Ok, so here's my setup, what do you think Gibby?

[TimothyD]

I have no guess on the price of the RED Motor or SuperGrip. Based on the very reasonable price of the rest of the RED products, I would assume that the price of the RM and SG will also be priced very reasonably.

Yeah, I assume they will be a definite bargain, I just have to have a price in order to be able to get buy them:(

If you have to go to a straight ENG camera instead of RED One, there is a wide selection of cameras to fit those needs. You mentioned a few of them - F330 and HPX500. Each has their pluses and minuses. If you have to go that way, research them closely and make sure you'll be happy with your choice.

Yeah, I have been doing research on other cameras all along, but most of them seemed weak in terms of the (often interframe) codecs they use, 4:2:0 color in some cases, the fact that they are not full raster 1080 and that at 1080@60 fps they are all interlaced (everything I can find in this price range at least). I have renewed my search for alternate cameras that meet these criteria, but I can't find anything that doesn't have at least some major compromise in one or more of the areas.

If RED One doesn't fit your fiscal acquisition schedule, you may be able to buy one personally at a later date, or, as you mentioned, buy a RED PPC if it's features would service your needs.

I certainly will be buying a PPC at some point at the very least, and maybe a Red One. Who knows when, but when I buy a decent personal camera I will very likely get a Red...

I think you should consider zooming less with RED One, if you are able to get one, or zooming less when you shoot with any EFP/ENG camera.

I try to just use zooming to follow action, but admittedly, it is very easy to over use a zoom. I tend to have to use it while running and gunning to frame shots on the fly in a manner that still allows me to use the shot in the edit. I tend to have pity on the editor since the editor is me:) And since I always am a one man band I have to make sure as much footage as possible is usable, because I have no second camera to go to in the edit.

A two lens approach, with maybe a RED 18-50 zoom and a RED 300mm prime is workable. Remember, when using the 300mm prime you'll need to walk forward and backward to get the framings you're looking for. If that is workable, you have time to change between lenses, and your movement won't distract the students you are shooting, it is a viable solution.

Working with the 300mm would be smooth I think because I could be far enough away to get candid shots without them noticing. As for the 18-50, the short DOF scares me in terms of run and gun, but I do have to imagine that Graeme's magic focus assist will help a lot. I'm just a little apprehensive since I've never worked with 35mm DOF before.

Thanks so much for all the insights Gibby, outstanding advice as usual.

I'll let you know what I end up deciding be it Red or something else. But so far the magic "meets most of my requirements" camera hasn't reared its head...

Let me ask you this one additional question, do you think that the Red with the cheap Canon HD 2/3" lens I pointed out at the beginning of this thread would be preferable to the HPX500 (with the best lens they sell it with) for run and gun? (The reason I am leaning toward the HPX500 over XDCAM as an alternate to Red is because I don't want interframe compression)

Thanks,

Tim

[Leo Ticheli]

This is a very long thread here and in at least one other forum. At the risk of plowing the same field over and over, I'll make my observations.

Tim, I fully understand that you want the most capable camera you can possibly obtain, one that will serve your needs for as long as possible. We all want that, but we are best served choosing the right tool for the job.

Unfortunately, from your description of your tasks, the Red is not the appropriate choice. You're doing ENG with a crew of one. That's the bottom line.

Some of the lenses you are discussing are very limiting, you don't have the range of coverage you'll need, whereas a 2/3" camera can have a lens that covers every angle from very wide to sufficient telephoto to capture most jobs, and one additional zoom can handle most of the very long needs.

A mixed bag of glass won't match, so you'll be doing a great deal of color grading to try to fix it and that may not be enough. There are quite likely to be profound differences in contrast and sharpness in addition to color.

You could go with something like a 20 - 100 or 18 -100 Cooke, and a 25 - 250, but those lenses are big, heavy beasts; might be a challenge for a crew of one.

I strongly feel that running around screwing in ND filters every time you encounter a different lighting level is going to be a major pain. Filter a bit dusty? Stop and clean it; put the camera down somewhere and use both hands to work on the filter. Drop one of those babies and you'll really suffer. They are expensive and you'll be carrying three of them and a polarizer plus your cleaning kit.

By the time you're ready to shoot, a 2/3" ENG style camera will have moved on to the next shot. Are you prepared to bring home fewer shots per day?

If you just use the iris to adjust the levels, you're throwing away one of the most important creative tools, selective depth of field. For most shots, f11 looks terrible.

You seem to be hung up on some image quality issues with the current crop of 2/3" cameras from some technical spec standpoint. The only specification that should concern you is the image quality you see on the display. If 2/3" is good enough to produce motion pictures, it should be good enough for your final product.

I am an ardent Red supporter and am exciting about receiving ours because it works perfectly for most of my jobs. For the others, I'll be sending out a different camera.

I'll look in from time to time to see how your decision making it coming along and will be very interested to see how the Red performs for you in the field should you decide it's the way to go.

