New Red Camera - Raven

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Now? Hell I'd say the 65 is on the way out-- not that it was ever really there. If anything, the newer F series are kind of competition for Red and Arri, though even then not really. Much like the new Varicam, I can't really see them breaking into major productions. Maybe if they brought out a more robust less, well less Sony F camera which doesn't share as much ENG DNA, maybe then.. But as it stands now, it seems the F series are relegated too--- I don't even know. I only ever really touch them on MoWs.

[Robin R Probyn]

Hi Tyler

 

I know you have a strong dislike of Sony.. :).. but really 16bit RAW from an F55,and certainly an F65.. .. there is no way that high lights are being clipped anymore than Alexa .. even with XAVC EI slog you have 14 stop DR..

There have been many blind side by side tests and no one can tell.. maybe you have been editing PDW800 ENG shoots..what are the low cost Sony camera,s you speak of.. ? thats a another deal altogether. and would never be compared to Alexa... or your monitors are 8 bit..

 

Sog3 curve is almost identical to LogC.. there is no harsh clipping of highlights.. that statement is cow poo I feel .. but the $1,000 BM pocket camera as always shows none of these defects .. :)

Edited October 8, 2015 by Robin R Probyn

[Aapo Lettinen]

actually one usually CAN tell quite reliably which camera is which, especially if DP's and colourists use the same kind of style for certain camera models but also when they are trying to hide the differences. It does not necessarily mean that the other camera's image is better or worse than the other but the differences are impossible to hide completely.

 

I, for example, watch a lot of movie trailers and can usually tell which camera a movie is mostly shot on, especially when there is lots of skin tones which try to look natural. For example, Tomorrowland trailer looked like Alexa more than a RED but there was something on the colours and skin tones which was more screaming than usual Alexa image (like halfway between Fuji and Kodak in terms of colour response) so I was sure it was something different from those two and thus most likely a Sony camera. It is quite interesting that like in the film era, Japanese manufacturers are more interested in bright lively colours and western manufacturers are more interested in contrast/latitude and forget the colours completely (except Arri which is aiming for subtle natural colour response like Kodak film and is mostly interested in drama uses (skin tone response) )

 

I sometimes confuse low end Alexa stuff with the Red One MX, you can usually spot REDs by their lifeless skin tones and highlight handling but sometimes low budget Alexa stuff looks quite a lot like that with horrible colour correction and blown out highlights :P

 

"low cost Sony camera" =at least FS7 and, if somebody still shoots on them, the F3

[Robin R Probyn]

Well there have been umpteen blind tests with well known DP,s who have not been able to tell.. you must be one of the few .. are you going to the cinema to what these trailers..

My post was about highlight harsh clipping in Sony camera,s.. ENG yes of course.. but F55/65 with Slog RAW / XAVC there is 14 stops..16 bits in RAW.. to say they have harsh highlight clipping is nuts.. yet a BM pocket camera is of course fine .. come on really..

[Aapo Lettinen]

It's a bit different to watch a movie trailer than a simulated camera test. In a trailer there is much more different lighting conditions and shooting situations and you can better see the camera's performance in production environment. I usually watch the trailers from itunes using calibrated display and best playback quality. Comparing a single image or two might not be enough but in a trailer you can seen 30-50 shots and then you will usually see very clearly what is going on.

 

I've been working a year and a half as a dit/assistant editor in a nature documentary which is shooting on lots of different cameras, the main camera being F5 in raw mode so I might be overly sensitive to Sony image, and also Bmpc, bmcc, c300, Epic mx, gh4, and so on...

 

Try to watch this movie's trailer and spot the most obvious Red One shot (hint:two boys on schoolyard.look at the skintones) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340107/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_5

[Tyler Purcell]

It's rare that by the end of watching a TV show or movie that I can't tell which camera was used and even what the post process was. I know PLENTY of cinematographers who have the same ability. I've gone to movies with them and we've argued for hours afterwards about why the RED still looks like crap or why the Alexa is the closest thing to film, but not quite there. It's always funny when you get home and go on IMDB to check if you're right. It's also getting harder to tell as the cameras get better and colorists have learned how to hide the problems.

