Liam Hall
Veteran
Dragon is fantastic, no question, but it is not a doco cam, and a fully rigged out set-up with media is going to be a lot more $$$$.
There's a place for both. And others.
Arri AMIRA
- Thread starter sebben
- Start date
Dragon is fantastic, no question, but it is not a doco cam, and a fully rigged out set-up with media is going to be a lot more $$$$.
There's a place for both. And others.
ryankroboth
New member
Ok, seriously, of all arguments that RED users love to use, this is quite possibly the one that irks me the most, and I see it all too often. I have been shooting in standard HD for quite some time, and the footage I produce looks great, it's stable, it's framed right, and you know why? Because I planned it that way! All too often 4k is used as a crutch to "fix" footage that should have otherwise been done right the first time. Advances in technology are just making filmmakers increasingly lazy. All of the tools already exist to make a pristine image; for stabilization we have all sorts of tools like dollies, jibs, Steadicams, and now the Movi, there should be no need to further stabilize an image created by any of these if they were properly set up or balanced, and then of course operated by someone experienced. And don't get me started on "low light" cameras, the Dragon boasts its lowlight, but tell me, who the hell is going to have a $30k body-only Epic Dragon and use it in a scenario where they aren't using lights? Have all the resolution and ISO you want, but the key to making an image look spectacular is the lighting, so it shouldn't matter if your camera goes to only ISO 1200 or 30,000. Yes, docs sometimes don't have the luxury of being able to light anything, but a native ISO of 800 is plenty to get by if you have decent lenses (in Skyfall, shot on the Alexa, the outdoor Casino shots were lit entirely by small chinese lanterns, the camera was cranked to i believe 1600ISO, the lenses were at t1.3, and it looked absolutely beautiful).
My whole point tho, is that resolution is not everything, as some people like to believe. There is a reason that almost every TV show already shoots on the Alexa, and a large number of feature films do as well, and that reason is the ease of use, workflow, and most importantly, the image. Arri firmly believes they don't need 4k to make an image look astonishing, and they have proved that in their previous work(that Skyfall showing I saw was blown up to IMAX btw, as a 2.5k negative getting a big boost, there was no quality issues). Not everyone wants raw to work with, storage may be cheaper, but it still isn't cheap, and the workflow is DEFINITELY slower. I think Game of Thrones is the only TV show to utilize raw, everyone else is happy with the ProRes, and for good reason.
To sum this up, yes this camera looks incredible for what it can do. Do I believe it's going to be cheap? Absolutely not. Same sensor as Alexa with a higher frame rate and other added options (while losing some others), I'd guess it will sit somewhere between the Alexa HD and regular Alexa in price. This is a camera not aimed at owner/operators, this is just Arri's move to further their saturation of the high professional market by tapping into documentaries.
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Fair points. In Europe, 4k is a long way off, especially in terms of the investment required from satellite broadcasters and their internal post production departments. The Amira looks like the perfect cam for the next ten years for me.
ripupthehwy
Well-known member
And just wait till these features (and more) are available at consumer prices. People claiming to be filmmakers will barely even have the camera pointed in the right direction. They will depend and the cameras incredible low light, auto focusing (what a joke), a host of other "auto" features, and the fact they can resize & crop their 8K image in post to their liking. It will be more like home movies that look like feature films, but the story, audio, production design, etc will all be total crap. ha!
Michael Schrengohst
Well-known member
Heh, you are talking about most of the "director/producer" types that I have been editing with lately!!!!
evilthought
Well-known member
I don't know about "faster" claim.
XQD 2.0 will deliver data speeds of 1,000 MB/s (via PCI Express 3.0), is backward compatible with XQD 1.0 (and PCI Express 1 & 2), and improved power management (5mW standby)
Sheldon Charron
Well-known member
I have been a strong Canon supporter since the mid 80's and their film cameras, to digital, the XL-1 for video and so on. When the 5D came out, I was a huge DSLR supporter for video and a Canon video supporter. Unlike the 5D crowd, I embraced the 7D and took a lot of flack early on for championing it over the 5D because I found most people weren't good enough to pull the focus that the razor thin DOF made critical. I liked being able to shoot at 2.8 and still have most of the face in focus in case the talent swayed or didn't hit the mark perfectly and saw a lot of soft footage when using the 5D. I had the opportunity to shoot on RED regularly early on, but didn't because the first time I used it, it took three days and way more people than what we could shoot in one day with the 7D. Then there was the processing of the footage.
Now things are much different. Adobe After Affects can play Red Files natively without a card on most current MacBook Pros. I have started working with RED Epics on commercials and loved the fact that you could review that RAW footage immediately, even in slow motion, and I think the most important part that I think was mentioned above that seems to be misunderstood by the people who responded, is that you can take that image and crop to ZOOM IN. So you shoot a medium shot and pull your super tight closeups from that, just as you would shoot RAW timelapse photos on a 5D and use Final Cut or AE to pan and zoom in playback because the images are so large you can get away with it. One take and one setup instead of two. Yes you can do that! And yes it has great slow motion!
