What does dragon sensor mean for Scarlet?

[Jon Shaw]

LOL yeah it did take a few takes, I have found that all resolutions can be noisy if they aren't exposed correctly.

[Mike P.]

Simply put, if the upgrade price is near the Scarlet-MX brain price, it'll mean 'obsolescence obsolete' is obsolete.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

$5,999 for 5k24fps, 4k60fps, 2k120fps and I'm sold.

[Mike Garrick]

Hey Jarek

What if it was $11 K ?

Sort a gets interesting around this price. Not sure about it, I guess your then paying for a Super Scarlet .......................or do you buy a 2nd hand Epic.

[Nick Wernham]

Even if the available frame rate updates are fairly modest (I'm assuming that if Epic is moving up to 6k motion then we'll probably see 6k stills at 5k motion on the Scarlet to go along with at least some slight increases in frame rates at lower resolutions) then it will be more than worth it when one considers the increased dynamic range. Being able to do some 4k slow motion and HDRx would be icing on the cake. It would mean that most of the time we can shoot 5k for a 4k finish and 4k or 3k for all but the most specific of slow motion shots. I'm guessing that for our company's purposes the need to drop to 2k would be so rare that we'd probably just rent an Epic now and then rather than ever see the need to invest in one of our own.

If, on the other hand, what we wind up with is a 6k sensor where we cannot even shoot 5k motion then we'll probably pass and just stick with the (already lovely) MX sensor and rent an Epic when needed. Since the pixels will be slightly smaller we'll be looking at using a smaller sized crop for 4k than we currently use. Sure, the increase in dynamic range would be fantastic, but we'd really have a hard time with spending a bunch of cash for no upgrade in usable resolution and an effective decrease in usable sensor size (at least as far as motion goes). I like that we can shoot some decent stills and pull very nice stills from motion on certain types of shots (depending on how necessary a really fast shutter speed is, of course), but the primary purpose of this camera for us is motion and that's what my brother and I made the investment for.

One of the other things that I'd really love to see is the ability to do 5K anamorphic on Scarlet. I'm not sure whether or not it's a strict policy at Red that anamorphic is for Epics or whether it's all about the limitations of the Scarlet pre-Dragon, but it would be interesting to know.

I'm a very happy customer already and hope that Red gives us reason to further invest in their ecosystem. :)

[Marie Turock]

I think 2k looks terrible. I won't use it. The dragon update ( if we really knew what it was) seems to only make sense for the epic. If you want high framerates, just buy an epic.

Yeah, I hear this same criticism from clients every time they see R3Ds overcranked at any resolution lower than 4k; image is soft and relatively undesirable. Unfortunately, I have to agree with them, but it isn't a surprise either, it is a direct result of the bayer pattern raw footage. I believe the actual resolution turns out to be 80% of claimed value, so one can do the math on 2k footage and find that 1536 x 864 will probably look just about right for 2k.

Not saying this is scientific, just saying that it has worked out for me. Long story short - 2k isn't 2good.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Hey Jarek

What if it was $11 K ?

Sort a gets interesting around this price. Not sure about it, I guess your then paying for a Super Scarlet .......................or do you buy a 2nd hand Epic.

I think $6k would be the tipping point. I don't see myself paying more than that for this upgrade.

[Paramon Ivanovich]

$5,999 for 5k24fps, 4k60fps, 2k120fps and I'm sold.

me 2, even without 2k nonsense

[Maik Müller Menendez]

Don't bet on 6000$, thats the price-point for EPIC-upgrades and Jim or Jarred already stated that it will get higher for Scarlet because of the more complex upgrade. But maybe RED should consider offering two choices, one with just the sensor and whatever frame-rates the original chipset can do and another one with the full upgrade.

6k48, 5k60 would be my dream, for which i would pay up to 10.000$. Granted that upgrade would cost more than currently a brain and it would take the price to 1/2 of the EPIC-X (with Dragon-Upgrade added) but that's why i reach a bit high with the specs. Hey EPIC-X with Dragon will shoot up to 120fps@5k and 1/2 of that is 5k60. ;)

Nope, i wouldn't count on that, but i hope they'll finally allow shooting motion with full sensor-resolution. I like the idea of DSMC so much, but currently i still have to make a choice between best stills and motion.

Another thing thats on my wishlist for the upgraded chipset, less heat, maybe enough to get rid of the noisy fans. ;)

[Maik Müller Menendez]

Granted, but I still would have assumed the 2k would look better than it does.

Well, don't judge by a few test-clips here and there. I don't think they show the full potential. Granted, native 2k will never look like downscaled 4k, but with the right glass, better exposure/lighting and right post-processing you'll be able to get more out of it. Find good 5k/4k-samples and do a center-crop to see what can be done.

But i agree, if shooting high fps has higher priority for you than 4k, then there are better solutions. I would try to get a EPIC to get both. ;)