HD For Indies

ProVideo Coalition.com: Camera Log by Adam Wilt | Founder: "Three three-letter cameras: EX1, F23, RED
An unfair comparison of three entirely different cameras"

Adam Wilt digs in to check out how a $6500 Sony EX1, a $25,000 Red One, and a $250,000 Sony F23 compare when shooting some (quick, rushed, non-lab-grade-definitive) charts and tests.

An interesting read, well recommended.

Adam observes a bunch of stuff people are coming to understand about Red - shooting 4K for a 2K/1080 deliverable is best instead of just 2K for 2K/1080, Bayer patterns aren't quite as sharp as cosited sampling, and quality glass counts (edit - to further elaborate on the glass issue, Super Speeds, as tested, are great for low light, but not the sharpest glass available).

Speaking of Red, I plan on spending tomorrow catching up on writing about a bunch of stuff I've been doing with my Red since I got it and got to Los Angeles (where I'm living now). Since Adam did his tests with build 14 of Red's firmware, I got build 15 (2nd rev of it too) installed and running on mine. My favorite feature so far? 120 fps at 2K!

Holy g-damn sh*t, that is one HOT feature!

I'm doodling with some high speed footage now, and tomorrow I'll also write up some of the golden goodies I saw at what I think was the first ever Los Angeles Red User Group meeting (LARUG? La Rug?).

Stay tuned.

-mike

EDIT - to clarify, esp. since there have been so many trolls over there (who apparently get bored making up original fake email names pretty quickly) - cosited pixels CAN be more sharp than Bayer pattern - on a PIXEL FOR PIXEL basis. If you throw a bunch more pixels at it, then the overall optical resolution of a high res Bayer pattern based system can be higher than a 3-chip setup. As is the case with the Red One.

-mike

Labels: EX1, F23, Red

WELCOME | High Definition magazine

More on the technical aspects of cameras selected and used on Cloverfield. Don't forget to check out the video interview with Nick Theodorakis, the DIT on Cloverfield - link at the bottom of the article.

FreshDV has a nice round-up article as well.

To answer my earlier question about how they ran around, reader Chris sent in this snippet from Variety on Jan 4:

For the widescreen scenes with visual effects, which require higher resolution, a cameraman dressed like Hud sports the much-heavier hi-res Sony F23 or Thomson . The cameraman was creating the illusion that huge cameras are very light," says Reeves. "It was grueling. People fell."

-mike

Labels: cameras, F23, moviemaking

Rumor Smashed: The Real Camera Behind Cloverfield

Saw Cloverfield over the weekend. Wow and Fun and Recommended.

You'll either like it or not.

I liked it, especially the surprises and 'splodey bits. I like how right when you really want to see what's going on....you don't get to see. I like the ending. I like the chew toy.

I'd already heard they'd used F23 for a lot of it, but I'm curious as to the config - did they remote the head, a la T-block, as the F9xx series can do? Some of those camera moves, esp. running and whip pans, seem not possible or easy or likely with a full F23, which is NOT small.

It wasn't the only camera used, so I'm curious about how all that went down.

I'd just hate to have been on the track & roto team - MAJOR effort there!

Anybody got any other links? I was in LA for 4 days on a Red feature, more to say about that, but I'm behind on my news. Did catch Cloverfield opening night, that was fun.

Thanks to Paul (robogeek) and others for sending this in.

-mike

Labels: F23, high end, monitor