Has the DSLR Hybrid craze effectively killed the desire for a Red Scarlet camera?

[Finnegan]

I can show you still lenses that cost a fraction of what your 16mm primes costs that are every bit as good optically as the majority of those 16mm lenses, and I CAN OWN THEM - without having to spend anywhere near the price of the set from RED...

Do you know why it is most people who shoot on the Canon 5D or 7D forgo the option to choose higher quality still lenses like Zeiss, aside from price? The reason is that the jump in quality from Canon to Zeiss is only evident in still, RAW format photographs and not in H.264 compressed 1080p video files, even AFTER converting them to Apple Prores. My point here is that yes, I am well aware still lenses exist in the market that are cheaper than 16mm cine prime lenses, but you are ignoring the fact that still lenses from Canon or Nikon would very likely not resolve the amount of detail at 3K resolution in RAW format. The industry chooses CINE lenses for that particular purpose, NOT still lenses. And, in the industry we rent things.

The way forward is clearly not 2/3", it is micro 4/3", S35 and FF35. No way would I invest in 16mm prime lenses at this point in the game.. The Scarlet 2/3" system risks going the way of the dinasours as far as I and a lot of other people are concerned. Panasonic, Canon and others have clearly left the 2/3" sensor behind, and the issues related to aliasing, moire etc. on the larger sensors will only continue to be hammered away at.

Avatar was shot on a 2/3 camera, and according to most people, that film is going to be the leading example of what technology is capable of as we go forward. I don't think that 2/3 is dying out at all, because look at ALL of the films that were produced on that particular format even in the past year - a bunch of high budget blockbuster films, and the most successful film ever made in the history of filmmaking. To assert that the format of Avatar is "going the way of the dinasour" months after it shattered filmmaking records and technological standards is...extremely pretentious.

Lastly, Canon and Panasonic still manufacture and promote prosumer/professional HD cameras that are not HDSLRs - namely the XH-A1 or XH-G1 from Canon or the HPX-170 or HPX3000 from Panasonic. Clearly, Canon and Panasonic have not "left behind" other formats totally in favor of the larger sensor HDSLRs.

No way a small 2/3" captor can compete. Absolutely no way.

Avatar. And countless other films.

Let's face it, RED has marketed itself to INDIE FILMMAKERS. These people by definition need to do things cheaply.

Yes, but as Barry pointed out, there is a differece between micro-budget/no budget and independent filmmakers. And I believe that RED is not going after "soccer moms" and wedding videographers at this point in the game.

 

[Michael Carter]

This really turned into a can-o-worms, didn't it?

Saw a thread on DVXuser today with a link about the guys shooting b-camera for "24" with Canons. They state that they're talking direct to Canon engineering, that Canon is "listening", and that the next 12 months will hold some exciting surprises.

Take it with a grain of salt, but seems to be more than Nikon is up to.

Look, I held on to my DVX for years because nothing was available that I felt gave me the same bang for the buck. Hemmed & hawed over the HVX, but that DOF... those adapters.

Now I shoot a lot of Canon video (and christ, I'm a Nikon guy!). Looks like I'll be gluing viewfinders on or investing in the latest rube-goldberg-attacho-matic, and likely going the firmware-XLR box route.

Hell yeah, give me a fixed Scarlett. I'll still have my Canons & D90 & DVX if I need 'em. But $4700 (last I read, weeks back) for good DOF and all those goodies...

...AND 120 FPS BURST RATE???? Can Twixtor come close to that with 60p??? (OK, a special need, but man, I want it... esp. since the money I never spent on an HVX & a Letus would have me covered...)

This discussion could easily go on for months. We have very little say in what will finally be manufactured. But I shot a spot with a 550d & Nikon adapter the other day, and the client was like "where's the panavision rig???" My mind is still a little blown by what an $800 body can achieve.

I bitched like crazy about shooting with a D90, but right now... these are not bad times to be shooting.

