Canon XL2?
A wideangle adaptor can also work very well, though always test it on camera you intend to use, to check for barrel distortion as quality varies.


Video rig places different demands on system. Fast storage is very important. Not that relevant to stills. But don't forget 24x12Mp per second even with compression is way more stressful on a computer than a mere 22MP still.


Focusing will be pretty similar to D80, I'd have thought.

More like a Hasselblad body as you can add lots of things to it.

I'd do exactly the same from the tax point of view. The new rules in the UK regarding capital expenditure are particularly good for that sort of thing.

What do you need that quality of image for though? Will it ever be shown on cinema sized screens? 1080p is probably the best quality anyone will see it at otherwise.

I thought I wrote something about that, as although optically, they look much better, on the big screen the quality is obviously somewhat short of 35mm.


Absoutely and I'm hoping RED will cause some serious red faces at Panasonic and Sony, who prefer to trickle a minor tweak or two into cameras every couple of years and at articial price points. I have a huge amount of respect for Jim Jannard for what he is trying to do. And I'm certainly looking forward to finding out more about Scarlett.

I'm just hoping that the UK doesn't end up paying the normal, same price in pounds as you guys pay in dollars, as then RED is not so affordable.

No dealers, you buy direct, that means you do the $ to £ conversion and pay duty and VAT on your import. RED doesn't jack up the price any extra just because you're not in the USA. To demo, I'd find a local user, or rent one. Quite a lot of rental places have them. Or come to NAB next week, and if you do, say hello and tell me you're from the LL forums.

Focusing, in terms of DOF is the same as about a 1.6x crop factor DSLR. But you do have a live view, and focus assists to help you.

The normal ISO rating is 320. All ISO in camera is totally in the metadata. It does not (unlike with a DSLR) effect the RAW image at all, just what you see on the viewfinder or LCD.

Graeme

JJJ

This rig seems to be about £3-£4k which is a good proportion of red money

One wonders about the deprecaition of such compared to Red

(I know I have been hit for depreciation on DSLRs - dya wanna buy my two D1 nikons ?)

thanks for advice - sound like you actually know something about video

ps how does on translate '20X zoom' to '200mm on 35mm' ?


Graham

On a sinar my main stills camera the ISO is fixed like Red - even easier


S

There is nothing wrong with SD on an XL2. You get 24 fps and a good file, though one that is somewhat challenged for wide screen viewing, especially if you convert to the mpg2 dvd format.

Also cropping other than small 3% amounts begins to show.

In comparison, HDV cameras are not that expensive, a canon xha1 is under 4 thousand, and even though you need adpapter lens to go wide, the quality doesn't suffer noticeably or at all.

It really depends on what you shoot and the look you want. If you want a real film look, especially in dof, any prosumer camera has such a small chip throwing focus is almost impossible within anything other than football field length.

For larger frame sizes the larger engs get very expensive require manual focus and still have a video type look.

The Red seems to be the next thing and though 4k files are still not standard even in Hollywood production that does all the intermediate steps in digital, 4k probably will become the standard, if only to have for archive footage even if you originally downsample to 2k.

Just like still cameras, the red, a super 16, a 35mm panaflex, a small handicam will not take the place of talent, taste, modern color timing, and intelligent shooting and editing.

Beautiful content is still the domain of talent and not just equipment and there have been a lot of amazing productions shot on very challenged low equipment.

It's not what a camera (any camera) does that is that important, it's what it keeps you from doing that makes a difference.

JR

james

I am not quite sure what you are saying !

Red=Good or Red=Bad ?

My big lesson with gear was buying a 16mp square MFDB that I traded and lost on - I should have just gone for the 22mp/H1 that is my workhorse

I have also hit big losses on DSLRs from the D1 onwards - I had no choice on that front becuase they were the best at the time

My lesson with gear is 'just go in at the top' - (if that is where you are going to eventually end up anyway)

I am formulating an economic argument for Red being

no lenses to purchase

it wont be redundant and 'valueless' in two years

and therefore could be cheaper than buying OK kit in the long run

aditionally having RAW archive footage in may library (and my library is a significant part of my income) will also mean no 'lost footage'

A large part of that argument revolves around my 'phlosophical' question which is

Will commercial shooters offering a moving and still package be the norm in the next three years?

