I know you posted this exact same thing before, I didn't respond because I felt like it would take things far off topic... but, I guess I'll blurb:
The footage that was posted, to my eyes, clearly illustrated major potential, beyond anything in the price range and definitely slightly above it. Regardless of it being beta, filled with noise, stuck pixels etc, the baseline that's missing from sub 15K cameras (and honestly, even SOME 15K cameras) was well-represented in the footage.
1. Motion characteristics. HYPER important. I mean how movement's rendered, cadence, so on and so forth. It is right out of the gate. This is me clinging to an old aesthetic? Then, so be it, because the motion is perfect to my eyes.
2. Dynamic Range. Clearly there. Not even sure I need to go on about this one.
3. Resolved Detail versus False detail (aliasing). I can find it in FS100 footage very easily, Gh2 footage very easily, F3 footage very easily. C300 has it, but seems to deal with it the best out of all of the sub 15K cameras (that I can think of). If you consider Scarlet 15k< then sure, Scarlet.
John used pretty substandard glass on the Bondi footage (Canon variable aperture zoom) and while it appears "soft" it sure as heck looks to be resolving more than enough, that is at least as much as any other sub 4K large sensor acquisition system out there. The charts will tell the tale, but you can see it in the stills people are posting after sharpening... I guess, well, here's one:
[click for 1080.PNG]
I am not a fan of sharpening anything, but after a few people beat on my opinion I decided to give it a whirl with some GH2 footage and have found a tolerable level of sharpening can actually make things better in a few departments. After that, I tried it on the stills that John posted.
Granted, it's not in motion, but I can't even tell that it was sharpened. Motion will be important for final judgement, again it's looking promising. This still, it's not the strongest grade, but that's originally a PNG or a JPEG? I can't remember. If you can move the image that far in a JPEG format, then the DNG is going to be pretty crazy. Which also brings up...
4. Color. Right now, I don't know a single camera that does well out of the box with color what does not cost in excess of 100K to own and operate. That's an Alexa. Even in these early examples, from an unbalanced sensor, the color in the raw's fairly promising. I expect it to get slightly better by the time the camera ships.
Now, there are a few things that need to be addressed (when considering image), amongst those are noise performance and rolling shutter--which is being reported as bad and some people say it's much better than any DSLR on the market. I'm more concerned about noise performance.
It won't be an FS camera in the noise department, nor a C300. The buy-in may be low but the post can get pretty pricey and laborious. No higher framerates, that's like standard on any camera now isn't it? I wager the reason why the buzz is so high is probably because of the specs and pricepoint, won't even fool myself into thinking otherwise...
However, to me (which means I'm not stating fact, just how I see it), the footage and stills showed a lot of potential. At the base, if that was the image released today at 2.8K street price, then I might have to second guess purchasing. Knowing that it's going to get a slight bit better after it's all said and done, I'm just glad I got in a pre-order the next morning after it was announced.
Anyway, that's my take on it. Again, I've used the FS700 and I think it's a pretty sweet camera, lots of functions that I know a ton of people will love and use to death. It's well made, built-in NDs are a joy, I have nothing bad to say about it. Just, I can see why people are being cautious right now.
No need to shoot yourself. Take a step back and - don't buy anything. Not until you need it.
And when you NEED it, then buy the best that's available that suits your needs. It doesn't matter what's coming later, because that's later, and you need it now, so -- get the best that's available now.
And if you don't need it now, why spend the dough? Something "better" will always, always come along. So don't buy until you need it. And when you need it, get the best that's available for your situation and STOP SHOPPING.
. Either go big or go bust, I say. But the reasoning for this was simple: I knew something better would come along. The only company that provided me a possible upgrade path was RED. Now i could go Scarlet which was also a good Idea, but i would miss the frame rates. Red offers a modular design. By this it means you will be able to upgrade the camera as time goes by by purchasing modules. Right now the camera has a very good form factor. I really like it. The support gear I had for my HVX and DSLR's work well with it. I had a problem with the relative fast power drainage with the camera, but just now they introduced a Dual battery module, which lets me keep the relatively small form factor and allow me to have 3 batteries at the same time. Love the modularity concept. I think Panasonic got the idea with their modular new camera prototype. John used pretty substandard glass on the Bondi footage (Canon variable aperture zoom) and while it appears "soft" it sure as heck looks to be resolving more than enough, that is at least as much as any other sub 4K large sensor acquisition system out there. The charts will tell the tale, but you can see it in the stills people are posting after sharpening... I guess, well, here's one:
[click for 1080.PNG]