 

Digital cinema as a whole is simply an interpretation of what actually exists. Then manipulate the ever living crap out of it through coloring and special effects process, what remains is something entirely different. So when I see highlight clipping on a big screen in a huge theater projected in 4k, it really, really, really pisses me off. Film doesn't clip harshly, the Alexa doesn't clip harshly, so why would you ever shoot with a camera that clips harshly and even if you DID, why wouldn't you clean it up in post?

 

This is why I firmly believe, people who shoot with the RED are after something the Alexa doesn't have. If you're not after quality of image, what are you after? It must be resolution, that's the only thing that makes any sense. If you're making a $100M+ dollar movie, you can afford a few Alexa's, even an Alexa 65, which has a 6k workflow. So again, why would ANYONE in their right mind shoot on a RED, Sony or any other digital cinema camera on a BIG HOLLYWOOD FILM? When you read ASC and interviews, cinematographers have "excuses" like; I wanted to try this camera or I needed more resolution for XYZ reason. None of those guys realize that ILM still prefers film because it has more dynamic range and accurate colors. So if you're shooting on VFX shows, you really should be doing your plates on 70mm, but that's beside the point. It just shows, digital cinema is still in the "experimental" phase because there are still so many options. At one point, everyone will gravitate towards a single option which is the best and that will be the gold standard, like 35mm was. I think the Alexa 65 maybe just that package, but we've gotta wait and see.

 

yet a BM pocket camera is of course fine .. come on really..

Digital cinema cameras don't have shutters, they don't have ASA/ISO, all of that is electronically controlled. Super sensitive imagers LIKE THE SONY ONES need to accept much more light AND still have differentiation between 100% white and 99.9% white. When you increase the lumens (IE lower ASA) what happens to the imager? It gets over-powered by the light and starts to distort. This is where you get the highlight clipping from, it's actually distortion. When you shoot in very dark situations, that distortion goes away, but anything that's bright and pointed towards the lens, will distort unless heavily filtered to bring down to the imagers working ISO. A good cinematographer will try to keep their cameras within the working ISO and simply use lots of filtration to compensate, this is why in some rare completely controlled situations, you don't see these problems.

 

The reason why the blackmagic cameras don't have these problems is because frankly, until the URSA 4.6k, the imagers haven't been very good. Blackmagic wasn't sourcing ultra sensitive imagers like Sony and RED, they were using off the shelf one's, focusing on dynamic range and colors rather then sensitivity and resolution in their first generation cameras. This gave them a distinct advantage; less sensitivity, less problems. It's the same for Arri, they started with high dynamic range, amazing colors, low sensitivity and lower resolution sensors and over time have developed better and better imagers. Taking their time and instead of making a camera for "spec" purposes like the "Swiss army knife" mid-range (FS7 etc) Sony cameras.

 

The only reason people shoot with Sony and RED cameras is because they either forgot how good film looks or they've never touched an Alexa. Honestly, I've seen some Alexa 65 material projected in 4k and it was outstanding. Not quite blow your mind away like 70mm film projection, but still a marketable improvement over previous digital cinema cameras.

[Aapo Lettinen]

people shoot with REDs and Sonys because they weight less and are smaller than Alexas. They are much more owner operator cameras because of the more complicated menus/user interface and less sturdy mechanics.

You can't, for example, use an full sized Alexa with octacopter or gimbal (unless it's a really big one) and the camera mass and lenght may complicate operating in some situations.

The Alexa Mini will be nice for these uses when it is common enough in the market.

 

people may have missed the main point of the Raven camera: it is VERY lightweight for a cinema camera so it would be very nice in gimbal and copter use even though it surely has some glitches (I suspect cooling problems might be present but can't know before the actual camera is out. and nowadays when raw recording is not that special anymore it would be nice to have lower compression ratios available)

[Robin R Probyn]

Digital cinema cameras don't have shutters, they don't have ASA/ISO, all of that is electronically controlled. Super sensitive imagers LIKE THE SONY ONES need to accept much more light AND still have differentiation between 100% white and 99.9% white. When you increase the lumens (IE lower ASA) what happens to the imager? It gets over-powered by the light and starts to distort. This is where you get the highlight clipping from, it's actually distortion. When you shoot in very dark situations, that distortion goes away, but anything that's bright and pointed towards the lens, will distort unless heavily filtered to bring down to the imagers working ISO. A good cinematographer will try to keep their cameras within the working ISO and simply use lots of filtration to compensate, this is why in some rare completely controlled situations, you don't see these problems.

