The single chip camera evaluation by ASC members

I went to the Arri booth to inquire about the cost of an Alexa. They told me >$80,000 and a five-month wait.
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The Arri rep must have been over-selling it, because unless the Alexa actually increased in price since it's release, it's supposed to be around $50k for the body and $9K for the VF... by $80k I'm guessing the guy at the Arri booth meant "price for a working camera", including lens, batteries and media. The 5-month wait time I can believe as this camera is probably back-ordered to Narnia by now.

At this point in time I wouldn't worry too much about new camera tech phasing out the Alexa, because it's perhaps the finest HD camera ever made, and how many people honestly need more than 1080p? Even if something new comes along, from Arri themselves at that, your camera won't suddenly start smoking and short from envy of the new model, a good camera now is going to remain a good camera until the point where your client's expectations exceed the hardware's capabilities. At most, all a new Arri would likely feature is a higher-res sensor, smaller body, lower price, or something else like that, but I'm not holding my breath for anything revolutionary - with this level of performance it doesn't have to be. In fact, it's great if something new does come along, because then I'll be able to pick one up used.
 
It's so interesting to read what is important for some, and what is important for others. Me personally, I do not care for the size of the Alexa, just doesn't fit my style of shooting. I think the Epic is a great size and would take one over the Alexa given its specs as one of my main selling points. Neither is right or wrong, just how important some aspects of a camera are to some people :)
 
Rick Burnett said:
It's so interesting to read what is important for some, and what is important for others. Me personally, I do not care for the size of the Alexa, just doesn't fit my style of shooting. I think the Epic is a great size and would take one over the Alexa given its specs as one of my main selling points. Neither is right or wrong, just how important some aspects of a camera are to some people :)
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I was using the Alexa as an example, but the idea is still the same, it will probably be only a couple of hardware generations before offerings from any of these companies are going to well exceed the capabilities of film and the needs of practical mass distribution... for a while.
 
Rick Burnett said:
It's so interesting to read what is important for some, and what is important for others. Me personally, I do not care for the size of the Alexa, just doesn't fit my style of shooting. I think the Epic is a great size and would take one over the Alexa given its specs as one of my main selling points. Neither is right or wrong, just how important some aspects of a camera are to some people :)
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Although the Epic is smaller than the Alexa I am not sure how much lighter if at all it is than the Arri, I was very surprised at how heavy it was when held. Size is not all that matters.
 
Is the red Mx dynamic range that low (11 stops). From provideocoalition test it was more about 13 stops and the F3 more than twelve and we could nearly see a 13th stop (without slog).
 
I saw at another place that they rated the base F3 at around 11.3 stops while abelcine and provideocoalition backlit test showed more than 12 and nearly 13. I am guessing if the test is not base more on a highlight reading (where the alexa exel) than the full thing. Digital sensor are known in general to be biased toward he shadows. You can clearly see a lot in the shadows in most case. The provideocoalition test comparison of the Alexa and Red mx clearly saw that.
 
The SCCE test used a different chart. I hadn't seen the one they used before, but I have the one that ProVideoCoalition used so I know that one very well.

Thing about the SCCE test is that while using a different chart may indeed reveal different numbers, they used the exact same chart for all tests, so the relative comparisons between them should be the same.

And, I've gotten 10+ stops out of an AF100 on mine, which I had called 10.5. The SCCE got 10.2 out of it on the chart they used, so it does seem basically comparable.
 
Jan_Crittenden said:
I would concur with Barry's report about the test, and frankly find Vincent's report wondering if he watched the same thing that I did. The booth presentation was on a lower res projector, but that would not have altered the results for anything but the cameras that shoot over HD, i.e., 4K.
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Just saw the test yesterday at CineGear. Kudos to all involved!

My conclusions echo Barry's, while Vincent Laforet's are puzzling due to the dSLRs' poor resolution on the big screen.

While the F3 looked good I was left wondering how much better it would have faired with S-Log. But as Robert Primes (ASC) mentioned, the test is already out-of-date.

Best,
Bern
 
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Kolor-Pikker said:
The Arri rep must have been over-selling it, because unless the Alexa actually increased in price since it's release, it's supposed to be around $50k for the body and $9K for the VF... by $80k I'm guessing the guy at the Arri booth meant "price for a working camera", including lens, batteries and media. The 5-month wait time I can believe as this camera is probably back-ordered to Narnia by now.
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You think it was because of the Euro? When the Arri was new'ish, about a year ago, remember that the Euro was sinking to terrible all time lows? (Thanks greece, spain, ireland, portugal and italy) I suppose if you were buying an Alexa from Germany, and the Euro was 1.22 to the $1, it would be much more attractive than today, where it's somewhere around 1.5 to the $1. No?

Just thinking about it. Maybe it has to do with the conversion...
 
I wonder if the files were from the native recording of each camera?

This test did prove that to get more dynamic range you need a digital negative (Raw or Log).
I wonder if next year the F3 will be allowed to record to the Gemini 444 to compare against the Red and Alexa.
 
Michael Palmer said:
I wonder if the files were from the native recording of each camera?

This test did prove that to get more dynamic range you need a digital negative (Raw or Log).
I wonder if next year the F3 will be allowed to record to the Gemini 444 to compare against the Red and Alexa.
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http://provideocoalition.com/index....ation_screening_tomorrow_morning_at_cinegear/

everything was recorded at the highest quality capable. anything that had a clean sdi or hdmi output was recorded at 10 bit uncompressed.
 
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