And....if I had known that in the early days, I might have changed my idea on the RED. With workflow getting easier and the Dragon now having so much more dynamic range, I really think that I will use the RED more and more, and will eventually buy one or more for my company.
Now things are much different. Adobe After Affects can play Red Files natively without a card on most current MacBook Pros. I have started working with RED Epics on commercials and loved the fact that you could review that RAW footage immediately, even in slow motion, and I think the most important part that I think was mentioned above that seems to be misunderstood by the people who responded, is that you can take that image and crop to ZOOM IN. So you shoot a medium shot and pull your super tight closeups from that, just as you would shoot RAW timelapse photos on a 5D and use Final Cut or AE to pan and zoom in playback because the images are so large you can get away with it. One take and one setup instead of two. Yes you can do that! And yes it has great slow motion!
And....if I had known that in the early days, I might have changed my idea on the RED. With workflow getting easier and the Dragon now having so much more dynamic range, I really think that I will use the RED more and more, and will eventually buy one or more for my company.
David W. Jones
Veteran
No No No No No!
This just flat out looks like a bad jump cut when you do this.
Sheldon Charron
Well-known member
Lol. It doesn't have to be from the same take, and you don't have to cut it that way. Say you start on medium on actor A, then cut in footage of actor B responding, then you cut back to a cropped in closeup of actor A again. it's done all the time in commercials. Perhaps less so in narrative. Of course if you have time, shoot everything separately. And you can also close a shot in tighter entirely if you feel it's too wide when you get into the editing room, if you're only delivering for HD. When time is of the essence, and time is money, it's pretty nice to have that option IMO.
David W. Jones
Veteran
I guess I'm a little different bird then, cause when I need to quickly turn a spot for HD delivery on a limited budget, I'm not shooting raw 4K and reframing in post.
starcentral
Veteran
When you are the hired DOP on a modest budgeted film and a shot is to be static but the actor misses his mark when he enters the frame and everything else (delivery of performance, lines, timing, sound) was perfect you will insist to the director to shoot it again repeatedly until the actor stops exactly where you want in the frame - or you will re-position the frame in post?
ryankroboth
New member
Well, if the actor misses his mark that badly, you have much bigger problems than where he sits in the frame, and no crop is going to fix that. Decently budgeted films usually have art direction directly in line of where the actor is going to end, so a crop-in isn't going to fix the possibility of a plant sticking out of someone's head, or a leading line that doesn't match up what-so-ever. If the end mark was seriously off from where it was supposed to be, then yeah you should reshoot (dependent on context of emotion in scene, time for re-setup, and how much time is actually available), because it's going to screw up whatever the art department slaved away on, not to mention if they miss their mark, there is a strong possibility they could miss where the light is meant to hit for the shot to look good.
Now if it's a minor miss, scratch all that, you live with a slightly-off framing, or yes, you can zoom in. But you don't need 4k for that, even in 8bit 1080 you can still get away with a modest increase without losing a terrible amount of quality. The crutch I speak is mainly for this "reframing" business that was mentioned earlier, as in, "Mmm, this is a MS, but I really wish this could be a CU" "Hey! My footage is 4k, let's just ridiculously punch in." Plan, prepare, and you won't have to worry about ever dramatically reframing a shot in post, period.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
In the first project I shot on RED back in December '07, we ran out of time on a scene before shooting closeups and I pitched to director McG that we could extract punch-ins from the other-the-shoulder shots, which he loved. I'd only read about it, but it seemed logical. Took me hours of messing around in the then-nascent RED software to get it done but it worked. Hilariously, the job was posted to the web at 360p where it lives to this day--4K to 1/3K??? think about how tight we COULD have cropped in!
Earlier this year I directed a piece shot on Scarlets, and found myself having to do another such punch-in when circumstances forced it. This time with a more critical eye I discovered that while the resolution was OK, the resulting noise in the blown-up frame was quite objectionable and I had to go through hoops to denoise it, then sharpen as it had gotten too soft etc. Makes sense: you blow up the frame, you blow up the noise. Funny things is that I never hear anyone mention that in what otherwise would seem to be a "free" close-up.
It's a nice parlor trick to have and even with the best of intentions, we are regularly blowing up 1080 shots here and there to as much as 120% because of unforeseen issues. Still, I agree that it shouldn't be relied upon--however I feel the same way about a lot of the shortcuts that are being taken by newer filmmakers, and if I meowed about all of them, I'd just sound like a crusty ol' schoolteacher. PIcking my battles!
Earlier this year I directed a piece shot on Scarlets, and found myself having to do another such punch-in when circumstances forced it. This time with a more critical eye I discovered that while the resolution was OK, the resulting noise in the blown-up frame was quite objectionable and I had to go through hoops to denoise it, then sharpen as it had gotten too soft etc. Makes sense: you blow up the frame, you blow up the noise. Funny things is that I never hear anyone mention that in what otherwise would seem to be a "free" close-up.
