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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 :)

Scarlet for Stills?

spaulgal

spaulgal

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We are thinking of replacing our 5D3 arsenal with Scarlets -- we believe in the end we may be better off because we shoot about 60% video and 40% stills on all our cameras.

Can the Scarlet completely replace the 5D for stills? Do I need the side handle? What is the workflow?

Thanks

Steve
 
I'm mostly concerned with ergonomics, workflow , and crop factor.
What is the resolution difference?
 
Kyle Gentz said:
I would say No. Not enough resolution IMO. Just depends on your needs.
Click to expand...

Not enough resolution for what?

Jarred Land said:
Check this month's Vogue ( April ) for our first and biggest print ad ever... 8 page fold out featuring Rooney Mara shot on EPIC by David Fincher, lit by our good friend David Devlin. You need to see this printed.

The power of DSMC... shoot motion and extract single stills for not only print covers.. but massive fold-out spreads like this.

Sure to be a collectors item for our friends.

PDF: http://red.cachefly.net/RED-VOGUE.pdf

Click to expand...
 
I own a mk3 myself and I'm basically very happy with that camera. Never think about power or storage... Beautiful full frame and magic auto focus...

But as we all know it does not resolve wide shots well. Medium CU and CU are brilliant for 1080p with aliasing and moire practically gone. ISO6400? Easy...

But I have wanted to jump on the current Scarlet deal. It's a camera that was made for me in many ways (and not so much in some).

What scares me away the most, is that I feel that Scarlet isn't an available light camera. Any protesters to that?

I AM however curious about the stated DR of Scarlet... somewhere I read over 13 stops. True or false? That would beat my mk3 pretty easily...
 
I AM however curious about the stated DR of Scarlet... somewhere I read over 13 stops. True or false? That would beat my mk3 pretty easily...
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, so long as you are using REDlogfilm for gamma, then this is definitely true in my experience. Leagues away from my 5D MK II, which supposedly has 11 stops or so, and apparently more than the MK III. 13.5 stops is the advertised latitude for the RED sensors.

However, one problem that nobody has brought up yet, which is the #1 issue for me, is that Scarlet/Epic has a rolling shutter. There isn't a dedicated global shutter stills mode. I'm not sure if this is even possible, although I guess DSLRs have CMOS sensors that do this. But yeah, if you're doing action photography or anything with strobes/flashes, it doesn't really work. Remember that you're still shooting video and pulling stills. Any issues present in motion will still be there.

Excuse all the uses of the word "still" in those last sentences.
 
I think the resolution is definitely there as long as 13MP is okay with you.

Make sure you get just as nice glass as you would for your 5D. This is a huge factor.

Make sure the size is okay with you. It's a larger sized camera. It's 2.5x the size and weight of a 5D.

Beautiful camera, yes 13.5 stops of dynamic range. The workflow is such that you can grab frames from video or shoot bursts.

I don't think the photo mode functionality is enabled just yet though?
 
I AM however curious about the stated DR of Scarlet... somewhere I read over 13 stops. True or false? That would beat my mk3 pretty easily...
Click to expand...

Depending if you're shooting video or stills. The 5D has a huge DR when shooting stills. Maybe 10 stops when shooting video.
 
I don't know how many are in your Arsenal but despite the size of Scarlet I would definitely hold on to one or two of the Mark IIIs. I have both but and I know there would just be some places where I can't take a Scarlet to shoot stills. Especially with fan whirring while on standby.
 
It also depends on what you're shooting - for instance models are tuned into the sound of the shutter and move with it accordingly.

The biggest upside is being able to utilize the Scarlet's sensor, but otherwise it's a lot of work when a 5D is so incredibly simple by comparison.
 
probably the biggest issue with pulling stills is that motion is usually shot horizontal, stills are mostly vertical.....so to use a still from motion (with scarlet) you really only get a vertical crop from a 4k horizontal...which probably ends up being a 5 mpix? file (if even)...to get the full 13mpix, you have to shoot 5k (12 fps only) vertical, which kind of rules out motion anyway.....
check out the DSMC fashion photography section of the forum....plenty of double page spreads shot with red....even for W which is 13"?14"? tall.....i just would not count on doing 30x40" landscape prints.....
i just ordered my scarlet and am planning to use the stills just as much as the motion.....but i am sure there will be shots that will have to be done on the DSLRs....
 
Several good points brought up here. Thanks!


I really DO feel I'll own a RED someday, but for me it will probably make more sense when storage/battery issues become less of an issue (if ever).

The 1D C looks like a better option to me right now, for what I do. I want one camera to do it all, and it would take a lot for me to more from the handy package that is a 5Dmk3, or 1D C. I also want to be able to shoot really good images in available light, both for stills and video. Maybe Dragon will raise the low light bar?

I really do love the whole raw workflow and RED's exposure assist tools though.
 
I agree, shooting stills @ 5k is great. 4k motion and stills at the same time is a bit tricky, but if you can find a compromise in regards of shutter speed the stills will look good too, with normal 24fps and 180degree shutter its more like shooting motion and hoping for some frames to not have too much blur. ;)

I already wrote my thoughts on this topic down in this thread:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?84909-shooting-stills-with-Scarlet
 
Like Maik's idea of a dedicated Preset for stills - at least till we see what the "stills" switch/mode will be like once activated.

Stu All
SX199
Alaska
 
Kevin Burg said:
It also depends on what you're shooting - for instance models are tuned into the sound of the shutter and move with it accordingly.[...]
Click to expand...

That is what the shutter sound function is there for. You can map it to any button and activate it whenever you feel the need to give the talent a sign to move on. Or use a dog clicker or something similar...
 
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