These are my opinions based on what we think Red will be when it ships; I'd love to be wrong so I could use the Red camera for every job and ditch my VariCams, but I would bet I'm right.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

[TimothyD]

Hi Leo,

Good talking to you again:)

I absolutely hear you... Early on in my investigation of which camera to get I decided that I would just get a PDW-F330. But the more I read about long gop the more it scared me off. (and I can't say I've been at all impressed with the color of HDV, so I doubt I'd like XDCAM HD any better).

I also am very much hoping for a non-proprietary IT centric format for the actual recording device. When I look at P2 it bugs me because they could have just used CF and made everyone's lives easier, and more importantly the media will only grow in size and drop in price. That's also a problem with the professional disc or SxS cards that XDCAM HD uses.

I am still doing intense research, and am actually really hoping I can find something that doesn't compromise in too many of the areas I am concerned with. My next step is going to be to go and get hands on with some cameras once I narrow down the field.

At this point my primary criteria are: I want to avoid interframe compression, and I want to have 4:2:2 color. Non-proprietary media is also a key concern for me, but not the deal breaker. If there is a deal breaker, it is color. So that makes me think that the XDCAM line has been eliminated from the running, as much as I might enjoy the form factor of the new EX camera. That leaves the Infinity and either the HPX500 or HPX2000 as the main contenders. I am a little doubtful that the HPX2000 will be in my price range once I add the viewfinder and AVC-I card (AVC-I is very appealing to me though). I haven't been able to find a price on the Infinity yet, so I don't know if it is a true contender or not. If the HPX500 included AVC-I it would be a no-brainer to choose it. I still don't really like the idea of pixel shifting, but like you said, it is about how it looks on a TV, not how it looks on paper.

The one final problem, and something that will impact my daily workflow is that everything I shoot needs to look good when output as 1080i for broadcast, but I don't want to have to deal with interlacing, so I was really hoping for a 1080p60 capable camera. That would give me the utmost flexibility because the same stuff I do for broadcast can be output for the web without time consuming de-interlacing... Ultimately, I often end up using any footage that I shoot many times, so the time I spend shooting is a kind of insignificant in the scope of everything, the workflow is the most important thing, and is why I'm so hung up on the technical aspects of my camera choice. When it comes down to it the codec is probably the most important part of my camera choice.

These are the primary reasons Red has been constantly cropping up as the one camera that has no compromises for me, that is, until I took a good hard look at the issues with choosing a lens...

I still have to wonder though if a cheap 2/3" lens on the Red would not look better than footage from the best (still cheap) lens that comes with the HPX500?

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, and good shooting to you as well.

Tim

[Damien Molineaux]

<cut>

The one final problem, and something that will impact my daily workflow is that everything I shoot needs to look good when output as 1080i for broadcast, but I don't want to have to deal with interlacing, so I was really hoping for a 1080p60 capable camera. That would give me the utmost flexibility because the same stuff I do for broadcast can be output for the web without time consuming de-interlacing... Ultimately, I often end up using any footage that I shoot many times, so the time I spend shooting is a kind of insignificant in the scope of everything, the workflow is the most important thing, and is why I'm so hung up on the technical aspects of my camera choice. When it comes down to it the codec is probably the most important part of my camera choice.

<cut>

Interesting thread.

Hi Tim,

about your, and others', concern about progressive, I don't understand why you would want 60p. If I'm not mistaken there are no 1080p camera that record 1080p on tape, or whatever media. If you shoot 30p, it is always recorded in a 1080i stream, which will play back fine and look great when broadcast. Okay, if you need to shoot stuff with a lot of motion, it may appear a little stuttery, so find a camera where you can simulate a slow shutter, then you'll have a little motion blur. Am I off track, does motion really need to be shot at 60 frames per second ?

With 60p, you're doubling your file size, halving the amount of footage you can record on any media, seems silly to me, more so a waste.

just my 2 cents,
Damien

[David Mullen ASC]

There are some HD cameras that shoot 60P/1080, it's just that they switch to 4:2:2 when being recorded to HDCAM-SR. For example, the Sony HDC-1500 can capture at 60P/1080.

The thing is that if you are shooting for HDTV broadcast in a 60Hz country, it's either 60P/720 or 60i/1080, so I'm not sure there is a real need to shoot everything at 60P/1080 when it would just have to be converted to one of those two broadcast formats. And 60P/720 converts very well to 60i/1080, so if you want to shoot progressive-scan for HD broadcast and don't need the "film look" of lower frame rates like 24, 25, 30, then shoot 60P/720.

Most people are only interested in 60P/1080 for creating slow-motion effects in a 24P/1080 project.

[TimothyD]

Hi folks,

I was thinking in terms of the fact that I benefit from avoiding interlacing, but have very smooth motion. I guess the more I look at it, the more it seems I will want to shoot 720p60 as David suggests. I just want to treat interlacing as a delivery medium option only...

