Scarlet/Epic @ 2k vs. 5D/7D?

[joshua csehak]

Hey guys, I've been looking for some 2k Scarlet .r3d's, but can't seem to find them. Philip Bloom mentioned in his blog that it doesn't look so hot at 2k, but I want to know, does it still look better than the 5D/7D? Cause those aren't perfect either. I'm thinking, most of my client work is for the web or SD, so the resolution of the DSLR is fine, and if I got a Scarlet and a s16 zoom and left it on 2k, would that look as good or better? That would stretch a 64 card pretty far, and the massive storage requirements of 4k raw would be quartered, which would also be great. So the TCO wouldn't be more than the $14k package price, I think. And then when I get feature gigs, I can always rent extra cards and lenses.

ps- the scarlet and epic have the same sensors, right? Does that mean a given image will look the same in each, given equivalent settings?

 

[Daniel Dols]

While i hate the 5D/7D's compression with passion, the RED@2k and 5D footage will just be incompareable. RED will blow the 5D out of the water quality-wise. 'True' 2k RAW vs upscaled 1080p h.264.
One thing to remember though, is that you have a cropped sensor. Not your 5D-kind-of depth-of-field and pretty close up (edit: whoops, you already noted that).

And yes, epic and scarlet will look the same on same settings.

 

[BigLu]

Dont depend or plan on shooting 2K with a Scarlet. Throw that idea out and loose it. ( im talking shooting 24fps )
Youl will be far happier with your images at 4K . REgardless of what your delivery display format will be, even web.

You can grade much more and have much better results with the Scarlet at 2K over the 7D / 5D.

What Daniel said.

 

[Matt Johnston]

Although keep in mind a after de-bayering. RED 2k is less than 1080p resolution.

 

[Steven Veldkamp]

While i hate the 5D/7D's compression with passion, the RED@2k and 5D footage will just be incompareable. RED will blow the 5D out of the water quality-wise. 'True' 2k RAW vs upscaled 1080p h.264.
One thing to remember though, is that you have a cropped sensor. Not your 5D-kind-of depth-of-field and pretty close up (edit: whoops, you already noted that).

And yes, epic and scarlet will look the same on same settings.

If he's only delivering for the web or in SD, then no. It's not going to make a huge difference. Infact, you'd need a good set of eyes to tell them apart, let alone regarding them as incomparable.
Grading is another story however. The 5D/7D codec falls apart pretty quickly whereas r3d allows you to apply quality grades without breaking the image.

Also keep in mind that transcoding of 4K (or even 2K) r3d's can take quite some time.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Although keep in mind a after de-bayering. RED 2k is less than 1080p resolution.

Keep in mind that 7D/5D is *far* less than 1080p resolution.

 

[emil tanem]

May I sneak a little education into this?
About the debayering process. How does it work - I mean in terms of what do you do?
(Take a 3k or 4k .red - hit some debayer button/function somewhere - and then get a 2k file out of it?)

 

[Les Dittert]

Take a 4k R3d, crop out the middle 2K.
That is exactly what a 2k r3d will look like . Not too hard to understand.
And yes, it is really about 1.5 K in *real* resolution. No simple way around that.
-Les

 

[Matthew Scott]

I think it's simple to tell them apart (judging from Epic footage) on the web. The detail is so much crisper. Shadows and just-below-mid-tones are cleaner and the overall look (which I can't explain) is just more beautiful than DSLR web footage. I look forward to shooting higher frame rates on the crop, and also look forward to RAW. I think 2K r3ds from my scarlet will impress me, and I'm sure the higher frame rates will be a joy to chose.

 

[Ryan De Franco]

2K Red One high speed footage should be the same as Scarlet 2K footage, as Scarlet will got to 3:1 at 2K 24fps and 6:1 at 2K 60fps. Having shot 2K Red One high speed for the last two years, including last weekend, it looks fantastic--granted I haven't seen the debayer on a cinema screen, but to my eyes it's the vimeo, youtube or general h.264 codec that kills it.

 

[Stephen Wheeler]

DOn't forget though that ideally you will want to do some post sharpening on any 2K footage you shoot on RED. I've found it helps a lot.

 

[Mike P.]

DOn't forget though that ideally you will want to do some post sharpening on any 2K footage you shoot on RED. I've found it helps a lot.

Yeah, but you'd also want to do that to Canon footage as well.

