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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 :)

Tested Monstro vs. Helium

Looking at all this as lets say an owner/operator and you can make use of the 8k you have the following options.

Monstro $ 80k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + package to shoot $ 35k = $ 140k
Helium $ 50k + speedmount $ 5k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + package to shoot $ 35k = $ 115k
Epic-W $ 30k + speedmount $ 5k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + package to shoot $ 35k = $ 95k

Or when you don't need 8k and 4k+ would be enough.

AlexaLF + package to shoot $ 125k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k = $ 150K

UMP + package to shoot $ 11k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + sigma cine 18..35 $ 4k = $ 40k
 
Was curious if I could get the two to match by going through my current one-light workflow on Monstro first (as to not "grade down" to match Helium) and then tweaking Helium to get them more in line (grain reduction/regrain, green shadows/black level fix, added vignette). Figured I might as well post my findings here. Helium is already incredible, but Monstro is truly a step up. Especially considering it hits the ground running and doesn't need nearly as much work - huge time saver. The color fidelity in problematic lighting is impressive. But you'd expect so for another $30K-$50K more. I'd say it's worth the $30K if you're coming from a Weapon Helium and your company can swing it. Coming from Epic-W though, it'd be a lot harder of a choice for me, personally. Especially for those of us that got in at $20K.

Monstro:
40866108012_fb6bfecb9c_k.jpg

4K: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4795/40866108012_cbcb050f9c_o.png

Helium:
26035655497_eb6f50f4db_k.jpg

4K: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/822/26035655497_4621f6c596_o.png

RED just doesn't stop and I love it.

Edit:

Venice:
27057894618_ebe509f3f5_k.jpg


4K: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/816/27057894618_b7336e3bcf_o.png
 
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Most times those purple flaring lights looks quite cool. But when the burnout highlights gets sharp and in focus then it looks more like an error / bad color fringing. Something that makes me keep advicing people shooting helium: Make sure you dont expose so rgb stoplights goes on. On monstro the same highlights goes nicly into white, In a better way than I seen on any other camera.
 
Here's another solution to the sensor-matching problem -




Just kidding.


(Although it does raise the question of how noticeable the differences between sensors would be when less naturalistic grading is involved.)



Edit - Btw, beautiful comparison grade Aaron.
 
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Helium,Resolve Grade with noise reduction

Helium_Grade_6_1.1.3.jpg
 
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Taylor Morrison said:
That second to last chip on the grayscale at the bottom of the chart ...the one next to black...is very telling to me... the difference between the 2 cameras is quite visible down in the murky tones near black. Monstro is much improved.
Click to expand...

Yeah, at these ISO's, Monstro is the clear winner there. I typically shoot Helium at 320-800 (calibration 2) to either get out of the noise floor entirely or use it for an aesthetic. ISO 2000 on the new calibration is just a bit beyond the usable zone for 4K delivery for most applications. If you're going to leave it uncorrected, like Les showed earlier, you could probably get away with it for that "Social Network" look.

Wonder if I could finesse it a bit more for that near black color. My "green shadows fix" was a very general adjustment, I try not to get too specific with grading tools at first because you can break things really quickly.
 
Just more options with Monstro. Talent wearing dark clothing and you want to power window some detail out of it? It's going to be cleaner. That black car in the desert?...more and less noisy detail to selectively pull out. It is extremely rare or just about never that a correctly exposed image on any of these Dragon, Helium, or Monstro cameras will be problematic, but the Monstro really does just open up so many possibilities due to the larger sensor size and much cleaner performance. I am super stoked that I pulled the trigger on the Monstro.
 
I'll be completely honest here.
I pretty much hate RED cameras.
Strongly dislike their rendering for skin, etc.
And I truly hate the skull and macho marketing crap.

However, Monstro is the first sensor/camera where I say, "Wow", that looks just great.
It has taken them awhile, but I think they have finally arrived.
Kudos.
 
C. Burkhart said:
I'll be completely honest here.
I pretty much hate RED cameras.
Strongly dislike their rendering for skin, etc.
And I truly hate the skull and macho marketing crap.

However, Monstro is the first sensor/camera where I say, "Wow", that looks just great.
It has taken them awhile, but I think they have finally arrived.
Kudos.
Click to expand...

Dragon sensors have phenomenal skintones actually, particularly with the Standard OLPF. Though I'll agree with the skull logo and the marketing.
 
Misha Engel said:
Looking at all this as lets say an owner/operator and you can make use of the 8k you have the following options.

Monstro $ 80k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + package to shoot $ 35k = $ 140k
Helium $ 50k + speedmount $ 5k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + package to shoot $ 35k = $ 115k
Epic-W $ 30k + speedmount $ 5k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + package to shoot $ 35k = $ 95k

Or when you don't need 8k and 4k+ would be enough.

AlexaLF + package to shoot $ 125k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k = $ 150K

UMP + package to shoot $ 11k + sigma cine set of 7 lenses $ 25k + sigma cine 18..35 $ 4k = $ 40k
Click to expand...

The cool thing about Monstro is that you don't need very fast lenses. You could be very happy with a set of T2.8 primes. However, the Sigma primes are so cheap that you might not find a set of T2.8 lenses that are much cheaper, if at all. The Zeiss Compact Primes are probably slightly more expensive, for example. Alternatively, you could mount the CineAlta lenses onto a 1.4x TC, giving you VV coverage and a loss of one stop.
 
Amazing stuff here.

I am looking forward to the venice vs. monstro test
 
Aris_Gavriilidis said:
Dragon sensors have phenomenal skintones actually, particularly with the Standard OLPF. Though I'll agree with the skull logo and the marketing.
Click to expand...

Worked often with the Dragon. Never liked it for skin tones, whatever OLPF we used. Feel that the skin becomes quite wooden very fast unless we are very careful to hit the sweet spot. Loss of nuance otherwise. Never been a fan of orange faces. (Especially ones that run for president. But thats a different story. :-)
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
The cool thing about Monstro is that you don't need very fast lenses. You could be very happy with a set of T2.8 primes. However, the Sigma primes are so cheap that you might not find a set of T2.8 lenses that are much cheaper, if at all. The Zeiss Compact Primes are probably slightly more expensive, for example. Alternatively, you could mount the CineAlta lenses onto a 1.4x TC, giving you VV coverage and a loss of one stop.
Click to expand...

The cool thing about Epic-W is that you have more freedom in picking lenses, s35 and larger. When you want more light to the sensor you can put a speed mount on it with a FF or bigger lens.
When you have big customers who are willing to pay then Monstro, DXL2 or ARRI65 are the go to camera's, when your customer has a smaller budget you can still get amazing results with a Epic-W(+ a speedmount).
 
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