real world use; 5dII VS Red

[billy]

I am going to dive into the video market and have no idea which camera to get, I like the idea of getting either the cheapest red scarlet or the FF35mm Red with the 13 stop DR. OR getting the Canon 5D. I plan on using natural light, V Flats for white bounce, home made kino flos, and a 1200 HMI . I want the processing to be as easy as possible! The destination for the video will  be TV and Web. I might be recording sound at times(probably outsourcing that because i have no idea how to do that). so this will be for semi-professional purposes. I already have a bunch of canon lenses by the way. I am wondering what the differences in these cameras will be for my real world use. I know it is all speculation because these cameras arent even on the market, so dont get too serious about this, just looking for some insight. thanks in advance.

[Graeme Nattress]

All depends precisely what you're interested in... Say you want to shoot some slomo video, then the RED products are your only choice. Say you're in Europe, or any none NTSC country, then again, the fixed 30fps of the Canon will hinder, rather than help you. If you're going for TV broadcast, do they accept origination of video material from an h.264 codec? Do you want to sell motion images to stock agencies? Does RAW video interest you?

You're not going to get an un-biassed answer from me, but the way I look at it is this: do you want motion images that can be projected practically any size and look superb. Or are lower quality video images but shot with pleasing DOF and nice glass adequate for your needs? Only you can answer that one.

Graeme

[Morgan_Moore]

I am going to dive into the video market and have no idea which camera to get, I like the idea of getting either the cheapest red scarlet or the FF35mm Red with the 13 stop DR. OR getting the Canon 5D. I plan on using natural light, V Flats for white bounce, home made kino flos, and a 1200 HMI . I want the processing to be as easy as possible! The destination for the video will  be TV and Web. I might be recording sound at times(probably outsourcing that because i have no idea how to do that). so this will be for semi-professional purposes. I already have a bunch of canon lenses by the way. I am wondering what the differences in these cameras will be for my real world use. I know it is all speculation because these cameras arent even on the market, so dont get too serious about this, just looking for some insight. thanks in advance.

Ive just gone video as a newb

my experience with the D90 is that it is bloody hard to shoot video right with a  stills camera - and the current  red too not that I have tried that (irrelevant of quality)

Pick up a sony Z1 or EX1, you will see that 'steady shot' and AF and slack DOF are critical to shooting usable footage easily

DSLRs and the RED are for shooting 'cinema' - think dollies and focus pullers - fantastic if you have the time/budget

The RED lenses may of course be AF/VR and canon may enable that functionality too

Manual focus on a stills camera is one thing - manual focus pulling to an unmarked, undamped 'stop' without shaking the camera is quite another - and I used to do football every weekend with a 300 2.8 manual on an F3  - redrock build those gizmos for a reason

If you are thinking of parting with big bucks I would buy/borrow a SonySR12 and a D90 - try them side by side and you will see - I borrowed a z1 and new straight away - I tried a full broadcast thing too - a different experience again - more manual but soo solid on a $12000 tripod !

Of course Im a newb too - so maybe it all falls into place

and the processing is never going to be easy although I reckon stills people seem to be less baffled by a raw tapeless workflow than videographers

[billy]

"Do you want to sell motion images to stock agencies? Does RAW video interest you?"

Yes, for stock, and yes for RAW processing

 "do you want motion images that can be projected practically any size and look superb. Or are lower quality video images but shot with pleasing DOF and nice glass adequate for your needs? Only you can answer that one."

I want the high quality, so I guess your saying go RED.... which is fine.


I just dont want to invest tons of $$$ in tripods/dollys and such as Morgan said. I have always gotten by with homemade rigs for my stills stuff ( skateboard as camera dolly, daylight balanced flourescent tubes as kino flows, which i know are going to flickr for video) and cant see myself making enough from this to invest that kind of money in.

