Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Just to clarify... You mean an explosion of people shooting S35, not an explosion of new shooters. I wouldn't say they reinvented that market, as much as redefined it. Same user, different tool. But I'd agree that it's probably the most important revolution since digital video.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

The posts in the thread tend to be weighted towards the C300 because the original poster specifically asked why you would choose the C300 over the Scarlet. On paper it seems like Scarlet crushes the C300 mercilessly, but when you dig deeper into the operational aspects, the C300 can actually be much more attractive. So that's what this thread was exploring.

I didn't mention Red Bricks or large batteries in my comparison because the C300 would still run longer comparatively and using them would require building up both cameras with more accessories and cabling. At that point, power might not be big issue.

But if you're trying to keep the camera light and compact or just looking at the start up costs, then I think comparing the internal batteries is fair. It's a very big difference. Furthermore, with the C300, you don't even need the side handle to power it so you could strip it down further if you wanted, unlike Scarlet which requires the side handle or another module to power it.

I think lower power draw is a great benefit that adds convenience and lowers heat dissipation. Less batteries are needed so that's good for the environment too.

Regarding the interchangeable lens mounts, Canon did think of this but according to Larry Thorpe they made a conscious decision not to. The reasons were they didn't want issues with tolerances and a fixed mount could be made to be more rigid. It's just a decision they made. We'll see if that was the right one. A standard EF mount does have some rotational play, like Charles mentioned. I'm not sure if they did anything about this (like RED did on their Canon mount), but I'm guessing they didn't since it looks like just a standard EF mount.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Arguably a bit of both - yes, an explosion of people shooting large format video, but possibly more people in total as well. The ground glass adaptors involved not just their own cost, but that of the base camera as well - with DSLR video that was a huge drop in cost, and it's quite likely led to users coming along who previously hadn't been able to afford the equipment.

And the ground glass adaptors had their issues - loss of light etc. Many people likely just put up with the depth of field of 1/3" chips to avoid the hassles and cost of adaptors. That's why I do think here it was video DSLRs that "reinvented" the market.

The initial effect of Red was at a much higher price point. A profound effect, but maybe not truly revolutionary. Not in the way of DSLRs.

It also maybe needs putting in perspective. Not everybody wants shallow depth of field, and the call for it came out mainly from those only able to afford such as 1/3" - for a lot of work 2/3" was seen as optimum. And still is for many for that matter. Large format video may have been a revolution for some - others just had no need or interest at all. Hence the continuing and large market for 1/3" - 2/3" cameras.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Another reason why the C300 might be preferable is noise. I assume the Scarlet will need the same noisy fan cooling between shots that the Epic does. For long takes you may have heat issues without the fans running.

C300 and Scarlet really are very different tools. C300 will I expect be great for quick, no fuss, portable shooting for factual programmes like documentaries, corporate etc with some cross over into shorts, while Scarlet is more suited to narrative work like drama, low budget movies and shorts. Of course you can use either for both, but it might not be the most effective solution.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Given how many of the comparisons are with the Alexa, the C300 could end up being used as the B or grab camera on TV dramas, replacing the DSLRs that have been used in recent years on those productions. Assuming that it was the size rather than the cost or fashion was reason for opting to use the DSLRs in this role.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

I believe the C30 has a small fan that is not user controllable. We can assume that from the run time per battery that the C300 fan noise is not an issue.

It seems to me that buying the C300 for episodic television currently using DSLR was literally "made to order". I don't understand the position that no one's going to buy it. I expect a projects look to be dialed in "in camera" and an easy post production. Perhaps not state of the art in southern Cali, but a very real world solution for those trying to get the job done.

Part of the C300 positioning is to keep DSLR television from going F3. It's likely well positioned to fight the F3 in that market.
There are also probably many productions who would like an Alexa but can't afford it. The cost of the C300 rented or depreciated over 3 years isn't much.

Assuming the C300 is clearly more filmic than the F3, it should sell well. Specs are secondary. Canon competing in this way is historically exactly their thing. 5dII video happened because the images were beautiful, despite the many flaws.