Because if the answer is YES then I HAVE to buy some sort of video kit to stay afloat and therefore why not just pile in at the top end

I think that if scarlett takes nikon and costs 1/2 of Red then the answer is yes - but something makes me think that wont be the case....

SMM

Who knows what the future brings and everyone has a different business model.

Most still photographers on any level do not want to mess with moving imagery, most videographers, film makers do not shoot high end stills, so this has not converged as much as it probably could/would/should.

The leap is not that drastic in learning curve, art and even monetary investment, but that doesn't mean much in the real world.

Is the Red a good camera, I don't know though it looks fascinating to me.

Is it an easy video cam, no not really but that's not what it's designed for, though beautiful cinema usually comes from the perceived flicker of 24 frames, a file robust enough to move in post and a physcial frame size large enough to throw focus.

Once again everybody has a different business model, though knowledge is power and the more you offer usually the more you work.

There is nothing unique about that in any business.

Then again buying a $1,000 handican and jiggling it around while someone shoots stills isn't going to say much and for this type of work moving to a $35,000 Red isn't going to change the look of production.

This is about producing beautiful imagery whether still or moving and if the camera doesn't stop you or something you don't have to think about then that's the camera.

The thing I am most interested about with the Red is the higher iso.

In this clip, found online, at 500 iso the blacks look very clean and ususally with highdef any black image underexposed gets very noisey.

http://www.bealecorner.org/red/extnightBM2k_1k.mov



JR

I think that it may not be 'would' 'could' or 'should' but 'will' and 'when'

If it is 'will' then my agrument is not to p*ss about with the mide range but just pile in high

I dont think it $35k either not with a 28 1.4 nikkor only

S

All I can say, is "wait and see". I think Monday is going to be a very interesting day....

Graeme

Graeme,

I know you can't/won't comment on the scarlet, but on the red.

What is the highest useable iso, i.e. clean shadows.

What is the delivery time for a full kit, weeks, days, months?

_________________________

Today we began production of a "film" using hdv canons and the red rock.

It's was interesting as this is the first time I've used the Red Rock for all the footage.

The upside is it throws focus very well, even the precooked hdv files are nice and once into post work will look very good.

The downside is it's a very sensitive and large setup, even with Nikon Lenses. By the time you mount a Marshall high def monitor upside down to see the image, a matte box and the required tubes, it's a very big camera and takes a lot of adjustment everytime you use it.

Also at anything past 6db you see a lot of moving noise in the shadows. Nothing that can't be somewhat fixed, but shooting all day at 6db and around f 1.7 to f2, we were still very low on light

_________________________

Once again, I am somewhat surprised that this topic has so little play. I would think the introduction of a 4k digital video camera wouild really shake the world of motion and still imagery.

4k is a 30megabyte file and when you think of how close that is to still camera quality it's amazing to think it can be used at such a fast frame rate.

JR

It's so hard to answer the ISO question, as it's all about a personal tolerance to noise. I've heard of superb results in low light shooting, but that's just anecdotal. I've seen some night time available light shots that looked great, but don't know the full shooting details to comment further.

Again, delivery is not the part of the RED project that I'm involved with. I wish I had the knowledge to talk about that stuff, but I'm in so deep with the image processing and workflow, I rarely peep up to see what else is happening. There's just too much to know!

Graeme

In this clip, the one James linked to, the noise looks great, but when the women first exhales the smoke it looks very pixelated on my screen.
I'm assuming that's easily cleaned up or is just my video card that doing the effect?

http://www.bealecorner.org/red/extnightBM2k_1k.mov

Just looks like a bit too much compression for the web, to me.

Graeme

<slaps forehead>
Of course!

compressing digital video is an art and science in it's own right and the combinations would take a year to learn.

When we send out an on-line approval clip, it is never easy as a client with a mac can see h264, another one only mp4 and some pc clients, or mac challenged clients can only see a Sorenson 3 which compared to the new h264 codecs is night and day.

