We can talk about which camera is better, or not until the sun melts, but the bottom line is Canon made a camera that they aimed at the Alexa as if RED didn't exist.
You know, people talk about Mr. Jannard as if he's "just" a salesman and he is a very good salesman, but he has built a following around his company that is beyond loyal.
He's also built a culture in Hollywood that no camera company has done and no new camera company would ever contemplate.
How many camera companies own a Hollywood studio that anyone can walk into and maybe that doesn't matter to the most end users, but it does matter when you see the investment you have some culture that RED will be around for a long time and in todays financial world none are surprised when we here of another big brand disappear.
I think Mr. Jannard is the Steve Jobs of the camera world, because here we have one of the world's wealthiest men, talking to grunts like us directly.
Red may miss deadlines, sometimes be vague, prior to the Scarlet have the strangest sales system ever devised, but they do communicate from the top to the bottom and they have listened to their user base, not just a few select individuals.
I'm not an engineer and don't care if a file is made from 4 pixels or one, I just know the RED file for me is pretty. It's that simple and we've made stills from it that are pretty . . . it's that simple.
I'm not selling RED because I pay retail, though I know the benefit of raw when shooting multiple cams in fast settings with multiple setups
Sure we set the cameras up to look good, but if we're 400 degrees off on kelvin, or one monitor doesn't exactly match the other, we don't worry because RED CineX works fast in post and is easy to set color to match. Like Chris says if you used C-1, you can use Red Cine X with about 30 minutes of learning curve.
Last week's announcements floored me. I think all of us kind of thought Canon would come out with a raw shooting, 4k, autofocus camera with it's own version of a color grading suite, for half the price of the RED, that would be on the shelves in weeks. In other words a RED killer.
Instead RED came out with a Canon mount, autofocus camera, with upgrades to it's color grading suite for less price than the Canon that will be on sale in weeks. In other words a Canon Killer.
As a disclaimer I'll admit I'm biased because I love the RED file and both my ghetto RED One's have been bullet proof around the world, in rain, freezing cold, 100F heat and 100% humidity.
They're not perfect but they've made me money and opened up a whole new world of what we can creatively produce.
IMO
BC
On another note, I don't want noise free smooth, I want useable film like noise.
I think the 5d2 is too smooth and color is difficult and it doesn't look like video it just looks different than Canons still file.
http://www.russellrutherford.com/rundsmc.jpg