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Sony F55 vs Arri Alexa vs Red Epic
- Thread starter Rehan K
- Start date
Björn Benckert
Well-known member
A film with epic and alexa intercut...
epic with a little 35mm FD hand held at 95 fps and the alexa with extra everything shooting raw with cooke S4's from a super techno crane... to me they match good enough to make it hard / impossible to tell which one is which.
epic with a little 35mm FD hand held at 95 fps and the alexa with extra everything shooting raw with cooke S4's from a super techno crane... to me they match good enough to make it hard / impossible to tell which one is which.
Marc Wielage
Well-known member
I agree 100%. Given good color-correction, reasonable exposure and good lighting, I think it's possible to match them to the point where nobody can tell the difference anymore.
The opinion of the DPs on the CML List seems to be that cinematographers are beginning to approach the choice of cameras like they did with film stocks years ago. You want a certain look, you buy a slow-speed emulsion; you want a lower-light look, you buy a high-speed emulsion; you want a certain kind of color, you buy Kodak; you want a different kind of color, you buy Fuji.
You can make a good case that all the top cameras -- Alexa, Sony, Red, even Canon and Blackmagic -- can look good under optimum circumstances. I've worked on projects that had four different kinds of projects on one action scene, everything cut together, and nobody watching at home will ever know. The differences are beginning to boil down to features, cost, convenience, and speed more than anything else, plus the cinematographer's personal comfort and ease of use.
- Banned
- #4
Robert Ruffo New
Banned
No, it boils down to how many shots were impossible due to camera limitations coupled with time/budget limitations. These kinds of movies never show you the shots that failed, or were not even attempted because the viewfinder showed utter hopelessness on set, only the filmmaker knows those, but their number and nature is very important for choosing a camera.
It's all about what you can't do: You can't grade 8 bit footage much, you can't shoot this or that camera in the dark or if the scene has too much dynamic range, this or that camera is too heavy for a Movi or for very long Steadicam takes, etc. you can't reframe this or that camera because it's only 1080p - so many shots in any case that were never created and the audience doesn't know they are missing (but might love it of they were there)
The only cameras that "always fail" in my opinion are DSLRs and BM cameras, because in every shot you see the bad OLPF and/or line-skipping, so no matter what if a human is in frame reasonably close to the camera it's unflattering to their skin texture and it looks bad. All the other cams have their place, even an EX1.
It's all about what you can't do: You can't grade 8 bit footage much, you can't shoot this or that camera in the dark or if the scene has too much dynamic range, this or that camera is too heavy for a Movi or for very long Steadicam takes, etc. you can't reframe this or that camera because it's only 1080p - so many shots in any case that were never created and the audience doesn't know they are missing (but might love it of they were there)
The only cameras that "always fail" in my opinion are DSLRs and BM cameras, because in every shot you see the bad OLPF and/or line-skipping, so no matter what if a human is in frame reasonably close to the camera it's unflattering to their skin texture and it looks bad. All the other cams have their place, even an EX1.