If you knew what the Hollywood studios spend to manually compress a dvd for consumer play the costs would knock you over as they will work each segment in a different bit rate, with many variable passes.

Actually there was a period of web only broadcasts where a dp knew not to move the camera during a take as the only imagery that had to be rewritten was the subject. If you want to see web footage fall apart, do a slow crawl, zoom, or track into a subject and eventually some pixelization will finally just break up the image. Same with cross transitions.

The thing about the red footage I've noticed is how smooth it looks in comparision to the standard hdv I've shot. Probably due to a lot of things, chip size, compression, lenses, etc.

Even in the web clip, which obviously was not shot for artistic merits, I think the footage at 500 iso was stunning.

JR

Good Morning Folks

We have the RED camera inhouse at present--I'll report findings.

Des

RED news at NAB:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/04...ed.at.nab.2008/

Another Story and Image:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=180

How does the 3K, 4K & 5K equate to megapixels?

It's the number of pixels on the wide dimension.

Michael

Well, Michael, I had great hopes for Red until this last annoucement.

I guess they've been reading the LL medium format forum and decided a $17,500 just wasn't what the market could bear, so wa-la, now we're at an "upgrade" to $30,000, with a statement that "all specs, delivery dates could change, count on it."

Welcome to Medium Format Digital land.

I was set to buy the Red actually called but nobody answered, but now, I don't know, because I don't know the whole story.

Does the 4k Red end now, waiting for the 5k, and the litle Scarlet, well, I don't have much use for a 2/3" chip so that wasn't the plan to throw focus.

JR

Red One at 4k continues on, and there will be a RED One upgrade path, as well as the total upgrade of getting the 100% credit towards a Epic.

Graeme

Graeme,

In a way I was somewhat joking, well maybe not 100%.

Still, if you've spent any time in the still digital world, especially medium format the words upgrade path, specifications and delivery subject to change wrapped around a 30K price tag pretty much sends a chill up your spine.

A few weeks ago I was really impressed with the scope and transparency of the Red web site and though I am considering the purchase, I must admit I've gone down this early adopter road before and when a manufacturer announces new product, just briefly after the original product is just shipping it makes me pause and think maybe this is one I'll wait out until it really gets the kinks worked out (if there are any kinks).

JR

Of course, putting things in perspective, top end DSLRs are less than $10,000 and Medium format camera systems less and $40,000. That's very different to the moving imaging world, where it wasn't long back that $40,000 would get you a betacam, and $100,000 was where the HDCAM was, or thereabouts, and now top end HD cameras could be somewhere around $250,000.

New products are always interesting to announce. We certainly announce ahead of time to elicit feedback. To me, that just makes sense. I fully understand about how it can seem when a new product looks to replace the existing one so soon, but again, it's not that we're dropping the old, but working on a product for another segment of the market, those that have features ahead of price, so to speak, and certainly the $17,500 to ~$40,000 price is not as significant when the "alternatives" are rental only or in the 1/4 million range, and the glass you'll be using with it is a significant cost of the shooting package.

And from my point of view, it's more fun and interesting to be open and have a dialogue, than just to announce a product when it's done and say "take it or leave it".

If you're unsure at all about buying a RED, I'd be much happier that you wait. I don't see the harm in that at all, and if you want to check out the image aesthetic and product philosophy, I think Scarlet would make a fine and affordable introduction.

The "subject to change" stuff is really just brutal honesty, and part of the feedback programme. And change does mean change, not just "remove", but "add" too.

What's nice about RED, is that we're real people, we all shoot (film or digital stills or movies), we all use the gear, we love good glass, we aspire to make fantastic images. I'm very proud of the images our cameras make. I'm passionate about images, moving or still, and I really do think that shows through.

Graeme

graham.

so this scarlett..

costs how much?

takes nikon lenses ?

how big is the chip? - try and talk camera sizes if you know them

how wide would my 14mm nikkor be

is the chip smaller or the pixels per inch lower

SMM

Cost, around $3000. It's a fixed zoom lens, 2/3" sensor, 3k resolution.

