Scarlet Vs. Cinema

[Eric Rodemann]

Does anybody have any recommendations for good sites/books/videos on the science/theory of lenses for cinematography?

http://philipbloom.net/2010/08/20/which-lenses-to-buy/

I like this because it's not just a bunch of theory. It's practical advice for which lenses to buy, and what you can expect from them, and good comparisons between them.

However, it's specifically geared towards using lenses to shoot video with a DSLR, like a Canon 5d or 7d. A similar article for the Red would be just the thing, and it probably exists, but I don't know where it is.

 

[David Rasberry]

If have some toughts about the resolution issue here, in fact shooting on 3k or higher has only a huge advantage if you want to shoot for cinema, so if you shoot for cinema you will shoot a feature movie. If you can shoot a desent feature movie you will have a budget and you can hire or even buy the Epic or higher equip. If you shoot a low budget feature or short for DVD or Bleu ray 1080p will do more then you ask for cours every sensor uses the highest of his quality but the codec just scales down your image to mpeg2 or mpeg4 , do you get my point?

Not true. Scaling down to a release format from a higher quality acquisition format results in a better image. 480p DVD's released from 1080p HD masters look much better than those shot originally on SD masters. The same will be true of 1080p format releases that are scaled from higher resolution originals, film scans or hi res digital cinema cameras. Scarlet's performance target is S16mm film quality, not HD video quality.

 

[Katty Galloo]

IMO, everyone that shoots a low budget feature still hopes they get at least a limited theatrical release, which increases DVD sales and downloads dramatically.

It may be an unrealistic hope in many cases, but I'm sure it's still there nonetheless.

True, for festivals it might be the case aldough they project it mostly at 2k. And the chance of making it to the big screen is small. Look at JCVD and many other great budget movies made for DVD but never made it to the big screen. And if its realy good they will take it anyways like the ' Blairwitch 'and 'Paranormal activity ' shot on crap film or consumer stuff. Quality doesn't always make it a good movie story and style counts to

 

[Katty Galloo]

Not true. Scaling down to a release format from a higher quality acquisition format results in a better image. 480p DVD's released from 1080p HD masters look much better than those shot originally on SD masters. The same will be true of 1080p format releases that are scaled from higher resolution originals, film scans or hi res digital cinema cameras. Scarlet's performance target is S16mm film quality, not HD video quality.

Thats exacly what I mean. Scarlet shoots on a smaller sensor than AG 100 Panasonic witch is 4/3 cmos so de bigger the sensor the better the quality so the moment the sensor captures it image its 5K, then it scalles it down in the camera to an aceptable format in this case H.265. But orginaly it comes from a 5k to.

The only difference with the scarlet is that it captures 3k witch is in logic comparisation with the size of his sensor, then scale it down to store it and blows it back up in final to 3K again for use. But there is no way you can blow it up to 5K without some data loss. Therefore it is also a camera to shoot for DVD or Bleu ray. there is always a possibility to blow up sizes 1/3 and still looking good, but any blow up is not advisable.

So the way I see it scarlet 3K is good for low budget film and is only in the range of the AG 100 Panasonic with a 5k cmos sensor. Only the s35 would make a better deal to me.

 

[Jesper Sichlau]

Thats exacly what I mean. Scarlet shoots on a smaller sensor than AG 100 Panasonic witch is 4/3 cmos so de bigger the sensor the better the quality so the moment the sensor captures it image its 5K, then it scalles it down in the camera to an aceptable format in this case H.265. But orginaly it comes from a 5k to.

The only difference with the scarlet is that it captures 3k witch is in logic comparisation with the size of his sensor, then scale it down to store it and blows it back up in final to 3K again for use. But there is no way you can blow it up to 5K without some data loss. Therefore it is also a camera to shoot for DVD or Bleu ray. there is always a possibility to blow up sizes 1/3 and still looking good, but any blow up is not advisable.

So the way I see it scarlet 3K is good for low budget film and is only in the range of the AG 100 Panasonic with a 5k cmos sensor. Only the s35 would make a better deal to me.

Are you saying the AF100 captures 5K images? Sensor size has nothing to do with resolution of the captured frame. The AF100 records 1080p (1920x1080) images contrary to the Scarlet which records 3K (3072x1620).

 

[David Rasberry]

Thats exacly what I mean. Scarlet shoots on a smaller sensor than AG 100 Panasonic witch is 4/3 cmos so de bigger the sensor the better the quality so the moment the sensor captures it image its 5K, then it scalles it down in the camera to an aceptable format in this case H.265. But orginaly it comes from a 5k to.