 

[Mister Stocks]

All I have to say is 120fps 3k RAW. I have always cared so much more about color and flexibility in post than I have ever cared about lowlight performance or sensor size. Red delivers on that. I can make 2/3 shallow cheaply. Making s35 deep in a dark hallway... no thanks.

 

[morgan_moore]

on the 2/3

I think I have something called Letus gathering dust in my shed

I cant remember excatly what it does but if I remember rightly it could be hooked up to my 2/3 camera and Id get FF35 DOF ?

put on an 800ISO raw shootering compact body it could be a good thing

S

 

[Martti Ekstrand]

Avatar was shot on a 2/3 camera

“One of the things that was really tricky for me was the 2/3-inch-chip 3-D cameras’ extended depth-of-field,” he says. “It’s a lot like the depth-of-field you get with 16mm. It’s really difficult to throw things out of focus and help guide the audience’s eye. Shallow depth-of-field is an interesting dilemma in 3-D, because you need to see the depth to lend objects a dimensionality, but if you have too much depth-of-field and too much detail in the background, your eye wanders all over the screen, and you’re not sure what to look at. I had to find new ways to direct the audience’s eye to the right part of the frame, and we accomplished that through lighting and set dressing."

From American Cinematographer, January 2010 - Vol 91, No 1.

 

[Ian-T]

While I understand the use of the movie "Avatar" as an example to expand on the point for the use of 2/3 cameras I have to remind myself that most of that movie took place in a virtual world. Much of what we were looking at wasn’t even there. If anything a better example I think would be “Slumdog Millionaire.”

 

[philiplipetz]

This is absolutely correct, but I think it's an unhealthy perspective to maintain in the face of technology that has so many different things to offer. As you said, it seems like sensor size and therefore shallow depth of field is all the craze right now because people seem to think its absolutely key to the elusive "film look" - so they go onto the internet and try to find out how to get that shallow depth of field, and they end up fueling markets like the 35mm adapters and such. And that's not a bad thing. My point is that I think that most people would be satisfied with the depth of field on a 16mm camera, and therefore they'd be satisfied with the depth of field on Scarlet, or any other 2/3 camera.

In my opinion, there's a large market of people who have, before doing any practical research, already convinced themselves that nothing less than APS-C or S35 sized sensors will do because of what they've read on the internet, when in reality a large majority of them would be pleased with the amount of depth of field that 2/3 cameras offer.

The above is a screenshot that M. David Mullen, ASC, posted on the REDuser forums. It's from a feature film he shot on the Sony F-900 called The Quiet. According to Mullen, that's at F2.8 - and the depth of field looks perfectly shallow to me. Of course, Barry, I'm sure you're well aware of the ability of 2/3 chip cameras as far as depth of field but I'm mainly just pointing it out as a general thing.

When I look at 3D movies I see the possible end of the shallow depth of field craze. 3D films have very deep depth of field. So will we look at shallow depth of field in a few years and think that is an antiquated look?

BTW I agree with most of Ebert's criticism of 3D films, but that is not likely to stop something that increases gross income as much as do 3D surcharges.

 

[greymog]

One can have both for under 10k. Owned. I would pay 4700 for a fixed lens scarlet, and 3000 on a 5DII plus support, lenses and accessories will bring it up to 10.

Not bad, and an interesting mix i think aesthetically. Using a 5d for incredibly wide and or incredibly shallow effect, and counting on the RED to take the beatings of an action sequence.

I don't see the reason for the two to fight, as I think the next best option would be something that costs more than a fixed lens scarlet and a dslr combined.

And what's out is out. I mean a goal's a goal right?

If anything I can fairly say that DSLR's really helped in deciding whether to go for a fixed lens scarlet or a interchangeable lens brain... with a little bit of cleverness I'm certain that the footage can mix if it's intended to and the tasks are divided intelligently between cameras.

