Scarlet - from a Sony user

[fast_boy]

It seems I missed getting my 2 cents worth in early on the NAB announcements. I've been out on a shoot all day with a pair of Sony EX-1s.

It's amazing how fast the HD technology is moving. Considering just a year ago we were shooting on DV intercut with occasional bit of Beta SP, the fact that the EX1 gives us full raster 1080P on our (small) budgets is quite incredible.

However, the pictures still don't look quite as they should - to my eye anyway. I'm not expecting a 35mm lookalike or anything - Just a quality picture would be fine. Yet apparently thats too much to ask. Despite promises of 'cine-like gamma curves' and a 'cinealta' badge on the side everything we shot today looks, for want of a better word, 'plasticy'.

The thing that most impresses me about the RED ONE footage is that it doesn't seem to be trying to fool me into imagining I'm seeing something which I'm not. It's 'simply' a very high quality digital image. If this same approach can be scaled to a low budget system, I think the Scarlet could well be the camera for a generation of aspiring and indie film makers.

Cheers for the effort Red.

[Gunleik Groven]

I think/hope you nailed it...

[Steve White]

I think most consumer/prosumer cameras out there now are really limited by the codecs. When you only have 8-bit colour, you're pretty much out of luck when it comes to colour correction and exploiting dynamic range. RedCODE RAW should fix all these problems, and give us the most a sensor in this class can offer.

I think it's precisely the RAW codec that makes Scarlet "professional". The added understanding of sensor and imaging principles to use the RAW workflow will be extremely intimidating to the average person working on video. Most consumer/prosumer cameras out there basically output something that's acceptable for viewing on a TV, but not for post.

Scarlet will give us those flexible post options we so desperately need to increase the quality of productions.

[Christoffer Glans]

I still shoot my movies on my DVX100 with a brevis35 and Canon L lenses and get prizes for my cinematography. I've looked for echonomical solutions for buying a RED ONE, but I'm still far away from that camera (even if I dream alot). But Scarlet is actually something that not only blows away in image quality, I can actually afford it today, not after months of savings, loans and only nudles for my daily three-meals.

Scarlet is a perfect indie-camera, no doubt. I will use it until I've got the money for a RED ONE or EPIC. I will still get image quality that is enough for most distributors and just understand that the most high end home-theatre equipment only goes up to 1080p, so 3k is enough for now.

I just want to see how it handles dynamic range and DOF before giving it the indie first price of the decade.