Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • 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-W Bad Compression in HFR, Worse Than Epic-MX, Any Weapon Examples Out There?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Kris Tait said:
I think these are good discussions, I definitely find them helpful in determining exactly which camera I'm going to go with. They're all amazing pieces of kit, and there's nothing wrong with knowing exactly where they shine and where they stutter. Healthy criticism is...well, healthy.
Click to expand...

Agreed
 
If you want crisp high speed images you have to pay for it. Just because the camera can do something doesn't mean it always works. There are times you can shoot low-detail images cropped like that, it's great that the ability to do so exists. This is the whole point of Red compared to other brands: Your skill as a cinematographer is crucial in order to get good looking footage.

You essentially has to "know your shit". Knowing how to expose for different sensors and OLPFs, doing compression calculations etc. is a part of being a digital cinematographer today, that's just part of the profession. Yeah, you could pay a DIT to think for you, but if you don't want to or can't then you seriously have to know what you are doing. This isn't an Iphone camera your dealing with, even for a Raven it's a high performing camera system. It's not limited because you are the one responsible for knowing when and where these limitations exist.

People seem to criticize Red for having blocky footage when they put on a 15:1 compression ratio for high moving or detailed footage. Seriously? Criticism is good when it comes from knowledge, not when it comes from people being pissed that their Scarlet-W doesn't perform high speed like a Phantom 4K. One of the most notable parts of getting the Weapon 6K IS the lower compression. The processing power for these kinds of footage cost money to R&D and produce. Resolution and compression IS why the Scarlet-W and the Raven is priced lower. That you can shoot 4K at a 3:1 compression on the Raven, that doesn't count?

Raven performs better than the Red One MX and the Scarlet-W is essentially an Epic-MX but with a Dragon sensor in the Weapon infrastructure. And people criticize? Learn the basics first :thumbdown:
 
Raven = $6K
Scarlet-W = $10K
Weapon = $30K

There's no visual quality difference at 24fps 4K between RED's cheapest and most expensive camera. From Raven to Weapon you go from RC3:1 to a amazing Weapon RC2:1 at 24fps. Anyone who is getting a Scarlet or Raven . . . just quietly leave the store before someone in the RED product line-up / pricing strategy comes to their senses and tacks on the very reasonable increase of $5K to each of those models. If you want better HFR compression - pay for it by buying a Weapon with the money you make shooting your commercial work at normal speed.
 
Higher compression needs more careful exposure. An underexposed high compression HFR clip will get tons of bad noise when pushing the iso back in post. With good exposure I got some great looking 13:1, 16:1 slowmo. Anyway, that is a personal opinion, slowmo became the most boring gimmick of these last years. Most of the time it's just a way to hide a boring pointless shot but it makes it boring for a much longer time. In that regard I try to avoid it or just use 60fps, in some rare occasions, which was the maximum speed that the main 35mm film cameras were able to reach a few years ago but was enough to make some of the greatest work ever done.
 
Ugo Del said:
Higher compression needs more careful exposure. An underexposed high compression HFR clip will get tons of bad noise when pushing the iso back in post. With good exposure I got some great looking 13:1, 16:1 slowmo. Anyway, that is a personal opinion, slowmo became the most boring gimmick of these last years. Most of the time it's just a way to hide a boring pointless shot but it makes it boring for a much longer time. In that regard I try to avoid it or just use 60fps, in some rare occasions, which was the maximum speed that the main 35mm film cameras were able to reach a few years ago but was enough to make some of the greatest work ever done.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wouldn't call Scarlet-W or Raven a 120fps camera. Higher quality high frame rates are a perk of the Weapon 6K and above.

Kris Tait said:
Bizarre the tone in here went so sour.
Click to expand...

You mean people complaining about the camera not delivering according to what they want, without regard to the knowledge needed for digital cinematography? :tongue_smilie:
People need to learn their camera before picking up the pitch fork. Like the basics with compression; shooting a high detailed scene on a cropped sensor with high compression will definitely look bad, especially if it's not exposed correctly and without regard to proper ISO values. There's an attitude nowadays that if you get an expensive camera you will be able to get everything to look as great as a Hollywood blockbuster on a 100 mill budget.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for posting. The dirt bike subject helps it along:) And thanks for bringing conversation back to a more constructive tone.

We need to acknowledge that the Raven is Red's entry level compared to Weapon. ScarletW a little bit the same when compared to 50-70 for a kitted Weapon. So a lot of people buying into the specs they read are quite likely newcomers to the Red family and may not know the intricacies of what the Red calculus means. One could make a case that marketing a frame rate that comes at a compression rate that leads to blocky footage is inviting potential criticism from people who simply believed it.

