I've been hearing that the Arri Alexa is the one go-to digital cinema camera these days. A well known person I spoke with recently in this area said it's pretty much all Alexa for him and everybody, though sometimes he shoots with the C500 and likes it for low light. Does not like the look of the Red.
BC, you tried the Alexa?
No, well semi-no.
Early on I looked at the Alexa, thought it was obviously well made, was smart shooting 2.5 k to downsample to 2k and offering prorezz out of camera.
I went with RED for this reason. It's was 4k (well semi 4k) which is not the most important thing in the world, but 4k is a catch phrase, clients like catch phrases and though they'll never need 4k for their videos or the fact your probably better off conforming Alexa footage to 4k it's not 4k.
Also having a base in LA made RED a little easier to participate in.
Then of course costs.
My first R1 was about $20,000, 2nd new R1 $25,000, the Scarlet, I don't remember but somewhere around 20 by the time I added what was needed.
In other words I ended up with 3 4k cameras for the price of a new Alexa.
Then there is size. An R1 weighs in at 15 lbs with battery on board and a PL lens, can be dropped to 8 lbs with small nikon lenses. A scarlet/Epic can be configured to 6 or 7 lbs. the Alexa was much heavier and size makes a difference in my type of production.
But you need to remember something when you hear from "industry" experts. Cameras like RED and the little 4k Panasonic are disruptive technologies.
If you use a full Blown Red or Alexa you better have the chops to be a decent DP, better have a focus puller on speed dial and have a heck of a dit station and system.
A camera like the gh 4k really is a game changer. I know, I've used the gh3's a lot last year and the footage was very good, not RED good, not Alexa good, but damn good and moveable and fluid and (drum roll please) fast to set up and shoot.
Since the new gh will have xlr inputs, I hope better preamps, SDI out, it doesn't lack much, except a heavy duty codec and highly variable frame rates, though it will be 10 bit 422 and for $2,000 that's crazy.
Then of course there is the autofocus and regardless of what you here, autofocus if it works and doesn't hunt for a lot of advertising imagery is really amazing at least with the gh3.
But again the price of the gh 4k . . .
That's like buying a Nikon D800 for $300 . . . actually it's like buying an $18,000 Canon 1dc for $2,000, or $18,000 less.
So my point is when dp's say they love the Alexa (which I'm sure they do) there is also this tempered thought of "I like complicated cameras because it keeps the wannabes out of the biz", and btw: don't think the film production companies have not taken a huge financial hit during this new normal recession, because they have.
Also keep in mind that creative people are the least likely to accept change. (sounds crazy right?).
DP's know Arri, don't know RED, don't care about panasonic cause that's for the video boys, so they don't pay attention to it.
Don Mantle the DP that DP'd Rush for Ron Howard talked about the cameras he used from go-pros to the Canon c series. The Canons he used because of size but because the project was cost limited at 18 million (which is quite low for a production of this type) and Ron Howard had a relationship with Canon.
When he spoke of the Canons and the other non Arri and non Film cameras he didn't use, he also speaks with apology. In the Film Biz, big stuff is the way they work. What is a Van to me is two 18 wheelers for them. That's their world, but there is more convergence every day and not just in stills and motion but in high end to low end.
A DP someday has to wake up and think what do I want? To let the production company spend 2 million on equipment and cut my pay by 1/2 or shoot on a bunch of little cameras and get paid in full?
I think we know that answer and btw: the little cameras they used in rush made amazing imagery and did things you could never do with a large camera.
In fact I think the coolest panasonic announcement at CES was the pana 4k wearable camera. I can think of about 40 uses for that camera.
IMO
BC