A short answer to the O.P. is that you're going to need to shoot the Scarlet at 4K to produce great 1080p files. The C300 is easier. Time is usually money.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

The posts in the thread are weighted towards the C300 because there's no RED forum here, therefore RED shooters don't tend to spend time on DVInfo. I happen to have friends and deep roots on dvinfo, so periodically wind up representing the RED viewpoint, in the absence of a larger voice.

(Not always crazy about that...but, as I said, I believe they have earned the right to be represented honestly, and, in the absence of a dvinfo presence, that does not always happen....)

A few inaccuracies that need addressed:

1) Tim, you don't need a side handle or module to power a brick. That is not accurate. My super light configuration consists of a single rod mounted to the back of an old RED ONE top handle, using a Zacuto widget and one 4'' 15mm rail. And a $200 ET battery plate. There are other 3rd party manufacturers who also have built plate systems (ViewFactor, Action Products, and also RED's own Backpack system, which I don't particularly like, I find it heavy and expensive). A lot of RED ONE users have simply recycled their RED Quickplate with v-mount...there are quite a few available options besides the ones you mention. I like my set-up because it counter-balances the lens - the EPIC can become front-heavy, with a big lens, so a bit of weight off the back can be a good thing.

2) I would say Larry Thorpe's decision not to make an interchangeable mount is simply a poor choice, whatever his rationale. Frankly, I'm a little amazed by it - we have people hacking still cams to build PL mount cameras. We have RED ONE owners, myself included, who have been falling all over themselves waiting on an affordable, workable EF solution, since 2008.

Not that many individual owners buying cameras at these price points are shooting a single style...

That he would admit that the success of the hybrid DSLR is a surprise, rather than a consequence of listening to what the customers wanted, should tell you something. I can ask Jim Jannard or Jarred Land direct questions, I tell them what I want and need. If you do it politely and respectfully, they'll respond more frequently than not. I would say they have probably given me direct answers to about 60% of my personal pestering questions on an open forum. That is pretty amazing, really. RED knows its customers very well. Not saying Canon doesn't - I own and like tons of their gear - but I think their agenda for selling product has a different approach - they watch what their competitors are doing and respond to that. Nothing wrong with that model, particularly, but I do think it puts limits and constraints on innovation.

3) I agree with Don that this will be a great broadcast camera option - I think it will be more apt to challenge Alexa than RED, in that regard, since Alexa owns more of the broadcast market....it would definitely be a great crash cam or B cam.

But Don, it isn't accurate to say that you have to shoot 4K to get good 1080 files out of a SCARLET. 3K is a very good option which saves space, still gives the advantages of oversampling, and allows faster playback and transcoding. 2K is an option - I have heard rumors about a lack of quality at 2K at 23.98, but I have not shot any EPIC at 2K, except for high-speed 300fps - and it looked frickin' amazing! (usually, I've found that people who get bad images overcranked are failing to re-calibrate the black shading of their cameras...done right, it's soooo awesome.)

Sound Devices Pix is a very popular monitoring/1080 recording device. It isn't cheap, but to say that you have to shoot 4K to get 1080 is not the full story.

4) And lastly, I can see where you and I differ on the definition of "revolutionary," David - you are measuring it by the number of units sold. I am measuring it by impact on both the industry and individuals. By your measure, number of units, I suppose you're right. But I don't know any Academy Award-winning films shot on a DSLR. Major successful businesses have originated around RED camera expertise (LightIron and Offhollywood come to mind). I don't know jack about fashion photography, but in under a year, the EPIC has been used by many of the top names in photography to shoot spreads for all of the major magazines. When you see major motion pictures like the Hobbit and Pirates 4 shot on a camera built by a company that is about five years old - well, I would call that a revolution. Not just "profound" - but totally radical, dude!

Arri, Panavision, and Aaton did not making film cameras this year because of DSLRs. It is a RED (and Alexa and Genesis and SI-2k) phenomenon. A digital cinema phenomenon. That is a paradigm-busting change.

