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Scarlet Weapon / Bang for Buck / Wins over all.

Mark Toia

Mark Toia

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As far as I'm concerned. The Scarlet Weapon is officially the best bang for buck camera in the RED fleet.

I'm one of those working Pros that is in a lucky position to be able to purchase what ever cameras I want.
I'm also one of those guys that has a very pragmatic yet logical view and I don't dick around wasting money on cameras either. ( I've been through that silly phaze of my life )

The main 5 things I keep in mind when purchasing cameras. ( and lenses for that matter )

Weight + size + performance + workflow + price.

Yes I'l buy a 8k Dragon when the time comes. Because I can. Even though it's like having and elephant gun when your actually shooting rabbits most days.

I'm still not sure about the 6k Weapon as it doesn't tick one of those 5 criteria for me. ( price vs performance ) and its a lot of money for people just to have prores as and extra option over the current 6k Dragon. Which is still the industry work horse. I'll be running mine for many more years. As I don't need Prores, and if do I just transcode color corrected versions during the shoot or while I sleep anyways. Not a problem.

But the Scarlet Weapon ticks all those points. I would not hesitate for one moment in using ( or purchasing ) these new cameras for 99% of my tvad and future feature productions.
I could have 2 of these cameras forcthe price of 1 Dragon , 4 instead of 2, 8 instead of 4. You get my drift.
The price / performance equation is to good to ignore.

I shoot 5k a lot as a lot of our big PL glass we use in the Shotover and in our tracking vehical Russian arm hot head setups doesn't cover 6k perfectly. So 5k is sort of the sweet spot. Especially knowing that most of our mastered content is still HD so it's way more than we need. And you still have 5k to reduce if mastering 4K.

If I was an entry level RED user proffesional. I'd put the Scarlet weapon way ahead of the 6k Dragon / Weapon any day.
Dragon 6k Weapon needs to drop by 10-15k to match Scarlets 5 star rating.

That said.
I congratulate RED for always considering the entry level market. Because what they have really done is create a new market that I before never considered would happen. That's a market for guys like me looking at these new Scarlets as real weapons of choice for our higher end work. Especially for projects were you need more cameras on set and in more dangerous situations. Expendable power !

The Scarlet Weapon is on point. Well done RED, another awesome product.
 
Mark,

Well said as always. I'm in the happy but precarious position of deciding how to balance my camera portfolio. This may tip the balance.

My current choices are (with Option A already in the RED system, but not allocated):

Option A: 8K W-CF (via new package), 6K W-Mg (upgrade EPIC-M), 6K W-Mg (upgrade SCARLET-D)
Option B: 8K W-CF (upgrade EPIC-M), 6K W-CF (upgrade SCARLET-D), 5K Scarlet-W (via new package)

And perhaps I should also consider

Option C: 8K W-CF (upgrade EPIC-M), 6K W-Mg (upgrade SCARLET-D), 5K Scarlet-W (via new package)

I'm trying to figure out the best back-end for my PL glass, including a Fujinon Premier Pro 24-180 T2.6 lens (which is like having an elephant gun). That lens covers 5K all day but 6K only in the 40-180 range, which is why I got a SCARLET-D in the first place. But it is sharp as hell, and spreading the pixels out across 5.5K or 6K (when the image circle covers it) gives me a solid 10%-20% boost in resolution from 32mm onward. And 225MB/sec gives me both more absolute REDCODE data than 140MB/sec, not to mention an additional 12.5% relative REDCODE performance (because 140 * 6^2 / 5^2 = 201). All these performance factors were tipping me in the direction of W-Mg as a way to increase the performance of a very expensive piece of glass I already own. Is that worth the $10K-$15K that W-Mg needs to make up?

But...the W-Mg doesn't have an upgrade path to 8K, and likely not some other future sensor RED may have up its sleeve (such as a 2x higher frame rate 6K option, just to speculate). Such higher-end futures may depend on having the horsepower of W-CF. If I carry forward my logic as to why I bought SCARLET-D in the first place, then with double the data rates of the SCARLET-D, I can get excellent REDCODE numbers, not only at 5K/24fps, but even reasonable ones at 4K/120fps. It doesn't help my lens any, but it definitely helps my digital negative. It means my SCARLET-W doesn't need to sit out when I'm doing higher frame rate stuff. And it leaves enough $$ on the table to keep my options open for the widest possible range of new sensors that may come to W-CF.

Perhaps I should put less stock in absolute MB/sec and pixels of resolution and appreciate that SCARLET-W reaches "good enough" for a wide range of assignments, including being a great back-end for my existing PL glass. Hmmm...
 
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Michael Tiemann said:
Mark,

Well said as always. I'm in the happy but precarious position of deciding how to balance my camera portfolio.
Click to expand...

I think the second hand 6k EPIC DRAGON market is the place to look. All these people out there panic selling to get into Weapons, When in fact the 6K DRAGON is still as powerful, maybe even more rugged with accessories from so many communise ready to go.
People are only asking for kitted up camera of only 15 to 25k pending on the amount of accessories going with it.

You can get 3 of these kitted up camera for the price of one weapon, and you get the same 6k image. Something to seriously consider.

