Wishlist from a Photographer ...

[dqdave]

Hi Jim & Co.

Really interested in your DSMC announcement and wanted to add a few wishlist ideas to the pot. I'm a working people shooter, and love using everything from small strobes to Profoto B2's. I trust you guys have already come up with quite a list of items, but I'd *love* to see flash sync up to a minimum of 1/2000 sec at an ISO equivalent of 100. Allowing photographers to create images in broad daylight and overpowering sunlight without the use of big strobes will be an awesome thing. It might mean the development of a flash system to go with it, but it would definitely wouldn't be a DSLR killer if it couldn't at least match current flash sync times of 1/250 sec at ISO 50 (medium format usually at 1/500).

Thanks for listening, and if you ever need some working-photographers as a beta tester for your new baby, I'll throw my hat into that too :)

Blessings and peace and continued success ...

d

[Poi Boy]

very important !....should be 1/500 bare absolute without a doubt minimum.
Aloha
-A

[gavmc23]

Yep right on the button. If red can produce a native synch speed of at least 1/500. This will be a major advantage over Canon and Nikon.

[Lee Jay]

At least camera flashes tend to take longer than 1/1000th to discharge when fired at full power. Because of that, shutter sync speeds shorter than around 1/800th or so would be pointless because the shutter would start to pinch off the flash illumination as well, which is a drag because daytime fill requires soooooooo much flash power! I used to wish for 1/500th over the 1/250th or so available now until I calculated that I actually needed *five* more stops of relative flash power than I have now for groups in the sun. Let's be aggressive and say we could get two stops going from 1/250th x-sync to 1/1000th, that leaves three more stops, which means either firing 8 camera flashes (big ones with guide numbers in the high 50s, not the built-ins), or using a flash that's 8 times as powerful. Unfortunately that leads right back to the big strobes, even if they could fire in 1/1000th, which I've read most cannot. Bummer huh?

[Jarred Land]

Listening :)

[Chris Gustafson]

Listening :)

Jarred/Jim.... the worst thing about your post... is...Jim perhaps may be a lot of things... the last thing he is is a teaze...

That post spelled one thing to me... "confidence" this DSMC is going to be insane !

rock the F on..... can't wait to see what you guys have got up your ......

cheers
chris gus

[Robin Balas]

At least camera flashes tend to take longer than 1/1000th to discharge when fired at full power. Because of that, shutter sync speeds shorter than around 1/800th or so would be pointless because the shutter would start to pinch off the flash illumination as well, which is a drag because daytime fill requires soooooooo much flash power! I used to wish for 1/500th over the 1/250th or so available now until I calculated that I actually needed *five* more stops of relative flash power than I have now for groups in the sun. Let's be aggressive and say we could get two stops going from 1/250th x-sync to 1/1000th, that leaves three more stops, which means either firing 8 camera flashes (big ones with guide numbers in the high 50s, not the built-ins), or using a flash that's 8 times as powerful. Unfortunately that leads right back to the big strobes, even if they could fire in 1/1000th, which I've read most cannot. Bummer huh?

Actually most decent dual-bulb flash heads on powerpacks ala new Profoto's or from Broncolor have no problem putting out huge amounts of precisely controlled energy faster than 1/1000sec, so I would really prefer 1/1000 or faster sync speed as personally I'm geared up to utilize such speeds.

However if RED were to go there, they really need to put in an adjustable delay in some menu which could be adjusted both ways to tune the sync times to all the optical or radio triggers and delays we use. Some radio triggers introduce so much latency that you need to pull back to 1/90 on a 1/250 capable Canon to avoid partly exposed images. So please include a setting for delaying the actual image capture relative to sending the sync signal to utilize really fast flash/shutter speeds and avoiding the crappy sync cables. The radio triggers are very consistent but slow, so putting in more shutter lag would work. Optical IR ones are better but still slower than 1/1000, so some lag needs to be introduced there as well.
MHO.

[JoshBertrand]

If we're talking flashes, how about the ability to easily control every aspect of them straight from the camera in a nice GUI. See...
http://www.alienbees.com/cybersyncplus.html

http://www.alienbees.com/images/cybercommander.jpg

[Garrett M. Smith]

Yep right on the button. If red can produce a native synch speed of at least 1/500. This will be a major advantage over Canon and Nikon.

Actually, there are some models that already do that - as long as you disable the TTL functions. And they're mostly not the higher end cameras either - Canon G9, D40 (not x), D70 or D70s, etc. Reason the sync will work is that after a certain shutter speed, those cameras use an electronic shutter, presumably to reduce cost in the construction of the camera, but which allows them to sync at very high speeds. The link below has an example of a shot taken and sync'd at 1/4000th sec. (as well as much more info)

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/01/control-your-world-with-ultra-high-sync.html


At least camera flashes tend to take longer than 1/1000th to discharge when fired at full power. Because of that, shutter sync speeds shorter than around 1/800th or so would be pointless because the shutter would start to pinch off the flash illumination as well

1/1000th sec for flash discharge is a general rule for full power. 1/2 power discharges at 1/2000th sec. 1/4 power discharges at 1/4000th sec. 1/8 discharges at 1/8000th sec. These are general rules, so there's bound to be exceptions, but the common off-the-shelf strobes will in general follow this (+/- a few 1/100s). So if full power wasn't being used, the shorter sync speeds would be very nice.

If Red is thinking of how to integrate strobes better, there's certainly an opportunity there, I think. Both Canon and Nikon's remote flash systems systems suck IMHO - too much of a delay, wonky setup, limited range, blocked sensors, etc. They're great for small product or still life, but as soon as people get involved, it's better to shoot manual or with 3rd party products or just forget using off-camera strobes entirely. (It'd be nice if Nikon's CLS system worked well enough that when I take a zillion pics of my 80+ extended family members over the holidays that I don't have to pre-flash every single photo, and then check every time to see that they didn't blink from the pre-flashes. And forget about any kind of capturing-the-moment spontaneity with CLS - the pics will be nicely lit... just everyone will have their eyes closed.)