A lot of people using cameras these days are content producers who have to be jack of all trades due to budgets etc... It is a lot easier to look good with a great AC, DIT, Gaffer and art dept. A lot of stuff is on the fly, rushed, mixed lighting etc.. And so one is looking for gear that can make you look good in the face of all of that. We talk a lot of trash about Arri and Canon. But they have done a good job of making getting decent skin tones and nice looking footage easier - and that has been one of the biggest selling points.

Raven is a good a value. Up to a reasonable level of its specs it is excellent. Same with SW. But maybe not to extent some of the specs might suggest.
 
Tarquin Cardona said:
We need to acknowledge that the Raven is Red's entry level compared to Weapon. ScarletW a little bit the same when compared to 50-70 for a kitted Weapon. So a lot of people buying into the specs they read are quite likely newcomers to the Red family and may not know the intricacies of what the Red calculus means..
Click to expand...

I would say that they are newcomers to cinematography overall. It's the DSLR-thing all over again. As soon as people got a s35mm sensor they thought they would go oscar-nominee for their work. Now, when everything is s35mm or above it's the high speed and DR that's the "new DSLR". "If I only get that I will be able to do some seriously good cinematography."

It's rare to see posts in here about learning actual cinematography. Like, how do you do good three point lighting? How do you manage bouncing lights and a location that isn't well suited for lighting etc. practical basics to actually create those good images even before that Raven is even turned on. Coming to a set it usually takes an hour before the cameras are turned on, based on just lighting, planning and building everything needed. New people will just turn on the camera and shoot and think that the camera is going to do the work for them... and then they get pissed when it doesn't look like that awesomely shot commercial they just saw.
 
:) A lot of what you say is so true. There is a belief (in part fueled by camera manufacturers) that the tool creates the magic. Cinematography is a loose term. There are all kinds. Those who expose on the nail, lots of diffusion, muslin, range and respect the blocking. Other's bend stocks or sensors to get something their own. But so much of it comes down to what you are getting to shoot. I am sure a lot of cameras eventually gather dust when the burden of having to go and make something sinks in. The biggest area that gets no respect is producing. If you have the fire to produce good shots, that will take you a long way. A wannabe DP could spend a lot of time sitting by the phone.
 
Tarquin Cardona said:
:) A lot of what you say is so true. There is a belief (in part fueled by camera manufacturers) that the tool creates the magic. Cinematography is a loose term. There are all kinds. Those who expose on the nail, lots of diffusion, muslin, range and respect the blocking. Other's bend stocks or sensors to get something their own. But so much of it comes down to what you are getting to shoot. I am sure a lot of cameras eventually gather dust when the burden of having to go and make something sinks in. The biggest area that gets no respect is producing. If you have the fire to produce good shots, that will take you a long way. A wannabe DP could spend a lot of time sitting by the phone.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I doubt many with their Ravens would do better than this professional photographer who takes photographs using an iPhone.

julian-calverley-iphone-only-examples.jpg
 
I think the OP should post an R3D. This thread is heading south and without an R3D there is no way to confirm what the problem is.

David

Everyone chill. its a conversation :)

The higher priced models perform better, hence the higher price.
 
I am not sure the convo is heading south. I think different people are responding (gently or not) in different ways to the OP's apparently genuine disappointment. We can look at an R3D but it is not really going to solve anything because we well know there are settings available on the camera that may be ill advised to use. 300 fps at 2K. Compressions of 15:1 etc..

I can empathize with a newcomer who reads some specs and thinks or perceives a certain capability level that in fact is not there. Making the assumption that a camera would not offer something that is not so good. Most other companies do not do that. Canon is pilloried for the fact that their C300 Mk2 only does 30p in 4K. However. Everything it says it can do, it does and does well. The Raven and SW can do 24-48 fps very very well and more affordably. But the specs suggest more.

So you see the problem is perceptions not the actual camera. So we can talk about R3D and what the newcomer is doing wrong, but in fairness I will say that to try and shoot 120fps at 15:1 is not really a place to be.
 
It's really hard to discuss about something unseen. Honestly, compression plays a minor role in the quality of what you're putting out there. Many large features shoot the whole thing at 5:1, 6:1, so if you think 2:1 is an absolute necessity, that's not true... As many pointed out, you need to know a good deal of technical and artistic styles before even pointing a camera in the right direction for a good result.
You have to garner experience and knowledge before churning out stunning work. It's like expecting a person that has only driven Toyota Corolas, when sitting inside a formula one car for the first time, to da a lap at record times.
But also, like in so many things in life, filmmaking is the art of managing compromise: to get something you want, you need to give up something else most of the time. You want maximum frame rate on a shot, you know you'll have to give up compression and resolution. If the framerate is the most important, you have to learn to deal with the issues created and try to somehow mitigate the negative aspects.
But we really have come so far on what's possible with these cameras that we forget how much light we had to throw in when doing interior high speed with film. Talk about grain...
 
Would anyone be interested in seeing compression ratio comparisons? What would be the best way to shoot that i.e. what scene would show the limitations of compression the best? Moving leaves in the wind?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top