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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 :)

Red Scarlet vs BMC

Josh the Scarlet does 48fps at 3K, that counts as slo-mo in my book.

You're like preacher of old...trying hard to convert us to your religion... while living in our country!

Good luck. You're going to need it!

Most of us here have invested in RED because saving $5-7K isn't the end-game. The endgame is joining the big boys and investing into a proven, future forward Cinema Camera and workflow.

There is always something cheaper, nipping at everyone's heals.

But right now for a lot of us RED is the only company breaking new grounds in Cinema, changing the industry as it goes, but doing so at a price we can afford. They are taking us along for the ride. And that's exciting.

That's why whatever BMC is doing, and whatever couple of grand I may save, isn't really the issue for me. And for most of us. I'm here to shoot at 4K and 5k. I'm here to see what Dragon brings. And I'm here to invest in the future.

Until you see that, you're going to have a hard time connecting to most of us.

Good luck!
 
I owned a BMCC for a few days. While it can make nice images, it's firmware is very primitive at this point.
I had a Canon lens on it, and had to guess what the aperture was at. No readout. No exposure feedback except for zebra.
I think even Red firmware version 0.9 was more advanced. It weighs way too much for what it is.
No black shading either.
But it's cheap. Way better than a DSLR.
My 2 cents.
 
BMCC is HDLSR killer how it even compares to Scarlet I'm at a total loss to understand. They are 2 totally different beasts might as well compare Sony F5 against the Bolex or I phone.

Hence I declare this thread a Zombie thread ..........................it needs brains to feed it.

So please stop feeding it........................ unless you own or have owned both cameras and can make valid comparisons.

P.S @ Les, interesting owned one for only a few days .
 
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Some people here act like religious people when you bring up evolution. No matter what facts you provide they will first yell to you, then they will threat you and in the end they will ignore you. Talking about the general attitude in here.

Nick Morrison said:
Josh the Scarlet does 48fps at 3K, that counts as slo-mo in my book.

You're like preacher of old...trying hard to convert us to your religion... while living in our country!

Good luck. You're going to need it!

Most of us here have invested in RED because saving $5-7K isn't the end-game. The endgame is joining the big boys and investing into a proven, future forward Cinema Camera and workflow.

There is always something cheaper, nipping at everyone's heals.

But right now for a lot of us RED is the only company breaking new grounds in Cinema, changing the industry as it goes, but doing so at a price we can afford. They are taking us along for the ride. And that's exciting.

That's why whatever BMC is doing, and whatever couple of grand I may save, isn't really the issue for me. And for most of us. I'm here to shoot at 4K and 5k. I'm here to see what Dragon brings. And I'm here to invest in the future.

Until you see that, you're going to have a hard time connecting to most of us.

Good luck!
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Most cameras are future forward.

You are not joining anything by buying a camera. It sounds that you think you are now in some elite movie making club if you buy an expensive camera.

If people buy Scarlet then money matters. If money didn't matter they would have bought EPIC which is way better camera than Scarlet. Money is the reason people buy Scarlets.

2K is now. If 2K is good enough for the best guys in Hollywood it's good enough for me too. I will shoot 4K when people watch my work at 4K = in the future with new, better and cheaper 4K cameras than the current models.

By the way, how many of your films are you re-releasing in 2018 in 4K theaters?
 
Carlos Reyes said:
Calling the BMC $3K is like calling the Scarlet $8k. If you're gonna say that the Scarlet is "$15K" then the BMC sure as hell wont be "$3k" once you accessorize it, if you plan on using it professionally that is.
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Good luck turning your camera on without Side Handle and battery. Good luck trying to attach lens on camera that doesn't have lens mount. Good luck trying to record anything with a camera that doesn't have SSD slot. Good luck trying to load your footage to your computer without Red Station. Good luck trying to see what you shoot without an LCD. Good luck trying to charge your battery without a charger.

All things mentioned are included in BMC. Oh and BMC also includes full version of Davinci Resolve.