Garrett

[CinemaSpy]

First time poster here. As a still photographer - and Nikon user for years (film and digital), I am wondering about the following >>


Lens availability. Will RED enable, or have the rights to, allow their DSMC to use existing lens lines? If not, will RED build the lenses, and will they incorporate the tech and functionality of existing high-end lens lines, i.e. Ultrasonic/Silent Wave in-the-lens focusing; tilt-shift lenses, etc?

Metering capability. Nikon's 1005 pixel RGB sensor not only measures brightness and contrast, but is able to incorporate color sensitivity into calculations, AND can factor the focus point into the exposure algorithm as well.

What about flash capability? Nikon's multi-sensor balanced fill flash is unparalleled in the industry

These are the areas where I could see RED facing its biggest challenge.

[Robin Balas]

First time poster here. As a still photographer - and Nikon user for years (film and digital), I am wondering about the following >>


Lens availability. Will RED enable, or have the rights to, allow their DSMC to use existing lens lines? If not, will RED build the lenses, and will they incorporate the tech and functionality of existing high-end lens lines, i.e. Ultrasonic/Silent Wave in-the-lens focusing; tilt-shift lenses, etc?

Metering capability. Nikon's 1005 pixel RGB sensor not only measures brightness and contrast, but is able to incorporate color sensitivity into calculations, AND can factor the focus point into the exposure algorithm as well.

What about flash capability? Nikon's multi-sensor balanced fill flash is unparalleled in the industry

These are the areas where I could see RED facing its biggest challenge.

I kinda disagrees with that, as all dSLR's functions without such quasi color and focus based AI algorithms turned on. Even my MF gear hasn't this kind of metering and is extremely good at suggesting the correct exposure. Red definitely have challenges to compete with Nikon and others, but lightmetering is not one of them.
A simple centreweighted algorithm is doing quite well for most shots and is way more predictable and consistent than all the quasi AI metering around. If the metering is hard to understand, it is hard to compensate it as well and that is a bad thing. Then we would have to trust the meter 100% and hope for the best, that is somethng I never wil be comfortable with.
Including multi spot metering both for constant and flash use would be great though.
MHO.

[liquidigital]

One flash feature I'd like to see included is FEL. Flash Exposure Lock. I use it with my Canon all the time and consider it essential.

[ScottyC]

How about a cool name... like RED DESIRE.

:w00t:

[CinemaSpy]

I kinda disagrees with that, as all dSLR's functions without such quasi color and focus based AI algorithms turned on. Even my MF gear hasn't this kind of metering and is extremely good at suggesting the correct exposure. Red definitely have challenges to compete with Nikon and others, but lightmetering is not one of them.
A simple centreweighted algorithm is doing quite well for most shots and is way more predictable and consistent than all the quasi AI metering around. If the metering is hard to understand, it is hard to compensate it as well and that is a bad thing. Then we would have to trust the meter 100% and hope for the best, that is somethng I never wil be comfortable with.
Including multi spot metering both for constant and flash use would be great though.
MHO.
I think if you talk to most pro-photographers - like Joe McNally, for example - they would disagree with you on this. Otherwise Nikon would have continued to stick with the 60/40 centerweighted metering system they've been using since the '60s and the original F.

The Matrix-metering system they introduced back on the Nikon FA has become well-proven, and when tied to the focus points in the current iteration works very, very well, indeed (though some purists will still reject it, but they tend to reject digital, too). And 3D multi-sensor balanced flash is unbeatable...and I have directly compared it to other systems (like Canon) and it is light years ahead.

[Robin Balas]

I think if you talk to most pro-photographers - like Joe McNally, for example - they would disagree with you on this. Otherwise Nikon would have continued to stick with the 60/40 centerweighted metering system they've been using since the '60s and the original F.

The Matrix-metering system they introduced back on the Nikon FA has become well-proven, and when tied to the focus points in the current iteration works very, very well, indeed (though some purists will still reject it, but they tend to reject digital, too). And 3D multi-sensor balanced flash is unbeatable...and I have directly compared it to other systems (like Canon) and it is light years ahead.

You need to divide "professionals" into more groups. Personally I never use on-camera flash or auto anything at all, I use studio gear also when at location. Press/sports and a lot of other genres do use on camera flash and the auto modes etc. So I can't speak on their behalf but representing my group of the "professional" photograhers - we do not use Auto metering or Auto anything - it doesn't work with our flash gear. I do mostly commercial work in my studio and I do food shots on various locations for a national magazine which is sort of journalistic - but done in a controlled environment with heaps of light.
I wouldn't look twice at Scarlet/DSMC if it works out to lack manual metering modes and fulltime manual controls meant for studio work and repeatable consistent results. Auto flash metering gives a different result everytime you reframe your shot, so its useless for a lot of work and perfect for sports, press and others living on the edge catching action.

So call it what you want - as long it is "AI" based, it is non-consistent in a controlled environment and not a critical function for the professional camera I and quite a number of others need. It will have some uses for others and it will be a bonus, but it will not be required to call it a professional camera. Have a look at a Hasselblad 501 and try to find anything requiring a battery... It is still a professional camera by todays standards. But we are all different with different needs.
MHO.

[VikramTank]

It would be great to have integrated pocketwizard on the camera so we don't have to worry about adding the transmitter. Many lighting packs (profoto) have it built in so why not build it in on the cameras.