At a personal level, I started shooting RED cameras about three years ago, and I landed my dream job shooting a Nat Geo special (would never have happened with a DSLR, never) and am friends with several A-list actors, with whom I've worked - and, remarkably, all done from Colorado, a state that doesn't even have film incentives, let alone a film industry - without RED cameras, that never happens.

I don't know what your yardstick for revolution is, but my ringside ticket to the RED sideshow has parked me next to some remarkable paradigm-shifting, revolutionizing stories.

I don't hear these same stories from DSLR shooters - I hear people being much happier with the quality of their images - but I don't hear story after story about how that the camera has launched them into new realms of experiences.

Those days may be over, to an extent, now that there are so many S35 choices - I think the window to travel through that wormhole was somewhat limited and is already closing again. But there is no doubt in my mind that RED changed the paradigm for imagining what was possible, rather than just making prettier pictures.

I'm willing to entertain the possibility that I'm wrong on this one - but really, I know tons of people shooting DSLRs - and for the most part, they are shooting better images of the same stuff they were shooting before - it hasn't re-defined their business.

Sorry for the lengthy post...

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Actually it's the other way around... RED shooters don't tend to spend time on DV Info, therefore there's no RED forum here. All of the RED shooters are on reduser.net where they rightfully belong. I'm grateful that some of them such as yourself come back to DVi from time to time, but reduser.net is where Jim and Jarred are, it belongs to Jarred, and it's a real-names-only forum. *Everybody* is there, including me, I read it regularly. Therefore there's not much point to having a RED forum here.

We used to have one here, but people were using it mainly to post links to reduser.net, but that's not how DV Info works. DV Info runs message boards about gear, and how to use gear. DV Info doesn't run message boards about other message boards. That's meta-discursive, and that ain't us. So the obvious solution was to replace our RED forum, which was mostly filled with reduser links, with a direct link to reduser itself. I can't think of anything more foolish than trying to compete with reduser for its own traffic, and I sure as hell don't want to make any enemies.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

fair enough, Chris - no intent to misrepresent you or DVinfo here....I was not taking issue with your decision -

but I don't think the reason that the thread tends to be weighted towards the C300 is as Tim says - because the OP asked the question about why you would choose the C300 over SCARLET - I think it tends to be weighted that way because the RED user base is absent. Otherwise, I wouldn't be the sole person trying to straighten the record. I can let it go, though.

...just happy when I have a camera in hand, that is good enough for me!

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Meryem

As i recall, two weeks ago this forum was full of people moaning about the Canon's shortcomings and hailing the second coming of the Scarlet, so i don't think there is any shortage of Red fans on DVinfo. Now things have settled down, many are starting to have a second look at the C300, aided by reports of far more reasonable prices than originally suggested, and sobering articles by Red owners like Phil Bloom.

Further, AFAIK nobody here has actually seen a single frame of footage from this camera we've been hearing about for several years, and we shall be none the wiser till we do. All we know is it's more than tripled in price since all the fanfare about a 3 grand professional camera back in the day. Given that nobody has seen this camera in action it seems a little early to be comparing it with anything at all. However there are several reasons - outlined by Tim Le and others - why the Canon will make more real world sense for many users, regardless of how good the Red turns out to be.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

I guess that I missed the moanfest...so I'm lacking some backstory here.

Said more than my share...and will retire my torch....don't really like playing RED defender, but hope that I added a little bit of additional information to the heap, for those of you trying to weigh options. It is a lot of money to spend, on either system, and the decisions are getting tougher to make.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

If I remember correctly, about 4 years ago, before the 5D2 came out, my Brevis cost about $1200 and the smokin hot Canon HV20 was about $800. Not exactly unaffordable compared to a $1600 7D if you wanted to shoot Super35. I can't join you in the theory that all of a sudden, tens of thousands of people woke up one day and said "Hey I can shoot Super35 on this whack form factor DSLR for under 2 grand... I think I'll become a filmmaker!"

