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  • 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 :)

Talk me into keeping my Scarlet-W order

I see the upside with oversampling a picture that isn't razor sharp and then scaling down. It has many benefits for video. I value an image that is, in lack of a better word: calm. I'm thinking nice gradations, no aliasing or halos. All of this makes RED a solid choice. RED also delivers these kinds of images at a much higher resolution than the competition in a small camera. It's flexible.

But I'm also interested in the stills side. I don't see the necessary pixel quality currently to claim you get 19MP stills. It's easy to say: just bring a 5Dsr and shoot stills with that! But that isn't necessarily what I'm after.

I wish RED would hurry up and sell the 8k vanilla Weapon without carbon, magnesium or anything else that makes it $50.000+. RED is in a good position to be first to offer a full frame camera to the masses that shoots both still (high res) and video in raw. I'm not counting the first 8k cameras from RED that will be very expensive. I'm thinking of when there will be the Epic X equivalent with an 8k sensor. I'm totally fine with 10 fps in 8k as it would only be for stills in my case.
 
Ugo Del said:
So now people think that 6k is a minimum? Well, i watched and read many BTS stuffs, and even if people are sometimes shooting 6k (like House of Cards or Gone Girl) they almost always crop to 5k. Or just shoot 5k directly (like The Martian). The Social Network was 4k, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 3.5k cropped. On the recent movies I often have the feeling that it's way too sharp. Same with my Red cameras. It was said one billion times here: these cameras need light. Testing a camera in a shop and making your decision based on that is non sense.
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Agree.

Also the comparison with Canon 1Dc might be relevant to some degree but as I understand that camera is doing a downsample for video in camera, it most likely then also do a sharpening / moare treat to the image.

And the difusion for a CMOS still camera does not need to be as high as for a motion picture Cmos camera. I think the olpf of the red cameras are pretty well dialed in. It would of course be easy to make them sharper but there are drawbacks from that as well, possibly worse things happen than just having a slightly soft image. I never got moare on a red for example.

I think resolution vice all these cameras hold up but Weapon 8k is more than 4 times as good than raven, there is no doubt about that. Downsampling makes huge difference, having a larger image circle makes huge difference, having more megabits per second makes huge difference. I think the price points are set quite accurately, weapon 8k is that much better than raven, just as the cost reflects.


Still raven is a kick as camera. I really want one and try to make up excuses to buy it as a B cam. :)
 
Björn Benckert said:
Also the comparison with Canon 1Dc might be relevant to some degree but as I understand that camera is doing a downsample for video in camera, it most likely then also do a sharpening / moare treat to the image.
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I want to be clear: my picture above from the 1Dc is a photo, not a screen grab. I also mention this in the post. But it's irrelevant since it's apples to apples in the sense that both are 1:1 pixel crops from a raw file. The discussion was regarding what to expect in terms of resolution from an unsharpened sensor crop.

But you are right Björn, in terms of needs of video/photo OLFPs are different. Cinema cameras are meant to produce moving images and you'll never see the "softness" there. I have NO issue at all with how these images would look if they were indeed moving. But, as I've said a few times: I look at the resolution also from a stills perspective.

Anecdotally: the 1Dc does not scale or treat it's video. It's a 18MP camera for raw stills and in its video mode it makes a clean center crop (sensor size of 6k RED, approx 1.28x) and captures 25 4096x2160px .jpegs per second and stores them in the .mjpeg codec at 520Mbit/s 4:2:2. It's still 8 bit, so I'm not comparing that to .r3d.
 
chommavong somphane said:
I don't see the point of why some body has to convince you to buy S-W.
If you don't see it as a better tool, that you can use to tell the story the way you want, then buy(you already have)the better one.
This post looks like you are up for argument.
Sorry for shim in, can't stand it.
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No one has to do anything, but some helpful people interested in addressing real practical concerns that I stated have been helpful in exploring solutions to some of the perceived drawbacks. One of the best things about RED is it's highly interested and active professional community and it's interest in sharing information. If you don't appreciate the power of a forum that allows us to share and debate over concerns and criticisms you certainly don't have to take part, especially if it offends you. It was not my intention to offend anyone but to discuss and get help from the experienced and educated community on these things that I would think any person interested in switching camera systems might be interested in. I have not seen some of these things addressed on this forum, or perhaps some are every few years but it's always nice to get an update and see how things have improved. It's not always easy keeping up with all the ever-changing capabilities and features of REDs product line.
 