The only difference with the scarlet is that it captures 3k witch is in logic comparisation with the size of his sensor, then scale it down to store it and blows it back up in final to 3K again for use. But there is no way you can blow it up to 5K without some data loss. Therefore it is also a camera to shoot for DVD or Bleu ray. there is always a possibility to blow up sizes 1/3 and still looking good, but any blow up is not advisable.

So the way I see it scarlet 3K is good for low budget film and is only in the range of the AG 100 Panasonic with a 5k cmos sensor. Only the s35 would make a better deal to me.

Except that the output format for the AF100 is 8 bit 1080p long GOP HD video, like every other under $10k prosumer level video camera.
Scarlet's native recording format at maximum resolution is 12 bit 3072 x 1620 4.9 megapixel raw frames in 1.89:1 2k/4k digital cinema widescreen format. More than twice the resolution of HD video or 2k digital cinema formats. It is much more comparable to S16mm film for resolution and dynamic range than it is to SD or HD video cameras and will have the potential to produce far better image quality for the big screen, including 4k digital, than any conventional 1080p video camera at any price. It doesn't scale up to 3k resolution, it IS 3k. It scales down for HD video or 2k digital cinema finish at the full resolution those formats are capable of.
Major academy awards including best picture, best director, and best cinematography have gone to films shot mostly or entirely on 2/3" digital or S16mm film formats for the last two years running. So you can't dismiss the smaller format as not suitable for high level high quality work, especially with Scarlet.
Scarlet will be an incredible value for the indie film maker for sure. Affordable to own as a personal camera for anyone in under $10k high end prosumer market, but bringing a whole new level of potential image quality to that market.
S35 Red Epics are superior for sure, but I will take the smaller format at 3k raw over the larger sensor format in a conventional 1080p video camera any day.

 

[Eric Rodemann]

S35 Red Epics are superior for sure, but I will take the smaller format at 3k raw over the larger sensor format in a conventional 1080p video camera any day.

I agree. The problem is the ag af100 is available now, the Red Scarlet 2/3 is not. :frown:

If you want to shoot now and you're budget is that sub 10K range, the Scarlet 2/3 cam isn't currently one of your options.

 

[David Rasberry]

I agree. The problem is the ag af100 is available now, the Red Scarlet 2/3 is not. :frown:

If you want to shoot now and you're budget is that sub 10K range, the Scarlet 2/3 cam isn't currently one of your options.

I'm OK with my existing cameras for now. No compelling reason to rush things. Been investing money in a fairly comprehensive range of vintage 16mm lenses to play with instead.

 

[Alex Sutherland]

I'm still very much leaning toward the S35 and a set of Zeiss CP.2 primes, despite the fact that I shoot almost everything outside of the studio.

When I was in newspapers, I opted to use prime/fixed lenses exclusively for everything but telephoto shooting. I'd just keep a set of three or four handy and swap them out as needed. The idea was to make myself think and compose the frame with all the proper and necessary elements and not let myself get lazy by falling back on focal length flexibility to make my images. It worked very well for me, but I'm also a very deliberate shooter so it's just a matter of tastes.

Maybe you guys could tell me if that is going to be too impractical to be feasible for documentary work. It worked fine for still documentary work, but I can imagine there are some other major obstacles that need to be considered for motion capture. Up to this point I've been using zooms.

 

[David Rasberry]

I'm still very much leaning toward the S35 and a set of Zeiss CP.2 primes, despite the fact that I shoot almost everything outside of the studio.

When I was in newspapers, I opted to use prime/fixed lenses exclusively for everything but telephoto shooting. I'd just keep a set of three or four handy and swap them out as needed. The idea was to make myself think and compose the frame with all the proper and necessary elements and not let myself get lazy by falling back on focal length flexibility to make my images. It worked very well for me, but I'm also a very deliberate shooter so it's just a matter of tastes.

Maybe you guys could tell me if that is going to be too impractical to be feasible for documentary work. It worked fine for still documentary work, but I can imagine there are some other major obstacles that need to be considered for motion capture. Up to this point I've been using zooms.

I guess it depends on your shooting style. I like zooms for run and gun doc work because I don't want to have to change lenses in the field any more than ablsolutely necessary. In the time it takes to change a lens you can miss a shot and you expose the sensor to contamination too. Using a zoom effectively as an infinitely variable set of primes throughout its range is not lazy, just efficient.

