tungsten) is a GIANT pita on the EX, with Scarlet, the WB isn't baked in, you just shoot, and adjust it in post. Brilliant. Also the roll off of highlights are substantially smoother on the RED and that is with the current sensor. The MX looks like it's going to spank everything out there wrt low light performance and highlight protection. Watch this space

IMHO, you should download the RED software, and start playing with it. push an RD3 through you editing workflow. That will help you decide.

All the best,

Steve

 

[Nicholas Montgomery]

Stephen, Morgan. Thank you both for your comments, I appreciate it.

 

[morgan_moore]

Roll to highlights - something I really notice - seems to be proportional to sensor size for some reason - with current technology anyway

My three camera 5d, 7d, and EX1 are worse the smaller the sensor

Scarlet may not perform like an R1 in this category

Also the Ex1 glass is a bit dodgy - chromatic aberation etc

IM sure scarlet will win on that front

Of course the 'real' price (NDs, new computer - memory etc) could make the Scarlet 3X the price of the Ex1 I guess

I dont know if you own a stills camera that shoots RAW but if you do you will have a feel for the flexibility of the files even if you cant access RED - and the adittional workflow and memory use

My EX1 is still my best tool for aquiring images and sound in a simple manner .. Im not knocking it..

 

[rod bradley]

Being a Red owner and also having used the EX1 extensively, I'd concur with the assessments above. Although I'd doubt the Scarlet fixed zoom (the 2/3" interchangeable another matter) will be three times the cost of an EX1 to outfit similarly. I'd guess twice at the outside. But of course, all is speculative and subject to change as of now in that regard.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

Being a Red owner and also having used the EX1 extensively, I'd concur with the assessments above. Although I'd doubt the Scarlet fixed zoom (the 2/3" interchangeable another matter) will be three times the cost of an EX1 to outfit similarly. I'd guess twice at the outside. But of course, all is speculative and subject to change as of now in that regard.

What do you mean by this? The fixed Scarlet is $550 cheaper than the price given for the EX1R on B&H, and the items included are pretty comparable...

 

[morgan_moore]

Does anyone know the actual cost of a scarlet package that you could actually go out in front of a client with doing a EX1 style commercial shoot?

Lets say six hours of media

batteries for 12 hours

ND filters (built in to EX1)

Monitor / EVF (or both come with the EX1 - sort of)

matte box (free with EX1 - sort of)

Side handle (attached to EX1 - kind of)

Etc

And what about a computer that can crunch a days raw footage in a couple of hours into a format where one could 'dump the rushes' on the client ?

S