I will say that it has migrated a lot of still photographers into the video world, since they now own tools that cover both... and at the same time has moved a lot of videographers (less so) into stills.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Why do you assume the C300 clearly more filmic than the F3? Some of the footage I've seen is much more video like than the F3, clipped highlights is one video trait that many are seeing from the C300. I think we need to wait before we judge image quality until more units are actually out in end users hands.

5DMkII images can be beautiful in the right conditions, but all it's issues have limited it use to a narrow range of applications and for many mean it's a non starter. It created a niche in the market that was not really there before.

Specs are not secondary. Good reliable specs will tell you a lot about how a camera will actually perform in your hands as opposed to looking at videos on the web created by experts with big budgets who can tailor the shoot to get the most from the camera, avoiding areas that may cause issues. Take the 5D, independent resolution tests tell us that the resolution falls short of what most would expect from a 1080P camera. Yet on the web this is difficult to tell. If your producing web videos then that's fine, but present on a big a screen and the difference becomes much clearer. Of course one of the issues is getting reliable and meaningful specifications as opposed to the carefully selected and sometimes ambiguous manufacturer specs.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

As a complete outsider looking in ( a novice, with not a chance of owning either camera), the choice seems simpler than people are making out.

If you want a camera that will work 'out of the box', that will be much simpler to use, and will have a faster work flow without major $ investment in raw workflow then the c300 is the better choice.

Run and gun? wedding/event videography? etc then I can not imagine for one second using any red camera. the reliability issue alone woryy the hell out of me!

If you have more time to invest per shoot, have repeatable conditions, need higher res and absolutley must have raw, then of course the red is for you.

The notion that either of these camera somehow far worse, or far better images than the other seems strange to me. You could make beautiful images with either.

James

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Actually there's a lot of sample material readily available. Scarlet output = Epic output, and there are plenty of Epic clips online coming from a wide variety of sources. The only differences between Epic and Scarlet are frame rate, 5k video, window size vs. res, etc., but the image "flavor" and quality of the two cameras are identical.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

I don't assume, I predict :)

The C300 sensor makes many more measurements compared to the F3. Also, as I've said Canon is telling us it's noticeably better by their pricing. The only people who have compared the F3 and the C300 are Canon. Either the C300 has better IQ, or the Canon people are foolish.

The trouble with specs, especially Red specs, is they don't illuminate the trade offs. What price does the Red design pay in basic IQ to do 120 fps? In power consumption? In low light capability? What's the upside of the C300's lowly specs? Are they being cheap, or making sure the 99.9% of shooting is the best it can be?

I expect the clipped highlights is from pre production cameras. It's unlikely in 2011 that Canon would build a system that has a fundamental problem with gently clipping highlights. But until the F3 and the C300 are shot side-by-side we don't know. It does seems the images from each will be distinct, which is nice.

I think in a few years debayered sensors will be old tech. Measuring just one color at each pixel will soon be better understood as a compromise. This may be a problem for Red, as I can't see them being ready to handle a 32mp quad 1080p sensor.

I'll keep pointing out that there's likely more information off the C300 sensor (pre compression) than the 4K Scarlet. And way more than the F3. Debayering is building out a bigger file, but not adding any information, just data estimates.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Good point Chris. So the images will be identical? even so, friends of mine who've been renting Reds have done so primarily due to the frame rate (slowmo) options which the Scarlet doesn't do as far as i'm aware?

James Millward

Yes, both will be wonderful cameras, and like you i can't currently justify buying either, however i'd take the Canon over the Scarlet any day. If i needed a Red i'd rent one, as everyone i know who needs one does (even though they can easliy afford to buy several). and i'd rent one with the resolution/frame rate options. This model seems to fall between two stools for me.

