Hasselblad vs RED Epic for stills.

[Fabian Weber]

Stills from my latest short with the Epic:

[Lee Saxon]

The biggest problem medium format has is crap sensors. With significantly larger pixels you should at least be able to MATCH 35mm DSLRs.

Go to DXOMark, look at the dynamic range chart comparing the $10k Pentax 645D and $3k Nikon D800, then come back here and convince me to buy the Pentax. At least it keeps pace in SNR unlike much more expensive MF from Hasselblad and Phase One.

[Bill Anderson]

Good job Fabian.

[Dr. Kevin Parker]

There's a debate on this over at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/photography/...d_vs_red_epic/If anyone wants to be the voice of reason over there, please do ;)

cool martin, anyone see these comments over there at Reddit?

Here's an official challenge at a major sporting event. The 9shooter Canon Nikon system vs. The Red Epic or Scarlet:http://blog.9shooter.com/2012/05/9sh...d-scarlet.html"The 9SHOOTER vs RED EPIC / RED SCARLET photographic stills & video showdown challenge!"The 9SHOOTERTM hereby challenges the RED EPIC / SCARLET community to see who can capture the best video and stills at a pro surfing event in Southern California. We can meet up at either the 2012 Hurley Pro in San Clemente in September or the 2012 Nike US Open in Huntington Beach in July. Hopefully EPIC will do better than last year, when they didn't even show.The basic rules will be as follows:1) One-on-one. The 9shooter operator and RED operator (preferably Jim Jannard) must carry all their equipment onto the beach by themselves and operate it by themselves. 2) All photographs and video must be finished by the operator. 3) Points will be given for stills, video, and overall cost of equipment including batteries/memory cards/lenses/etc. (the exact breakdown & criterion/weighting will be discussed--feel free to comment with suggestions!)

http://www.reddit.com/r/photography/...d_vs_red_epic/ red would kick a!

[Arturo Sánchez]

Or get the upcoming Canon Eos 1dc that would not have raw video but it seems that the canon log+ 4k motion jpeg are nice through.
For the money of a Scarlet you would have a lightweight cinema camera with just 1.3x crop mode(aps-h) at 4k.
It records in a bigger area than Epic.
And also features the 1dx low-light capability and stuff.

[Dr. Kevin Parker]

Couple of interesting points he made:

Longer workflow: I'd never really considered this for post time but I guess it makes sense in his setting. For me, scrubbing through the timeline is quite a fast process and finding the right still only takes a really short amount of time. I actually love the flexibility. It means you find moments that you didn't even know occurred while shooting, and it ensures that you don't miss that actual moment you were planning on capturing.

Cost: Peter mentioned that the EPIC kit he was using was worth about 80k. What I found interesting is that for Peter's purposes, a scarlet shooting at 12fps in 5k would fill his needs just as much as an EPIC would. Being that he's not looking for slow-mo and is only looking to pull stills and not motion from the footage he shoots, there is already a lower priced entry point as an option :)

Hello Brad,

If you weren't interested in video, would you not be better off spending $3,000 on Nikon D800 or $5,000 on a Nikon D4? Both produce superior images at 5 FPS - 12 FPS over the Scarlet, while weighing less and costing less. What would the advantage of the Scarlet be in this case?

Don't get me wrong, I see the advantage of shooting 5K video with the RED for the big screen, but what is the advantage of shooting 12 fps with the Scarlet, which i too few for even 1080p video?

Thanks!

[roryhinds]

This is an interesting behind the scenes and for me highlights the positives and negatives of using EPIC for stills.

While its a fantastic highlight of the resolution of EPIC over say the Alexa I still feel using a motion camera for stills goes against what still photographers have crafted for years... and thats the trigger moment.

The moment you capture whilst looking through the viewfinder, you've composed the shot (portrait or landscape) and fire that trigger and hear confirmation as the shutter opens and closes. That Click sound is so important and part of the photographers genes. Without it (as mentioned on this video) you feel awaked and like something is missing.
Not only do you have the "click" sound the shutter opening and closing makes but you can also feel it in your hand, a feeling and sound that is part of being a photographer.
Something that doesn't apply to motion photography.

RED need bring out a "Shutter Click" which tags the still in the motion stream and REDCine could load a timeline with just those "tagged" shots.

[Dr. Kevin Parker]

Yes that would be interesting. A "shutter click" when a button is pressed on the RED, and then the exact frame is tagged, perhaps with a red demarcation, while the surrounding ten frames on each side are marked with a blue demarcation, and the next ten on each side with green.

Then, in post, it would be easy to go to all the exact spots immediately, while also having the immediate frames around it to play with, and, of course, all the frames if one wanted to.

One could select "look at all red frames," or "look at all red and green frames."

This would cut down on the rub-a-dub-scrubbing!

Should be simple to do! I'll file a patent on this today!

:)

[Brad Allen]

Hello Brad,

If you weren't interested in video, would you not be better off spending $3,000 on Nikon D800 or $5,000 on a Nikon D4? Both produce superior images at 5 FPS - 12 FPS over the Scarlet, while weighing less and costing less. What would the advantage of the Scarlet be in this case?

Don't get me wrong, I see the advantage of shooting 5K video with the RED for the big screen, but what is the advantage of shooting 12 fps with the Scarlet, which i too few for even 1080p video?

Thanks!

If I wasn't interested in video then perhaps you would be right - but I am interested in video and shoot far more video than stills with the camera personally. What's the Dynamic Range on the D800 and D4? You might be able to make the case that the scarlet and it's HDRx mode provide a unique selling point for stills - but even then I don't think I would be trying to sell the scarlet as the best stills camera in the world - it's a stills and motion camera afterall :)

[Dr. Kevin Parker]

If I wasn't interested in video then perhaps you would be right - but I am interested in video and shoot far more video than stills with the camera personally. What's the Dynamic Range on the D800 and D4? You might be able to make the case that the scarlet and it's HDRx mode provide a unique selling point for stills - but even then I don't think I would be trying to sell the scarlet as the best stills camera in the world - it's a stills and motion camera afterall :)

You write, "You might be able to make the case that the scarlet and it's HDRx mode provide a unique selling point for stills." How/why might one be able to do this? The new Nikons and Canons and Sony all have HDR mode too, as well as better autofocus I believe?