Single Chip Camera Evaluation

Jan_Crittenden said:
Keep in mind that Barry pretty much kept the camera at an out of the box setting as that was the instruction. There were any number of times that if he had stepped in and been able to tweak a couple of things it would have come out differently.
Best,

Jan
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Well that settles that. We certainly know now that there are better AF settings to be had than the ones it that come with it out of the box.

Ya know its kind of funny. When I took my first AF out of the box mounted a lens and turned it on the first thing I saw were yellow clipped highlights on my dog's face as she sat near the door in sunlight. My immediate reaction was "yuck" . I almost put the camera in the box right there and sent it back.

I chose not to do that however, played with some settings and haven't seen yellow clipped highlights like that since. I'm a happy camper with the camera ever since.

So the Af could have looked significantly better in the SCCE. The DR or highlight handling wouldn't be different than in the test but optimized settings would have have improved the look significantly for a few other parts of the test.
 
Mark Smith said:
Well that settles that. We certainly know now that there are better AF settings to be had than the ones it that come with it out of the box.

Ya know its kind of funny. When I took my first AF out of the box mounted a lens and turned it on the first thing I saw were yellow clipped highlights on my dog's face as she sat near the door in sunlight. My immediate reaction was "yuck" . I almost put the camera in the box right there and sent it back.

I chose not to do that however, played with some settings and haven't seen yellow clipped highlights like that since. I'm a happy camper with the camera ever since.

So the Af could have looked significantly better in the SCCE. The DR or highlight handling wouldn't be different than in the test but optimized settings would have have improved the look significantly for a few other parts of the test.
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Of course if the AF100 were tweaked for beter performance it would have fared better. But that can be said of ALL the cameras!!! So maybe the next test would be to have each camera tweaked as best to handle the lighting situation and see how they perform.
 
Jan_Crittenden said:
Keep in mind that Barry pretty much kept the camera at an out of the box setting as that was the instruction. There were any number of times that if he had stepped in and been able to tweak a couple of things it would have come out differently.
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Perhaps I'm confused, but my impression from Zacuto's introduction was that the camera technicians were there to insure the test results reflected the best quality obtainable from each camera. If Zacuto's instructions were to test "out of the box" settings, what was the technician not allowed to tweak?
 
If Zacuto's instructions were to test...
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Bob Primes, ASC, was in charge of the test, which is called the "Single Chip Camera Evaluation".

Zacuto only created a documentary about the test, which they call the "Great Camera Shootout 2011".

Zacuto, Kessler Crane, Clairmont Camera, & others, contributed money, &/or equipment, for the test, but did not decide it's parameters.
 
Think about it, if one camera was allowed to be tweaked and the others couldn't be due to lack of people that understood the camera, would that be a true test? In summary, not really. You never can have enough bodies at these sorts of things that can make each camera dazzle. So the best thing to do is to leave them exactly where they are and swap lenses out from there. It is a known starting point.
 
Very true, and I'll add as a past twiddler of cameras that its possible to make a camera look good in a particular static situation and render it completely useless for any other scene it might photograph.

Not really a bad idea to have a baseline starting point even if it isn't as good as the baseline could be.
 
Just to clarify, Zacuto and Kessler funded the test, Zacuto made a documentary about the SCCE test. Hundreds of people volunteered there time for the test, Claimont camera and others donated gear to the test. Bob ran the test without any interference from anyone.
 
Jan_Crittenden said:
Think about it, if one camera was allowed to be tweaked and the others couldn't be due to lack of people that understood the camera, would that be a true test? In summary, not really. You never can have enough bodies at these sorts of things that can make each camera dazzle. So the best thing to do is to leave them exactly where they are and swap lenses out from there. It is a known starting point.
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True... However, the DSLR's would have had to be tweaked. I don't know of a DSLR that gives 11.2 stops of latitude straight out of the box.
If all cameras were meant to be standard/out of the box settings, then i'm sure we'd see some much worse results from the DSLR's.
 
I don't necessarily want an Alexa but I'd like the money to be able to afford one ;) Really, if I were going to upgrade I would go for the Red (Epic S... whenever). I think it's a much better bargain post notwithstanding. I often wonder why the Sony PMW F3 quality isn't more often compared to the Red. It's closer in price to a Red than an AF100.
 
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Jan_Crittenden said:
Think about it, if one camera was allowed to be tweaked and the others couldn't be due to lack of people that understood the camera, would that be a true test? In summary, not really. You never can have enough bodies at these sorts of things that can make each camera dazzle. So the best thing to do is to leave them exactly where they are and swap lenses out from there. It is a known starting point.
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While I agree, in theory, I am surprised to know that they had to use out of the box settings on all the cameras. They employed enough technicians that I'm sure they could of had one person who was an expert on each. I am so often changing the settings with the AF to get the best out of the camera look, all dependent on the scene I am shooting, that it seems silly to say everything must stay the same. It sort of makes me reconsider the validity of the results in a way.

Do we know what out of the box settings they used? Since there is no Scene File Off setting (like there are on the Sonys) do we know which one they used.

Regardless, when I saw the screening at NAB and online I think the AF holds up well.
 
Benjamin Eckstein said:
While I agree, in theory, I am surprised to know that they had to use out of the box settings on all the cameras. They employed enough technicians that I'm sure they could of had one person who was an expert on each.
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Think about it, there was no one there from Sony nor Arri or Red. If someone adjusted the camera and it looked worse, would that hold water? I know I would be upset and I would verbally discount the test. I will confirm with Barry what he used on the AF100.

Thanks,

Jan
 
Jan_Crittenden said:
Think about it, there was no one there from Sony nor Arri or Red. If someone adjusted the camera and it looked worse, would that hold water? I know I would be upset and I would verbally discount the test. I will confirm with Barry what he used on the AF100.

Thanks,

Jan
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I agree that since there were no Sony or Arri or Red experts there, this was the way to do it, but I also think that given the number of technicians they brought in for this (in LA no less) they probably could have found a guru on each of those cameras.

All I'm saying is that in the case of the AF100, which I know well at this point (and I'm sure is true with other cameras) you do not get the most out of it, by keeping the settings the same for every shooting condition.
 
If nothing else this is a great opportunity to get a look at Michael Bravin in action (formerly of ARRI ) who was recently indicted for industrial espionage.
 
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