Thanks so much,

Tim

[JW Lee]

This has been a great thread so far. I can definitely relate to the types of issues being brought up here. I'm thinking the Red 18-50 would be useful in a number of situations including interviews, wide shots and general use. As mentioned, when you need a longer lens, it could be a problem. My thinking is that the Red 300 might be a bit too much on the other end of the spectrum. I'm wondering what another choice might be to have in the kit that could be useful for longer shots. My point of reference would be something like what a 18x7.6 would produce. Not really familiar (yet) with shooting on cine lenses.

i suppose the B4 solution is possible, but I really like the DOF you can get with a cine style lens.

Hope my question makes sense.

[TimothyD]

I guess what this is coming down to for me is:

Would it be worth dealing with the loss of light from the B4 adapter, and swapping filters to have the image I would get out of an admittedly cheap HD 2/3" lens (all I can afford if I go with Red).

Or, do I go with one of the few cameras I see as fitting most of my other needs beyond resolution, still with a relatively cheap lens, maybe even cheaper? (Except in the case of the AG-HPX500, for which I could afford a considerably nicer lens, but I don't know that it is worth it?)

The contenders at this point are:

1. Grass Valley Infinity

2. Panasonic AG-HPX2000

3. Maybe the AG-HPX500 and a AG-HVX200 as a B-roll cam.

I have narrowed this list down based on the fact that I want to go with a decent intraframe codec, preferably wavelet if possible. I also want 4:2:2 minimum, and I want at least a 2/3" sensor. I also would like the ability to shoot 60p in at least 1080 or 2k for a nice smooth looking downrez. (Obviously only Red could do this, and as we talked about above it is not a deal breaker, just appealing)

Any thoughts from anyone on whether you think it would be worth dealing with screw on filters and the lost stop and a half of light with the B4 adapter? Here are the things that come to mind as issues with each choice:

1. Resolution (pixel shifting on the Pansonics)

2. Color

3. Non-proprietary media options

4. Codec and associated workflow (Unknown if there will be FCP support for JPEG2000?)

5. Latitude (After the lost stop of light)

6. Any problems (aside from lost light) from using a single sensor Red with an adapted 2/3" lens

It seems to me that the quickest way for Red to facilitate this camera being used as an ENG/EFP camera (with 2/3" DOF) would be to work together with Canon, Fujinon, etc. to provide 2/3" (or S16) ENG lenses meant to work with a single sensor camera and ideally with some switchable ND filter setup like a traditional ENG camera would have built into the barrel of the lens or into a B4 adapter. Maybe some of the i Technology could be included if Red worked with Cooke on an adapted S16 lens? In that scenario, the Red motor and supergrip could be a good way to have a powered zoom, as could a Red produced simple handgrip with a motor, zoom rocker and record button like on an ENG lens.

I don't know what the solution is, but I think that if Red offered an S16 or 2/3" ENG solution or better yet an entire ENG ready to shoot kit it would take off like crazy.

I suppose it may turn out that the PPC is just that, but if so I hope it is more akin to an ENG camera and less akin to a high-res handycam.

Cheers,

Tim

[tj williams]

Timothy. I own an older Canon B4 lens shooting on HDcam and the lens which came with the early HDcam cameras the 18X Canon is quite nice and available widely for cheaper, if you finally feel you must buy and convert a B4 lens. Since I already own this lens I probably will go that way for my uses.

I have one thought about the need for a wide variety of focal lengths. If you choose a 10X or 15X range S16 lens you save the $3500 for the B4 adapter. You still have that much money to buy a rather nice S16 lens. There should also be more than enough left to buy the control handle and control motors from RED.

When you need more telephoto just switch the RED Camera to the 35mm sensor mode and continue shooting with the S16 lens which will thereby be turned into quite a long tele lens. This will be because you are only recording the inner windowed area of the larger sensor. This will not be dissimiliar to switching the B4 lens to doubler, but there will be no optical quality loss as there is with most doubler lenses in tele. Of course you will be recording quite a bit of image beyond the area of the S16 lens, which you will just crop off in post. Now you have a nice light weight lens, and the focal range needed for the EFP type stuff you have been doing.

I fully intend to use this same technique with the B4 Canon I own. by putting the lens in doubler and the sensor on 35mm I should be able to see into the next county....This is gonna be a very cool feature of RED Camera and of RED cine where you can cut out a window for export to the same format you got from the windowed sensor.

[TimothyD]

Yeah, that sounds like a very good idea TJ. People had mentioned that earlier somewhere and I definitely like the idea.

The thing is, the camera is being purchased very soon, and if I don't have a price for the supergrip and redmotor then I can't buy them...

I am still very much deliberating this whole thing. I just wish it were easier to make my decision. Ultimately it is a decision I'll have to live with a long time, so I've really been trying to do all the necessary research to make sure I feel confident it is the right choice. It seemed like a no-brainer until I took the lens issues into account.

Thanks for the feedback,

Tim