Scarlet S16, a request.

[David Rasberry]

I understand fully the rationale behind Scarlet-X. It makes sense on so many levels for Red's first Scarlet and is truly an exceptional value. But it does not serve a major market segment that Scarlet 2/3" would have filled nicely. That is documentary shooters for whom a 16mm class format is a much more practical tool.

At the last announced 2/3" Scarlet pixel size of 3.3u, a full S16mm sized sensor would support at least QHD 3840x2160 resolution, certainly qualifying as high resolution professional quality by Red's standards and future TV standards. A Scarlet brain shooting at least 60fps at this resolution and able to shoot 120fps 3k at a 2/3" sized crop like the original Scarlet spec would be the ideal camera for many of us.

All that is needed is an S16mm Scarlet 4k brain with PL mount to take advantage of existing S16mm and B4 mount lenses with an optical adapter, no new mount format, no fixed lens. Just a kick ass S16mm format camera. Even if it was the same price as Scarlet-X, it would be the preferred choice for many of us. Shooting 2k cropped on the S35 sensor does not satisfy this need.

16mm has existed and thrived alongside 35mm film for nearly a century. I hope Red does not abandon this valuable and practical format.

 

[Kyle Presley]

I hope Red does not abandon this valuable and practical format.

Abandon the format, abandon a huge customer base. There are a lot of pissed off Scarleteers right now. And I am one of them.

 

[Steven Veldkamp]

Yes please.

 

[Benoît-Joan Clariana-Roig]

Yes.

In my eyes the Scarlet-X is the former Epic-S, not the Scarlet we known.

 

[J Davis]

I'd be interested in anything in the $6-7k price bracket that has
12+ DR,
an i-frame codec,
no moire
and shallow depth of field.

If it happens to be 2/3 with fast primes then that will do. HDRx and ultra high def resolution are nice bonuses bot not necessarily for me.
The web is where I'm at.

edit: before anyone starts pointing me at the AF100 and FS100 I'm very well aware of them and their specs

 

[Felix K.]

I want REDcode RAW,
3k 120 fps
incl. lens
Ready to shoot
8.000$

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

David,

In my previous life, besides 35mm for TVCs, I shot tons of S16mm stock on my SR2. Then Red came out and I got one. Because shallow DOF is not desired for most documentaries and lightweight zooms like my Canon 8-64 are very convenient and good glass I figured out how to shoot S16mm with Red:

1. Dial in 3K 2:1

2. Customise in the EFV the TV safe guides to a figure that the portholing/vignetting of the lens is outside of this area.

3. In RedCine crop the footage to approx. 2.5k 16:9 which will keep the picture clean of vignetting edges. 2.5k is enough flesh for a full resolving 1080p debayer. The pictures that you create with such an setup are much, much better than 2K and visibly better than anything a Sony F900R produces.

Please note that a 2/3" sensor is NOT S16mm sized. You will lose considerably FOV. Personally I find the above mentioned setup very workable and use it on a long term documentary now for 3 years with great success. When my EpicX Stage 3 will arrive finally I will be back in S16mm realms what weight and ergonomics concerns.

On a first glance a 2/3" Scarlet looks like a great S16mm successor, but it's not. S16mm creates less DOF at the same FOV than 2/3". IMHO this is a important fact and not that much subtle to be neglected.

Hans

 

[Robert Jackson]

On a first glance a 2/3" Scarlet looks like a great S16mm successor, but it's not. S16mm creates less DOF at the same FOV than 2/3". IMHO this is a important fact and not that much subtle to be neglected.