 

[Katty Galloo]

Are you saying the AF100 captures 5K images? Sensor size has nothing to do with resolution of the captured frame. The AF100 records 1080p (1920x1080) images contrary to the Scarlet which records 3K (3072x1620).

Haha, my god are you serious, its all about the cmos , the bigger the sensor the more data it can capture. the difference is just in the codec. the red codec compresses less. for that its better to collorgrade. Optical yoy wont notice a thing at 2K in the final result. And yes the sensor size of the AF100 is almost near same as Mark II as good as full frame. you need to update your technical info about sensors.
The sensor size itself of the AF100 is twice as big as the scarlet so technical the sensor itself captures near 6K, thats why it doen not suffer in low light conditions, but once captured its the codec who plays the game.

look at this link to see the size difference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device#Sensor_sizes

 

[Katty Galloo]

Except that the output format for the AF100 is 8 bit 1080p long GOP HD video, like every other under $10k prosumer level video camera.
Scarlet's native recording format at maximum resolution is 12 bit 3072 x 1620 4.9 megapixel raw frames in 1.89:1 2k/4k digital cinema widescreen format. More than twice the resolution of HD video or 2k digital cinema formats. It is much more comparable to S16mm film for resolution and dynamic range than it is to SD or HD video cameras and will have the potential to produce far better image quality for the big screen, including 4k digital, than any conventional 1080p video camera at any price. It doesn't scale up to 3k resolution, it IS 3k. It scales down for HD video or 2k digital cinema finish at the full resolution those formats are capable of.
Major academy awards including best picture, best director, and best cinematography have gone to films shot mostly or entirely on 2/3" digital or S16mm film formats for the last two years running. So you can't dismiss the smaller format as not suitable for high level high quality work, especially with Scarlet.
Scarlet will be an incredible value for the indie film maker for sure. Affordable to own as a personal camera for anyone in under $10k high end prosumer market, but bringing a whole new level of potential image quality to that market.
S35 Red Epics are superior for sure, but I will take the smaller format at 3k raw over the larger sensor format in a conventional 1080p video camera any day.

REDCODE is a mathematically lossy codec, meaning that decompression does not fully restore the original image data captured by the camera. Red claims the codec is "visually lossless", suggesting that the information loss is not visible to the naked eye when images are viewed. However, sample images detailing noticeable artifacts have been posted on the manufacturer's forum. Because Redcode is a wavelet codec, similar to CineForm RAW and JPEG2000, the nature of these artifacts is different from "blocking", characteristic of traditional compression algorithms.

Unlike cameras that record RGB data, the camera records raw data similar to the Dalsa Origin and Silicon Imaging SI-2K. Recording raw data allows white balance, gamma and other image processing parameters like sharpening to be set during post production. Adjusting these settings directly on camera does not impact the raw data that is actually recorded. Such adjustments only influence live monitoring outputs, but are attached to the recorded data as metadata.

 

[Stephen Matthews]

I very much doubt the sensor captures anywhere near 6k considering it's been roughly tested at resolving around 700-800 lines vertically (not sure if that is horizontally or vertically), and the sensor is much closer to s35 and not ff35. (so saying it is 6k is misleading to me)

But I will leave this to more experienced as it seems you are a bit confused on these subjects, as I could be but honestly it's understandable with all the misinformation and marketing hidden as experts opinions, sometimes it's hard to tell which way is up these days.

 

[David Rasberry]

Haha, my god are you serious, its all about the cmos , the bigger the sensor the more data it can capture. the difference is just in the codec. the red codec compresses less. for that its better to collorgrade. Optical yoy wont notice a thing at 2K in the final result. And yes the sensor size of the AF100 is almost near same as Mark II as good as full frame. you need to update your technical info about sensors.
The sensor size itself of the AF100 is twice as big as the scarlet so technical the sensor itself captures near 6K, thats why it doen not suffer in low light conditions, but once captured its the codec who plays the game.

look at this link to see the size difference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device#Sensor_sizes

There is a lot more to digital image capture quality than just sensor size. Bit depth and dynamic range are critical too. AF100 captures 8 bit 1080p HD video, period. If the sensor is capable of capturing more it is thrown away before it ever leaves the camera and it is not really showing stellar performance in low light either. Gets noisy very quickly and seems to show most of the shortcomings of AVCHD codec quality that other similar cameras do, large sensor or not.
There are good examples of current mid-range 2/3" HD cameras like the Sony PMW-700 that are better for low light than the AF100 seems to be so far.
Lossy or not 3k Redcode records about 20 times the data per frame of AVCHD, and it shows. At 24fps, 3 seconds of 3k Scarlet footage is about the same file size as a full minute of AF100 footage.

