Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Motion & Video => Topic started by: feppe on December 02, 2009, 07:03:56 pm
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I read Michael's blurb on the Red Scarlet announcement. I'm sure Michael knew just exactly how astonishing the price point is, but it demands and deserves reiterating. I'm still in shock: proper cinema camera, modular frankencamera design so you can build your kit in stages, and 3K resolution (!) up to 150 FPS (!) in RAW (!). And it looks like one could build a starter kit for less than $10k! That's well within the reach of an enthusiast cinematographer and certainly for amateur film crews, and based on specs should produce results well worth putting up on the big screen. That is nothing short of revolutionary - this product alone could produce a whole generation of robert rodriguezes.
There are some questions, though: I'm not sure if the smaller sensor size allows for 35mm film -like DOF, and how the sensor deals with shadow noise and low light shooting.
I'm purely a stills shooter for now, but as someone who has written an (unproduced) feature-length screenplay I do have serious hopes to one day get a crew together for short movies. Then all I need is $20+ million to produce the film
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The 2/3" sensor is tiny.
It is that. In fact, sensors in professional video camcorders in the 90s were 2/3" and they used three of them. One for each channel of RGB.
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Well, movie 35mm is more the size of a 1.4 crop sensor than a full frame sensor. Also, movies are not generally shot at f1.4 either as that shallow a DOF is practically unusable and practically nothing is ever in focus.
2/3" is actually a very practical size for small crew or single user movie making where you don't have a dedicated focus puller. On the Scarlet 2/3" fixed it's a T2.6 lens, so you should have very reasonable control over DOF.
Graeme
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What Graeme said. The sample "movies" I've seen from 5DII have used extreme DOF with the abandon a puppy barks which just learned to do so. 35mm f/1.4 or similar DOF is something which is rarely, if ever, seen in movies.
The esthetics of moving pictures are very different from stills, which is one of the many reasons why I've been skeptical about stills photographers moving to film.
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The esthetics of moving pictures are very different from stills, which is one of the many reasons why I've been skeptical about stills photographers moving to film.
The boundary between moving pictures and stills again are getting more diffuse; People shoot with their telephones and put their movies on You Tube-
The digital video and computer montage changed a lot in making film.
Yes, the esthetics of moving pictures and stills are different but will move from where they are now as they always have done.
I am sure a lot of movie-makers are going to make photographs as well .... and the photojournalist willl shoot more film.
It is an exciting moment in time for image making. I welcome the changes....
In the end it is all about expressing what you want to express and being able to do that...
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this product alone could produce a whole generation of robert rodriguezes.
For that reason alone I will continue to ignore this camera.
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... movies are not generally shot at f1.4 either as that shallow a DOF is practically unusable and practically nothing is ever in focus.
... 2/3" is actually a very practical size for small crew or single user movie making where you don't have a dedicated focus puller. On the Scarlet 2/3" fixed it's a T2.6 lens, so you should have very reasonable control over DOF.
Graeme, I agree, and see many photographic forum posters getting carried away with an overemphasis on the importance and value of very shallow DOF. In particular for "documentary" motion recording, meaning unscripted, unrehearsed, no re-takes movie making no assistant to pull focus and often without the oportuninty to preplan focus pulling, the shallower DOF possible with fomrats larger than 2/3" and low f-stops is probably of little practical value. In other words, there is probably a good reason why companies like Canon, Sony and Panasonic which make both professional video cameras and DLSR sensors have been in no rush to upgrade their video camera lines to formats larger than 2/3" though I suspect that they have had the resources to develop suitable sensors and cameras for some time if they choice to invest in that area.
It is "scripted movie making", with all its pre-planning opportunities and control, where the shallow DOF possibilities of larger formats like "35mm movie" formats have far more value.
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Shallow DOF is a tool though - to be used (and abused). There's very little point in claiming HD when the measured resolution is much less, and then for you to shoot with such shallow DOF that nothing is in focus even when scaled down to web movie dimensions. That's a blessing in disguise though as of the massive artifacts you can see when these vDSLRs come into focus: http://prolost.com/blog/2009/12/3/you-didnt-believe-me.html (http://prolost.com/blog/2009/12/3/you-didnt-believe-me.html)
Even for scripted movies, the frame size of 35mm film is closer to APS-C than fullframe, and they certainly don't shoot everything at f1.4 either. The DOF people achieve with the 5D2 for instance is so utterly shallow that it almost makes any attempt to get anything in focus laughable.