If you remove the second battery and 64GB SSD from Scarlet backage then it's 13,3k$. So 3k$ vs 13k$ is what we are dealing here.
 
key word being "we" since last time i checked you admit to owning ZERO bmcs and ZERO reds Josh...


so what are you hoping to get out of this? we can overcrank, shoot higher res, have more narrow depth of field and easy lens mount swaps. if 4k is so far away and pie in the sky why did sony, cannon, jvc, all release 4k cameras? why is westinghouse selling 4k tvs dirt cheap by summer (according to the news at the trade show)?

you can argue for a camera you don't own all you want, but whats your motive in this? i mean hell you aren't even invested in either platforms AT ALL... if you think a scarlet is expensive GOOD LUCK in this field. a scarlet is the cheapest entry level camera in the 4k high end arena (that shoots raw)

if you think a scarlet is a rip off what do you think of the alexa? it shoots the same rez as the precious BMC you do not own. it shoots direct to edit just like it. but it costs 50 times the price. isn't that a rip off? but yet its the most used camera in broadcast right now


ps intel is selling uhd displays in 2013, go read a bit man 4k isn't such pie in the sky these days
 
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Sincerely, the Scarlet has better compression than the Red One, which is still a worldwide cinema powerbouse. What in the level of cinema has been shot with the Blackmagic? Yes its still young, but in its early days, the red one was shooting Che for Sodderbergh and had been battle tested by Jackson and Wetta Digital (sorry for the misspeling- not sure if I wrote the names well). The Scarlet is the second generation camera of the same team. Not saying that the Blackmagic guys aren't good - they produce fantastic products- but I am more than happy on being on the Red Camp. I only use other cameras if I have too, because right now the Red I own which has the same sensor as the Scarlet, does everything I want. And the Red team LISTENS. Check out the redray thread- after a discussion of .red encoding, "Robcode" just came in, cleared some misunderstandings and asked "suggestions?" . Unprecedented at least o n the indie on the trenches world.
 
Josh Snyder said:
It sounds that you think you are now in some elite movie making club if you buy an expensive camera.
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Actually I feel like I have, it's called REDUSER and the RED COMMUNITY. Our business and our professional connections have dramatically changed since we invested in RED. We'e gone from $5-10k shoots to $30-50k shoots in less than a year. That feels a lot more elite to me. RED is getting us (and me) where we want to go.

We always knew HOW to do it. But with the right camera, it's allowed us to do it MUCH BETTER.

Josh Snyder said:
If people buy Scarlet then money matters. If money didn't matter they would have bought EPIC which is way better camera than Scarlet. Money is the reason people buy Scarlets.
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Yes money matters. Which is why we bought Scarlets, which were still expensive by our DSLR standards. Just because you don't buy a Rolls doesn't mean you haven't bought a Porsche (that's 10x better than the Nissan we used to drive btw, haha).

Josh Snyder said:
2K is now. If 2K is good enough for the best guys in Hollywood it's good enough for me too.
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If that's so when why the push to 70mm, Imax, 4K and beyond? Clearly we are in the swan song of 2K, and everything is about MORE RESOLUTION right now.

Josh Snyder said:
By the way, how many of your films are you re-releasing in 2018 in 4K theaters?
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Josh you are smart, but not even you can predict the future. My guess is that 4K will be the standard by 2018. It will be the 1080 of 2018.
 
Josh Snyder said:
Good luck turning your camera on without Side Handle and battery. Good luck trying to attach lens on camera that doesn't have lens mount. Good luck trying to record anything with a camera that doesn't have SSD slot. Good luck trying to load your footage to your computer without Red Station. Good luck trying to see what you shoot without an LCD. Good luck trying to charge your battery without a charger.

All things mentioned are included in BMC. Oh and BMC also includes full version of Davinci Resolve.

If you remove the second battery and 64GB SSD from Scarlet backage then it's 13,3k$. So 3k$ vs 13k$ is what we are dealing here.
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As I said, if you plan to shoot professionally. Good luck showing up to a real set with an internal battery and one 64 GB SSD, and showing the client the shot on the little touch screen stuck to the back of the camera. I'm sure they'll call you back. You'll need a lot more than a 64 GB SSD and 90 minutes of battery life to shoot with this camera.