Graeme

so in stills language that is a physically small chip (for a still camera and large for a video)

Ie DOF will be good but not great

The zoom lens will be equivelent to what in 35mm terms 28-70 or what ?

Sorry to be a dummy

S

For some stills pros the real alternative to DSLRs and MFDBs will be the Red Epic announced at the same time as the Scarlet.

It weighs 6lbs, has a 5 K chip (about 20MP) and can shoot raw stills and video at 100 FPS, and with interchangeable lenses. Priced like a medium format back though.

Michael

Hi Graeme,

We are looking for an Underwater Housing for our RED --any pointers or prospective interest?

Des W

We are now within inches of where moving digital capture (anything but the term video) is not going to be a afterthought or added on to a still shoot, it will be the standard procedure of a still shoot.

Now before everyone starts grabbing their Sinars, Hasselblads and Nikons and throw them at my door screaming about the purity of still images, regardless tradition, the industry is moving in the direction of convergence.

Still sets resemble mini movie sets, with gaffers, monitors, multiple lighting solutions and instant review of what was shot.

Talk to clients (usually direct not ad agencies), or publishers and mention the word "video" and they listen very intently.

We hear about democratization that the internet has given publishing, (see this site for example), television view, journalism and movies, but it's not democratization that the internet is providing, it's a common carrier and network (free or not) where moving imagery carries as much if not more weight than stills.

We are still in the early stages of how this works in advertising, but remember it's much more effort to scrub past an advertisement embedded in a video than it is to set your browser to block pop ups.

Now how the Red works into this, especially at 5k is something that should give us all some pause.

If the same image you shoot in "video" will run on a double page spread then there is something to be said for the one camera system.

The reason I said talk to clients and publishers instead of ad agencies is a lot of agencies still seem to be in the traditional mindset where a still photographer only shoots stills and a film director only directs film and never the two shall meet, at least in harmony.

I recently shot a large project where there were two sets and two productions, one 35mm film the other my still set.

I'm not complaining about my role or what I was asked to do, because it was a very rewarding project, but working next to the "film" set it was obvious that both could be integrated with no more than a change in camera and a few different lighting placements.

If the projects had been combined, the savings would have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and the interesting part was on the film set the client was relegated to viewing the image on a flickering video tap, where on our still set we had color corrected imagery coming into the computer every click of the shutter.

Where the Red plays into this I don't know because I guess no mortal has shot with a 5k red, at least in this type of mixed media production, but it seems that is logical that it could/would/probably should go this way and not with compromise.

My studio shoots and produces a lot of parallel productions and working in this form of harmony, even taking into account sound, different framing ratios, different lighting requirements, the convergence gets closer every day.

http://russellrutherford.com/directorscutmed.mov

JR

3000? God, you gotta love those boys in your marketing department. :-)
I would've expected 5000-10000.

On film sets, you will always find a stills photographer, even if shot with the best qaulity film or video capture. Why? Moving images do not produce images sharp enough for still work and even with 35mm film, the capture area is smaller than 35mm stills as the film is moving vertically. The movement disguises the lack of sharpness, plus we tolerate a less sharp moving image.


Not necessarily as stills photographers have minutes, sometimes seconds to get a shot, between set ups and the lighting requirements for each medium are very different. One uses flash and one uses constant lighting, neither much use for the other. So as time is money, doing both on separate stages may be cheaper than combining sets and constantly getting in each other's way.
Also colour correct viewing on set is not so important/easy as with stills, plus the colour is always tweaked when graded afterwards. The DoP is probably much more aware of lighting colour issues than stills photographers, as they have always had more problems with colour temp matching than we do with our daylight flash heads. The video monitor is more for viewing performance and technical issues, boom in shot, focus pulls etc. Though a monitor that does show colour correctly is better than one that doesn't. Bear in mind the movie kit will have been hired for the day/job and the camera and monitor may never even have been used together before that morning, so precise calibaration is tricky.

Well, ok, this I know because we do a lot of moving production, except all of this is old think.

To begin with if you have even experience prosumer 2k in the very compressed hdv codec you can eaasily find still imagery that is pretty amazing and will natively fill edge to edge a 24" monitor.