It's pretty close. Take for example a 25mm prime lens stopped down to f/2 (a fairly common S16 option). On a 2/3" camera at 10 feet you'd have about 4 1/4 feet of DOF. On a Super-16mm camera you'd have 3 feet. So it's enough to be noticed, but it's not a massive difference in DOF. And of course the Ikonoskop splits the difference with a sensor loosely like standard 16mm-sized sensor (their sensor is 10.6 mm x 6 mm). So normally a 2/3" sensor is 8.8mm x 6.6mm (Red's was slightly different, if I remember right, but close), a Regular 16mm frame is 10.26mm x 7.49mm and a Super-16 frame is 12.52mm x 7.41mm. So there's some difference there, but not a gigantic difference. Visually they're all kinda in the same ballpark, but if you really wanna get picky...yes, the Ikonoskop is better than the 2/3" Scarlet would have been. ;-)

 

[David Rasberry]

David,

In my previous life, besides 35mm for TVCs, I shot tons of S16mm stock on my SR2. Then Red came out and I got one. Because shallow DOF is not desired for most documentaries and lightweight zooms like my Canon 8-64 are very convenient and good glass I figured out how to shoot S16mm with Red:

1. Dial in 3K 2:1

2. Customise in the EFV the TV safe guides to a figure that the portholing/vignetting of the lens is outside of this area.

3. In RedCine crop the footage to approx. 2.5k 16:9 which will keep the picture clean of vignetting edges. 2.5k is enough flesh for a full resolving 1080p debayer. The pictures that you create with such an setup are much, much better than 2K and visibly better than anything a Sony F900R produces.

Please note that a 2/3" sensor is NOT S16mm sized. You will lose considerably FOV. Personally I find the above mentioned setup very workable and use it on a long term documentary now for 3 years with great success. When my EpicX Stage 3 will arrive finally I will be back in S16mm realms what weight and ergonomics concerns.

On a first glance a 2/3" Scarlet looks like a great S16mm successor, but it's not. S16mm creates less DOF at the same FOV than 2/3". IMHO this is a important fact and not that much subtle to be neglected.

Hans

If I did not make it clear, what I am campaigning for is a true S16mm sized sensor at QHD 3840x2160 resolution or higher, not 2/3". Where the 35mm camera shoots 16mm at sub-3k to 2k resolution cropped, this camera would meet the higher resolution demands of future TV formats. A QHD S16mm Scarlet could be accomplished on the same 3.3u pixel pitch design as the already developed 2/3" sensor.

 

[Robert Jackson]

If I did not make it clear, what I am campaigning for is a true S16mm sized sensor at QHD 3840x2160 resolution or higher, not 2/3". Where the 35mm camera shoots 16mm at sub-3k to 2k resolution cropped, this camera would meet the higher resolution demands of future TV formats.

Yeah, that would be a good size for a sensor. You know, when Nikon recently introduced their "CX" sensors I couldn't help thinking they'd make excellent video sensors. They're 13.2mm x 8.8mm, which is a 1.5:1 aspect ratio, but close enough. Just slightly bigger than Super-16.

 

[Eric Lange]

I understand fully the rationale behind Scarlet-X. It makes sense on so many levels for Red's first Scarlet and is truly an exceptional value. But it does not serve a major market segment that Scarlet 2/3" would have filled nicely. That is documentary shooters for whom a 16mm class format is a much more practical tool.

At the last announced 2/3" Scarlet pixel size of 3.3u, a full S16mm sized sensor would support at least QHD 3840x2160 resolution, certainly qualifying as high resolution professional quality by Red's standards and future TV standards. A Scarlet brain shooting at least 60fps at this resolution and able to shoot 120fps 3k at a 2/3" sized crop like the original Scarlet spec would be the ideal camera for many of us.

All that is needed is an S16mm Scarlet 4k brain with PL mount to take advantage of existing S16mm and B4 mount lenses with an optical adapter, no new mount format, no fixed lens. Just a kick ass S16mm format camera. Even if it was the same price as Scarlet-X, it would be the preferred choice for many of us. Shooting 2k cropped on the S35 sensor does not satisfy this need.

16mm has existed and thrived alongside 35mm film for nearly a century. I hope Red does not abandon this valuable and practical format.

