Decent Red/Film Comparisons

[Guest will griffith]

Not sure what stock they used on the DVD example

or others, but still nice of them to post it.

 

Swedish Post House

[Lance Flores]

Not sure what stock they used on the DVD example

or others, but still nice of them to post it.

 

Swedish Post House

 

Thanks Will - I'll call them today before it gets too late.

[David Mullen ASC]

I believe the tests were shot by film students. The film results are odd -- rather grainier than you'd expect. They say they shot everything with 250 stock, maybe it was Fuji Eterna 250D, I don't know, but the night stuff is quite underexposed.

[Lance Flores]

I believe the tests were shot by film students. The film results are odd -- rather grainier than you'd expect. They say they shot everything with 250 stock, maybe it was Fuji Eterna 250D, I don't know, but the night stuff is quite underexposed.

 

It's hard to interpret other people's data. I just puled up the images. Don't know what to think exactly. I waiting on Jim's Red data, I was going to send him a drive to put it on and start working on it with on Smoke or Parahna. I've got to make a decision soon.

[Max Jacoby]

This test is not very useful I find. All these horrible wobbly pan shots when a static frame would have been much more telling. The Red camera looks too soft, I don't think it's calibrated properly. About the only thing that I find interesting is the feeling of the skintones where film looks so much nicer.

[David Mullen ASC]

My main impression from the test is "don't shoot on 250 ASA film at night and underexpose it three stops or more..."

 

I guess it suggests that it is easier to screw up film if you don't know what you are doing.

 

My other impression was that, ignoring all the grain and the focus mistakes, the fine detail was similar in both, the highlight latitude was wider with film, underexposure latitude was better with digital. It's hard to make any good judgments about fleshtones in the test.

[Lance Flores]

My main impression from the test is "don't shoot on 250 ASA film at night and underexpose it three stops or more..."

 

I guess it suggests that it is easier to screw up film if you don't know what you are doing.

 

My other impression was that, ignoring all the grain and the focus mistakes, the fine detail was similar in both, the highlight latitude was wider with film, underexposure latitude was better with digital. It's hard to make any good judgments about fleshtones in the test.

 

 

The latter was my take as well. The point is well taken about film as the cinematographer is taking, in essence, into account the post process during the acquisition, that's why the skin tone is, typically, more finished when it is presented. More processing is done at negative and print. Digital is usually just given basic correction. With the (almost) 4K RGB Dalsa Origin data I've been working with, skin tone, inter alia, I found it is rather easily corrected in 4K finishing in Smoke or Piranha, which is what we use. Some of what the cinematographer does in film acquisition is otherwise differed to post when acquiring digitally. For =>2K digital is somewhat forgiving in the error margins of exposure (except for near over exposure) . . . but, not for poor cinematographic techniques, nothing can fix that.

 

A couple of weeks ago I was at a test shoot, for the F23 and Phantom HD with the new B rev sensor, processing inline real-time with the IRIDAS and monitoring with a Cinetal 4:4:4 HD waveform monitor and vectorscope. The colour, especially the skintones were just gorgeous. I think, had the Red been processed similarly the results would much better. The film acquisition could have been much better as well, but we all know that.

[Guest will griffith]

Oh well...on top of the poor film work it looks like most of the Red stuff is out of focus

because of the PL mount issue.

[Walter Graff]

I see it as yet another "test" that offers those who were not there and not 'in the minds' of the testers or in the moment of the tests more erroneous information to go on. I still say that tests should be for those that do them, and if you were not there and don't know what went into them, you should look at the results with nothing more than a passing interest. Everything else is gossip and conjecture. I've seen a dozen so far RED tests and about the best I can determine is that RED can compete well with cameras costing much more. Outside of that, you'd always have to do your own test to know if any camera fits your needs and likes.

[Mikael Lindström]

I know there were issues with the PL-mount but it has been fixed since. Another issue is the the shaky handcamera. And the pan is way too fast for a test, laws of nature when shooting wide pan shots at 25fps. The contrastratio is also a problem when it comes to comparisons.

 

I was recently focuspulling for a 3 day shooting, shortfilm, using the RED with a Cooke S4 series. Recording at 4K 2:1 using 1:1.85 ratio. We also did tests with 35mm using fuji 8543 160 T and 8583 400 T. All on static tripod, just switching the cameras, same lens on both cameras. Interiorshots and a snowy cold exterior in the old town of Stockholm. I´m not sure if these test will show up on Chimney Pots FTP server or not but they were involved . But keep an eye open. The camera was one of the first hundred, very Beta without viewfinder and only the preview signal open. But to me it seems like a nice camera to work with once you get a proper set-up.