Choose the right tools for the job Noah. That work with your budget.
reposting photos posted by John Brawley- John Seale on the set of Fury Road.
An additional sentence on my blog...
 

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Karl Kim said:
Choose the right tools for the job Noah. That work with your budget.
reposting photos posted by John Brawley- John Seale on the set of Fury Road.
An additional sentence on my blog...
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So that's one vote for Blackmagic Cinema Camera then? :P

I didn't realize they used those for anything other than the Snorricam shots.
 
Noah Yuan-Vogel said:
I didn't realize they used those for anything other than the Snorricam shots.
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Nor did I. Truth is John Seale can shoot whatever the hell he wants with Miller- most of us have to sustain a certain degree of producer comfort on every job.

If you have to buy media the Scarlet-W prices out the same as a Varicam LT with media- I have no idea if one camera would bring you more work than the other. We have, if nothing else, a ton of great choices to make these days on cameras- and lenses- and every piece of hardware.
 
I don't see how people can convince you to buy a scarlet-w if it already feels like you made up your mind. It's your decision and its your camera that will be working for your needs after all.
 
Big thing for me is size. The FS700 and 7Q just gets so damn unwieldy. Plus, I had my 7Q stop working once minutes before we were about to do a 4K 60fps shoot... I ended up having to go from 4K RAW down to AVCHD 1080p60 because the Odyssey quit working. Luckily it was just a passion project (music video) and not a client gig, but that's a steep cliff to fall of of in terms of quality and was one of the main reasons why I upgraded to the FS7. The better quality I can get in-camera, the safer I am.

Plus, I look forward to handing off footage that shows up saturated/contrasty when it's dropped into Premiere. I hand off footage occasionally and when asked if they want LOG or a burnt-in LUT, they always go "safe" and ask for LOG. Then I have to worry about getting them the right LUT, making sure their editor knows what the hell they are doing... Extra headache.

I'm interested in hearing thoughts on doc-style/run n gun stuff. One hurdle I know I'll have is that I'm so used to internal ND filters. I also have the dilemma of using Nikon glass, so I don't have the option of the motion mount. I've got an assortment of ND filters for my matte box but it's a pain in the ass to put filters in/out in a fast-paced doc setting. It also always requires a matte box unless I want to also buy and carry screw-on ND filters. Anyone have solutions for this? Or maybe a convenient way to keep filters in trays in a pouch for fast retrieval/removal?
 
Noah Yuan-Vogel said:
Here is what I'm talking about, Phil's 100% frame next to a 100% crop of a roughly graded shot with no sharpening or NR from my FS700+7Q shot in 4K Prores LT (don't mind the noise, this was night mostly available light rated in the ISO2000 range if I recall)


Click to view full size

To me the difference is pretty significant, maybe not even something 5k can compensate for... And I'd rather have the option of adding softness through filters or in post than being stuck with it and not being able to get sharp images for reframes etc. Also sometimes it seems like a bit of a waste to record so many pixels with so little detail in them.

This worries me for RAVEN users especially who are new to RED and may not realize their camera will deliver rather soft 4k and for Scarlet-W users like future myself who may have to mandate 5k to combat the softness but then not feel able to go past 50fps when I used to comfortably go to 60fps and 120fps with little downside.
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Well Noah, I'm curious and I want to understand!
These two images are Weapon 5k and these two images are native without adding sharpness in post production, which do you prefer and why?
Left or right?
And I'm sorry for the Jpeg compression :( , but you should see the difference!

bimbo2_zpseavbpq9q.jpg
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Jon Carr said:
I don't see how people can convince you to buy a scarlet-w if it already feels like you made up your mind. It's your decision and its your camera that will be working for your needs after all.
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This.
 