This is of course a decision I'd make if and when these products come out.

I will say that we are allowed at this point to say if. But we're ok if we're shooting and not waiting I guess is the lesson I learned on dvx.

 

[Jesse Brauning]

Personally, I don't think Scarlet, the AF-100 or anything above $3K is the best value anymore unless you have a business and it can pay for itself really fast.]

Why would anyone who didn't own a business buy a professional camera for more than $3k anyway? Talk about pouring money down a drain.

 

[Barry_Green]

Why would anyone who didn't own a business buy a professional camera for more than $3k anyway? Talk about pouring money down a drain.

It's not really our place to dictate what anyone else does with their money. If $3k was the cutoff point, there never would have been a DVXUser in the first place, because the original DVX cost more than $3000!

People are free to buy whatever they want, for whatever reasons that they have. Not all those decisions have to make sense to us, they just have to make sense for the person who's spending the money.

If a person enjoys making video art, and has no intention of ever selling it, then that wouldn't actually be a "business", but if it's a passion for them and they really, really like the look and the ergonomics and the functionality they get out of an EX3 or an HD100, why shouldn't they go ahead and buy it?

 

[Erik Olson]

From American Cinematographer, January 2010 - Vol 91, No 1."...I had to find new ways to direct the audience’s eye to the right part of the frame, and we accomplished that through lighting and set dressing."

God forbid filmmakers should dress and then light a set. I thought 35mm adapters and the DSLRs had killed the entire art department with shallow DOF.

The art directors and props people in my family will be happy to hear that there is still some need to have more than bare, white, exceedingly out-of-focus apartment walls in the background of everything they shoot.

Hold on, I need to rack focus from my keyboard to my monitor to see what I've written...

and...

I'm good!

 

[Barry_Green]

Smart aleck.

But, actually -- the shallow DOF has certainly helped the art department! For a while, with 2/3" (or smaller) chips, it meant that your sets had to look that much better, because they were always going to be that much more in focus. It's utterly amazing what you can get away with in the background, if the focus is just soft enough...

 

[Erik Olson]

I heard a load of complaining when certain shows went to Genesis / F23. Told them to get a better art department and that the camera dept. was tired of hiding their laziness.

 

[Barry_Green]

I'm sure. But hey, now the laziness is back! I've shot on some amazingly low-tech sloppy hack sets that looked brilliant. Heck, look at "O2"; that set was made of tripod cases and styrofoam hamburger boxes...

 

[JayGannon]

Sorry, but your "awesome" 16mm prime sets count in the tens of thousands, the still lens market counts in the tens of millions. That pretty much counts as "multitudes" for me. I can show you still lenses that cost a fraction of what your 16mm primes costs that are every bit as good optically as the majority of those 16mm lenses, and I CAN OWN THEM - without having to spend anywhere near the price of the set from RED.

The way forward is clearly not 2/3", it is micro 4/3", S35 and FF35. No way would I invest in 16mm prime lenses at this point in the game.. The Scarlet 2/3" system risks going the way of the dinasours as far as I and a lot of other people are concerned. Panasonic, Canon and others have clearly left the 2/3" sensor behind, and the issues related to aliasing, moire etc. on the larger sensors will only continue to be hammered away at.

As for projection, I think it's pretty clear by the most recent tests posted on the Zacuto site that there are already some HDSLR's which look great projected at ISO 2000 and far, far beyond. No way a small 2/3" captor can compete. Absolutely no way.

You speak about different markets. THIS is the market for Scarlet. Scarlet is not about shooting ENG news pieces. It's about digital filmmaking.

It's very convenient of you to exclude price as an issue by simply saying it's an invalid argument. On the contrary it's the most valid argument there is for poking a hole in the Scarlet balloon, which has deflated rapidly. Cheap costs DO count or you and most of the others here would be interested in chatting about an EPIC not a Scarlet.