We colortime all of our final footage, even the hdv or standard def on a DiVinci 2k and shooting digitally verses shooting film still gives a lot better monitor view than a blinking pink and monotone lcd.

Since none of the imagery I mentioned will ever see theatrical big screen use, (it's all Television and smaller web play), even if the film had been digitatized in 4k (which it wasn't) it still offered very little benfit over shooting any form of digital video.

You did touch on a few points though and This is where the Red comes in, because up until now, there was no affordable to own, digital video camera that shot a 35mm cinema frame size (remember I said affordable).

Whether it's 4k, 3k to 2k, it's more in the compression, the bit depth and of course how well the Red or any digital capture works in higher isos.

Now I don't think that most moving imagery, regardless of quality will just exactly purpose over to stills for all the artistic reasons you mentioned. Rarely does a cinema session tell the story in one frame because moving to still are really different artistic mindsets.

That doesn't mean that the productions can't be dual purposed.

Tehnically,the process is converging and I know because I do this weekly, sometimes with just small add on crew for the moving imagery and sometimes with two full blown crews each sharing time.

The video I presented earlier was shot still and video, in studio AND on location, with dialog and MOS, and the stills are a international campaign the video will be purposed in multiple mediums AND it was shot in one day.

Once again, it's changing and we are converging and anyone that doesn't think so, hasn't tried it.

What you talking about is that traditional think that film crews believe a still photographer is either some guy that just shoots over their shoulder with a blimp, or does a "special" session that only needs a few dozen frames. Historically this has been the case, but if you do work in both mediums you can easily take the good aspects from both and apply them to both mediums.

What I am saying is both moving and stills can be accomplished professionally and with artistic merit on the same day, with a lot of the same crew and equipment.

There is a difference in the style and pace of the two mediums.

Film crews move like the army, slow and methodical and still crews even large ones move much faster and digital capture has only increased the speed in how we work.

The same will eventually hold for moving imagery and everyone working as an "image creator" should take the blinders off and at least be aware of what is possible.

Now I don't think that for a moment, every Hollywood production is going to stop shooting film with 475 people crews, or that every still photographer is going to throw a Red in the case and shoot everything on moving imagery and stills, but both could and probably should happen.

I am sure acceptence to the Red will be met by a lot of the same traditional old think, thought process that still capture went through with digital. Early on I shot digital and early on I heard all of the misinformation of "it doesn't look like film, blows the highlights, is too slow, too fast, too hard and too cumbersome and all that is just absoltuely not true, especially today where the medium format and 35mm digital still cameras I use far surpass anything that I previously shot in those formats with film.

Don't think the Red is not the beginning of this process and don't think that Canon, Panasonic and Sony aren't looking at that camera with some plans to compete. Also don't think that Kodak's film stock production is going to start shrinking and if cinema moves at the pace of still capture it will happen a lot faster than anyone plans.

Most importantly don't think a client's won't pick up on the fact that digital caputre in any genre produces faster and more production in a day than film.

Personally it makes not one bit of difference to me if a still photogrpaher shoots only stills or Peter Jackson never does anything but direct, but for a lot of clients it does matter a great deal.

It's going to change and like the original Canon 1ds completely changed still capture, the Red or any full frame 35mm affordable camera is poised to do that with moving film and the days of taking 2 hours to set up a camera will come to a close.

JR

I'm not sure quite what point you are arguing as your post seemed a bit scattershot. Are you trying to say that we'll all be using a RED, whether we are still or movie people. And that both will come from one camera?
Also, how is the RED any different from the days of 35mm film in both still and movie cameras? You needed a stills photographer then to get the sharp images. Film is shot at 1/50th sec remember. And when I do stills work, I will do my own set ups to encapsulate the story of a scene or entire film in a single shot. Something that be several shots in the film. Doing that is a completely separate job from the film making process.
BTW I'm talking about film/movie sets, not combined advertising shoots, where the priorities are very, very different. And for years you've had cheapskate producers trying to do frame grabs to save on hiring a stills photographer and only too late they realise, they've made a mistake.