 

[Katty Galloo]

Except that the output format for the AF100 is 8 bit 1080p long GOP HD video, like every other under $10k prosumer level video camera.
Scarlet's native recording format at maximum resolution is 12 bit 3072 x 1620 4.9 megapixel raw frames in 1.89:1 2k/4k digital cinema widescreen format. More than twice the resolution of HD video or 2k digital cinema formats. It is much more comparable to S16mm film for resolution and dynamic range than it is to SD or HD video cameras and will have the potential to produce far better image quality for the big screen, including 4k digital, than any conventional 1080p video camera at any price. It doesn't scale up to 3k resolution, it IS 3k. It scales down for HD video or 2k digital cinema finish at the full resolution those formats are capable of.
Major academy awards including best picture, best director, and best cinematography have gone to films shot mostly or entirely on 2/3" digital or S16mm film formats for the last two years running. So you can't dismiss the smaller format as not suitable for high level high quality work, especially with Scarlet.
Scarlet will be an incredible value for the indie film maker for sure. Affordable to own as a personal camera for anyone in under $10k high end prosumer market, but bringing a whole new level of potential image quality to that market.
S35 Red Epics are superior for sure, but I will take the smaller format at 3k raw over the larger sensor format in a conventional 1080p video camera any day.

According the size of the AF100 cmos should capture 4,992 x 3,328 format images

 

[Katty Galloo]

There is a lot more to digital image capture quality than just sensor size. Bit depth and dynamic range are critical too. AF100 captures 8 bit 1080p HD video, period. If the sensor is capable of capturing more it is thrown away before it ever leaves the camera and it is not really showing stellar performance in low light either. Gets noisy very quickly and seems to show most of the shortcomings of AVCHD codec quality that other similar cameras do, large sensor or not.
There are good examples of current mid-range 2/3" HD cameras like the Sony PMW-700 that are better for low light than the AF100 seems to be so far.
Lossy or not 3k Redcode records about 20 times the data per frame of AVCHD, and it shows. At 24fps, 3 seconds of 3k Scarlet footage is about the same file size as a full minute of AF100 footage.

I understand your point, but one thing I know for sure. The bigger the sensor the better noise to signal. I have seen some test footage in low light of the AF100 and its same like MarkII exept its better then MarkII it has better dynamic range and a low pass filter to soften the image just like the RED.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Two questions:

According the size of the AF100 cmos should capture 4,992 x 3,328 format images

If it SHOULD, then why doesn't it?? :huh:

And, just curious, have you ever shot with a RED or worked with R3D files?

(OK - I guess that is 3 questions, altogether.) :undecided:

 

[Graeme Nattress]

As always, the answer is "measure it". Don't guess - test.

Graeme

 

[Chris Park-Kennaby]

Haha, my god are you serious, its all about the cmos , the bigger the sensor the more data it can capture...
The sensor size itself of the AF100 is twice as big as the scarlet so technical the sensor itself captures near 6K

Katty, sorry to be skeptical but to me it seems you've definately got something wrong in your understanding of all of this.

MX signal to noise ratio far outdoes the Mysterium sensor - but its still the same size sensor. It's been shows that pixel design plays an equally, if not more, important role in s/n.

Just because the AF100's chip is bigger does not mean it's got more pixels. In fact I think Panasonic would have advertised the sensor's resolution excessively over what the camera actually records if that were the case.

According the size of the AF100 cmos should capture 4,992 x 3,328 format images

I obviously agree with Graeme, 'don't guess - test'. It appears that you've assumed it's got a similar pixel density as the Scarlet.

Apologies if I am wrong about any of this but I feel that it's probably you that needs to update your technical info about sensors...

 

[Ren Tachino]

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but sensor size does not determine the pixel density of a sensor. Similarly sized sensors can have a varying pixel counts. If this were not the case, how could the same sized APS-C sensors in Canon DSLRs have megapixel counts ranging from 10-18 MP? Although the sensor is bigger on the AF100, it doesn't mean it has a higher pixel count.

I may be wrong, as Katty seems so confident in their answer, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the case.