 

This is nonsense ..

[Michael LaVoie]

The only reason people shoot with Sony and RED cameras is because they either forgot how good film looks or they've never touched an Alexa. Honestly, I've seen some Alexa 65 material projected in 4k and it was outstanding. Not quite blow your mind away like 70mm film projection, but still a marketable improvement over previous digital cinema cameras.

I've never had a Sony, Canon or Panasonic digital cinema camera malfunction. Reliability on set is just as important as the image quality and that's kind of why the Alexa reigns supreme cause it delivers on all fronts. But I have never had any of the aforementioned brands crash on set and I've managed to get great images out of all three just by staying within their exposure ranges.

 

I can't say the same for Red or Blackmagic cameras, both of which have had crashes and bugs on set.

Edited October 8, 2015 by Michael LaVoie

[Tyler Purcell]

This is nonsense .. [/font][/color]

That's how it works and that's why the super sensitive cameras suffer from a lot of maladies like this.

[Robin R Probyn]

That's how it works and that's why the super sensitive cameras suffer from a lot of maladies like this.

 

{digital camera,s}" they don't have ASA/ISO, all of that is electronically controlled." so what is the ASA rating of an Arri 435 or an Aaton..

 

"Super sensitive imagers LIKE THE SONY ONES need to accept much more light AND still have differentiation between 100% white and 99.9% white.".. what do you mean by this..?

 

'A good cinematographer will try to keep their cameras within the working ISO and simply use lots of filtration to compensate,".. there are many top dp,s who are shooting big budget films without any filters.. let alone lots of filters..what are these filters you talk about.. what is a camera,s "working ISO"

 

​So the F65 is a camera that really suffers from harsh white clipping.. because it has a sensitive sensor. in your experience ? .. where have you ever read that.. its native 800 same as Alexa.. you move you ISO up or down to change your grey level..

 

You better on the phone and impart your knowledge to Storaro.. who is foolishly using one now.. :)

Edited October 9, 2015 by Robin R Probyn

[David Mullen ASC]

Every F65 movie I've seen looks great -- "Tomorrowland", "Oblivion", "After Earth" -- it's the movies I've seen shot on the F55 that are a little more problematic in terms of clipping and saturation in overexposed areas.

[Robin R Probyn]

Every F65 movie I've seen looks great -- "Tomorrowland", "Oblivion", "After Earth" -- it's the movies I've seen shot on the F55 that are a little more problematic in terms of clipping and saturation in overexposed areas.

 

Thats only because the DP,s have been using lots of filters to compensate for the sensitive sensor.. its that .1% between 99.9% and 100% white you have to look out for..and lack of ISO.. or they were all shot in dark situations ..

Edited October 9, 2015 by Robin R Probyn

[Tyler Purcell]

so what is the ASA rating of an Arri 435 or an Aaton..

Film stocks dictate the sensitivity rating. Sure, you can "push" or "pull" stocks, but they inherently have a marked sensitivity which is where they work best.

 

So imagine a CMOS sensor in the same way. The sensor has a base sensitivity. To use the pocket camera analogy once more, it works best at 800 ASA. When you set the camera electronically to a higher shutter speed or lower ASA in order to compensate for the excess lumens above the base sensitivity, you are basically telling the imager to work over-time. This, just like pushing and pulling film stocks, won't give you an "optimal" image. With film you simply change the stock to increase or decrease sensitivity.

 

Super sensitive imagers LIKE THE SONY ONES need to accept much more light AND still have differentiation between 100% white and 99.9% white.".. what do you mean by this..?

A CMOS imager is like a potentiometer. It has individual steps from black to full white. For sake of non-technical discussion, lets dumb it down a bit and say full black is 0 and full white is 100.

 

Like my comment above, if you have an imager that's most happy at 800ASA at lets say 40 foot candles, it's capable of generating an image that goes the full range between 0 and 100. However, if you all of a sudden give that same imager 300 foot candles (what it would take to properly expose 50D stock at the same T stop), what happens? Well, that 0 (black level) is raised substantially and most importantly, the whites are over-driven, so there is literally no detail in them anymore. Plus, there is no difference between full white and 98% because the imager is simply over-driven. You won't see a difference until around 90% or even less in some cases.