It's a nice parlor trick to have and even with the best of intentions, we are regularly blowing up 1080 shots here and there to as much as 120% because of unforeseen issues. Still, I agree that it shouldn't be relied upon--however I feel the same way about a lot of the shortcuts that are being taken by newer filmmakers, and if I meowed about all of them, I'd just sound like a crusty ol' schoolteacher. PIcking my battles!
morgan_moore
Major Contributor
To me 4k is mainly for 'marketing images'
Now web site images are often extremely wide and you might want an upright for a fashion store application.. of the same shot
Nothing to do with bad framing but this needs some res to provide both shots.
I dont see the lack of 4k as an ommission from the Arri however.
S
Now web site images are often extremely wide and you might want an upright for a fashion store application.. of the same shot
Nothing to do with bad framing but this needs some res to provide both shots.
I dont see the lack of 4k as an ommission from the Arri however.
S
bill totolo
Veteran
Sorry David, I have to disagree with this statement. B4 mount lenses have a solid foothold in EFP for a reason. The range, optical quality and lightweight design built into these lenses are purpose designed for docu/factual/EFP shooting which can't be replicated in PL lenses (so far as I know). I'll happily rent a Fujinon 14x4.5BERM Wide Angle and shoot everything from Survivor to Burning man with it.
Cheers,
OK, thoughts about zoom lenses for S35 cameras.
My FS100 has an 18-200 zoom that fits the S35 sensor. There's a model of this lens with a servo zoom motor. Certainly it's not the best zoom out there, it's pretty slow at f3.5 - 6.3, but it's small and the zoom range isn't bad. And it's cheap, around $1,000. This same lens will work on an FS700.
So, why can't there be a dedicated S35 power zoom that won't cost over $30,000? Didn't Sony make one for the F3 for about $10,000?
I'm thinking there could be a market for a power zoom that doesn't necessarily need to be 4K capable, yet covers an S35 sensor. Make it the same size and weight as a 2/3" B4 mount zoom, hopefully with a similar price point. It doesn't have to have a long zoom range, or be the fastest as far as aperture. The large sensor should deliver a clean image, even with a slower lens. The 18-200 has to be dialed down to about f22 to get close to any kind of usable image in bright sunlight, without any ND filters. With ND filters, even a slow zoom should be very useful.
A lower cost power zoom would make entry into the Amira market a possibility for many owner/operators without big budgets, assuming the Amira is around the $20,000 mark (not likely, imho).
What am I missing here? Trade range and speed for price point?
My FS100 has an 18-200 zoom that fits the S35 sensor. There's a model of this lens with a servo zoom motor. Certainly it's not the best zoom out there, it's pretty slow at f3.5 - 6.3, but it's small and the zoom range isn't bad. And it's cheap, around $1,000. This same lens will work on an FS700.
So, why can't there be a dedicated S35 power zoom that won't cost over $30,000? Didn't Sony make one for the F3 for about $10,000?
I'm thinking there could be a market for a power zoom that doesn't necessarily need to be 4K capable, yet covers an S35 sensor. Make it the same size and weight as a 2/3" B4 mount zoom, hopefully with a similar price point. It doesn't have to have a long zoom range, or be the fastest as far as aperture. The large sensor should deliver a clean image, even with a slower lens. The 18-200 has to be dialed down to about f22 to get close to any kind of usable image in bright sunlight, without any ND filters. With ND filters, even a slow zoom should be very useful.
A lower cost power zoom would make entry into the Amira market a possibility for many owner/operators without big budgets, assuming the Amira is around the $20,000 mark (not likely, imho).
What am I missing here? Trade range and speed for price point?
morgan_moore
Major Contributor
I guess it will happen sony have just launched an 18-100F4 for $500 which I assume has the build quality of a tin can full of marbles, fuiji had it right at $34k, hopefully someone will see a hole for a midpoint lens $5k, T4
(this will look exactly the same as a 2/3 in lens on a 2/3 camera or a 2/3 lens on a S35 cam with a converter)
S
(this will look exactly the same as a 2/3 in lens on a 2/3 camera or a 2/3 lens on a S35 cam with a converter)
S
david.rhsc
Member
Fair enough. Admittedly you'd have to carry both DP Rouge zooms (for example) to replicate the range of some of the B4 lenses, so I can definitely see the case. A little of the size advantage is lost (looking at the B4 adapter for the f55 as an example) with the adapter, but not enough to really make that much of a difference I suppose. I was mostly talking to myself out loud, weighing the "what to own vs. what to rent" options.
The nice thing here is that there are plenty of options for lowering the entry barrier on the camera. Showing it off with the Cabrio is great for camera porn, but there are definitely more practical options, given the swappable mounts.
Thanks! Much appreciated.