Which announcement were you more satisfied with?

Which announcement were you more satisfied with?

  • Canon's EOS C300

    Votes: 22 14.3%

  • Red's Scarlet

    Votes: 132 85.7%
  • Total voters
    154
Red handed Canon their rear-end.

Canon's announcement showed they don't understand at least 4 things

1. Current options available. F3 better and cheaper. So why does your cost more?
2. Importance of "upgradability"....you MUST be able to get to 4:4:4 PERIOD
3. Market direction...including cost. 20K for what they announced, the year they announced it in?????
4. The competition...Jim Jannard. They clearly underestimated the "wild card"

Red's announcement showed me Red get's what we want. AKA....they get all 1-4 that Canon doesn't.

More importantly, Red did something that some folks have pointed out:

Red's announcement wasn't particularly "good for them". I can't tell you how much I revere what they did yesterday. I'll never forget it.

Red did what was good FOR US! To have someone in our corner making decisions that are good FOR US instead of something that will favor THEM.

Canon didn't want to cannibalize its Video Division sales by giving too much functionality/performance to the 5dMIII. I totally understand it. This is the way ALL corps run today. EXCEPT RED.

Red ATE THEIR OWN ARM....because it was better FOR US if they did.
Red Scarlet 3K, 2/3rds sensor: good for them, incremental adoption into their company. They got rid of it.
Red Epic: Flagship, must protect, don't threaten/cannibalize sales. They did and everyone knows it.
Red One: Entry product, good for them, current entry into RAW video workflow, 25K. They announced its retirement and a product 1/2 its cost.

What Red did yesterday was the most INCREDIBLE idea in the UNIVERSE from OUR perspective. (Welcome to the future folks: Full cinema grade camera package 14K.) I sincerely hope that WE all reward Red for being in our corner. For doing what was right FOR US, NOT what was right FOR THEM.

Because of that....(this is only my empty opinion): The "Indy Studio" Exodous has begun.

The indi-beginner has a good life right now with DSLRs (Hacked GH2 less than 1K). Advancing and aspiring DOPs and one man production companies adore the AF100/FS100 and life is good. Last night (in my mind) Red took EVERYTHING above that. I love me some F3, but...DANG!! C300, uh....I think that's going to be a short ride.

My personal thanks to Jim Jannard. I know you're only human. I know you've made mistakes and will continue to make them.

But, FOR ME, Jim Jannard, the Scarlet X will be your legacy...(not the Epic). The PERFECT product (for me and many others), at the PERFECT time (video is exploding world wide and quality need to be standardized), for the PERFECT cost (Is half the price for 2x the quality enough of a butt-kicking Canon?)

I have joined the Red army. Time to focus on telling some stories. Thank you Jim.
 
kurth said:
Neither ! First I'll never be interested in another camera costing more than 6k. What you buy for 20k today will cost 5k in 3 years. And I think the majority here agree. Cameras are disposable . The canon only shoots 720/60p ? And no autofocus of any kind ? It is a beaut. As I said before, reminds me of a Beaulieu 5000. And the Red ...well, Scarlet looks like a cheap computer with a lens mount . Sure, along way from those CAD drawings we saw 3 or 4 years ago. I would have loved to see a decked out 2/3 fixed lens for 6k. Now , it's still a 15k package minimum. And the whole 4k thing is overkill for 99% of shooters.

Both are rental cameras for large projects. No run and guns here.

Truly Panasonic has a great opportunity to win the race by a mile.....for me at least ! The convertible design we saw a few months ago for a future gh series combined with the new lenses , new evf, and better codec , for 2k ....would sell a million, while Canon and Red are only selling to rental houses. Or Sony can repackage the fs200 and kick some tail as well . They have a new 720p evf. Why wouldn't they use it on a future fs200, maybe with a prores recording module. And the rumored alpha a900 is coming as well.

Both Canon and Scarlet shot themselves in the foot . When the world's economies are at virtual standstill or worse, collapse, and they come out with expensive cameras , esp. Canon ? I'm just puzzled.
Click to expand...

+1,000,000
 
kurth said:
Truly Panasonic has a great opportunity to win the race by a mile..... Or Sony can repackage the fs200 and kick some tail as well.
Click to expand...

Lot of good points here... where are the $5k cameras? We basically have 2 right now (AF100, FS100)... is no-one else trying to get into this market with a non-SLR, $5k-ish, actual movie camera?
 
Its amazing how people are so easily sold. Scarlet (or EpicS) is by no means an under 10k camera. No one has even seen any footage yet, and the eco system you need to work with red raw is not free either...

