Matt Stevens Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 The Canon announcement was cool, but disappointing since I and a number of people I work with here in NYC were praying for a sub 5k DSLR that was decent to work with and not a royal pain in the arse like the 5D, 7D, etc. Canon's c300 is not that animal, despite looking mighty nice. The Scarlet... To me it's blown all of Canon's tires out from under them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Drysdale Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 The Canon announcement was cool, but disappointing since I and a number of people I work with here in NYC were praying for a sub 5k DSLR that was decent to work with and not a royal pain in the arse like the 5D, 7D, etc. I never thought that would on the cards for camera aimed at film & TV production, perhaps a possibility of a FS 100 version and a F3 version, which wasn't this case here. The future DSLRs might be more what you're looking for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Rose Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 This is awfully silly and shallow I suppose, but whatever happened to art and design with these cams. The canon looks like a bloody toy, and the Scarlett just looks effin stupid. I'd love an HD camera in a body that had a little style to it, like how the Leica digitals still maintain that form and look of the classical 35mm. I'd love something that evoked a Bolex, with black and silver...something that paid homage to the grand old analog cameras while (as always) pushing the technological envelope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Vincent Sweeney Posted November 4, 2011 Author Premium Member Share Posted November 4, 2011 Ok, I don't understand the lenses. The new primes might be worth more than the camera, but they offer a 24mm and the next step is a 50mm?? No 32 or 35 seems insane? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaron Berman Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 The price seems to be the shocker. BUT based on release-event marketing materials, how can anyone say this is any better or worse than anything else? I think comparisons are being made based on price, which is natural. How things LOOK is a lot more important. At 24mb/s AVCHD blows the doors off XDCAM HD at 35mb/s, and thats just a "numbers" comparison. If numbers were all that mattered, the original RED1 would far outperform the Alexa. Even the MX SHOULD outperform the Alexa - but in reality its nowhere close. We can spin the merits of raw vs. log vs. linear all day long but who cares? If it looks like crap, it looks like crap. If it's great then that's awesome! - another tool. Once its out, a REAL price is charged, and people start using it then we can judge if its any good and if so, which markets its good for. Same goes for scarlet. Maybe scarlet is a fabulous camera, 99% reliable with great skintones and highlight rolloff....Who knows, it's been a LONG time coming. But for now... Canon is a company who's business is in-house development of lenses and sensors. I'm willing to wait and see how it actually LOOKS instead of deciding whether or not its any good based on endless spec-blathering. Even based on the recompressed vimeo clips it seems to retain highlights and roll them off better than most footage short of the Alexa, so I'm happy to see what its capable of. It's environmentally "sealed" to some extent, and it looks a bit like a mamiya 645. That's style, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Vincent Sweeney Posted November 4, 2011 Author Premium Member Share Posted November 4, 2011 At 24mb/s AVCHD blows the doors off XDCAM HD at 35mb/s, and thats just a "numbers" comparison. Where is that coming from? Shoot with an F3 without an ext. recorder and you'd be very surprised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaron Berman Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 I'm not arguing with the quality of XDCAM HD 35 - its a great codec for sure. But with the panasonic recorder attached to an F3, vs. the internal codec, the AVCHD is noticeably better. Very noticeably better. My point being - numbers don't ALWAYS tell the whole truth. But honestly, if there's one thing that will sell more Canons initially than Scarlets it's Vincent Laforet's anecdote - " I should also mention that we shot with the C300 camera for 3 days in 95ºF + temperatures in the desert on RC Helicopters and Russian arms and we never had a single issue with the camera that I can recall. Impressive given that these were prototype cameras" The canon will likely price-out about the same as a scarlet in the same configuration - with batteries, evf, lcd, recording device, grip - perhaps the canon a little cheaper. BUT if your project depends on a camera working 100% of the time, well then the decision will probably be tougher for potential buyers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted November 5, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted November 5, 2011 The Scarlet... To me it's blown all of Canon's tires out from under them. As well as the people who bought Epics and all the current R1 owners... There was a thread about this on Reduser, but it seems to have