 

Of course, this dramatically hinders color space as well, crushing the colors to distortion and worst of all killing any dynamic range because there is physically less of it.

 

The electronic sensitivity adjustment and shutter work by sampling the imager at a different rate. Imagine pushing a camera negative past 4 stops and expecting it to look good.

 

there are many top dp,s who are shooting big budget films without any filters.. let alone lots of filters..what are these filters you talk about.. what is a camera,s "working ISO"

Yep and that's why I'm here complaining about it. DP's shooting with ultra sensitive imagers outside without filtration.

 

Again, imagers, like film stock, have an optimal sensitivity range, this is sometimes referred to as "base" sensitivity.

 

I bet you can guess what kind of filtration is necessary to bring the lumens down to the imagers natural sensitivity on those particular cameras with ultra sensitive imagers.

 

So the F65 is a camera that really suffers from harsh white clipping.. because it has a sensitive sensor. in your experience ? .. where have you ever read that.. its native 800 same as Alexa.. you move you ISO up or down to change your grey level..

I can't think of a single F65 shoot where the filmmakers are shooting in direct sunlight without filtration or VFX covering highlights. Most of the films shot with that camera were on sound stages or in extremely controlled exterior locations. So I honestly can't tell you much about it. I only mentioned the F65 because I colored some green screen shots recently, I never mentioned it in relationship to the harsh clipping problems. In fact, I'd say the F65 is the best looking Sony camera ever made. It's also the least "Sony" looking camera they've ever made. I wouldn't doubt they bought an Alexa, took it apart, figured out what made it tick and built a camera around it because it's pretty darn good.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Have you seen 'Oblivion' and 'After Earth'?! The former is shot in day exterior deserts and the latter in day exterior forests, that's about as challenging as it gets. I've shot with both the F65 and F55, the F65 is far superior in exposure latitude, color rendering and highlight headroom. The F65 has a mechanical shutter option as well, a bit loud but it works great. And every camera malfunctions with enough usage, even the Alexa. Just like every film camera will jam at some point.

[Satsuki Murashige]

All the Sony F series cameras have built in NDs, so one would typically only need to carry NDs in 0.3 and 0.6 to get the in between stops.

[Keith Walters]

Every F65 movie I've seen looks great -- "Tomorrowland", "Oblivion", "After Earth" --

100% agree. I don't know why it isn't used more.

[Robin R Probyn]

Tyler..

 

​You have claimed on another thread to be an expert in cinematography and post production.. and again I would strongly suggest thats a big mistake for you..

 

You said digital camera,s dont have ISO/ASA.. what did you mean by that.. thats why i ask you whats the ISO of a film camera..

 

Still you dont explain this mystical 99.9%-100% white sensor thing ..

 

So you could be teaching all these famous,Oscar winning DP,s shooting F65 movies .. how they are doing it wrong .. perhaps with your BM pocket camera ..

 

Lots of F65 films have been shot on locations.. ext in deserts etc.. do you actually know what changing the ISO is about ..

 

Im sorry man, but really the BS level is getting into the red zone ..

Edited October 9, 2015 by Robin R Probyn

[Tyler Purcell]

Have you seen 'Oblivion' and 'After Earth'?! The former is shot in day exterior deserts and the latter in day exterior forests, that's about as challenging as it gets.

Yea, but I think if you look closer, you'd see that a lot of both films have serious VFX work, mostly cleanup stuff. It's really hard to see what the camera looks like without any fixes, projected in 4k at the theater. I wanna see that F65 set up in a parking lot with an exposure chart. Then shoot reflections off cars in the mid day sun. That's where a lot of these cameras fall apart. I'm sure it would perform admirably, it's clearly leaps and bounds above the other Sony cameras.

[Tyler Purcell]

So you could be teaching all these famous,Oscar winning DP,s shooting F65 movies .. how they are doing it wrong .. perhaps with your BM pocket camera ..

With any capturing medium, there are always compromises. Digital cinema happens to have a great deal of compromises, this is one of the biggest and has nothing to do with the cinematographer.

[Robin R Probyn]

Well yes you did say that .. and I questioned it at the time..

