Scarlet/Epic/Dragon DSLR thoughts

[MatthewThompson]

I have been experimenting with my Scarlet as a stills camera (although I used an Epic here) and have been loving the results of 5K raw images. Only issue is weight and ergonomics. The touch screen is not useful outdoors without a shade but with a shade you're stuck with side handle controls and glare. Switching over to the RED Bomb EVF is great for focusing but placement is everything.

First I started with a short arm mounted on top. The eye piece worked best when held portrait, but was awkwardly high for landscape.



Then I added a cheesy base plate and this brought the eyepiece down but made Portrait awkwardly low and the camera high above your head.



Finally, using an small right angle bracket with a 1/4x20 slot, I could try the first setup again but the with eyepiece closer to the brain making both landscape and portrait comfortable. For power I'll be using a v-mount battery belt

]

And for fun, a medium format mode made for waist level landscape shots





Can anyone else share photos of their "Stills Camera" set ups as well as their settings and workflows? I'd to see what other people are using (RED and other gear).

 

[Mike P.]

Bob made some really sweet/portable rigs for his India trip recently... I think he used RV XLs in the XL module.

 

[MatthewThompson]

Bob made some really sweet/portable rigs for his India trip recently... I think he used RV XLs in the XL module.

Could you link to a thread? sounds heavy

 

[Mark M]

Cool experiment. I recently picked up an A7r and an EF mount adapter to use all my glass on both the A7r and my Scarlet.

Not sure if there'd be any advantage of the Scarlet (or Epic) over an A7r for stills, but perhaps with Dragon's DR there would be.

 

[MatthewThompson]

Matching my workflows with stills and video is nice, photoshop CC has a RED RAW plugin and LUT support. I like the A7r form though

 

[Bob Gundu]

I go through setups like my wife goes through shoes. But I haven't used any of them for stills yet. Also, be aware that the photoshop pluggin imports r3d files as 8 bit! Boooo.

 

[Les Dittert]

Do yourself a favor and take a picture of something with the Scarlet and then the picture with same lens on a $300 used Canon 12 megapixel DSLR ( shoot Raw ). Compare the images.
Look at shadow details as well, as you dig in on both raw images.
Other than the super fast 'motor drive' of the Scarlet, I saw no advantages to use it as a still camera at all . Horses for courses and all that.

 

[MatthewThompson]

I go through setups like my wife goes through shoes. But I haven't used any of them for stills yet. Also, be aware that the photoshop pluggin imports r3d files as 8 bit! Boooo.

Thanks! I'll look into other options or just stick with REDCINE-X and DaVinci

Do yourself a favor and take a picture of something with the Scarlet and then the picture with same lens on a $300 used Canon 12 megapixel DSLR ( shoot Raw ). Compare the images.
Look at shadow details as well, as you dig in on both raw images.
Other than the super fast 'motor drive' of the Scarlet, I saw no advantages to use it as a still camera at all . Horses for courses and all that.

Yes and next i'll sell my Scarlet for an iPad rig! I own a Scarlet and I'm interested in pushing it to its limits, finding them, and adjusting my process. It is the tool I have and the tool I will master. Hence the Scarlet forum... Please, on topic or move on!

 

[Phil Holland]

Other than the super fast 'motor drive' of the Scarlet, I saw no advantages to use it as a still camera at all . Horses for courses and all that.

Which is why I've utilized it for action oriented shoots and panorama work with "lots and lots" of moving objects.

The biggest difference is obviously size when it comes down to it. You can mount the camera normal or as "landscape mode", but it's fairly trivial mounting it vertically for portrait oriented shooting.

My old Scarlet rig (miss you Skully!) was somewhat similar to what you're doing Matthew:

Here's a shot of the vertical orientation:

I've moved forward for more of a motion inclined rig as that's most of the work I do these days. I do enjoy shooting small and fast though sometimes. One major bit of kit that I really liked adding was two eye bolts to the top of my DSMC Top Plate:

Those eyebolts in combination with using the DSMC Side Handle and rigging the Top Handle on a side mounted SWAT Rail essentially give me two grips on the side and I can use the LCD Touch as a straight down and view monitor, similar to a medium format camera. This actually allows enough stability to be used for motion work by bracing my arms into my body and putting tension on the next strap.

 

[MatthewThompson]

I use the outrigger instead of the side mounted top handle but wow that 9" touch keeps looking more and more like a must have! What are you using to tripod mount for Portrait? I'm mostly doing hand held and keeping lightweight

 

[Phil Holland]

I use the outrigger instead of the side mounted top handle but wow that 9" touch keeps looking more and more like a must have! What are you using to tripod mount for Portrait? I'm mostly doing hand held and keeping lightweight

Yep. It's hard to get past the benefits of such a large screen. Still use my 5.0" occasionally, but that 9.0" is my baby.