Let's face it, RED has marketed itself to INDIE FILMMAKERS. These people by definition need to do things cheaply. The new EPIC may be going Hollywood, but the Scarlet was definitely meant for us. It is clear to me that Jannard wasn't upset when he heard about the 5D Mark II for nothing, and he still has not come to market with his response to it.

I can buy a serviced Angenieux Zoom for 1100 dollars.

http://cgi.ebay.com/PL-Mount-Super-...ViewItem&pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item439f3677ee

I can buy a full set of t1.3 Super Speeds for 18k and get a fere Zoom.
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=45045&highlight=Super

Thats
7, 8, 9.5,12,16,25, 35, 50mm + Zoom.

If that ain't affordable your in the wrong game.

I think people have forgot that an indy film is anything self financed at under about 2 million dollars. SAG has a designated Micro Budget at 200,000. Film-making ain't cheap, never gonna be. The quicker people realise that the faster you'll start making beautiful pictures.

Everyone goes on about Robert and Shane shooting on 5d, yes but they back that up with beautiful lighting and grip work, and fantastic post production.
You think Gale Tatterstal shot available light and blew out the backgrounds with shallow DoF because they couldnt afford to dress a set? Your wrong it was a creative choice.

However if your buying a 5d thinking that its going to be your only investment and your going to laucnh your career off something shot at f1.4 with no talent (Actors) no sets, no dressing, no lighting, no post production, no colorist, no sound guy, no other investment, I'm sorry to burst your bubble guys but its not going to happen. The only people that have the RAW talent to do that are already out shooting, they shot on whatever they could get their hands on they lit a set beautifully and are now making movies. Their not arguing about the pro's and cons of a camera, their shooting with whatever allows them to make pictures they like.

(Disclaimer before someone says well why are you on a forum arguing, I don't shoot, I work in post.)

 

[William_Robinette]

I think they were intended to be, yes. But Red's recent attitude towards that group makes me wonder if they really want that customer or not.

Just from reading the amount of crap, harassment, and FUD on REDuser from this very group of people makes me wonder if those microbudget cinema makers didn't make their own bed in this regard. :lipsrseal

 

[Erik Olson]

Kit-bashing is very much safe in the brave, "new" HDDSLR-enabled Hollywood.

 

[yoclay]

I can buy a serviced Angenieux Zoom for 1100 dollars.

http://cgi.ebay.com/PL-Mount-Super-...ViewItem&pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item439f3677ee

I can buy a full set of t1.3 Super Speeds for 18k and get a fere Zoom.
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=45045&highlight=Super

Thats
7, 8, 9.5,12,16,25, 35, 50mm + Zoom.

If that ain't affordable your in the wrong game.

I think people have forgot that an indy film is anything self financed at under about 2 million dollars. SAG has a designated Micro Budget at 200,000. Film-making ain't cheap, never gonna be. The quicker people realise that the faster you'll start making beautiful pictures.

Everyone goes on about Robert and Shane shooting on 5d, yes but they back that up with beautiful lighting and grip work, and fantastic post production.
You think Gale Tatterstal shot available light and blew out the backgrounds with shallow DoF because they couldnt afford to dress a set? Your wrong it was a creative choice.

However if your buying a 5d thinking that its going to be your only investment and your going to laucnh your career off something shot at f1.4 with no talent (Actors) no sets, no dressing, no lighting, no post production, no colorist, no sound guy, no other investment, I'm sorry to burst your bubble guys but its not going to happen. The only people that have the RAW talent to do that are already out shooting, they shot on whatever they could get their hands on they lit a set beautifully and are now making movies. Their not arguing about the pro's and cons of a camera, their shooting with whatever allows them to make pictures they like.

(Disclaimer before someone says well why are you on a forum arguing, I don't shoot, I work in post.)

Great you've spent 20K on a set of lenses, and I guarantee you I can match them in optical quality for about 3.5K with my 5D using lenses for the still market, many from that very same manufacturer.