Some things gotta be said about how good the EPIC cameras were built in the first place, Mine are now almost 3 years old and are faultless and still knock out amazing images. Best money I've spent on a camera in my life.
While everything else is getting super seeded, RED 6k Dragons and even the EPIC MX's are still trucking along as industry work horses.

At the end of their life, I'll put them on my mantle and breath a sigh of relief knowing that I made the right decision with going with RED.

Well done RED.
 
Mark and Michael,
I read everything that each of you post on these pages, and both of you always find a way (though differently) to cut through the hype or worries found on many of the pages here on RU. I have been trying to decide whether to buy a good used Epic Dragon, or the new Scarlet. Mark, I think if you also do stills, the Epic Dragon might win out, but for all around shooting, and with cost being a major factor. I just might go with the Scarlet (UNLESS I get an incredible bargain on an Epic Dragon). Thanks again, for all that you guys put into these boards.
 
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Well said. I can't believe how many people are getting caught up in having to upgrade... If you own an Epic Dragon and don't have a bank account with 100k in it than take a deep breath and close safari. If you don't own a camera or shoot MX and have a bank account with atlesst 30k in it than buy a Scarlet W..

Unfortunately I reckon too many people live a life of debt and are forced to take underpaid work or rent their gear cheap just to make ends meet... Bad business! You don't need the latest greatest..

Saying that Red is amazing and I'll buy them all one day ;)
 
Great post, Mark. Lots of thought provoking information based on your incredible work and knowledge. Thanks!
 
If people are really going to be dumping Epic Dragon bodies for under $10,000, I'll buy one of those as my second camera and sell my Scarlet-D. That way I'll have two cameras, Scarlet W and Epic Dragon.
 
In September I've placed deposit for new Raven to be my first RED camera.
I work mostly aerials with big drones and in recent times I have more and more demands for flying RED and Alexa mini.
This year I've worked for few high budget movies and commercials with rented Scarlet, Dragon and Alexa mini and decided it's time to have my own Red camera.
I was looking to but some used Scarlet but then Raven came up and I was more than happy to order it. But now I'm totally confused should I change deposit for new Scarlet Weapon.
Mostly it will be used for aerials and some ground gimbal works. I don't have any Red accessories nor any PL lens.

Please help me to decide what would be better for my needs?
 
Mark, I was just pointing those points out yesterday to a friend. Scarlet-W is now one of the most handy camera's out there. Being 5K s35, all PL glass will work fine with it. Now we have up to 4:1 compression which puts it in the sweet spot for Feature work. We get ProRes 2K for TVC and Episodic workflows. and specifically regarding episodic, we can cut using the 2K ProRes and meet broadcast deadlines, then say for Netflix, or Amazon UHD distribution, simple reconform back to the R3D's and re-render for them. Scarlet-W has so many more features too, like 17x17x17 3D LUT's, Wireless Control, the Ergonomics are now fixed with the ports on the side, the Price point is now way more affordable for more productions. I can't praise RED and their team more.
 
4.5k is a great addition. 5k 4:1 for regular speed, and 4.5k for slowmo with the same specs as Epic @5k.
 
Scot Yount said:
Mark and Michael,
I read everything that each of you post on these pages, and both of you always find a way (though differently) to cut through the hype or worries found on many of the pages here on RU. I have been trying to decide whether to buy a good used Epic Dragon, or the new Scarlet. Mark, I think if you also do stills, the Epic Dragon might win out, but for all around shooting, and with cost being a major factor. I just might go with the Scarlet (UNLESS I get an incredible bargain on an Epic Dragon). Thanks again, for all that you guys put into these boards.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I decided to re-test my lens against charts this afternoon, and I edited my post to reflect that indeed the Fujinon Premier Pro lens actually out-resolves DRAGON at all focal lengths. That is to say that using a resolution test chart, I'm able to see where DRAGON goes from resolving alternating lines to pure gray (because alternating lines illuminate alternating pixels and the light averages to zero) to aliasing (false lines where the pattern frequencies are interpreted as lower-frequency harmonics). So now I really have to think hard...from a system point of view, what's a 20% (really 20% squared) increase in resolution worth, coupled with a 50% increase in max data rates? Comparing just the cost of the brains makes the SCARLET-W a no-brainer. But when I add in the cost of an expensive lens, support, etc., a 20%-40% resolution improvement might really be worth the cost of the WEAPON-Mg.

Decisions, decisions...
 
Not to mention, its a newer camera so you would be getting more support and attention to detail
 
Well i spend my money on the long haul. why rush to buy a scarlet when I can wait and save for something greater. If I was in a great position it would be everything top of the line and done for a couple of years. All RED cameras are great but why go small when you can go big.
 
I'm waiting for a big amount of cash to come in this year to go CF Dragon Weapon. Because its the only path to the 8K sensor. I am an Epic Dragon Owner and sincerely, the only place to go next, for a single camera owner, is to the next (re) evolutionary step from Red, and that is 8K Red Vista. It means one heck of an investment from Epic Dragon to CF Weapon Dragon, but its the only one that makes financial sense for me, since current Dragon and Weapon Dragon 6K is very hard to differentiate on the market.
 
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