Red Vs Dalsa target clientel

[Graeme Nattress]

4K also refers to an output resolution. And they are not necessarily connected.

You can shoot a 4K bayer sensor and output 4K.
You can shoot film and scan/output 4K.
You can also up-res 1080P or even SD to a 4K output.

Sensor size, output resolution and actual resolution are not necessarily (or typically) the same. At the end, all that matters is what each of these looks like on the screen.

Jim

Yes, that's true also. But I think your last sentence says it all though - it's what it looks like on the screen.

Graeme

 

[Mitch Gross]

Oh, and the most interesting thing I found at the bsc show was a new camera about the size of a red brick which does 720p at 1400fps and can be operated by one person, not a three or more like the phantom. Forget its name at the moment, but I'm sure there'll be a few about as they cost approx £30k/$60k and a new 1080p version is supposedly coming in a few months. Images looked fantastic!

I think you may be referring to the Miro 4 from Vision Research, maker of the Phantom cameras. You can learn more about it at www.visionresearch.com.

 

[Florian Stadler]

Having worked with both systems here's my take:

Red has advantages in the following categories:
-Price
-Ergonomics
-On Board recording
-Variable Framerates
-Smaller File size

Dalsa has advantage in the following:
-Optical Viewfinder
-Dynamic Range & Latitude: I just tested it 2 weeks ago and it has an amazing ~12 stops vs ~10 with the Red
-No rolling shutter: motion representation is a true slice of time which is not the case with Red
-No compression makes better debayering algorithms possible (which also leads to huge file size - a negative)
-Colorimetry: it is 14bit vs 12bit (16384 color differentiations vs 4096)

So once Dalsa has fixed their ergonomics issue and on board recording issue, which I'm told will be this April, their aim at the high end market is justified. The camera does deliver a higher quality image but is also hugely more expensive. The market will decide if the equivalent of a BMW (Red) and a Ferrari (Dalsa) can each live in its niche.

 

[Thomas Mathai]

Handheld on a Dalsa? Are you a weightlifter in your spare time? When I was younger I had a camera nightmare about a Ampex 2" Quad "camcorder", which I picked up, put on my shoulder, and fell over backwards....

Graeme

The Trident was shot with Dalsa, and there were handheld shots in that short film. David Stump ASC was the DP on it.

I think Dalsa didn't evolve their cameras fast enough. They should have had Evolution II out by now with a more streamlined workflow.