Josh Becker said:
I'm interested in hearing thoughts on doc-style/run n gun stuff. One hurdle I know I'll have is that I'm so used to internal ND filters. I also have the dilemma of using Nikon glass, so I don't have the option of the motion mount. I've got an assortment of ND filters for my matte box but it's a pain in the ass to put filters in/out in a fast-paced doc setting. It also always requires a matte box unless I want to also buy and carry screw-on ND filters. Anyone have solutions for this? Or maybe a convenient way to keep filters in trays in a pouch for fast retrieval/removal?
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a small set of 77mm screw in NDs are what i use for these situations, there is a tiffen affordable kit, plus you can learn what you use most in your situations and be ready to go, like if im shooting in bright daylight im almost riding something btwn a 2 stop pola or an nd9.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...sCFU6SfgodtBMJBQ&Q=&ap=y&m=Y&is=REG&A=details
 
Jon Carr said:
I don't see how people can convince you to buy a scarlet-w if it already feels like you made up your mind. It's your decision and its your camera that will be working for your needs after all.
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Perhaps you spend too much time with people who have made up their mind. I've never quite made up my mind which I find to be a blessing and a curse (just ask my wife). Which is to say I appreciate that some people are used to everyone just talking out into the internet trying to get validation for their minds being made up, but really if I wanted to do that I wouldn't have posted my question/request on reduser. But clearly this forum has the most knowledgeable people about RED cameras so it seemed like the ideal place to start a discussion about such specific concerns.

Frankly people implying that I've already made up my mind and am trying to stir up trouble sounds a bit like people are trying to get away from real discussion for whatever reason. I raised very specific points which I felt needed addressing and you're welcome to say "oh those things dont matter enough to me and here's why" or "oh I have solutions to some of those concerns and others are actually blessings, here's my viewpoint" but really saying "oh I think there's no helping you so I won't help but I just wanted you tell you how useless I think your thread is" seems a bit closed-minded... I know a lot of people may not have answers about my specifics or don't have time to respond and of course that's fine but you really don't have to respond if you're just going to question the whole premise of the thread.

I've also already got a pre-order so I'm mostly convinced, probably in a direction opposite of what you think... I know my thread sounds overly critical of RED cameras as I mentioned a few times, but every camera has it's downsides and the upsides speak for themselves to some degree especially on these forums, and it's very useful to think critically about the practical concerns of a camera I am going to be owning and invest substantial money and time into. Just looking for assistance on the specific points I mentioned. I know my needs are not everyone's needs but there is overlap and my needs are fluid as are many people's. Not to mention there may be a few on the forum who have similar needs to mine who could help me.
 
Josh Becker said:
Big thing for me is size. The FS700 and 7Q just gets so damn unwieldy. Plus, I had my 7Q stop working once minutes before we were about to do a 4K 60fps shoot... I ended up having to go from 4K RAW down to AVCHD 1080p60 because the Odyssey quit working. Luckily it was just a passion project (music video) and not a client gig, but that's a steep cliff to fall of of in terms of quality and was one of the main reasons why I upgraded to the FS7. The better quality I can get in-camera, the safer I am.
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I dunno my FS700+7Q package is pretty compact. I can fit it with extra lenses and all the batteries I need to run all day in a small backpack that fits under an airplane seat... I'd be interested to find a way to do that with a Scarlet-W since that would be great.

A lot of my caution and need for due diligence before buying RED again does also come from a similar hardware failure happening to me as well but with my Scarlet. I'm probably just unlucky but my Scarlet-X literally stopped working while setting up the first shot for two different jobs and ended up having to scramble for a DSLR to shoot on for the first one and drive back to get my Sony camera for the second. I like to think this won't happen again but that's a lot of bad luck with RED for me. That's gotta be about the most stressful thing that can happen to you on set, especially when it's your own camera package.

Josh Becker said:
Plus, I look forward to handing off footage that shows up saturated/contrasty when it's dropped into Premiere. I hand off footage occasionally and when asked if they want LOG or a burnt-in LUT, they always go "safe" and ask for LOG. Then I have to worry about getting them the right LUT, making sure their editor knows what the hell they are doing... Extra headache.
Click to expand...

YES. This is one of the big things that draws me to going back to RED. With Sony I basically have to deliver LOG most of the time and it's screwed me more than once. At least once a client fell in love with the SLOG2 look (Jon Carr, I think you were on that job!)... and sometimes editors just don't know what a LUT is and turn the saturation up and call it a day... arghhh
 
Sergio Perez said:
Thanks Scot, really appreciated :)
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I am not as nuts as those guys at Isle of man and the Macau Grand Prix...but I do like to go fast on the racetrack!
 
Noah, I hope you find clarity in making your decision. You're right you are completely within your rights and it's completely smart to voice concerns. No camera system is perfect. For me at least, "Talk me into keeping my Scarlet W" was kind of like..... No. But am glad to see you've been getting helped.
 
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