When mounting for portrait orientation you can just use two of the Tactical Ribs on the left side of the camera and attached a long baseplate. Super simple. I have seen fashion shooters using the R90 to switch to and from vertical and horizontal as well. Just depends on what you prefer I imagine.

 

[MatthewThompson]

Yep. I have seen fashion shooters using the R90 to switch to and from vertical and horizontal as well.

The R90 is like that tool in your shop you need for one task once a year, so nice but so overkill. I really enjoy the free form of RED in hand. I would love to see a sort "palm rest" for the front right corner when pulling focus hand-on-lens.

 

[Maik Müller]

A few things are keeping me from taking my Scarlet more often out for stills:

- weight and size, walking around with it is possible, i even use the VF strap from time to time, but it's still so much heavier than a 5d with 70-200 on a blackrapid strap.
- battery lifetime, a single redvolt is nothing, battery modules or v-mounts make the cam bigger and heavier... maybe the redvolt xl module is a breakthrough here for me
- bootup time, it has become fast, maybe fast enough, but a DSLR is way faster
- manual focus only, RED's AF is rarely of use for me and it's disabled in 5k on Scarlet anyway + for such light setups you'll use still lenses and manual focus on them just sucks
- 5" LCD is not really great for quick focus pulling, magnify on/off (not the fastest switch too) - 9" LCD might to the trick, but is bigger again
- and hey, i have problems to choose between 4k motion and 5k stills

REDRAW is great, the MX-sensor is superb, the camera can shoot 5k/12fps as long as battery and media allows it, no buffers are running full after a few seconds. Handling the camera is also so easy and concentrates on the basics.

I really like shooting stills with Scarlet and i like pulling stills from motion even more (if shutter speed allows it). It's doable, worth it and can be fun, but i tend to prefer a DSLR in most cases. Which makes me a little sad from time to time, maybe i should just force me more often to use my Scarlet and explore a few more options to build a ultra-small handheld rig.

Phil's pics are cool, i like the idea with the sliding top-handle.

The dual outrigger handle + XL module are very interesting and exchanging the DSMC handle with the Switchblade might be worth a try. Adding a shoulder-pad would help a lot with handling the weight and stability issues, but i haven't found a ideal solution, because it needs to be small and without lots of additional other parts. Reminds me, where is that "Quickplate shoulder pad" RED has shown at NAB2013? I know it wouldn't work with a REDVOLT XL module attached, but it looked nice.

 

[Les Dittert]

Yes and next i'll sell my Scarlet for an iPad rig! I own a Scarlet and I'm interested in pushing it to its limits, finding them, and adjusting my process. It is the tool I have and the tool I will master. Hence the Scarlet forum... Please, on topic or move on!

Matthew, the iPad won't make you the same quality images as the Scarlet.

But for stills : A sub $300 used Canon will make better ( yes BETTER ) stills than the Scarlet, weigh 1/5 , last all day on a battery , have better phase style focus ( Red focus is slow contrast based ) .
But then the logic of practicality is often washed away by the coolness factor of shooting with a more exotic rig that can impress your clients or whoever.
With a $300 Canon, you are looking just like all the other mundane shooters. The Scarlet ... WOW
I don't shoot stills anymore. But I do ponder the fast that the used XTi costs the same as an LCD cable for my Epic !

When I first got my two Scarlets I did the image comparison with a Canon XTi which I bought for $200 on Craigslist as a camera to quickly mount Canon lens's to for checking things out. I was shocked at the differences in detail level, especially in the flatter shadow areas. The low pass filter was too much for me. The compression was also mushing over the dark details too much as well.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Epic, but I would never use it for stills unless I need the insanely fast motor drive !

 

[MatthewThompson]

Matthew, the iPad won't make you the same quality images as the Scarlet.

But for stills : A sub $300 used Canon will make better ( yes BETTER ) stills than the Scarlet, weigh 1/5 , last all day on a battery , have better phase style focus ( Red focus is slow contrast based ) .
But then the logic of practicality is often washed away by the coolness factor of shooting with a more exotic rig that can impress your clients or whoever.
With a $300 Canon, you are looking just like all the other mundane shooters. The Scarlet ... WOW
I don't shoot stills anymore. But I do ponder the fast that the used XTi costs the same as an LCD cable for my Epic !