I’ll bug out of this one but from a design point of view I think the overall systems MTF for a 3.3 micron photo site based sensor using lower quality small 16mm style lenses would not be good.

Much worse with a zoom.

You would need MORE expensive single optics (I think) than the cost of the whole camera to pull that one off (quite frankly). That may be the whole reason why a 16mm sensor had to be abandoned. It probably just didn’t look good especially for the type of optics that people would be inclined to put with the sensor? If you really think about it, it is a VERY tough design challeneg and still try to meet the quality that everyone would expect. I bet you they did everthing they could to pull it off, and in the end it didn't look so good and just didn't make sense for what RED stands for.

E

 

[Robert Jackson]

I’ll bug out of this one but from a design point of view I think the overall systems MTF for a 3.3 micron photo site based sensor using lower quality small 16mm style lenses would not be good.

Higher MTF on lenses for smaller formats is kind of a given. 35mm lenses almost always had a higher MTF than medium format lenses. And the smaller formats have had to pursue the same optical goals. I remember reading a 4/3 white paper when the original 5 megapixel E-1 was introduced and they were targeting 20 megapixel sensors with their lens designs. They envisioned that as the highest possible resolution of the system and were trying to design their glass around it. Of course, it seems to be easier to achieve consistent high MTF numbers on smaller pieces of glass, anyway. The yields seem to drop when you start building high MTF lenses with huge optical elements, which is apparently why 35mm lenses like the 200mm f/2 are built by hand in such small numbers. I'd love to see Zeiss working on their 180mm T1.9.

Also remember that you're only talking about a 3072 x 1620 image. That's 5 megapixels. I'd guess that most good 16mm glass can resolve 5 megapixels, even though it requires a relatively high MTF for the small slice of glass that's resolving it.

 

[AJ Aguirre]

One thing I have been pondering lately is that we appear to be in a transition phase right now. That is, I believe 35mm will become the new 16mm in the next couple of years when RED releases something even bigger to be top of the line. I think RED might realize this also, so that seems like a legit reason to not go that direction. Which ideally might not be the best for some people at this very moment, but... wait a couple of years and I think the time RED puts into advancements will be more than worth it. Just my 2 cents on the subject.

 

[David Rasberry]

Modern S16mm and B4 glass is higher MTF and higher resolution than most if not all 35mm lenses. It has to be to resolve properly for the smaller format. 35mm lenses don't need as high a resolving power for the larger format.

 

[Eric Lange]

Higher MTF on lenses for smaller formats is kind of a given. 35mm lenses almost always had a higher MTF than medium format lenses. And the smaller formats have had to pursue the same optical goals. I remember reading a 4/3 white paper when the original 5 megapixel E-1 was introduced and they were targeting 20 megapixel sensors with their lens designs. They envisioned that as the highest possible resolution of the system and were trying to design their glass around it. Of course, it seems to be easier to achieve consistent high MTF numbers on smaller pieces of glass, anyway. The yields seem to drop when you start building high MTF lenses with huge optical elements, which is apparently why 35mm lenses like the 200mm f/2 are built by hand in such small numbers. I'd love to see Zeiss working on their 180mm T1.9.

Also remember that you're only talking about a 3072 x 1620 image. That's 5 megapixels. I'd guess that most good 16mm glass can resolve 5 megapixels, even though it requires a relatively high MTF for the small slice of glass that's resolving it.

It’s not MTF of the glass alone it’s a combined system MTF so one has to think about the MTF of the sensor (3 micron photosites!) + MTF of the glass (radially and tangentially) across the whole field + MTF of signal processing + general MTF of the electronics throughout the whole system. I have to admit I have always been “allergic” to small pixel sizes and small sensors and lenses especially as we need to work with precision wide angle systems. Building a 21mm or 16mm or 12mm fast lens for such a notional “16mm” sensor to do it justice does not make sense (I think), and it would NOT be upgradeable ( I think). For longer focal lengths beyond 100 mm it’s not difficult to get a good “resolution”/resolvability across the whole field of view. It’s the shorter focal lengths that are a problem. Stack this up against what DSLR’s are doing with bigger less challenged design criteria I think one would just end up painting oneself into a corner.