C300 on the other hand (ugly as hell, for sure) is ready to shoot and edit straight out the box and onto your macbook. Sure, the Scarlet looks awesome, stylish but it is by no means a better camera than the C300. 4K is nothing but a technical exercise, in reality, it means absolutely nothing for the DSLR/indie film makers. Even Roger Deakins is shooting the new James Bond film at 1080! And if anyone has the choice to shoot at 5K, its him, he choose not to, gives him nothing he can't already have on his Alexa. Why would anyone would absolutely need 4K?

Its a marketing gimmick. Red convinced us that its a must. Well, its not. At all. At this point in time, no one will never, ever need a 4K image for anything. And Canon was clear in announcing that upgrades will be made as soon as the rest of the film making eco sustem is ready for a 4/5k image size.

I was happy with both announcements, but things are never all that simple. No one has even seen any Scarlet footage but have already made up their minds... weird.

But after seeing the shorts shot on the C300 last night, I know for sure that this camera can deliver a super cinematic image, that is indistinguishable from an Epic or Alexa, for a much, much cheaper price.

But lets wait and see some Scarlet films, so we can see what that baby is made of.
 
Last edited:
RED is making serious advancements in technology, Canon is slow as ever. And this isnt just developing, it's getting it into your hands.

How is it a $600 NEX5 can shoot 1080p60 but a $20k C300 cant? How many cameras are already out that offer what the C300 cant and for less?

If not for RED, how long do you think you would have had to wait until Canon, Sony, Panny gave you any of the Scarlet's features in a camera? For that price?

There are companies playing catch-up and incorporating features competitors already have and there are companies truly giving you something completely new.

Regardless what the price is, what features are you getting for it is the real question, what are those worth to you?

As for the economy, isn't one of the great things about RED the fact that it's an American company and their products are assembled here? Doesn't that help the economy?
 
I liked Red's announcement most. Both made good and bad decisions:

Canon
Good:
- small size
- interchangeable lenses
- 1-60 fps in 1 frame increments
- S35
- 4:2:2
- sane pixel count, simple color merge
- commodity media
- EOS and PL lens mounts, instead of something new (I'm looking at you, Nikon)

Bad:
- 8 bit
- price 3x more than it should be
- LCD and XLRs are a separate piece
- rolling shutter


RED
Good:
The best thing that Red did was simplify its product line. Scarlet and Epic will share the same sensor, body, and accessories. Even making just one camera is a mind-numbing complex task, and it's better to focus engineering on a single design. The quality of each part will benefit from their singlemindedness.

Bad:
I can only pick on decisions from the past that I disagree with:
- 4K is overkill
- REDRAW is a proprietary codec. You can get the same advantage in latitude and grading by using log gamma with 10-bit 4:2:2 DNXHD or JPEG2000 or something else already established.
- Modular design makes the cameras still a little too big, although they are smaller than the original Red One.
 
+100 Nuno Dias, really amazing, don't forget that same people who praising some cameras here are the same who said somewhere in this forum that one cannot judge a clip which cannot be dowloaded and analyzed.
 
DChang said:
As for the economy, isn't one of the great things about RED the fact that it's an American company and their products are assembled here? Doesn't that help the economy?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I couldn't care less, I'm European.

And if that's your sole judgment on choosing a piece of equipment, then there little else we can discuss, but I nonetheless understand and respect your views on that.

As for other cameras being able to shoot at 60p in full HD, and other various specs, well, their image quality, look, texture and feel are miles away from what I saw on the C300. As simple as that.

If you want good specs, there's plenty to choose from, but if you want a good/cinematic image, there's only about 3 cameras around, and in my book, the C300 is now one of them.

As far as what Red represents to the film industry, I totally agree, they have been pushing the bouderies for a while now, and made other companies wake up to the sound of digital cinema. But I never once in my previous post, argued against it. Have their cameras convinced me. No. Red One had a lame image quality, despite its superstar specs! Now for Epic, well there's another Sheriff in town, called Alexa, which for my own taste, looks better than what I've seen so far from Epic. Despite the Epic being a truly exceptional piece of modern technology and amazing digital cinema camera. For sure.

Its not all black&white...
 
Last edited:
I think the RED announcement was definitely the winner... I'm wondering about a few tech specs though -- maybe someone can correct me on these assumptions:

After debayering, the 4K signal from the Scarlet probably resolves some somewhere around the 2K mark of real resolution -- so maybe roughly the same as the 1080P C300? I also assume that the C300 has better ISO performance (them mentioning they shot greenscreen at 16000 ISO?) - but the Scarlet probably has better dynamic range (12 stops normal, 17-ish stops with hdrX).

