Rock and a Hard Place

[Alex Mack]

The fixed is one stop too deep. But it has an electronic lens with smart focusing.
The cinema primes are just right at 1.4, with ideal form-factor. But the primes are not electronic, with manual focus.

I have this dream, of not just doing traditional studio stuff, but shooting aesthetic epics in 'guerrilla' style. Really capturing the fun side of movie-making, without loosing an iota of visual quality. (also to bring some of that guerrilla fun into the studio)

The cinema is so close to that dream. Its got low-light, dslr form, light weight, 3k resolution, top glass, 150 slo mo, etc. But one thing just doesn't fit. All of Red's intelligent new auto-focusing methods are rendered obsolete with the manual primes that have the shallower Dof! This is big, because I love moving organic shots with nicely shallow Dof.

I write this now because there is one thing I would like Red to seriously consider: to make at least one electronic version of a prime - either the 25mm, or the 16mm. This would help me, and I suspect many others, incredibly. For me, it would make the leap from a pretty good solution to the perfect one.

If the fixed zoom is not finalized, I would like to express my support for making that f stop any bigger, even at the loss of a little focal range or visual quality. I will be getting both the fixed scarlet and the cinema.

[paulherrin]

In my opinion we're going to be able to get plenty enough shallowness in our depth of field with the 2/3 - even the fixed one.

If you want extremely ridiculously stupid shallow depth of field, get one of those Canon's and see how your video turns out...

Or just get the S35

[David Mullen ASC]

You know, I once did a tiny movie on an F900 with only four film students as the entire crew to support me and the sound mixer, using Zeiss DigiPrimes shot wide-open at T/1.6 -- and the student I had helping me pull-focus did just fine.

F/1.4 on a 2/3" camera is like an f/2.8-4 split in 35mm -- it's not impossible to pull focus at that level of depth of field, especially if the RED camera has some focusing helps in the viewfinder for people doing their own focus.

While there is actually an occasional practical use for auto-focus -- I'm not going to say there isn't -- setting the focus is like making a directorial choice, and manually following focus is mostly just a practiced skill. The proof that you can live without auto-focus is that many past amateurs using 16mm and 8mm home movie cameras managed to focus manually, and most pro 2/3" shooters manage as well, and I'm sure you would be able to as well.

The trouble with making the T/2.6 (or whatever it will be) fixed zoom on the Scarlet much faster is that it might either make the lens much bigger, or much more expensive, or both, sort of defeating the purpose of the fixed-lens Scarlet to cater to people on a budget.

[Alex Mack]

All points taken, and I am comforted by this support.
Already, I feel better about this situation. However -

I should describe more in depth what I mean by organic moving shots in guerrilla approach. My personal preference is for very light and smoothly stabilized cameras that can be moved in relation to my emotion as the shot unfolds. Thus the camera is moving along with the subjects who are moving. The relationship of the motions of subject and camera unfold with the shot - such as reverse rotations, horizontal to canted spin, rising up above the subject or sinking down below, and the full combination of these to match the actors' activity and the scenes emotion.

The problem with this is that focus pulling becomes impossible. Only the operator could pull the focus, but this throws off the stabilization of the light camera, and is so very limiting when you are also trying to 'move with the emotion.'

Traditionally, I have combated this with deep focus for such shots (less aesthetically contiguous with shallower still dialog shots etc). Or, very controlled and prepared motions with shallow focus (this method does not allow for motion to and from the subject, the 'z axis', very limiting). These methods lose some true aesthetic quality, and I am saddened. In addition, contending with these complications is an additional stress when shooting the movie in a light and free way.

Shooting APS-C at f5.6, or watching 'The Quiet' (2-2.8 split on 2/3), I feel the focus is too deep by about a stop, at all focal lengths (no slight to the film, it was very well shot).

In a way, I'm trying to pursue a shooting style that is very atypical. But it gives incredible results for minimal cost and maximal fun. My search would at last end with an auto-focusing prime. (I should note that the promise of Red's focus system is that it will be a top quality lock on the chosen subject, and will be 'face sensitive', and that's just what I desire with a 2.8-4 split [1.4 on 2/3])

Any thoughts on this dilemma welcome.
Would you guys be interested in an electronic prime, and why?