Sure It still wont be anywhere near the price of a scarlet but all things considered it will be much more than $3K once you get it there.

I'm a RED owner who was lucky to use the BMC. So as someone who hasnt used either at least take what I'm saying with some weight, I didnt attack you I was making a valid point. Shooting with the little monitor on the BMC is a nightmare outdoors even with the little sunhood, and getting critical focus is gonna be difficult on a lot of set ups. so there off the bat you need a decent monitor. 3-4 V mount batteries with a plate to get through a day of production. a matte box with some NDs to shoot daytime. Follow focus. Rail system to accomodate this stuff and get you on a tripod at least (if you can afford shoulder mount and all that even better). Cables and spare cables. The costs adds up.

Its not $3K. Unless you dont pay the bills with camera work which in that case it's all good. You get A LOT for $3K. It's a camera that renders beautiful images, really does. I thought long and hard about picking one up as a B cam for the scarlet. In my case once I kitted out a BMC it didnt really make sense. And when was I going to get it? Using the camera brings many compromises to how and what you shoot. Just like DSLRs did. I got a lot of good paying jobs that shot on 5Ds, sure we got the job done and the images were good for their purpose, web delivery, but the shoots were always filled with comprises. Shooting on that platform and with those ergonomics is a nightmare.

And unfortunately since as of now the firmware is very behind, you get a somewhat beta camera. The exposure tools just arent there right now. Obviously all this will be ironed out, but as of now try explaining to a producer how you're not quite sure what F stop you're at? On a quick shoot with things moving there is no time to sit there and click around trying to guess what you're f stop is at.

Notice how most of the BMC stuff you see is outdoor stuff. Indoor you quickly notice how the crop factor and walls arent your friends. We'll see how the speed booster plays into all this. But as of now a canon to passive MFT mount is useless. And we wont see MFT mounts for months. So for the foreseeable future this camera has a heavy crop. And although you can work around it, can make your life very difficult. The S16 movies you mentioned, I actually loved all of them, consider them all great films. But dont forget their budgets were in the millions. Relatively speaking, they were all "low budget" for feature films, but with a real budget your options really open up in terms of location, lens rentals etc. You are much more likely to work around and plan around a crop, take into account location scouting, set design etc. and with the BMC on a small commercial shoot you just dont have as many options. Many times the locations are already set. Indoors you're are going to find yourself shooting with your back against the wall frequently, no pun intended, wishing you could back up a few feet. There are other things (compromises) to consider but I'll stop there.

It depends on your needs and such, and what you think you can realistically work around. I suspect many future BMC users dont make their bread and butter shooting, there isnt anything wrong with that. But if you need as you say a "cinema grade camera" right now for full production days the BMC is a tough sell as an A camera to about any production. I emphasis right now because who knows what the future holds, and firmware will greatly improve the camera down the line hopefully. But not everyone has the luxury to wait months to a year for the working camera. So it all depends on the person. Again I think the Scarlet and BMC are incomparable and its maybe something that really starts to make sense when you've used both for enough time to really understand each system.

RED faced many similar backlash and setbacks when they started out. But its 2013 now and they have the support and products in place. For the first time I am shooting with a camera that has zero compromises. Sure I wish it was an epic sometimes :) But hey at least I know I'll have the option of a trade it in for a Dragon Epic, which is very reassuring. Those are my thoughts. All the best and happy shooting.
 
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It's funny but some of this discussion makes me think of interviews I've read regarding cinema lenses. The article was saying that (in reference to making the entire set of lenses be at 1.4 or similar) in order to make a lens' max aperture one stop faster without sacrificing quality it becomes about 8 times more difficult to design/produce.