So... I guess overall the Scarlet wins, but not really by as big a margin as people are making it out to be.
 
tfg said:
After debayering, the 4K signal from the Scarlet probably resolves some somewhere around the 2K mark of real resolution -- so maybe roughly the same as the 1080P C300?
Click to expand...

The older Red One sensor measured out at 3.2K, so at least that.

Plus with all the compression there's no way the C300 hits 2K.
 
I am already signed up to buy the ccd chipped Ikonoskop, but if I had gone the CMOS sensor route, the Scarlet specs and price is a no brainer. It is basically an Epic. I've been critical of RED in the past, but I think Jim just basically raped the industry as whole, CMOS sensor wise. I sincerely apologize for being critical of him in the past and he really has gone out of his way to deliver/ democratize the higher end cameras to the common man/woman. Last night was in all do respect, a flat out victory over the entire industry.
 
supergrafx said:
I am already signed up to buy the ccd chipped Ikonoskop, but if I had gone the CMOS sensor route, the Scarlet specs and price is a no brainer. It is basically an Epic. I've been critical of RED in the past, but I think Jim just basically raped the industry as whole, CMOS sensor wise. I sincerely apologize for being critical of him in the past and he really has gone out of his way to deliver/ democratize the higher end cameras to the common man/woman. Last night was in all do respect, a flat out victory over the entire industry.
Click to expand...

Totally with you on the ikonoskop bit. CCD, so simple. I wish I could one of those. That would seriously get me out of the market for 5 years. I'd be happy irrespective.
 
Nuno Dias said:
Sorry, I couldn't care less, I'm European.
Click to expand...

I wasn't directing any of my comments directly at you, just various thoughts people have brought up in this thread about the economy.

The biggest reason I am a fan of RED is for their competition. For what they push the old complacent companies to do. For everything RED does, I look forward for the reaction Sony, Panny, Canon have. Instead of trickling down features on every new model, they really have to give you their best now.
 
combatentropy said:
You can get the same advantage in latitude and grading by using log gamma with 10-bit 4:2:2 DNXHD or JPEG2000 or something else already established.
Click to expand...

1.) The C300 being only 8-bit rather than 10 was important enough to make your "bad" list, but you don't see any value in Scarlet being 16-bit rather than 10?

2.) Log is nothing like RAW. If I had to compare it to anything, I'd call it a poor man's HDRx. RAW is not about more latitude or less compression. It's about options. Starting from scratch with no "look" / white balance / sharpening / etc applied; not worrying that if you don't scour the forums for the latest settings, read endless threads about wether the 'Cine' setting or the 'Neutral' setting has more dynamic range, or pay Sony $5k for a firmware upgrade that should've been free, your camera won't capture what you need it to capture. It's about shutter speed and aperture being the only settings you have to "get right" while shooting.
 
combatentropy said:
I liked Red's announcement most. Both made good and bad decisions:

RED
Good:
The best thing that Red did was simplify its product line. Scarlet and Epic will share the same sensor, body, and accessories. Even making just one camera is a mind-numbing complex task, and it's better to focus engineering on a single design. The quality of each part will benefit from their singlemindedness.

Bad:
I can only pick on decisions from the past that I disagree with:
- 4K is overkill
- REDRAW is a proprietary codec. You can get the same advantage in latitude and grading by using log gamma with 10-bit 4:2:2 DNXHD or JPEG2000 or something else already established.
- Modular design makes the cameras still a little too big, although they are smaller than the original Red One.
Click to expand...

I don't get the "Bad"?

I see your negatives as all positives.
 
I would say the canon c300 because I get the feeling that it will have a better workflow and be more reliable
 
The client I do most of my work for has been holding off on a big nature documentary project until we can get a 4K camera system. I've been holding off getting an S35 camera system due to lack of RAW recording at a reasonable price. If my client doesn't have the cash on hand for a Scarlet before the end of the year, I'm going to be talking to the credit union about a loan as soon as Red releases their Nikon mount.
 
I can't believe folks complain about 4k being overkill. Sure, for normal viewing but there's nothing like oversampling. I remember the same argument from a few years ago with SD vs HD. People kept making statements like "most homes are not viewing in HD anyway" etc. But what I remember pointing out back then was even though one preferred watching in SD when they downsized from a decent HD to and SD image it always turned out more detailed than the best SD camera out there. It's sort of the same thing here with the Scarlet. It gives you the option to have a much better looking HD (1920x1080) image than most of these other HD cams when downsampled.

My choice was obviously the Red Scarlet. In MOST cases I think that is a no brainer. The only advantage a camera like this Canon has over it is......out of the box you have something you can use. But...I can use my hacked GH-2 for something like that. Red gives us lots of options.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top