I think micro-detail will be better on RED, obviously, since it isn't lineskipping... And RAW is always a huge plus too. And no compression artifacts... Basically, every advantage you'd expect from red footage with the exception of resolution.

 

[Jay Cline]

I think it would be better to shoot at 4k then have your final output be 2k, the space you save on SSD's is not worth the pain of dealing with the crop factor of shooting 2k. plus why not use the whole sensor.

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

If he's only delivering for the web or in SD, then no. It's not going to make a huge difference. Infact, you'd need a good set of eyes to tell them apart, let alone regarding them as incomparable.
Grading is another story however. The 5D/7D codec falls apart pretty quickly whereas r3d allows you to apply quality grades without breaking the image.

Also keep in mind that transcoding of 4K (or even 2K) r3d's can take quite some time.

I respectfully strongly disagree. Originating at 4k and going to HD online is going to look a LOT better than 2k to HD.

I dont know if you, for instance, have seen projects originating at standard def, delivered via DVD, vs a movie like Braveheart, shot on film, deliverd via dvd. A world of difference.

There is a big difference between saying something is the same vs. the actual results.

AND I edit 4k r3d natively in real time on what is effectively a gaming computer, and rendering out a 5 minute video with color grading when done for web delivery takes just a few minutes.

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

Also, Joshua, I second te notion to shoot 4k, it will give you a lot of options for glass. If you are buying used 16mm zooms, you would probably be a LOT happier with a Battle Tested zoom from red, or an L Series Canon zoom. Then, should a project come along that WANTS 4k, you are ready.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Here's my 2 cents worth on this, as a producer/director working in RED the past year and a half (and soon a proud owner of Scarlet!).

So, first off, right now we are editing a job we shot last week on two RED ONE's at 4K with Ultra Primes.

Our edit is getting a little complicated, and we've needed to do some REFRAMES of the 4K footage to create ADDITIONAL closeups that we essentially cropped at 2K.

The Avid DNXHD 220 10bit 1920x1080 quicktimes that came out of these 2K recrops look AMAZING.

It helps that the 4K files were shot on Ultraprimes at F4, so they were razor sharp to start off with.

As an owner of multiple DSLRS and a myriad of Zeiss Contax Glass, I can tell you from experience that these 2K reframes BLEW THE DSLR FOOTAGE out of the water.

The biggest difference is that:

A: They still look sharper to me, even cropped in. Which is amazing.
B: Bigger still, remember these are RAW FILES. Once our DP Alex put his grade on them in Red Cine X, these 2K reframes looked MILES better than our DSLR stuff ever looked (and they looked pretty good...got us these RED shoots).


So that's my first point, if it gives you any more confidence about how good 2K can look.

But again, the wonder of the RED was that we HAD the 4K files to start with. And COULD reframe to 2K.

I'd hate the though of always shooting 2K, of losing this ability. Plus 4K scaled down to 1080p just LOOKS better.

Something else to consider. Even broadscast HD right now is 720p. Even getting great 1080p quicktimes at 2K is sometimes more than you need. I always forget sometimes how terrible HD looks on cable. It's compressed, and it's 720. So again, 2K can be more than serviceable.

One last point to consider. And this is something I DON'T have experience with, but I have been doing A LOT of reading about S16 glass. Both on these boards and elsewhere (I was doing lots of research thinking the Scarlet was going to be 2/3").

So from what I understand, because S16 and 16 negatives are SO MUCH SMALLER, the lenses often need to be SHARPER than S35 if you can believe it. I think that's why S16 can be blown up to 35 (or one reason anyway).

So if you follow this logic that S16 and 16 glass can be sharper at 2K than S35 lenses, because they HAVE to be, then I would have to assume that some GOOD S16 or 16 glass could make RED 2K footage look pretty great. Especially on Scarlet where 60fps slow mo requires a 2K S16 3.2 crop.

I'm going on this assumption, and looking for bad ass, sharp zooms that (with my DP) I can throw on or Scarlet for sharp, good looking slo-mo. I'm thinking a 10-100 or a 12-120. These are equivalent to 30-300 S35 zooms, which is a pretty amazing range when you think about it.

And the back end of these zooms, at the tele range, will give you shallow depth of field anyway, but you have stand quite a way back to get the effect.

Anyway. Forgive the rambling. But hope some of these thoughts help.

But stick to 4K overall. Use 2K smartly, but not all the time.

After all, its a RED. Not an F3.

Be well!