Michael always talks about technique, and how as the camera get better, better technique is needed to get the maximum detail and resolution and quality from an image, yet here with have the the ultimate expression of that - moving actors, moving camera and zero DOF.
I severely hope this is a passing fad and we can go back to watching things in focus. I've lost count of the times I've gone to clean my glasses only to find I've been watching a 5D2 movie :-)
Graeme
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It is that. In fact, sensors in professional video camcorders in the 90s were 2/3" and they used three of them. One for each channel of RGB.
The sensors in most professional video cameras are still 2/3". That is the industry standard.
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The sensors in most professional video cameras are still 2/3". That is the industry standard.
2/3" or smaller. The Canon professional video cameras are all 1/3", 3-CCD AFAIK, at prices up to US$9000 and weights up to 4kg:
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controll...fcategoryid=172 (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=172)
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Where's the Red Scarlet excitement?
The 2/3 Scarlet is not that Exciting to me as a stills photographer looking to expand my business offering with simple digital motion because..
a 2/3 chip means all my nikkor lenses are basically too long
This means
I would need to spend more on glass, captital, maintainance, insurance
I will need to carry more glass
The res of the 2/3 scarlet is '5mp'
This is not high enough for me to use it as a primary stills camera
Therefore
I cant abandon my stills camera
I need to carry two bodies/chargers
Do two workflows
The res of the scalet is 3k - this is exciting for the film gang but realistically any clients I have who are employing me to do stills and shoot some motion around the edge of that job are only going to need 1080 maximum or most likely YouTube size
Therefore the motion resolution is not that relevant to me/my clients
Therefore the 2/3 Scarlet is not, IMO, that exciting to stills photographers doing some motion
I am not excited about the S35 or FF35 scarlet because is it is not going to be available for some long time - maybe Ill be excited when they actually get near to hitting the streets -those cams should bypass the problems outlined above
Additionally from what I can see on RedUser it is not clear if the camera has AF - a critical IMO attribute in shooting stills at commercially viable speeds
Also some minor attributes in control of the camera are not clear, for example to switch between stills and motion you need a different set of settings available at the flick of one switch
eg
Stills 250th/F4/800ISO
Motion 50th/F4/200ISO
Are usable settings, shooting stills at 1/50 is often a no go
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This is my vision for a 'combo cam'..
Delivers at least 10/12 MP stills
Has AF for stills
Has two settings menus
Delivers non alaised 1080 diitgal motion at 24/25/30p (preferably RAW of course !)
Has monitorable controlable sound recording
Has at least 720 output for monitoring the motion recording
Has a chip size of at FF35 for stills and S35crop mode for motion
Costs no more than $10-15K US
Such a device would enable an 'operator' to shoot both pro stills and HD motion with one body and set of lenses
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Some notes/thoughts on DOF
The small chip does restrict creating shallow DOF but the scarlet primes are of Fstops that dont exist in the stills world eg 8mmF1.5
Such lenses can create shallow enough DOF to create reasonably cinematic frames
While us stills photographers may now feel that S35/APS does again not give decent DOF characteristics it is again due to the glass we can choose
I have struggled on how films are getting narrow DOF with wide angle shots with such a 'small' image sensor (s35/aps) until I discovered again that cinema lenses are available in different specs to still lenses
eg Zeiss 18mm F1.2 - (such lenses dont cover FF35, cost $$$$ and are MF only therefore not very good for stills)
Aditionally I have noted that 'cinema' often has appealing blurred backgrounds while keeping lots of the subject in focus - I now realise that a lot of this is to do with 'deep' set design - a luxury not available on many stills shoots !
A small chip does not have, therefore, to restrict ones control of DOF but does restrict that control if you are using that small chip with currently available still photography lenses
Again a larger chip that allows use of still lenses is an attribute once one discovers the price of cine lenses eg http://www.red.com/store/295-0014 (http://www.red.com/store/295-0014)
Graham 'attacks' the FF35 canon 5d look (for film making) as too narrow in DOF for use in motion recording, I agree that many films shot on the 5d at f1.2-F2 look stupid because the lack of DOF is both aesthetically confusing and overly technically challenging in terms of sustaining focus on moving subjects
Intelligent 5d users (such as myself?) are finding that this camera looks cinematic when shot in the F4/5.6/8 region - this is another amazing boon when it comes to selecting lenses because even more money is saved
I get my f4 spec on just two lenses 24-105F4 and 70-200 F4, a lens set that is very cheap in comparison to cine lenses or even a decent set of photo primes
Small chips force one into a different leagu on glass spend....
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What is my toolkit right now?
I use a nikon D3 which gives me all the still performance I want
I capture motion using a Canon DSLR and Sony Ex1
This is obviously a mess in terms of kit lugging.
The sony gives 'good' 1080 with a limited choice of DOF
The Canon gives amazing DOF while not aquiring full 1080 res, doubling on occasion with my still lenses this matters for some shots not others
So where would a 2/3 scarlet get me ?
Well it would give me a cleaner 'EX1' but little more
Where would a S35/APC scarlet get me ? - maybe a long way towards a proper combocam if matched whith ultrafast wide angle glass that currently does not exist in AF
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Understood that 2/3" is not the camera for everybody. That's why it's part of a range.
Graeme
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Understood that 2/3" is not the camera for everybody. That's why it's part of a range.
Graeme
G
Dont take it that Im not interested in future developments from Red - I want RAW I want modularity I dont want to be chucking away a DSLR every six months - Im 'onboard'
Can you comment of these which I cant work out from the Uber threads on RedUser
-When will a S35 or FF scarlet be available to buy if you are not a Red owner (roughly)
- will moving from stills settings to motion settings be a one touch operation
- are the lenses AF or does the scarlet provide AF (for stills) for CanNikon Lenses
- will the S35/FF35 chip provide a 12mp file at least
Will there be a clean file in the 1200 ISO region for stills and motion
Really thats all that is required
Do you really believe that Scarlet will be as nice a still cam in practical use (ergonomics, little details) to a D3 at 800-1200 ISO - In personally not bothered about 12000000 ISO ?
S
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Yes, there's AF. I think 5k is ~12mp or thereabouts. As for image quality, although I'm very confident, now is not the appropriate time to comment on that. Moving between stills and motion should be very simple. The little details are really coming together to make it practical for movie making in so many ways - proper EVF, adjustable LCD, the REDMotes etc.
Graeme
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Yes, there's AF. I think 5k is ~12mp or thereabouts. As for image quality, although I'm very confident, now is not the appropriate time to comment on that. Moving between stills and motion should be very simple. The little details are really coming together to make it practical for movie making in so many ways - proper EVF, adjustable LCD, the REDMotes etc.
Graeme
Af on all lenses - that is cool - or just red lenses
I understand that all lenses can be controlled via the cam/redmote but but control - while lovely for filming is not really good enough for stills
Does the AF work while filming that would be a big bonus in certain situations
In moving to stills and motion the 7d for example keeps your settings ie 1/50th - when I hit still mode or shoot still button I need 1/250 or whever I selected
You seem to be skipping a lot of answers, maybe they are undecided, maybe you are keeping them under your hat ?
S
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Or maybe because I just do image processing and that takes up so much of my time I don't always know exactly how other aspects of the camera work.
Graeme
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I'm cheering for RED success, but the accessories, like the viewfinder and LCD screens are pretty expensive, and it makes me think that Canon could create some sort of 4K/5K 35mm video camera with an EF lens mount, RAW, and all the fixings, for a lot less money, without the advantage of being modular, however there's no indication that this is going to happen so far...
Speaking of shallow DOF, if you're Stanley Kubrick, you'll know how to handle extreme shallow DOF:
Like this scene, shot wide open in only candle light, with no additional "electric" lighting, with the Zeiss/NASA lens, at f/0.70, however, the film size is probably super35, not fullframe, as there is no such thing as full frame motion film, eh?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUQ4bmNu1dA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUQ4bmNu1dA)
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Or maybe because I just do image processing and that takes up so much of my time I don't always know exactly how other aspects of the camera work.
Graeme
Fair point but I see you as a Red publicist
Maybe you should point someone else to the LL board which is very influential to still photographers
Someone who is developing the physical camera
Remember many cameras fall down not on image quality but dumb design somewhere further down the line
The bottom line is the Sc will need fantastic AF with a great selection of lenses that AF and crisp 800ISO to be a credible stills camera
OK the high frame rate will make it a special application cam but to be a general tool the rest of the chain has to be right
Considering CaNikon have design flaws even in their top line stuff even for stills there is a hole to be filled - I hope you can fill it
S
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Nope, not a publicist, more of a public face. I've been reading / participating in LL before my involvement with RED, and just didn't stop posting. I'm happy to answer here what I know and to discuss aspects that I'm involved with, but beyond that, all I can do is point you to reduser and that is where the other responses will be probably best served.
Graeme
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Nope, not a publicist, more of a public face. I've been reading / participating in LL before my involvement with RED, and just didn't stop posting. I'm happy to answer here what I know and to discuss aspects that I'm involved with, but beyond that, all I can do is point you to reduser and that is where the other responses will be probably best served.
Graeme
So can the camera autofocus?
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For those who have questions about RED that Graeme cannot answer, I suggest asking at http://reduser.net (http://reduser.net) where both users and RED employees post.
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So can the camera autofocus?
Yes, there's AF, but obviously only works with lenses that have focus motors. For instance, the little mini-primes for the 2/3" don't have focus motors.
Graeme
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Yes, there's AF, but obviously only works with lenses that have focus motors. For instance, the little mini-primes for the 2/3" don't have focus motors.
Graeme
What about non Red lenses - canon and nikon ?
Graham I didnt mean publicist in a bad way - someone with the inside track maybe - I know you are along time LLer
Reduser is fairly undreadble to me - 541 respsonses to the 30nov announcement 98% about cinematography not stills - not that there is anything wrong with that in the context or the current Red camera
S
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I think that if you put the Nikon or Canon mount on the camera, then AF should work just fine.
Yup, lots of traffic on Reduser - which is both good and bad. But users will "distill" down big threads like that and post the resulting good bits.
Graeme
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I think that if you put the Nikon or Canon mount on the camera, then AF should work just fine.
Yup, lots of traffic on Reduser - which is both good and bad. But users will "distill" down big threads like that and post the resulting good bits.
Graeme
That would be amazing - some reverse engineering - but thinking it is no good if you own everything from 14 through to 400 2.8 - one (I) need to know
S
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Morgan, see here:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37011 (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37011)
Fourth post down: "Interchangeable Lens mounts including focus and iris control of electronic RED, Canon and Nikon lenses (along with Zoom data)."
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Morgan, see here:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37011 (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37011)
Fourth post down: "Interchangeable Lens mounts including focus and iris control of electronic RED, Canon and Nikon lenses (along with Zoom data)."
Focus and Iris control
I read that to mean that one can control the lens from the body/red mote
Meaning you can drive the lens in the same way one could with a Radio Remote FollowFocus for example
ie 'fly by wire' manual focus
While this is amazingly useful technology especially for mounting the camera on a jib etc it is as I read it not the same as auto focus by a long shot
Proper AF the camera can put a subject in focus and keep it there
what (quoting from the same post) "“Touch Focus Tracking” with electronic lens mounts and RED Touchscreen LCDs" means - I dont know
the only evidence I can find for AF is - grahams posts here and the screen shot of the monitor that appears to have focus zones..
of course the zones are too close together but that is only as bad as current DSLRs
(http://www.redgrabs.com/up/1259705913.jpg)
S
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Dug away..
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=517577#post517577 (http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=517577#post517577)
Looks like AF , no mention of which lenses
S
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The sensors in most professional video cameras are still 2/3". That is the industry standard.
True, but they have 3 chips, one for each color. That is a big difference! A no de-Bayering as well...
A 3 chip 2/3 in camera has nearly the same chip real estate as a full 35mm (movie) sized single chip sensor camera, albeit with increased DOF. That can be an advantage for low light when shooting with a T 1.3 Ziess digi-prime to keep the movie in focus
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I severely hope this is a passing fad and we can go back to watching things in focus. I've lost count of the times I've gone to clean my glasses only to find I've been watching a 5D2 movie :-)
Graeme
Two thumbs up Graeme!