[Graeme Nattress]

All depends what you want to shoot if you need a focus puller, dollies and the like. A tripod is madatory though...
www.nattress.com/Movies/GyroRed2k.mov shot with RED One, through the FCP-> Color native workflow. No assistance needed. A friend needed a shot of a record player, and I'd shot this before in 720p HDV. However, I didn't know where that footage was. It was literally quicker to go shoot it in 4k, do a quick edit in FCP and upload it to a web server so he could pick the shot he needed than to find that old HDV footage. And instead of being TV quality, it's good enough to show in a cinema.

I don't know really what to recommend for learning video. RED is, to me, the future - RAW video, very high quality, very high resolution, tapeless workflow, etc. So if you learn the RED, your skill-set is ready for the future. However, it might be rather daunting to begin with. There is help here, and the red user forums too. Buying a RED One today is good, especially if you think an RED Epic is in your future. Waiting on a Scarlet might be more cost effective though. As I say though, I'm not the best person to advise as I'm totally biassed here.

Graeme

[Morgan_Moore]

A tripod is madatory though...

and tripods are horrible .. so slow .. so stuck

Im not (that) worried about the $$$ of dollies or the like - its the cost of needing a crew and the invasion that stuff make on 'set' - if your set is for example a working busness who you are shooting a corporate short for or the footage is being tagged on the back of a stills brochure shoot

My conclusion is that

-Red is 'the tool' for art/stock/cinema/high budget

- a video camera is a tool that can have a commercial return as a happy addition to the working stills photographers 'service offer'

Mix an EX1 up with a letus and you have a commercial tool and an art tool for the weekends and showreel

A side note - 120FPS is not that fast for slo mo unless I am mistaken

SMM

[Graeme Nattress]

120fps makes for lovely slomo... It's not for specialist work, where something like a Phantom is more suited, but it does cover a majority of work.

Graeme

[Graeme Nattress]

120fps makes for lovely slomo... It's not for specialist work, where something like a Phantom is more suited, but it does cover a majority of work.

Graeme

[Barry Goyette]

Just to provide a counter to Graemme's absolutely fair and biased comments. I see Red as probably a little overkill for someone who is wanting to "get into" video. On the other hand, the 5dmk11 is really "underkill", in that it isn't really a video camera...it's a still camera that shoots video clips. I see the 5dmk11 as the first shot in what will truly be affordable, digital cinema for the relative masses, something that Red really isn't designed or purposed to do. (As Jim has said, his products are for the professional market.) In the future, canon would certainly be able to scale their products to the 3k-4k-5k world, should they choose to enter that realm (I doubt that they will though). But in reality, today (or rather next week) we have the 5dmkII and Red One--two cameras purposed at very different markets with dramatically different price points. We don't have scarlet, or epic or any of the ambitious roadmap Red provided last week....we have only the promise of something like it, sometime in the relatively (and hopefully) near future.

If I were somebody ambitious about getting started in video...I would be looking at a Prosumer Canon/Sony HDV camera, and get started learning the tools, the trade and the tricks. If I wanted shallow depth of field, I would add a 5dmkII just like I might add another accessory to my kit (certainly less money than some of the depth of field adapters on the market-- thae fact that you already own the glass is kinda huge). For your purposes (TV and Web)...these cameras will more than suffice. Between now, and when scarlet sees the light of day, you should be earning more than enough to have covered your initial camera investments. At that point, the landscape may be quite different, as I could certainly see Sony entering this fray, with Canon producing a more functional professional adaptation of the large sensor video/still cam (1dmk1v anybody?), and of course Nikon, Panasonic et al.

Barry

[Morgan_Moore]

If I were somebody ambitious about getting started in video...I would be looking at a Prosumer Canon/Sony HDV camera, and
Barry

Exactly why I got a Sony Ex1 - in three years I will know whether I 'got into video' and will be able to buy a used red maybe

the letus allows my nikorrs to be used

and I didnt have  to buy a new computer to work with it unlike Red

S