I'm guessing in 18 months time there will be a lot more people kicking themselves for buying a Scarlet than there will be regretting buying a C300. The Sony F3 is a formidable camera too, so it would be a Sony or Canon decision for me. Having said that, i expect there will be amazing things done with the Scarlet by a relatively small number of people, and many others buying it without really getting anything from it they couldn't have got from Sony or Canon with a lot less hassle. Just my 2 cents.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

It's surprising how many people were willing to put up with ground glass adapters. I'm amazed at the number of people shooting weddings with DSLR. I think if new Scarlet users are realistic about data/power/computer needs before purchase they will be happy. My only concern for for people who can't really afford a Scarlet, but plan to rent it out. Red One published rates don't reflect reality. Scarlet rental prices will likely follow a similar price curve.
For the corporate buyer/producer, the question is if the more expensive ongoing cost of the Scarlet makes more money than the F3/C300.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Don

But why would anyone rent a Scarlet?

There are higher end models that will only be marginally more expensive to rent and they have advantages over the Scarlet (like super high frame rates). If i didn't need those features i probably wouldn't rent a Red at all. That's what i mean about the camera falling between two stools. Rentalwise it's likely to be overpriced for what it does, So those with low budgets are likely to either go for cheaper options, while those with the cash will rent the higher spec Reds. There will also be loads on the market due to the - relatively - low cost price, so i doubt this will be much of a success for people planning to buy for rental.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Don, we will have to wait and see how the C300 sensor performs in the wild. But one thing to consider is that the Bayer process was in part developed to overcome issues created by the use of a 2x 2 sampled CFA (colour filter array) as used in the C300. Bayer has the big advantage in that it can help compensate for the leakage and cross colour contamination caused by the imperfect colour filters in a CFA. This compensation can dramatically improve colour fidelity. In addition assuming Canon are grouping the RGGB pixels under a single micro lens then there will be the issue of double green sensitivity compared to R and B. This may have an impact on noise as you must either reduce the green sensitivity or increase the R and B gain which will increase noise.There are pro's and cons to 2x2 CFA and Bayer. 2x2 CFA has been around since the 90's yet is rarely used. A really good example of the issues that can be caused when not using bayer is Sony's F35 which has 2 pixels for each colour in a stripe array, yet has some pretty bad aliasing artefacts.

Highlight handling will be a function of many factors including the sensor itself and the way the signal is processed and the gamma curve used. The blown out highlights could be many things, simply bad lighting, bad post production or web encoding. But it could also be poor signal processing in the camera. The whole lack of a 10 bit output does ring alarm bells as to what bit depth the DSP is working at.

Ultimately we'll have to wait and see, but one thing is sure sure, with only an 8 bit output your options are more limited than with cameras with a 10 bit output. However if you don't want or need to record externally the C300 ticks many boxes.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Well here you go, that's the reason #1 to buy "Epic" picture for a quarter of a price, to own a camera that huge Hollywood blockbusters were shot with, even though most likely I will never shoot nothing larger than "Friendly lu lu spa " commercial, or "Giuseppe and Maria Wedding Highlights" , but just to know that I have that tool, and I might shoot something better than that is great, AND the picture is amazing,
(please don't tell me about the last Sundance and that 7D movie - i know)
am i buying a dream - maybe, but I promise as soon as C300 is available from any rental house I will put it side by side with Scarlet X and will shoot "donkey balls" out of both of them , and 1D, and 5D, and EX1 looking for reasons to go for C300,
unless of course someone else will do that before me :)

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

As always, it rarely comes down to a single factor, and same with Bayer versus Direct Read (as here). It's impossible to say "x is better than y" - and same here.

Additionally to Alisters comments, then it's also worth pointing out that for given sensor dimensions (let's assume 100x100) then true deBayering will squeeze a higher luminance resolution out. To a first approximation, typically about 80x80 in that case for luminance, 50x50 for chrominance. Hence the F3 sensor dimensions - such that 80% gives roughly 1920x1080. The C300 approach will give 50x50 for luminance and chrominance.

So does that mean I'm saying the C300 sensor arrangement is worse? Well no, and this is where it starts to get complicated.

Direct Read is far simpler to implement. And that means simpler (hence cheaper) electronics, and crucially lower power consumption. The key is in coupling it with a sensor of optimum dimensions - which the C300 does.

