RED Epic Dragon - currently the best camera?

[bobhope]

We just got our first few DRAGON's in house. And while some of the features like dragoncolor and redgamma 4, and promised frame rates above 100 are not yet enabled, we are hopeful that they will come soon. But still it's hard to think of an imager that is more advanced than this. In the coming weeks we plan to do a shootout between our F55 shooting Raw, Dragon, and an Arri Alexa....

But until then take a look at our brief overview video of Dragon

 

[niki]

i have all the cameras you mentioned…for me top pick is kodak film ..arri alexa..f55 and dragon same

 

[bobhope]

i have all the cameras you mentioned…for me top pick is kodak film ..arri alexa..f55 and dragon same

I was actually asking if the RED Dragon was the best digital cinema camera on the market, as comparing an analog to digital format (ie film vs. dragon) is a tricky propostion.

I have Alexa, F55, and Dragon cameras and for a long time the F55 was my favorite in terms of pure detail and best images out of the sensor... at least when you took the time to do a proper post workflow and utilize the R5 raw recorder. The F55 sensor is definetley a generation ahead of the Alexa sensor.

However I still love Alexa because it's so easy and it just looks pleasing.. it's not the sharpest and lacks in other technical ways, but it's colors just look pleasing.

In many ways I think the Dragon sensor in the new Epic combines the best of both worlds. We have a technically state of the art sensor shooting 6K images with refined color science onboard that give us excellent skin tones, clean images at ISO's between 250-2000, etc. Please see our video linked above for more of my thoughts.

I'm sure Arri isn't resting on their laurels, and will be releasing a "4K" Alexa or something in a year or so, but until then Dragon is a real pleasure to work with.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

In the coming weeks we plan to do a shootout between our F55 shooting Raw, Dragon, and an Arri Alexa....

Hope you will do so with Arri RAW. Especially now it's super easy with the Alexa-XT side module! Onboard RAW really made the Alexa RAW 100% more feasible on commercials and other productions where RAW wasn't necessary but desired if easily possible. Now it's easily possible for a little extra $$$.


Going back to the OP, what is the best camera/ camera sensor? It really depends on your application!