disappeared :( A better name for Scarlet might have been "Epic Lite", since it does most of what the Epic can do, (in the real-world production environment anyway) for a fraction of the price. From what Jim Jannard said, it sounds like Scarlet has much the same design as Epic, but uses lower-spec ASICs and sensors which couldn't cut the mustard for Epic service. I don't know whether that means they're differently manufactured parts, or that they simply select the fastest ASICs and lowest-dud-pixel-count sensors for the Epics. I certainly wasn't expecting this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Joseph Posted November 5, 2011 Share Posted November 5, 2011 As well as the people who bought Epics and all the current R1 owners... There was a thread about this on Reduser, but it seems to have disappeared :( A better name for Scarlet might have been "Epic Lite", since it does most of what the Epic can do, (in the real-world production environment anyway) for a fraction of the price. From what Jim Jannard said, it sounds like Scarlet has much the same design as Epic, but uses lower-spec ASICs and sensors which couldn't cut the mustard for Epic service. I don't know whether that means they're differently manufactured parts, or that they simply select the fastest ASICs and lowest-dud-pixel-count sensors for the Epics. I certainly wasn't expecting this. Yeah the R1 is almost redundant with the Scarlet's sensor. I'd be very frustrated at this point if I invested 20-30 grand in a camera, or hell, even 50-60 in the Epic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted November 5, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted November 5, 2011 Also John what's supposed to be on November 4? Only this it turns out. They put on the big to do with screenings at Paramount because they knew that the pictures outperform the underwhelming numbers: 8 bit, 4:2:2, 50 Mbps.... On a 55 foot screen, it's adequate. It definitely looks consumer rather than professional. It's plastic with lots of little buttons all over it. -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin W. King Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 I don't know how you could argue that the scarlet competes with an epic. Ha Ha Ha! The scarlet has al the reject epic sensors, slower processors, and less functionality. It is designed for a stills shooter who wants to make movies. HDRx is what seems interesting to me about the EPIC, and you can't even do this at 24fps with the Scarlet. I sometimes wonder if people are really looking at the numbers. Because honestly, There are a whole lot of numbers still missing from the scarlet list, but most importantly what does the scarlet look like? I'm sure it will look great, but It's not going to look like an EPIC, because it can't even match the frame rate/resolution/HDRx of an Epic. I guess we'll see in a couple weeks. When I see the footage from the Scarlet, then I'll know wether canon should be nervous. I think in the end we will see that both are great cameras and that although Scarlet might have the numbers on its side, The two cameras will perform competitively against each other and the real cost of both devices will be similar. The one thing that the Scarlet seems to have the C300 beat on is the frame rate. Any other observations will have to wait until we can see some Scarlet footage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Drysdale Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 Canon's c300 is not that animal, despite looking mighty nice. The Scarlet... To me it's blown all of Canon's tires out from under them. I suspect it may depend what you want to use the camera for. There are environments that the C 300 could still be happily working away, while the Scarlet is total dead without any power. How well the C300 goes in the overall market may depend on how the images compare to the base F3 and how close the C300's street price matches it. There are people who don't want to use RAW (or producers who you're best not even going there with), so that's not the answer to everything. The F3 is pretty well established, so Canon need to do something eye catching with the C300. Canon may have something else up their sleeves for the s-log/RAW competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Vincent Sweeney Posted November 6, 2011 Author Premium Member Share Posted November 6, 2011 Yeah, the HDR gimmick... build it with a highlight response like film has and you don't really need it. I guess the Alexa already did that, sort of. Someone said the Scarlet wont do over 24p without windowing the sensor. I can see this being a huge problem for a good percentage of people, and would keep me from renting it for several types, or most, shoots. I can't spend 6 hours looking for the specs on their party forum. If someone has a complete list, I'd like to see it. Yeah the F3 is very hard to beat. I just shoot with it, again, on a gig over last weekend and it wasn't even an s-log version and did great for a digital camera. The producer, again, did not want to deal with the red bugs that I and they have experienced, nor the raw post since it just isn't necessary 90% of the time. I had never used the internal cards before but we did on