What I also foresee is a 2nd generation camera which ADDITIONALLY will deBayer the 4k sensor (or record it RAW) to give a 4k output. (OK, it'll be only about 80% of the res, but that's what most people refer to as 4k). Or just switch it to 1080 Direct Read when that's most appropiate. The F3 sensor is less versatile - it has to be deBayered, and is then 1080, end of story.
I think you may be surprised how much it's being used, but not mentioned. It's one of the better ways of deriving video from a still sensor with a high pixel count, and is exactly how I was told nearly a year ago that the AF100 does it. The difference from the C300 in these cases is that alternate 2x2 blocks are omitted horizontally and vertically, so only 1 block in four actually gets read. The sensor dimensions for the AF100 seem to be 4700x2644 (for 16:9 cropping), so 2350x1322 2x2 blocks. Read out on an alternate basis and that gives you 1275x661 of blocks (and hence true resolution) - pretty well exactly what has been measured. It's a decent way of simply getting video from a designed for stills sensor, but can't compete with a sensor specifically made for video.

The AF101 is the one I have the figures for, but I understand it's far from the only case of the principle. It's an acknowledged technique for video from stills cameras. (And far better than earlier techniques that skipped whole lines asymmetrically.)

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

The thing that causes my reservations on this point were posts where Red One MX owners had just received their early Epic-Ms and were commenting on the improved images of the Epics, even though both cameras had MX sensors. The consensus eventually put it down to the improved electronics and signal processing of the Epic.

The fact that they are reducing a lot of the electronics and boards for the Scarlet (not to mention using sensors which didn't make the specs for the Epic) is what is currently giving me some doubts and reservations regarding the image quality and flavor of Scarlet and Epic being an exact match.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm a big fan of impromptu-style shooting (by someone who really knows how to set up the camera, expose properly, etc.) with minimal or no grading as being a more genuine demonstration of the camera itself. The clip below is a perfect example. It's from an Epic, where an excellent shooter was standing on the beach and was waiting for 5 minutes for the rest of the crew to show up. So he took a few minutes of impromptu footage in the meantime. Admittedly, it's slow-motion (overcranked) - which the Scarlet can't do - but if someone can post Scarlet footage which matches the flavour and quality of the actual images in this clip, I'll be 100% sold on Chris's statement. And I sincerely hope that I will be!



Regarding the C300, I'm most excited by the fact that it's a 4K sensor oversampling to 1080p. I'm a big fan of oversampling and I reckon that the C300 is likely to make sensational-looking images for this reason alone. Most posters in this thread don't seem to have noticed or mentioned this fact. My initial interest in the Red One all those years ago was the fact that you could take 4K images and oversample them into a 1080p output.

Well, the C300 does this without the massive files, extra computing power and extra computing time. It's a simple 50Mbps 4:2:2 onto CF cards, a battery which (per Jim Martin) runs for 7 hours and costs $150. The recent price drop of the C300 (apparently?) makes an even more compelling case.

However, the final image quality and "flavor" of the C300 won't be determined by oversampling alone. How good are its electronics and how good are the gamma controls and what sort of scene files or Picture Profiles are able to be constructed? Not to mention Alister's concern that the C300's sensor array might be prone to artifacting.

That's why I hope that Canon release a few C300s "into the wild" sooner rather than later. So that we can see what some good shooters can do with this camera. Without the colorists.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

I don't see how the C300 is oversampling, even if the term is just an analogy.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

That is true. I should have been more precise in my wording. I was referring to the internal batteries and the RedVolts do require the side handle or a module. My point is the C300 has an internal battery bay and Scarlet/Epic does not. Therefore, the C300 has an additional size advantage over Scarlet when you consider this internal battery bay, which can power the C300 for 3 hours. In the behind-the-scenes footage of the C300 films, I noticed they used the internal battery very often. But this could be due to the camera needing 8.4V in and they didn't want to deal with stepping down the higher voltage bricks.