 

You said the F65 was nearly always used in a studio.. or under controlled conditions.. thats plainly wrong.. I dont think you are reading my posts.. you just answer with something totally different because the question puts you on the spot..

 

 

Just trying to do you a favor .. its getting embarrassing ..

Edited October 9, 2015 by Robin R Probyn

[Tyler Purcell]

I think you'd find most films to have controlled lighting, even outdoors in the desert.

 

You get a cookie if you can figure out what I mean without throwing a hissy fit. ;)

[Oron Cohen]

It's funny where this thread went...

 

I think some of the comments here are very unprofessional...saying only Alexa is the camera to shoot on...F65 is not good enough? what on earth are people (mainly Tyler) are talking about?? Saying Red Dragon is not a good sensor it's just laughable!

 

As a dop you can say it's not for your taste and that's fine, but technically speaking? DXO mark found the dragon as the best sensor they ever tested!! EVER!!

 

Not that it matter btw, because as I said, F65, Dragon and Arri are ALL up there at the top, and the DOP and director will choose the camera according to tests, it's not one camera for ALL films, that will be horrible.

 

Going back to Raven!

 

I think as a B cam or C cam, as a beginners camera or as a camera for as small production company or people that want to do high end weddings or corporate films, this is a wonderful tool and a marvel of technology!

 

Small body, lightweight, shoot 4K RAW, shoot Prores 2K, shoot Slow-motion compressed 4K, cost about 12-14K including some media and battery...and uses one of the best sensor ever made.

 

Having options is great, a pro dop don't need to get into what marketing strategy company A got or company B got, you do preproduction , you test, you choose you camera base on that, all the rest has nothing to do with our job, which is to tell a story with light.

[Aapo Lettinen]

Oblivion used Epics quite a lot for b-cam/plates work. For example the rear projection plates were shot with 3 epics.

 

Choosing cameras for a shoot is like choosing lenses, you don't shoot anything including handheld and gimbal shots with the Ang 24-290 just because it is "a great and versatile lens" :blink:

 

I really like the Dragon sensor image, a big step up from the MX family.

 

--------------

With video cameras, you don't just choose the right sensor and format for you, you have to take the whole package which includes form factor, weight, how in can stand difficult shooting conditions like flying sand, salt spray, hot/cold environment/humidity; power options, ease of use, frame rates, compression (codecs, ratios), signal processing/color science, possible glitches like rolling shutter & moire, workflow compatibility, light sensitivity... (actually NOT the ASA/ISO the manufacturer claims the sensor to be rated on. With sensor data you have noise floor and clipping point, and thas it. Everything in between of them is colour science/lut/color correction issues and based quite much on personal opinions and testing the most acceptable balance between shadow and highlight latitude. You can't rate an absolute ISO of a video camera. All you can do is decide where you want the middle gray to be and adjust that with gamma/color science or correct in post. It's exactly like the Exposure Index rating or a film stock, the film manufacturer decides based on testing to recommend the film stock to be shot at certain EI to get results which they liked most. Usually their EI rating is roughly one stop under the absolute ISO of the film stock and rated so that you get about from 3 to 4.5 stops of shadow detail before absolute black when the film is normally processed.

Video camera's light sensivity is mostly based on how low/high the noise floor is. That's why you can have five video cameras which are all rated 800 ISO and all of them have different light sensitivity because some of them have lower noise floor than others and have thus more stops of latitude below middle gray set by signal processing)

 

-----------

You can't choose a camera based on only what the output image looks like and forget all the rest :blink:

[Aapo Lettinen]

the basic problem with video cameras is that the saturation rises very high just before clipping point and when you get clipping, it is very rough transition from very saturated colour to plain white. That's what is usually said to be "THE UGLY VIDEOISH CLIPPING" and can be at least somewhat corrected in colour science if the manufacturer decides to do so, like Arri did with the Alexa.

on current Sonys you can have varying amount of that clipping, much more with the lower end models like FS7 because it has slightly different colour science than for example F5 even if the sensor is claimed to be about the same.

 

you can somewhat try to correct the saturation issue in colour correction by lowering saturation curves over the middle gray , it is nowhere near perfect solution but at least helps a little

 

#auto correcting is making lots of typos, sorry :lol: