Single Chip Camera Evaluation (link)

I think until the Red Epic is out in the wild more than it is now, how can anyone really rate where Red has landed in terms of all they learned from the Red One. I'll be the first to admit that I was very excited about the S35 Scarlet long ago that came and went and I realize without doubt the complaints about how the Red marketing has been handled. That said, I really see the Epic and the Alexa as being interesting to different desires, which I think is a good thing. Some people do care more about resolution. Some people do care about size, and I am one of them. I like a very small camera because it allows me to use it small if I need too for some really interesting shots. You can't do that easily with a large camera. I only want the best for Red and hope they've learned even more as they've produced the Epic.

Also, I like their passion. True, I think the chest thumping and criticism really turns me off, but I like that they are excited by what they are making. It's probably one of the reasons it has taken them so long because they do want to get it right. THEY want to use the camera. When was the last time I saw Canon or Sony in here really excited about their new camera? Panasonic of course does get excited about their cameras :)

Everyone has different needs and tastes, and the best thing is that we really do have a lot of variety in what is available (or soon to be available) and I think that's a really good thing.
 
I wish RED all the best, but they really need to sort out distribution and production before I will think about them as a serious company. I would be scared to death about that dreaded word "backorder".
 
stockfuel said:
I wish RED all the best, but they really need to sort out distribution and production before I will think about them as a serious company. I would be scared to death about that dreaded word "backorder".
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Red's delivery problems are directly related to demand for their products. I am sure ARRI would love to have Red's sales volume too.
 
Razz16mm said:
Red's delivery problems are directly related to demand for their products. I am sure ARRI would love to have Red's sales volume too.
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and how does that help my confidence in them?

The Canon 5DII has sold well over 100,000 units.... do you see a shortage of those?

RED is owned by a billionaire,,,, if they have alot of demand, then sort out the supply... it is not that hard to do.... and before you mention the Japan distaster.... I looked into buying an R1 last year and was put off by the people who had been on backorder for a bomb EVF for months... they are still waiting a year later.

I cannot use a camera without an EVF.... so I cannot use a RED camera.
 
just to interject a little bit, but people do realize that Arri dropped the ball on their supply and demand too right? the promised a lot of units for people who pre ordered, were only able to deliver a couple dozen units on launch, and the camera was really beta. no audio, no raw, no overcranking. Arri CSC by me only had 2 Alexas on release and they immediately went to go shoot tv shows. Clairmont ordered something like 20 and didn't get them until these past couple months. Then there are the personal owners, who had to wait 6 months+ for theirs and were the first people to sign up for the order.

and till this day they are still "backordered" as each camera is hand made for the most part and a lot of people are still waiting for theirs. So much so that, the amount of Epic M's out there is getting close to the amount of Alexa's out there, in about half the time it took for Alexa to reach these numbers.

and the point of this is to simply say that there is no company impervious to the pitfalls of supply and demand, and the pitfalls of high end digital cinema technology. and every company has their own way of dealing with it, RED just tends to be more public about it.
 
It now remains to be seen how much the disaster in Japan will affect delivery of the F3. I've seen several posts from people hear looking for one, and I've been looking for an F3L in stock. Due to the extensive electronics involved I can't see an abundant supply of any cameras in the near future.

(PS. If any one sees a PMW-F3L in stock please PM me. Thanks.)
 
I finally just got my pre-ordered F-3 L yesterday. But now waiting on MTF for Nikon Adapter. And other accessories that aren't out yet. Otherwise I'm playing with a 13,000 dollar brick..hate the wait....
But I am so glad I'm not waiting on RED. When the Epic comes out and all the other stuff they promise, all the RED DP's are going to look like this.
6a00d8341bffd953ef014e86811fe8970d-800wi.jpg"It' 444.4..4K, check it, I just got it!"

Question on the Red lens: Can you even get any of the zooms. Are they even available? Or do you just get the runaround when you call?
 
JDDalllas said:
I finally just got my pre-ordered F-3 L yesterday. But now waiting on MTF for Nikon Adapter. And other accessories that aren't out yet. Otherwise I'm playing with a 13,000 dollar brick..hate the wait....
But I am so glad I'm not waiting on RED. When the Epic comes out and all the other stuff they promise, all the RED DP's are going to look like this.
View attachment 33821"It' 444.4..4K, check it, I just got it!"

Question on the Red lens: Can you even get any of the zooms. Are they even available? Or do you just get the runaround when you call?
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their lenses are typically in stock, and arrive very quickly from people I've talked to.
 
tom.wong said:
... Clairmont ordered something like 20 and didn't get them until these past couple months. ...
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Sounds like you're not in LA, for better or worse, LOL. A friend of mine met with Denny Clairmont about three months ago. Denny raved about the Alexa and discussed rental rates. Denny did seem to think that there would be some upcoming upgrade that would allow for better anamorphic shooting.
 
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BobbyMurcerFan said:
Sounds like you're not in LA, for better or worse, LOL. A friend of mine met with Denny Clairmont about three months ago. Denny raved about the Alexa and discussed rental rates. Denny did seem to think that there would be some upcoming upgrade that would allow for better anamorphic shooting.
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this was when Alexas first hit the market, a very reputable ASC member was telling me about it. obviously the numbers are full up now. but they are still slow with their orders since they are hand building everything and aren't putting it through a large machine production line. A buddy of mine who was one of the first people to pre order, had to wait 4 months for his since it hit the streets, even though they literally PROMISED him, his would ship within the week of Alexas going out to market. Arri made a lot of promises they couldn't keep too.

and the anamorphic shooting is their new 4x3 sensor model coming up later this year, with optional optical viewfinder. The OV alone will make a lot of old school hollywood DP's really happy. I know Deakins for example hates Evf's. I'm not sure if the 4x3 sensor is going to be a technician made swap. or they have to buy new cameras all together.
 
BobbyMurcerFan said:
-1

The Red One is not bulky at all. It's smaller and lighter than any 35mm film camera, F35, F23, Viper or Alexa. It's not designed well for hand held use and does not come with an EVF or screen, but for the $50K or so you save over an Alexa you can buy all of Zacuto and rig something up. The camera also comes with internal RAW recording, something you have to pay extra bank for w/ the Sony F's or Alexa.

Resolution does matter, esp. if you want/need to re-frame. And you can work 4K natively in CS5 w/o a Rocket card (which only costs $5K). Terabytes of harddrives cost $hundreds.

I agree w/ the other positive points concerning the Alexa.
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But all the points you just made are still all the points I made as well... First off, I shot hand held many times with the RED and it is not comfortable at and does feel like it weighs more than the Alexa once on your shoulder. I don't know where that statement comes from. RED body design is horrible for on shoulder situations. As for "RAW" recording, Alexa has internal prores 4444 recording to sxs cards... most if not all productions I've talked to in tv land have said thats more than enough for going right to the timeline for the show.

Re-framing .... well I believe in getting it right the first time, I've never had to re-frame anything I've shot in my life. heck, what are you doing if you have to re-frame? what are you getting paid for then? bad composition? If you didn't choose the right lens or right angle, then you shouldn't be getting paid for someone else to have to fix that in post just because you have 5k to work with. Not my cup of tea. And again still having to buy a rocket card is extra cost, then the RELIABLE hard-drives are expensive, RAID arrays are expensive. You cannot edit with slow crappy western digital drives.

And for the zacoto thing as well... who wants to piss away money on metal tubs and a ridiculous amount of time building and un-building that every time you need to shoot? Again this is not how a DP or production wants to work. It should be ready to go, bam done.

All of my statements still stand, and I really find it hard to believe any real working DP who has used both, want to take the RED over the Alexa when shooting fast passed films or tv. Specially for shoulder work.
 
I like all three. Redmx, epic (whose footage looks like MX footage btw), And the glorious alexa. Its like this to me.

People say red pro primes are so sharp, and cheap, why shoot with master primes or S4's or even panchros for that matter.... well. RPP's just don't looke good to my eyes. I thinkthe alexa has a prettier image. Period.

RED has a place, big VFX shots where the reolution helps the composite.... but for narritive..... Alexa. For a commercial, epic...

Hell i'd shoot the F3 w/ sLog in place of either camera for a lot of situations. SLog is amazing, and it frees up a few grand in the camera budget for the lenses I really want to rent.... (leicas!)
 
Giuseppe,

For shooting off the shoulder, the Alexa wins hands down.

As for not reframing. It's done a lot. Maybe you don't do it. But it's a fact of life for a lot of what we see on TV and in the theatre. You can easily RAID Western Digital drives, and they are plenty reliable, if you buy their enterprise class ones designed for RAID.

Is the Alexa more DP friendly? YES! But it also cost about $50K more than a Red One MX. Even when you throw in a Rocket card, a RAID array, LCD, EVF and heck... a new computer, you're still saving around $25K. And I believe you can buy a Red One MX today. Alex (and Red's Epic M) have considerable waits.
 
TimurCivan said:
RED has a place, big VFX shots where the reolution helps the composite.... but for narritive..... Alexa. For a commercial, epic...
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Compositors care more about color resolution (dynamic range) and the amount of compression in the file than pixel resolution.

The whole resolution advantage for compositing is a myth or marketing ploy. I'll take ArriRAW any day over a 5K image, unless it also is totally uncompressed.
 
Harry Lime said:
Compositors care more about color resolution (dynamic range) and the amount of compression in the file than pixel resolution.

The whole resolution advantage for compositing is a myth or marketing ploy. I'll take ArriRAW any day over a 5K image,
unless it also is totally uncompressed.
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you can always do a 3:1 compression o Epic now, which for all intensive purposes is claimed to be mathematically lossless. With the efficiency of their encoding, I'd believe it too. 5k, and very lightly compressed I think can win overall, and full metadata raw support is always a plus.

as for the topic of reframing, I've had to do it many, MANY times in post for the show. Not because the DP wasn't good at all, in fact most of the times it had to be done it was with some of the best DP's i know. at the end of the day though, sh** happens and sometimes the decision to reframe is the right choice. a piece of gack in the frame, not a single person on set noticed, the BTS guy in the background, some nudity that has to be reframed because the actor or actress doesn't want to be nude in the film anymore. And does it happen for every shot? no, but the occasional shot sometimes, even going against good composition needs to have it done.

although on the reverse, all that resolution really allows the production to abuse the re scaling, making closeups because the performance was better in the wide, etc. really ruining what the DP had intended with composition. But, in the end it's no different than film resolution. and shouldn't that always be the gold standard to compare to?
 
I would be very surprised if a lot of people were still buying the RED ONE-MX these days. It's basically been made obsolete by new products from RED and the competition and would not be a very wise choice to spend $50,000 on.

But then again the RED One MX really is the only RED you can currently purchase, unless you have a personal relationship with RED. Mere mortals can't buy an Epic and Scarlet is still vaporware.

There may be a considerable waiting period for the Alexa, but anyone walking off the street with enough money can actually order one and the camera will deliver at the time that Arri promises it will. Same for the F35, F3, Phantom etc.
 
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tom.wong said:
you can always do a 3:1 compression o Epic now, which for all intensive purposes is claimed to be mathematically lossless. With the efficiency of their encoding, I'd believe it too. 5k, and very lightly compressed I think can win overall, and full metadata raw support is always a plus.
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3:1 is not 1:1.

Reminds me of 1984:

"Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger in the dust on the table:

2+2=5"

as for the topic of reframing, I've had to do it many, MANY times in post for the show. Not because the DP wasn't good at all, in fact most of the times it had to be done it was with some of the best DP's i know. at the end of the day though, sh** happens and sometimes the decision to reframe is the right choice. a piece of gack in the frame, not a single person on set noticed, the BTS guy in the background, some nudity that has to be reframed because the actor or actress doesn't want to be nude in the film anymore. And does it happen for every shot? no, but the occasional shot sometimes, even going against good composition needs to have it done.

although on the reverse, all that resolution really allows the production to abuse the re scaling, making closeups because the performance was better in the wide, etc. really ruining what the DP had intended with composition. But, in the end it's no different than film resolution. and shouldn't that always be the gold standard to compare to?
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It's a hypothetical argument at this point.

Unless you have a special relationship with RED you can't get your hands on an EPIC.
Scarlet is vaporware and not even shipping in any shape or form.

At this point in time the only camera a regular civilian can actually purchase from RED is the One -MX.

Current Epic bodies are being built as one off's and if this article is any indication they are still very much beta cameras.

http://provideocoalition.com/index....finally_gets_to_play_with_an_epic-m_and_hdrx/
 
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