As for the convergence, there are photographers who can transition to moving images quite easily and most who will have no idea. Just like most photographers have limited graphic design skills and even less web production ability.
Stills photographers have become directors since movie making existed, nothing new there. And many have directed the TV adverts a well as producing the posters The more logical move for many photographers would be to lighting/DoP work as that is closer to many photographer's skill sets.


I do agree that RED will change some aspects of filmaking, but the camera has very little to do with 95% of what is going on on rest of set.
Film crews work more slowly as it's a far more complex process, again nothing to do with the camera. Working out focus pulls for complex tracking shots or the structure and choreography of a steadicam shoot can be very time consuming. Stills don't have to worry about boon in shot, wait for a plane to go past or the natural day lighting to change back to how it was in previous set up of the same scene. We did a series of setups in typically British overcast Autumnal light and then for the last couple we had to wait a verrry long time for a cloud to appear in the suddenly completely blue sky.

You mention traditional thinking, as in stuck in the mud thinking. A while back I heard about a studio head who decided to get some time and motion people in to try and reduce the no. of people on set and to get things going a bit faster. The study revealed, that everyone was in fact necessary, there was no dead wood and the reality was - different departments have to take turns in working and sadly, there were no magic short cuts. With digital some jobs will disappear [loader] and be replaced by other new jobs [hard drive handler!], I doubt much else will change.
And for years, all the film shoots I've worked on have had full colour video playback, through decent monitors, even if shooting on film. So digital will make very little difference, to the work process in that area, unlike with stills where the workflow was revolutionised by instant access to the shoot.


As an aside there's a Shane Meadows' film called 'Dead Man's Shoes', where the crew was built around the no. of people who could fit in a mini bus, and by eliminating additional lighting and setting the film over a very short period of time, wardrobe and makeup were dispensed with and people doubled up on several jobs. This was only possible because of the particular story. Plus the story was in fact written with some of these strictures in mind. An interesting approach, but with very limited application.


As for the resistance to digital, I don't think there is one in a lot of filmmaking like there was in stills photography. The big difference the RED will make is in affordability. Many features/tv shows have been shot on video/digitally for quite some time and video looked as good as film 3-4 years ago using cameras that were more than 10 times the price of the RED.

We were showing some nice "landscape" shots on the RED on our demo reel. They were, if you'd taken a still frame out, very much like you'd shoot with a still camera, but with some inherent movement, clouds, weather, a person skiing by etc. To me, that's a nice still / movie hybrid where the stock footage could work for either media.

Yes, if you're shooting moving images, you may not get shots suitable for print, but if they are suitable, they're much superior coming from a RED than a video camera. Motion blur that works great on movement may not be right at all for the still. Although you're not restricted to typical 1/48th shutter speed, as a full range is available.

Graeme

There is a lot of territory to cover here and if I go off track, it's because I write this stuff at light speed then get back to work.

In a way we are talking about the same thing in the fact it will always take talent, technique and skilled professionals to produce compelling work, regardless of the capture device.

And yes your right and we all know that a lot of eposodic televsion is shot video. Regardless most people that work in the high end of cinema have been to date reluctant to move to digitial video for features.

My point, or rather my expertise isn't in theatrical production, but advertising where the longest run time is a few minutes or less and the crews and technique of high end still capture have grown and moved to closely resemble a small film crew.

Yes, I know that still photogrpahers have directed advertising commercials and cinema directors have shot still advertising campaings, after all talent is talent so that is not really ground breaking.

Regardless of that, what digital video offers is a shorter learning curve from still digital capture that didn't cross over as easily in the film days and up to now with a camera like the red, not as easily affordable.

Though in regards to your comments about the executive cutting costs, I am in total agreement with his overall thought, though maybe not the exact methodology. Fitting everything into a mini bus and hoping for high end production is obviously going to make a project suffer so there is also nothing new about that, but cutting out a dozen teamsters and grips that huddle around the kraft services table probably won't make anything change other than the catering bill.

What I see with digital video is the affordability and empowerment to learn and do much of this yourself or at least learn it to a level where direction is precise and determined.

