Michel Hafner Posted January 1, 2013 Share Posted January 1, 2013 http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92158-Enter-the-Dragon Revolutionary combination of latitude, resolution and fps, it seems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted January 1, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted January 1, 2013 Doesn't tell you much about noise, does it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted January 4, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted January 4, 2013 http://www.reduser.n...nter-the-Dragon Revolutionary combination of latitude, resolution and fps, it seems. Hmmm. I put a post on there repeating my old analogy that if you consider the 256 steps of an 8-bit/8 stop luminance signal as representing the 8-foot of the average household ceiling, 20 stopsi was equivalent to the height of Mount Everest!Not being sarcastic or nasty, just basically pointing out what a massive achievement that was. Suddenly the post was deleted and I'm now banned for life! Whoo Hoo! Free at last!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Matthew W. Phillips Posted January 4, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted January 4, 2013 You mean the next RED camera isnt 50 stops of latitude, 28k resolution, and equivalent to 128mm film yet? I'm so disappointed...not half as disappointed as those that bought into the "obsolence is obsolescent" marketing scheme. :D P.S. Perhaps we can safely say that "obsolence is obsolescent" is officially obsolete? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Bartok Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Matthew can't tell if you're being serious or joking? Lol Do you mean 120 - 617? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Matthew W. Phillips Posted January 4, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted January 4, 2013 Matthew can't tell if you're being serious or joking? Lol Do you mean 120 - 617? I'm joking Paul. I was making reference to the circus that is the RED camera marketing department. Where they brag about accomplishments that haven't happened yet and promise the world until they get your money then push your previous purchase into a paper weight. And all from a company that promised to make sure you never went obsoloete with your gear. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted January 5, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted January 5, 2013 Here it is; can't believe I lasted over 2 years there! :rolleyes: All I have to do now is buy an Alexa and make three movies and I'll be on a level footing with Richard Boddington.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Bartok Posted January 5, 2013 Share Posted January 5, 2013 hahaha yes unforgettably that's how it is. When I visit there forum I sometimes feel like its forum for a cult... just saying. Not to insult there users or company but too many obsessive people over RED. I feel like its a fashion trend now. I see terrible DOP get work just cause they have a RED. So annoying. I don't have $30,000 just laying around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Matthew W. Phillips Posted January 5, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted January 5, 2013 Here it is; can't believe I lasted over 2 years there! :rolleyes: All I have to do now is buy an Alexa and make three movies and I'll be on a level footing with Richard Boddington.... In all fairness, Richard Boddington shot the first two on 35mm before he "sold out" and went Alexa. lol hahaha yes unforgettably that's how it is. When I visit there forum I sometimes feel like its forum for a cult... just saying. Not to insult there users or company but too many obsessive people over RED. I feel like its a fashion trend now. I see terrible DOP get work just cause they have a RED. So annoying. I don't have $30,000 just laying around. You are surely right about that. Now days it seems you get work from investing in the latest and greatest camera, not by the reel. I'm sure the same thing is happening with the BMC at lower budget levels. Maybe we should call them "DP in a box?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Stevens Posted January 5, 2013 Share Posted January 5, 2013 I know two guys with Red Epics. Well, i known them 'a bit.' Both mortgaged their lives to get them and are getting some work as a result, but frequently they just rent them. And those rental fees pay their loan and they make no profit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Zuzak Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Here it is; can't believe I lasted over 2 years there! :rolleyes: All I have to do now is buy an Alexa and make three movies and I'll be on a level footing with Richard Boddington.... I managed to last four. I wasn't given a reason for ban either and many of my posts have been removed over time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Hafner Posted February 8, 2013 Author Share Posted February 8, 2013 First images are here. http://www.redgrabs.com/up/1360380054.jpg http://www.redgrabs.com/up/1360355646.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Matthew W. Phillips Posted February 8, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted February 8, 2013 First images are here. http://www.redgrabs..../1360380054.jpg http://www.redgrabs..../1360355646.jpg Not my idea of aesthetic or glamourous. But not every job requires making things look good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adrian Sierkowski Posted February 8, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted February 8, 2013 Maybe I'm just old these days; but is it so much to ask for a little pointer on the images with spot readings al'la what Kodak used to do when they put out their exposure examples. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Millar Posted February 8, 2013 Share Posted February 8, 2013 Uh-huh - or the same instant imaged with a comparatively less er, 'stoppy' sensor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vadim Bobkovsky Posted February 9, 2013 Share Posted February 9, 2013 Everyone is obsessed with Caucasian (white) skin tones, but reptiles are sexy and glamorous too! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adrian Sierkowski Posted February 9, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted February 9, 2013 I dunno; I hear reptiles can give you the Herp[etology] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Lewis Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 They're boasting about 20 stops of dynamic range and they give THAT as their first example?? Sure, the stills look nice and crispy, but am I wrong when I say that they don't really show off a wide dynamic range? They don't really show much color, either... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Ruffo Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 We love our Epic - its' been a non-existent rental market - all Alexa here pretty much, but for our own jobs its' been a wonder in a box. That's why I have no interest in upgrading - just how bad a cinematographer do you need to be to requite more than 13.5 stops of dynamic range, at a native, almost noise-free 800 ISO? That's what an Epic-X is. Its' fine. It works perfectly well, even for stills work. It never lets us down. If you can't get great images with an Epic, it's because you just can't get great images, period. If I did documentaries in the desert at high noon, I would get it. This I don't. 5K is more than enough resolution - it resolves slightly more than any of my (great) prime lenses - and it's already choking post - I don't want the data headaches of 6K. Skyfall was shot at 2K - and looked great even on an Imax screen. The mega-pixel race was silly past a certain point in stills cams, and now it is even more silly in cine-cams, which, after all, we use to shoot moving subjects with at 1/48th second, and often with ever so slightly imperfect focus pulls, even with the best ACs. Does any Epic owner say "gee, I hate my footage, because 5K is just too low res?" Slomo is more than slow enough on our Epic - it wasn't too great on Red one (is even worse on Scarlet) but although we often do a little in our fashion and music video work, we don't need to make scientific studies of water behavior, just make dresses look more flowy, and 96fps is ample for that. 13.5 stops is more than enough - in fact much more often than not we only choose a partial slice of that in the grade, because otherwise you are looking at something very flat and log-like. Color is superb (if you know how to shoot and grade Red.) MX upgrade was a no-brainer, as the original M was just too light hungry and the fixed-pattern noise was awful Epic upgrade was nice for the wider field of view on lenses, the better slo-mo, and most of all because it was just light enough to not be too light. But now? Now I often use ND, even on night scenes, because standard lighting is too much at high ISOs and shallow f-stops. Now I'm just happy. Now I have other things to put 9.5K plus 7.5K for a new rocket on (plus even more $$ on upgraded editing drives, bigger SSD mags, etc etc.) and then there is the issue that our MX One will no longer match as a b-Cam (even more expense, need to buy a new B-Cam..) especially for a system that still won't rent much, because most producers just want easy prores on an easy camera (Alexa). So whether or not Dragon delivers on tech spec (I don;t doubt that it will), I don't feel it delivers on being a good business investment in the real world, where the resolution specs of Epic are already a turn-off to most buyers of our services. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted April 8, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted April 8, 2013 The mega-pixel race was silly past a certain point in stills cams, and now it is even more silly in cine-cams I think a lot of people were saying that before Red ever had a shipping product. Theatrical exhibition struggles to match 2K (actually, it's not really capable of 2K under normal circumstances, but I digress). I have seen a lot of Epic pictures and they all looked strangely clippy for something that's supposed to have Alexa amounts of dynamic range. That 20-stop claim didn't last either. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Ruffo Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Epic pictures when shot knowledgeably and graded properly have beautiful roll-off - they don;t hard clip at all, even when fully blasted elements are in-frame I don't like their over-hyped, Maxim magazine style marketing, and I like their high-school cafeteria-style cool-kid preferentialism even less - in other words, I'm no fanboy, not by a mile, but credit where credit is due - the Epic is a great camera, and if you saw crap images from it, you were really looking at a cinematographer's or a post person's incompetence, not a limitation of the gear. Proof is the many features shot on Red that indeed look great, Gone (the recent thriller) being a prime example (shot on Epic). I could show you some horrible clippy-looking footage shot on Alexa and F65 too - even shot on 35mm film - all it takes is incompetence somewhere along the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted April 9, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted April 9, 2013 The specific instance that always springs to mind when I talk about Epic being harsh on the highlights is a shot they use quite a bit when promoting it to the stills market - it's a fashion shot of a girl in a gold dress walking toward camera in a regency hall, with a window behind her. The reflection of the window on the floor is just a hideous, blasted white blob. That's not the only instance, that's just an example of what I'm talking about. In my experience, that's sort of what Epic pictures look like, and it isn't nice. People like Alexa because of the highlight handling, which as far as I can see nothing else - and especially not Epic - can match. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Hafner Posted April 9, 2013 Author Share Posted April 9, 2013 Dragon has officially now 16.5+ stops. So any clipped highlights are intended or the shooter is incompetent. Alexa will have no advantage with highlights at all with 2-3 stops less of dynamic range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Stephen Williams Posted April 9, 2013 Premium Member Share Posted April 9, 2013 Well I have had an Epic for 18 months, it's worked flawlessly & it's paid for itself so I am happy. I have used HDRX a few times, however I don't think it was ever used in post, so 13.5 stops has in reality been enough. I started my career shooting on Reversal 7240 VNF , so knowing how to expose probably helps. I took the plunge and ordered Dragon pretty much as soon as it was possible yesterday, I hope to recover the money in rentals in the 1st month or so whilst it's 'hot'. I shoot a lot of pack shots, I hope I can take the stills from the motion, which is my motivation for 6k. Most of my clients ask for 4kHD if there doing the post 'as home'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Ruffo Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 The specific instance that always springs to mind when I talk about Epic being harsh on the highlights is a shot they use quite a bit when promoting it to the stills market - it's a fashion shot of a girl in a gold dress walking toward camera in a regency hall, with a window behind her. The reflection of the window on the floor is just a hideous, blasted white blob. That's not the only instance, that's just an example of what I'm talking about. In my experience, that's sort of what Epic pictures look like, and it isn't nice. People like Alexa because of the highlight handling, which as far as I can see nothing else - and especially not Epic - can match. P I've seen that shot - and that was a grading choice I agree is ugly. We've shot lots of dramatic high-key set-ups without any issues like that. Highlight roll-off can look as creamy as Alexa highlights, you just have to know how. I think a reason Alexa is perceived as so much better is that better DPs tend to get Alexas to work with, DPs with more experience. Red has become a bit of a film school camera, so you see endless bad work on Vimeo and in no-budget music videos. That doesn't mean that those same DPs, after learning the system, could not give you as good results with an Epic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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