When I first got my two Scarlets I did the image comparison with a Canon XTi which I bought for $200 on Craigslist as a camera to quickly mount Canon lens's to for checking things out. I was shocked at the differences in detail level, especially in the flatter shadow areas. The low pass filter was too much for me. The compression was also mushing over the dark details too much as well.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Epic, but I would never use it for stills unless I need the insanely fast motor drive !

This is not unknown information, I am here discussing build and workflow options -not defending a sensor-

I get it, a 5D is not a video camera and a RED is not a stills camera. To reiterate, I am interested in experimenting with the camera I own.

 

[MatthewThompson]

A few things are keeping me from taking my Scarlet more often out for stills:

- weight and size, walking around with it is possible, i even use the VF strap from time to time, but it's still so much heavier than a 5d with 70-200 on a blackrapid strap.
- battery lifetime, a single redvolt is nothing, battery modules or v-mounts make the cam bigger and heavier... maybe the redvolt xl module is a breakthrough here for me
- bootup time, it has become fast, maybe fast enough, but a DSLR is way faster
- manual focus only, RED's AF is rarely of use for me and it's disabled in 5k on Scarlet anyway + for such light setups you'll use still lenses and manual focus on them just sucks
- 5" LCD is not really great for quick focus pulling, magnify on/off (not the fastest switch too) - 9" LCD might to the trick, but is bigger again
- and hey, i have problems to choose between 4k motion and 5k stills

REDRAW is great, the MX-sensor is superb, the camera can shoot 5k/12fps as long as battery and media allows it, no buffers are running full after a few seconds. Handling the camera is also so easy and concentrates on the basics.

I really like shooting stills with Scarlet and i like pulling stills from motion even more (if shutter speed allows it). It's doable, worth it and can be fun, but i tend to prefer a DSLR in most cases. Which makes me a little sad from time to time, maybe i should just force me more often to use my Scarlet and explore a few more options to build a ultra-small handheld rig.

Phil's pics are cool, i like the idea with the sliding top-handle.

The dual outrigger handle + XL module are very interesting and exchanging the DSMC handle with the Switchblade might be worth a try. Adding a shoulder-pad would help a lot with handling the weight and stability issues, but i haven't found a ideal solution, because it needs to be small and without lots of additional other parts. Reminds me, where is that "Quickplate shoulder pad" RED has shown at NAB2013? I know it wouldn't work with a REDVOLT XL module attached, but it looked nice.

A quick/small shoulder pad would help in offsetting some weight but I feel like I will need to optimize a rig for Portrait (which I guess I could try mounting vertically), The AF issue isn't a problem, most of my lenses are manual focus and I prefer the feel. Ha, just had a thought on stripping the rig down to just lens, evf, mag and have an assistant roll shots on the redmote.

 

[William Robinette]

Ha, just had a thought on stripping the rig down to just lens, evf, mag and have an assistant roll shots on the redmote.

But how would you power it?

I went to CA for a couple weeks as a tourist and took my camera rigged up like this which isn't too different from one of your setups. I was able to sling it over my shoulder and walk around unencumbered for the most part. I was shooting motion predominantly but switched to stills every now and then. What I like about this is you can press the camera body to your face and it helps take those small jitters out of motion footage. But it does get heavy, it eats batteries, and becomes quite uncomfortable because of the sharp edges. I can't really see how to strip it down any more.





(ignore the a-box, I didn't have that on there)

 

[MatthewThompson]

Oh that side grip strap is a must have, gotta get one. For power I am using a vmount battery belt.

Where did you get the neck strap from? It looks like it has 1/4x20 ends?

 

[William Robinette]

Where did you get the neck strap from? It looks like it has 1/4x20 ends?

The strap is just off an old SLR I have but I bought these fasteners from B&H and use them to attach the strap to the body. I was worried at first about the weight, but after hiking all over the city and redwoods I can say I'm very confident in them.

 

[Arthur Woo]

First off, I love the look and compactness of this setup.

Secondly, HOW do you guys get by focusing only using the EVF? The image is tiny. I couldn't imagine doing critical focus on it if I don't have an AC.

But how would you power it?

I went to CA for a couple weeks as a tourist and took my camera rigged up like this which isn't too different from one of your setups. I was able to sling it over my shoulder and walk around unencumbered for the most part. I was shooting motion predominantly but switched to stills every now and then. What I like about this is you can press the camera body to your face and it helps take those small jitters out of motion footage. But it does get heavy, it eats batteries, and becomes quite uncomfortable because of the sharp edges. I can't really see how to strip it down any more.





(ignore the a-box, I didn't have that on there)