If higher iso becomes a reality, then you will see crews get smaller and production go faster just because the lights, generators and cable all get reduced in size and scope.

As far as the speed in which film crews work vs. still crews, I've shot and produced at least 20 parallel projects in multiple cities and countries and have never seen a film crew (reagardless of the thoughtful complexity of the process) move as fast, work as hard, multi task and multi purpose like a great still crew.

Don't take that statement as a lack of respect for film technicians and artists because the good ones are truly amazing and bring more worth to a project than can be explained.


JR

deleted

Can someone explain red shutter speed ?

Ie can you up it to say 1/250

That means take 50 1/250 frames in a second

Does one have light control beyond the aperture/iris and the latitude in the RAW file

maybe there is an dialable electronic ND filter ?

getting my head arond the whole thing

ps James I am in total agreement that there is merging-ness this is becuase advertising used to either a film (an advert) or a still in a magazine with the web that is no longer true - I can see stills that run when you mouse over them etc

S

The only thing that limits all of this merging into one production is we don't have universal fast bandwidth to play full screen moving imagery without a download wait.

It's coming and once everyone can just click and instantly view the world gets much different.

Last night we purposed out imagery for different devices. HDV, SD, Web, Apple TV, I-pod and I-phone.

The HDV footage even shot on prosumer hdv codec cameras and colortimed, is just stunning on a 24" computer and I can't even begin to imagine how much better it would be on a red, 3k, 4k, or 5k camera, even downsampled.

Consequently the SD footage played through different monitors was challenged at best, though 2 years ago nobody would have complained or seen a difference.

We are not far from where the next fashion editorial you see will be a full screen movie of 6 urban youths running down broadway but as you mouse over their shirt it will freeze and say, Bananna Republic, $74.95.

Like it or not, advertising and editorial will move into a mix medium direction.

Right now on the computer next to me is a 30" TV screen that plays apple TV.

Two pushes of a button and any movie, stills of video on my computer will go right into the Apple TV and I can watch, or search the web for just about anything I want to view and watch it, pause it, rewind and play it whenever I feel like and it all can be done through one device or networked to every computer in my studio wirelessly.

It can also be downloaded to my phone or an Ipod and I can show my complete reel and still portfolio anywhere in the world.

The crazy thing is that the same desktop computer that I use for viewing can also cut, colortime, grade and store the project I shot.

Like it or not most of us are driven by commerce. We may have gotten into our chosen art for the creative expression, but as we go down the line we are moved by who hires us.

I've known photographers that screamed they would never shoot digital though that changed when their largest client demanded digital capture.

I'm sure these are the same photographers that will say they will never shoot "video" until the person writing the check demands moving imagery, then there will be a Red, a Sony, or a P2 on set.

It's all changing and some of it for the good. I know of one large fashion retailer that produces a huge catalog and started purposing the catalog imagery to the web. Now the web is 65% of their "catalog" sales and the printed catalog will eventually just phase down to a series of small specialty books, that will probably phase down to a series of small specialty web sites.

This hasn't change the fact that the retailer needs compelling imagery, it's just change the way they show it to the public, but the web is a much different carrier than print in the fact that it moves.


JR

We agree completly (from different ends of the industry)

Now the only question for is which 'moving image recorder' to buy

Crazy to jump in at the RED level maybe but considering my nikon advantage and my tendency to end up with the top end kit anyway it might be a proposition

Trying to decide..

$1000 toy to learn on

$6000 commercial but limited smaller chip rig (that I will probably just sell at a loss)

$20000 thing to keep for years and build into a (rentable to third parties) system

probably the first then the third but never the second - too lossy (cashwise)

Thanks James for your input

Those costs are quite small compared to the other investment that I am working on right now...

SMM

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It's the $20,000 option, at least in my experience.

I have two hdv cameras, assorted convertors, lenses, etc. and the price probably totals 10k, 1/2 of a start up red.

They still have thier place, especially for fast autofocus behind the scenes, but for serious production the Red seems to have snuffed them all.