I think that the same could be said for current technology regarding the BMC vs Scarlet. People have compared the two claiming that it maxes out at 4k for the same frame rates as the BMC and does slow motion (48fps) at only slightly higher resolution than the BMC that it is not necessarily worth the extra 11k (14k-3k). I would argue that like lenses you are getting to a point of diminishing returns where you are paying more per incremental increase in specs than before, but just like lenses you there are professionals and amateurs alike who are willing to pay the premium because their work demands it. A perfect example would be a DP choosing a set of Master Primes over a set of nikon zooms despite the fact that the increase in quality is not proportionate to the increase in price.

Now don't jump on me for the 14k vs 3k comment, I know both cameras need to be kitted out but my rationale is that it would take the list of items below to match the out of box functionality of the BMC.

Scarlet Brain w/ side ssd and canon mount - 10,150
RED LCD - 1600
Side Handle - 950
Red Volt + charger - 320
Red media pack - $975

total $13,995

I do not count resolve in the value of the BMC because you can get resolve lite for free and redcine-x is free as well.

So maybe we can all agree that when it comes to specs the scarlet has the edge and you will have to pay more for that edge, any opinions on the "look" of the footage that are not quantitative are simply opinions, and both companies have released great products given their specs compared to existing products in their price brackets, even if both manufacturers were embarrassingly inaccurate with the shipping dates they listed when first announcing their products.

I would like to suggest to the mods that in an effort to cut down on the negative vibe these BMC threads keep generating we close all bmc vs scarlet threads that do not start with the original post including footage to compare and all subsequent posts in those threads that do not either specifically comment on the footage/frames provided or provide new footage/frames should be deleted.

I just want to have a good experience on this forum, learn, and share ideas. I certainly don't want threads like this floating around potentially discouraging others from joining us.
 
Peter Osinski said:
It's funny but some of this discussion makes me think of interviews I've read regarding cinema lenses. The article was saying that (in reference to making the entire set of lenses be at 1.4 or similar) in order to make a lens' max aperture one stop faster without sacrificing quality it becomes about 8 times more difficult to design/produce.

I think that the same could be said for current technology regarding the BMC vs Scarlet. People have compared the two claiming that it maxes out at 4k for the same frame rates as the BMC and does slow motion (48fps) at only slightly higher resolution than the BMC that it is not necessarily worth the extra 11k (14k-3k). I would argue that like lenses you are getting to a point of diminishing returns where you are paying more per incremental increase in specs than before, but just like lenses you there are professionals and amateurs alike who are willing to pay the premium because their work demands it. A perfect example would be a DP choosing a set of Master Primes over a set of nikon zooms despite the fact that the increase in quality is not proportionate to the increase in price.

Now don't jump on me for the 14k vs 3k comment, I know both cameras need to be kitted out but my rationale is that it would take the list of items below to match the out of box functionality of the BMC.

Scarlet Brain w/ side ssd and canon mount - 10,150
RED LCD - 1600
Side Handle - 950
Red Volt + charger - 320
Red media pack - $975

total $13,995

I do not count resolve in the value of the BMC because you can get resolve lite for free and redcine-x is free as well.

So maybe we can all agree that when it comes to specs the scarlet has the edge and you will have to pay more for that edge, any opinions on the "look" of the footage that are not quantitative are simply opinions, and both companies have released great products given their specs compared to existing products in their price brackets, even if both manufacturers were embarrassingly inaccurate with the shipping dates they listed when first announcing their products.

I would like to suggest to the mods that in an effort to cut down on the negative vibe these BMC threads keep generating we close all bmc vs scarlet threads that do not start with the original post including footage to compare and all subsequent posts in those threads that do not either specifically comment on the footage/frames provided or provide new footage/frames should be deleted.

I just want to have a good experience on this forum, learn, and share ideas. I certainly don't want threads like this floating around potentially discouraging others from joining us.
Click to expand...

Good points made and well articulated.
 
Peter Osinski for PRESIDENT!!



Peter Osinski said:
It's funny but some of this discussion makes me think of interviews I've read regarding cinema lenses. The article was saying that (in reference to making the entire set of lenses be at 1.4 or similar) in order to make a lens' max aperture one stop faster without sacrificing quality it becomes about 8 times more difficult to design/produce.

I think that the same could be said for current technology regarding the BMC vs Scarlet. People have compared the two claiming that it maxes out at 4k for the same frame rates as the BMC and does slow motion (48fps) at only slightly higher resolution than the BMC that it is not necessarily worth the extra 11k (14k-3k). I would argue that like lenses you are getting to a point of diminishing returns where you are paying more per incremental increase in specs than before, but just like lenses you there are professionals and amateurs alike who are willing to pay the premium because their work demands it. A perfect example would be a DP choosing a set of Master Primes over a set of nikon zooms despite the fact that the increase in quality is not proportionate to the increase in price.

Now don't jump on me for the 14k vs 3k comment, I know both cameras need to be kitted out but my rationale is that it would take the list of items below to match the out of box functionality of the BMC.

Scarlet Brain w/ side ssd and canon mount - 10,150
RED LCD - 1600
Side Handle - 950
Red Volt + charger - 320
Red media pack - $975

total $13,995

I do not count resolve in the value of the BMC because you can get resolve lite for free and redcine-x is free as well.

So maybe we can all agree that when it comes to specs the scarlet has the edge and you will have to pay more for that edge, any opinions on the "look" of the footage that are not quantitative are simply opinions, and both companies have released great products given their specs compared to existing products in their price brackets, even if both manufacturers were embarrassingly inaccurate with the shipping dates they listed when first announcing their products.

I would like to suggest to the mods that in an effort to cut down on the negative vibe these BMC threads keep generating we close all bmc vs scarlet threads that do not start with the original post including footage to compare and all subsequent posts in those threads that do not either specifically comment on the footage/frames provided or provide new footage/frames should be deleted.

I just want to have a good experience on this forum, learn, and share ideas. I certainly don't want threads like this floating around potentially discouraging others from joining us.
Click to expand...
 
These threads are a total enigma to me. I don't know why they keep popping up. I don't understand what there is to talk about really. If you could actually choose between the BMCC and Scarlet I could see the point I suppose, but practically speaking you can't get a BMCC yet so for now it's moot.

You shoot what you can get... Anything you can get. Get it done by any means necessary. If you don't have the cabbage for Scarlet you know it. If that makes you a BMCC camper; waiting, then so be it. Why then would anyone spend so much time on RedUser punting for Black Magic? What is the motive behind that behavior? Is it masochistic or desperate? Is it sadistic trolling? WTF? It certainly can't be a search for validation. Anyone with a brain would have moved on to another forum if that is what they were looking for, yet a few of our pals here keep at it. It boggles my mind.
 
Simon Knight said:
I hate being part of the "problem" and not part of the 'solution' but....

Does it really matter which camera is best?

Surely buy the camera you want... I'm a Canon man. I've shot with Canon glass for years, starting with my AV-1. The last decent (L) glass I used was on my 1D MarkII. So i'll be buying it for my Scarlet. UNTIL i can afford some cine glass. When I've earned it... But i'm learning all the time.. And I always keep in mind that my Scarlet was paid for by jobs filmed on my Sony Z5 - a little 1/3 inch sensor camera from 5 years ago... I can afford the BMCC and was on the list. But I can now afford a Scarlet and yes, get a little excited about joining such an illustrious club. But i've earned it, and the right to decide which one I want...

Same as when I trade in my Land Rover for an Aston Martin.... Both get me to the shopping mall, one just does it.. a little better. But then change the weather and then the other one wins.. So which one is better???

Just my thoughts

SK
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Always get the Aston Martin, it's weather proof... Lol
 
Carlos Reyes said:
As I said, if you plan to shoot professionally...
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I was gonna say Carlos slow down, I don't think he knows what you're talking about :)

The dude is a copy and paste machine :P

But your post is so bang on ;)
 
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Jeffery Anderson said:
Right I guess it is a super 35 sensor, similar to an Alexa... now I am interested in checking it out. Every time I've been to Panavision all I see is an Alexa or Epic("panavised").
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The Genesis is pretty much a "panavised" sony F35.

jb
 
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