These are just suggestions....

- NICK

 

[joshua csehak]

Thanks guys! Really helpful info.

Take a 4k R3d, crop out the middle 2K.
That is exactly what a 2k r3d will look like . Not too hard to understand.
And yes, it is really about 1.5 K in *real* resolution. No simple way around that.
-Les

Can someone else verify this? I'm looking at a 2k crop of a 3k .r3d I shot on the Red One MX, and it looks much better than 7D footage. The resolution's about the same, but the 7D is blocky with compression artifacts, and the Red looks filmic (no surprise there). So why would Philip Bloom say this:

"This will change as the quality is improving, but currently the 2k on my Epic is rather ugly. Very blocky looking noise."
from http://philipbloom.net/2011/11/20/scarlet/

Can I get an accurate picture of what the Scarlet will look like at 2k by cropping 2k out of an Epic .r3d?

May I sneak a little education into this?
About the debayering process. How does it work - I mean in terms of what do you do?
(Take a 3k or 4k .red - hit some debayer button/function somewhere - and then get a 2k file out of it?)

Yeah, in RedCine-X. But people are mostly referring to the fact that the measured resolution you get out of Red footage (any footage from a bayer sensor, I believe) is about 80% of the resolution it's acquired at. 4.5k is really about 3.7k, and 1080p on a DSLR is really 720p at best.

I think it's simple to tell them apart (judging from Epic footage) on the web. The detail is so much crisper. Shadows and just-below-mid-tones are cleaner and the overall look (which I can't explain) is just more beautiful than DSLR web footage. I look forward to shooting higher frame rates on the crop, and also look forward to RAW. I think 2K r3ds from my scarlet will impress me, and I'm sure the higher frame rates will be a joy to chose.

I challenge you to look at my reel (http://www.magicgoggles.com, at the top, 90% of it is Red or 7D footage) and tell me which was shot with a Red and which with a DSLR. I feel like the web kills it, and footage quality at that resolution comes down to the skill behind the camera.

I think it would be better to shoot at 4k then have your final output be 2k, the space you save on SSD's is not worth the pain of dealing with the crop factor of shooting 2k. plus why not use the whole sensor.

I average about half a 320 gig HD per day on Red shoots. A 128 gig SSD is $1800. That's not cheap. But at 2k, that 160 gigs is now 40 gigs. Much more manageable. Not to mention that 2k will transcode 4x faster than 4k. And maybe I like the crop factor. For doc work, it would be fantastic to have deep DoF. I stick to around 5.6 anyways, even for narrative work. I like the idea of being able to open up to 1.8 and not have to worry about an actor going out of focus if he leans forward.

I respectfully strongly disagree. Originating at 4k and going to HD online is going to look a LOT better than 2k to HD.

I dont know if you, for instance, have seen projects originating at standard def, delivered via DVD, vs a movie like Braveheart, shot on film, deliverd via dvd. A world of difference.

There is a big difference between saying something is the same vs. the actual results.

AND I edit 4k r3d natively in real time on what is effectively a gaming computer, and rendering out a 5 minute video with color grading when done for web delivery takes just a few minutes.

Yeah, but HD -> SD is gonna look the same as 4k -> SD. More importantly, what's your setup? Are you running Premiere? Do you have a Red Rocket?

Also, Joshua, I second te notion to shoot 4k, it will give you a lot of options for glass. If you are buying used 16mm zooms, you would probably be a LOT happier with a Battle Tested zoom from red, or an L Series Canon zoom. Then, should a project come along that WANTS 4k, you are ready.

I have an L, and some pretty good other glass already. But if a client wants 4k, they can afford to rent glass too, so that's not really an issue. The issue here is, is the Scarlet good for quick-and-dirty low-paying gigs that I want to bang out as fast as possible? Or is an F3 more appropriate?

 

[Perry Wilson]

NOISE NOISE NOISE

 

[Dan Kanes]

PROPER EXPOSURE PROPER EXPOSURE PROPER EXPOSURE LATEST FIRMWARE

 

[joshua csehak]

Found my official answer! (Deep in the 1st Scarlet thread)

For the Scarlet, if you shoot at the same fps/resolution/redcode the image looks the same as if you'd shot on Epic, for which there is footage available and finished movies for you to view. That is the appeal of the Scarlet, for within the hardware fps/resolution/redcode constraints the camera may say Scarlet, but the image is 100% Epic.

Graeme