Now if I could buy a Red today I probably would, ( I was e-mailed that the wait is 5 weeks) though whe you look at that little 3k camera I'm sure that will eventually replace the hdv cams.

JR

that ends up being best value ??

I wonder how much you have really spent and what the devaulation is

S

The best value is the camera or format that doesn't keep you from shooting what is in your mind (or some cases, the client's mind).

JR

This is such a silly response, I can't believe I wrote it.

Regardless, does a 20, 30, or $40,000 cinema camera makes sense? I doesn't until you compare a full 35mm film cinema camera to the red, then the numbers more than even up.

If you compare it to a Panasonic p2 then the choice is more difficult.

The thing about the prosumer grade digital cameras you will use it even if you own everything, just because it's easy, and fast and it's fairly inconspicuous.

I was speaking to a gaffer last night about the Red and he mentioned a cinematographer that was a really big "film" guy that somewhat like the Red.

I've heard the F word before in still capture so I knew from the moment this conversations started where it was going, which made me think that Red should offer a film option.

They can have an detachable "film" mag full of CF cards and open their own "film" lab for color and grading. You just send red your "film magazine" they process it and send you back a digitized disc.


JR

How about this: http://www.oldnavy.com/browse/info.do?cid=39628 ?

Darius Khondji too. I wonder how he processed the 'footage' from RED. I wonder about his workflow.

Yes you are wrong about that. I use RAW all the time and fully understand it's strengths, but RAW being the capture medium has no bearing on the different ways the image is physically captured on video/film vs stills. It's the slow shutter speed that is the biggest difference and the inability to use flash to freeze movement, that is the major difference.

I cannot see DoPs getting sloppy over how they light a set, just because of RAW. They'll simply use it as way of increasing ability to tweak afterwards. Post production in film is very, very expensive/time consuming, so getting it right on set makes more sense.

Less and less. Quite a few have moved across, Robert Roderiguez, Michael Mann, George Lucas are three I can think of straight off.


I'd disagree on that one. Film was less techy to start with and the transition from using a still camera to a film wasn't a big thing. Affordability yes. Video is cheaper than 35mm and the RED camera will impact heavily in some areas, but only to those who could afford to buy £30, 000 video cameras, which is still not most people.

This was a film made by an established director and was partially an artistic decision and the film stayed showing in the cinema, way longer than most major Hollywood films.

That's been going on for years, nothing new there.

Lighting is more often an aesthetic choice than simply a practical one.

But they do not have many of the problems, shooting film has. I'd say there's a huge amount of crossover, but where it's different, it's very different and a lot fiddlier and therefore slower to do.
I've done film shoots where we've done 22 setups in a day. And having worked on film sets I'd say that was a daft statement, people work stupidly hard, can multask brilliantly, but it's a far slower, more complicated process capturing a moving image than a still image regardless of what camera is used. And film crews do so day after day after day. Week after week at times.
Hurry up and wait best describes the film making process as often departments have to take turns to do their job, it's nothing to do with being slack, it's simply how the logistics work out.

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Robin,

I don't think you have anything to apologize for as JJJ is coming from the traditional view and your looking at this as a new medium or way to capture motion in video and stills.

For what it's worth even shooting flash does not gaurantee a complete freeze

http://www.russellrutherford.com/html4/image/v3sm_kath.jpg

as this image was shot with acutes on 1/2 power. Maybe bitubes or Broncolor would hold it tighter but this sequence was shot with a Nikon D3 and continuous stadium light and I can promise you it's as sharp if not sharper than the studio image.

http://ishotit.com/running1.mov

I don't know if the Red or any cinema camera can capture this, but I'm betting we're going to get very close, very soon.

JR

Can someone elaborate on how the RED and/or other HD cams do thier shutter speed

Its it always the FPS

120 FPS is the Max of the Red right

So that would create the same freeze as shooting at roughly 125/th of a second

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Heres a whacko Idea - Red shoots raw so there is some exposure latitude

One could have it rolling and still 'fire photos' using a PW or suchlike popping the flash at the appropriate moment

Giving sharp stills and moving image too

The actuall fram with the pop could be edidted out of the video cut if required

S