this one and was shocked at how well it held up. Two shots at very late dusk had to be pushed to 12db gain and it was damn clean for having no light left. For the price and ease of post, I still don't see a good competitor, for this month anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Joseph Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 Yeah, the HDR gimmick... build it with a highlight response like film has and you don't really need it. I guess the Alexa already did that, sort of. Someone said the Scarlet wont do over 24p without windowing the sensor. I can see this being a huge problem for a good percentage of people, and would keep me from renting it for several types, or most, shoots. I can't spend 6 hours looking for the specs on their party forum. If someone has a complete list, I'd like to see it. Yeah the F3 is very hard to beat. I just shoot with it, again, on a gig over last weekend and it wasn't even an s-log version and did great for a digital camera. The producer, again, did not want to deal with the red bugs that I and they have experienced, nor the raw post since it just isn't necessary 90% of the time. I had never used the internal cards before but we did on this one and was shocked at how well it held up. Two shots at very late dusk had to be pushed to 12db gain and it was damn clean for having no light left. For the price and ease of post, I still don't see a good competitor, for this month anyway. Yeah I'm thinking of doing a project on the F3 cause it's so much damn cheaper than most other alternatives. Not sure it'll be an S-log camera but it's cheap as hell so I might as well give it a shot. I'm glad I read this about how it looked that good and at 12db too. What glass were you shooting with and how were you recording as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Stevens Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 I suspect it may depend what you want to use the camera for. There are environments that the C 300 could still be happily working away, while the Scarlet is total dead without any power. How well the C300 goes in the overall market may depend on how the images compare to the base F3 and how close the C300's street price matches it. There are people who don't want to use RAW (or producers who you're best not even going there with), so that's not the answer to everything. The F3 is pretty well established, so Canon need to do something eye catching with the C300. Canon may have something else up their sleeves for the s-log/RAW competition. That is all likely true and I hope you are correct about Canon. I'm guessing it will be six months before we all know what the poop really is on this stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted November 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted November 6, 2011 I don't get the Canon C300 -- the jump from a Canon 5D to a C300 gets you 1080P 8-bit 4:2:2... for only $20,000? It would make more sense if the C300 sold for $10,000, not $20,000. At $20,000, you'd expect at least 10-bit 4:4:4 1080P Log if not 4K RAW to be exciting as a product. Six years ago, that price would have made sense. And 8-bit Canon Log doesn't sound like a good idea from a potential banding issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freya Black Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 (edited) Yeah, the HDR gimmick... build it with a highlight response like film has and you don't really need it. I guess the Alexa already did that, sort of. Someone said the Scarlet wont do over 24p without windowing the sensor. I can see this being a huge problem for a good percentage of people, and would keep me from renting it for several types, or most, shoots. I can't spend 6 hours looking for the specs on their party forum. If someone has a complete list, I'd like to see it. Not sure if this is what you mean in terms of specs? Isn't the sensor windowed even when it is at 24fps? Maybe I misunderstand: Hope that helps? I wonder if it could get an upgrade to do 120fps at 720p? Maybe the sensor isn't quite e up to that speed but it would be great if it could make that small leap. love Freya Edited November 6, 2011 by Freya Black Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freya Black Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 I don't know how you could argue that the scarlet competes with an epic. Ha Ha Ha! The scarlet has al the reject epic sensors, I think that's unlikely, I'm sure it will use the same sensors as the epic but the camera will just run a bit slower electronically. Not sure how some of these rumours get started! slower processors, and less functionality. It is designed for a stills shooter who wants to make movies. HDRx is what seems interesting to me about the EPIC, and you can't even do this at 24fps with the Scarlet. I sometimes wonder if people are really looking at the numbers. Because honestly, There are a whole lot of numbers still missing from the scarlet list, but most importantly what does the scarlet look like? I'm sure it will look great, but It's not going to look like an EPIC, because it can't even match the Theres a picture of it here, it's supposed to be a similar size/shape to the epic: http://www.red.com/products/scarlet#product-tech-specs love Freya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francesco Bonomo Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 Isn't the sensor windowed even when it is at 24fps? It looks like it, Freya. It crops from 5k to 4k, so technically it's windowed, though the "jump" is not as big as, say, going from 5k to 1k. I guess there could be a bit of confusion for people who are going to buy and plan to use it as a 2k camera, and then realize their widest lens is not that wide anymore. Not a big deal, but Red should really put a better informative page on their website about their new camera (this one is not that misleading, but could be better) instead of re-directing traffic to their online store from the main page or to the ReD(&D) Forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Drysdale Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 I don't get the Canon C300 -- the jump from a Canon 5D to a C300 gets you 1080P 8-bit 4:2:2... for only $20,000? It would make more sense if the C300 sold for $10,000, not $20,000. At $20,000, you'd expect at least 10-bit 4:4:4 1080P Log if not 4K RAW to be exciting as a product. Six years ago, that price would have made sense. And 8-bit Canon Log doesn't sound like a good idea from a potential banding issue. There seems to be a number of people planning to put External ProRes recorders onto the Scarlet, which would still undercut the C300. If the C300's paint box is comprehensive the DIT could be working away F900 style doing set ups. I understand the Sensor reference was on REDUser, where the higher grade sensors would be used on the Epic, while the others would be on the Scarlet. I'd assume the difference would be hard to spot, but it maximizes the use of the sensors manufactured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted November 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted November 6, 2011 There seems to be a number of people planning to put External ProRes recorders onto the Scarlet It has a properly debayered output? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Drysdale Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 [/size] It has a properly debayered output? Time may reveal all in the end. There could be a few compromises in there to keep the costs down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Vincent Sweeney Posted November 6, 2011 Author Premium Member Share Posted November 6, 2011 There seems to be a number of people planning to put External ProRes recorders onto the Scarlet Still don't get it. Why not an F3 instead? Costs less, probably better low light performance and as good or better DR, and much better battery life and ease of use. It can also do 60p out if needed, but using the full S35 sensor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freya Black Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 [/size] It has a properly debayered output? Not sure exactly what you mean by this? However I thought the whole point of Red and the workflow was that it spat out "raw" footage that was much easier to grade and get a cinematic result but the stuff that comes out of the HDMI would just be a very rough approximation, in other words, more of a film like workflow where you have a video tap but it's just for preview purposes not actual release. Have I misunderstood this? It could be I am way off base but I always got the impression that the Red concept was something like all the difficulties of a film based workflow, only you are shooting video instead? Surely if you are recording the hdmi/ SDI whatever to a pro-res recorder, you are just going to get a camera preview type output that's not very gradeable but looks nasty. So you kind of have the worst of all worlds? It also makes the whole "4k" thing really moot! Am I really off base here? I have also noticed people using Alexa cameras and getting all excited and claiming the camera automatically outputs graded footage on the set, which sounded like obvious nonsense to me, but I figured they must have been using a red camera previously and so were astonished that the camera preview looked like good camcorder footage or something?? It's hard these days because it seems like there are a lot of people out there talking nonsense and you have to work out what it really means, a bit like those ancient beastiary books, where you are like "Ah! I think they mean a tiger, although it could be a giraffe I suppose" *sigh* love Freya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Drysdale Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 Am I really off base here? I have also noticed people using Alexa cameras and getting all excited and claiming the camera automatically outputs graded footage on the set, which sounded like obvious nonsense to me, but I figured they must have been using a red camera previously and so were astonished that the camera preview looked like good camcorder footage or something?? You can have the "look" you're applying to the film shown on the set using LUT (lookup tables). It doesn't affect the master itself or grade it, but it previews the proposed final look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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