I don’t think that would be a good decision for RED but I am not RED but VERY happy with Scarlet-X!

The world has changed (in parallel) I think.

E

I do get the impression that RED did everything they possibly could to make it work… probably up to a late stage… but in the end the concept just seemed pointless given what may have been really required.

This is highly speculative… I don’t wan’t to go there anymore... Pre-release speculation is one thing post mortem speculation is like trying to strain dirty dish water for useable macaronis.

(who knows maybe if you open up your Scarlet –X there’s dip switch labeled “Scarlet-X and EPIC X”? …just kidding).

 

[Stephen Williams]

What people are missing is there is nothing to stop you shooting 2k or 3k with your Scarlet X, best of all worlds!

I understand fully the rationale behind Scarlet-X. It makes sense on so many levels for Red's first Scarlet and is truly an exceptional value. But it does not serve a major market segment that Scarlet 2/3" would have filled nicely. That is documentary shooters for whom a 16mm class format is a much more practical tool.

At the last announced 2/3" Scarlet pixel size of 3.3u, a full S16mm sized sensor would support at least QHD 3840x2160 resolution, certainly qualifying as high resolution professional quality by Red's standards and future TV standards. A Scarlet brain shooting at least 60fps at this resolution and able to shoot 120fps 3k at a 2/3" sized crop like the original Scarlet spec would be the ideal camera for many of us.

All that is needed is an S16mm Scarlet 4k brain with PL mount to take advantage of existing S16mm and B4 mount lenses with an optical adapter, no new mount format, no fixed lens. Just a kick ass S16mm format camera. Even if it was the same price as Scarlet-X, it would be the preferred choice for many of us. Shooting 2k cropped on the S35 sensor does not satisfy this need.

16mm has existed and thrived alongside 35mm film for nearly a century. I hope Red does not abandon this valuable and practical format.

 

[Emanuel A.]

What people are missing is there is nothing to stop you shooting 2k or 3k with your Scarlet X, best of all worlds!

Definitely right, Stephen

It is so silly the argument that I already called it a melodramatic comedy. Tragicomedy? No way!

E

 

[David Rasberry]

One thing I have been pondering lately is that we appear to be in a transition phase right now. That is, I believe 35mm will become the new 16mm in the next couple of years when RED releases something even bigger to be top of the line. I think RED might realize this also, so that seems like a legit reason to not go that direction. Which ideally might not be the best for some people at this very moment, but... wait a couple of years and I think the time RED puts into advancements will be more than worth it. Just my 2 cents on the subject.

Let me be very clear. 35mm is not a suitable replacement for 16mm due to the necessary size and weight of high performance lenses, especially long telephoto lenses or extended range fast zooms that are the workhorses of doc, sports, and nature production.

Compare the 24lb nearly 2 foot long behemoth Angenieux 12x 24-290 T2.8 S35 zoom with a Canon 10.6-180 T2.7 17x lens 9" long weighing less than 5lbs and you get the idea. Which would you rather back pack into rough wilderness for a nature shoot? The entire S16 camera package with lens, batteries, media, and tripod would weigh less than the big Angie lens alone and cover a broader FOV range.

 

[Eric Lange]

I think that 16mm has this sort of romantic image… that people want to connect with somehow. Is see that.

Maybe Leica would be better “culture/mind set” for a digital re-birth of old style 16 mm?

(I bet that’s cheap)!

E

I’m not sure that the younger generation has this romantic 16mm idea…

 

[Justin McAleece]

Hans - This is what I've been telling people. Customize the resolution to fit your needs. The tools are available. Just because because a camera CAN do something doesn't mean it's best for your project.