» Posts Tagged ‘red’
When it comes to shooting a DIY feature, one of the foremost questions for DSLR owners will be, “rent a camera or shoot with what I own… and know?” I own a 5D Mark II and I’m honestly not sure if I’d rent a RED, even if the latter came in at the same cost. I happen to think that the importance of resolution is overstated; that is, similar to the megapixel war with still cameras, people tend to focus on resolution because it’s a simple metric. One number is larger than the other, so it must be better, right? But there are many characteristics more important in a moving image than just resolution, and while RED is offering greater resolution than the forthcoming ARRI ALEXA, does the latter camera offer advantages that aren’t measured in resolution? Here’s a quick side-by-side video: More »
I’m by no means an authority on RED cameras, so I’ll leave it up to experts like ProVideo Coalition’s Art Adams to render judgement on RED’s recently released Color Science 30. RED is essentially a computer crammed into a camera body, so its firmware updates often pack more features than your typical camera updates (though the 5D has been a huge beneficiary of Canon’s firmware releases). With the release of the Mysterium-X sensor as well as recently updated colorimetry, what is the updated status of the RED ONE? More »
I’m not sure why this project is holding my attention so. David Fincher and Sony Pictures aren’t exactly DIY filmmaking, so it’s not hugely topical to this site. And on the list of true stories I’d like to see told by Hollywood, the founding of Facebook isn’t on top. But with the official trailer for The Social Network hitting the web today, I can’t help but stay interested in the project. The RED-shot film is loosely based on the book The Accidental Billionaires and the trailer is masterfully cut to a choral version of Radiohead’s Creep by the Scala and Kolacny Brothers. The film itself will be scored by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, who says of the film, “it’s really fucking good. And dark!” Trent Reznor is calling a film about Facebook “dark?” Maybe that’s why I’m interested. More »
I adapted this headline from a piece I remember The Onion running thirteen years ago. The Onion’s excoriating 1997 article, entitled “High-Definition Television Promises Sharper Crap,” lambasted the increase in TV resolution for doing nothing to raise the quality of the actual content itself. YouTube’s recent announcement that they now support 4K resolution is easy to poke fun at for the same reason, given no one was complaining that the thing missing from YouTube (which already offers 1080p) is more resolution. More »
In the battle of large CMOS-based cameras with capitalized names, ARRI is looking to steal RED’s lunch money. Earlier this month, RED’s Jim Jannard announced the high-end EPIC and less expensive SCARLET cameras have been delayed due to a major bug, for which “the fix could be tomorrow. Or not.” Meanwhile, ARRI today announced they are shipping their ALEXA camera, which in the words of 24 DP Rodney Charters, “will probably be the [camera] that transitions us away from film and towards truly electronic capture on large features.” More »
There was a lot of filmmaking gear at Hollywood’s Cine Gear Expo this year (as evidenced by the fact that this is the third and not final post in the series). Included this entry are videos from RED, Kino Flo, Marshall Electronics, Lensbaby, and Hoodman: More »
I find the “My mom bought be a RED so now I’m a DP” T-shirt to be much funnier than the actual video itself, but I guess there’s no need to write a “RED Cinematography Guide” now that such an informative video is out there:
[via FreshDV]
From a production standpoint, $5k and a two day shoot gets you a lot more than it used to. Shot on a RED ONE.
[via Filmmaker IQ]
FreshDV is Johnny-on-the-spot this year at NAB (actually, they are every year), so for their complete coverage head on over to their site (and stay tuned to their twitter for the latest from the show floor).
Here are two digital solutions from two companies (ARRI and Aaton) transitioning from film to digital. Yes, their pricing is stratospheric compared to DSLRs (and even RED), but they’re priced-to-rent rather than priced-to-own. The question is, will either of these cameras offer appreciably better image quality than a cheaper RED package? More »
The most beautiful footage I’ve seen from the RED ONE to date.
[via Blake Whitman]
Interesting look behind the scenes of the first feature(s) shot on RED, Steven Soderbergh’s diptych Che. The Criterion Collection version of the film was released last week, and it includes a recounting of the frantic scramble to get the RED cameras ready in time (hint: they weren’t ready, and shooting had to be pushed a week): More »
I unpacked my brand new Canon 5d Mark II a few months ago and excitedly clambered onto my Manhattan rooftop to put it through some tests. Within minutes I discovered the nasty aliasing artifact seen above, wherein the uniformly brown brick building down the block seemed to have a pattern of gray concentric circles overlaid across its surface. I knew about, and expected, the DSLR aliasing problems, and even wrote that I had some ideas about how to defeat them (on the rooftop that day, I tested several contrast and softening filters in an attempt to defeat the oversharpened look, to little avail). But I knew what I was getting into, and for the price, I’ve learned to (more than) love the one I’m with. More »
Lots of news from the RED camp today. If you’re interested in what may be not only the future of digital acquisition, but also display, head on over to their forum. Of note: More »
First, Canon has announced a 24p/25p update to the Canon 5d Mark II; this is crucial and I will now be keeping the camera I purchased mere months ago. But I don’t have much interesting to say about that, other than, “thank the lord.”
There’s some other news out of the Canon camp today, however, and that’s what the title of this post is about. The thing about light is… when it comes to guerilla filmmaking, there’s never enough of it. More »
The new Canon 7d is coming out with the 5d Mark II’s most-requested missing feature: 24p. It seems Canon learned from their mistakes and have corrected it with a new video chipset capable of 24p and 30p at 1080, and 50p and 60p at 720. This is great for DSLR filmmakers looking for an APS-C (crop, although it is roughly the size of the sensor on the RED ONE as well as 35mm motion picture film) camera at a cheaper price point than the 5dII. Video quality should be similar to its more expensive brother, although low-light performance will be inferior. Now the question becomes, will Canon ever add 24p to the 5d? Is it even technically possible without new hardware? Why sell a camera for $1700 that is superior in so many ways to its $2700 big brother (and why not follow traditional naming schemes, where larger model numbers are better)? More »
Let’s get technical.
The human eye is a far superior instrument to the film or video camera. Over the years film stocks have gotten more sensitive, larger negatives and three-strip processes have been developed, and video cameras have improved immeasurably, but these innovations have not brought the baseline visual fidelity of cameras to the level of our own ojos. It’s been claimed that the resolution of the human eye is equivalent to 576 megapixels; while that claim should be taken with a grain of salt, as should any calculations of dynamic range, sensitivity, and field of view, all such assesments lead to one conclusion: our eyeballs are pretty damn good. For decades, the most common observation for first-time cinematographers has likely been, “wow, this camera needs a lot more light than my eyes.” More »
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