If that is not a Scarlet killer I don't know what is.

Don't tell me I'm in the wrong game just because I happen to disagree with you about dropping 20k on lenses. In fact I doubt there are many here willing or able to do that. Are they all in the wrong game as well?

I'm not a soccer mom or a wedding photographer either. By the way, I personally find these references of yours as well as "being sorry to burst our bubble" as "pretentious" as it comes, since you have used that word previously.

I find it laughable that you need to designate a certain sum as Indie Filmmaking and others as Micro-budget, etc. Indie Filmmaking for me is anything outside of the conventional Hollywood system whether it costs $1 or $10 million. Indie filmaking is not just a dollar amount, it's a point of view.

If you have set out to prove that there is not even one single thing that the 7D/5D has on the Scarlet, which is what you said in your first post and which I have respnded to, then I think there will be absolutely nothing that anyone can say here to remove that concept. That for me is the definition of a prejudice.


EDIT: Don't know how I managed to do it, but I managed to mix two different post-ers up here: Finnegan and Jay Gannon and put them in the same bag. Perhaps it was my misperception of their similarities in tone. My apologies.

 

[Zak Forsman]

if anyone wants to get personal and take jabs at each other, find another venue. it isn't going to fly here. chill or be chilled, understand?

 

[thisisapocalypse]

It might be possible to match in terms of pure optical quality with Canon L Glass a set of Zeiss primes, but for $3.5K you certainly can't get all of those focal lengths at t/1.3, cine lenses are quite different so it's sort of difficult to compare them directly to Canon lenses especially when you're talking full frame, since cine lenses are designed for either S16/S35 so they can create lenses that are faster/wider than is possible for full frame 35mm due to the smaller image circle.

It's not just about how it looks once it's in focus, however, it's about using the lens day-to-day, if you don't need to pull focus while shooting, I agree that you that things would be comparable, but if you do need to pull focus while shooting, and you're doing it for a living or at least a side-business (which arguably anyone buying a Scarlet will be), you really want the best tools for the job and there's a reason cine lenses and still lenses are different - the price premium on cine lenses is massive, but they are also very specific tools and made in small quantities, if you're talking Zeiss you're also talking real West German made lenses - not something mass produced which even a Canon L would be - it doesn't mean that it's necessarily better in terms of IQ, but it's a reason for the price premium, and a lot of R&D is put into cine lenses which then gets passed on to still lenses, cine lenses are where these companies recoup their costs, but it's not like the lenses aren't worth it. If you're doing this as a business, a one time initial investment of $20K for lenses isn't so bad and could be made back fairly quickly.

I am curious as to what Canon lens package for $3.5K would be comparable to that set of Zeiss Superspeeds at $18K...

You'd need the Canon:

24mm f/1.4
35mm f/1.4
50mm f/1.2
85mm f/1.2

That's well more than $3.5K

And that still doesn't cover an 18mm.

Obviously you might want to change things up given the sensor size differences between the Scarlet and the 5D, it's just a bit unfair to compare a kit that would likely contain a 24-70 f/2.8 L zoom to a set of Zeiss Super Speeds - yeah it's a good lens and will cover those focal lengths and be brilliant at it, but building an f/2.8 is a vastly different exercise than building an 18mm at t/1.2 good enough for the big screen.

I honestly don't know where so much animosity comes from on these forums - given one's situation, who *wouldn't* want to shoot on a set of Zeiss Super Speeds on a Scarlet? Maybe it's not right for you, your budget, your projects, etc., but geez, it would still be a very cool package for the right projects.

I think more folks than many of the posters here realize are doing this for a living which carries a very different mindset when it comes to this sort of thing than a hobbyist or someone just getting started with no $$, not in the industry but who wants to make their first film- but I don't get the criticism of the gear that pros are going to use, because at that level even if something is only marginally better in any respect, it's gonna be much more expensive, but ultimately, still worth it.