The C300's green photosites are offset half a photosite vertically and horizontally, which "cancels" out aliasing for that channel, according to Larry Thorpe. Does anyone know if other 2x2 CFA non-debayering sensors do that? I keep wondering what are the downsides to Canon's sensor design because it seems so simple and elegant.

Canon says the DSP is working at 12 bits for the red and green and 13 bits for the green. All the non-linear processing happens at that bit depth.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Without being an expert, I think that the beyer filter addressed the technology inadequeacies of a bygone area. The most modern sensors (F65, C300) are not beyer and I don't think this trend is going to fade.

Many have point out that this new sensor readout "impersonates" a 3 chip camcorder. I wonder, isn't more accurate to say a 4 chip camcorder?

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

The C300's sensor still has a classic Bayer pattern. It's just not doing any de-bayering to reconstruct the image. There are exactly 1920x1080 red, 1920 x 1080 blue and effectively 2X 1920 x 1080 green photosites. There are twice the number of green photosites because green wavelengths account for most of the visual information.

The chip has four parallel readouts to readout these photosites directly: one each for red, blue, green1 and green2. The two greens are then combined so you end up with 4:4:4 color sampling, much like a 3 chip camcorder. At least that's the way I understand it.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Sorry but no, that is not accurate. It impersonates a 3-chip design.

A three-chip camcorder samples green the same way as the C300 does. In a three-chip prism block, 25% of the incoming light goes to red, 25% to blue and 50% to green. Our eyes are more sensitive to the color green, and the green channel carries all of the luminance (brightness) info.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

I have to disagree. In a 3 chip design, then all the red, all the green, and all the blue light get sent to their respective chips by the beamsplitter. So for each location, the relevant photosites get to respond to all the light corresponding to their filtered colour. Hence 100% of red light to the red channel, 100% of green light to the green channel etc.

With a Bayer filter, the individual photosite colour filters perform the spectrum separation, so three adjacent photosites (R,G, and B) are all that's really needed in principle. The second green photosite will just have the main effect of improving the noise figure in the green channel (and also improving spatial characteristics), and since that is what luminance is mostly derived from, that's no bad thing.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

There must be loss of photons in a beam splitter. Doing RGBG on a single sensor maintains the bayer advantage of 50% green, while avoiding the cost of a beam splitter. In the images released so far the Canon doesn't seem to have any color artifacting issues at all as far as I can see. So perhaps it's now possible to build very clean color filters onto CMOS now. Certainly the large sensor size, compared to 1/3, must help in construction. I'm curious how anti-aliasing is handled in the C300.

The C300 has more green sensors than the F3 has total sensors. That should make for more real world detail. The green readouts may be combined on chip so the the processor sees each pair as a single value. My understanding is that CMOS, unlike CCD, can include on-sensor functionality.
I assume Canon and Sony can build more sophisticated sensors than Red or Arri can source. It's a shame we can't see something close to a "raw" readout from the C300 sensor.
I expect with Red too much credit is given to "the brain" and not enough to the image processing that runs on the PC. In many ways Red and Canon have inverse strengths.
It's likely Scarlet output will be indistinguishable from Epic. It would probably cost Red more to cheapen up Scarlet than to build it with Epic engineering. They have plenty to do making their products the best they can be rather than engineering less image quality into Scarlet.
And besides, what does "the brain" do? In a Red after the A/D conversion it only runs a compression scheme and dumps the bits out. None of that messing business of actually making a video file. Perhaps the monitor portion of a Scarlet won't be as good or sophisticated as an Epic. But it doesn't seem there's a lot of opportunity for output quality to vary between the low and high models.
Epic will now only get the very best of the sensors. But they aren't going to be putting junk into Scarlet. They would hurt their brand doing that.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

I agree. Since RED cameras are just outputting and compressing raw data, the results should theoretically be identical. Graeme Nattress over at Reduser has said the image sensor is identical in Epic and Scarlet. They're not binning those chips--it's just the ASICs that are being binned. The consequences seem to be pretty much what they stated: there are limits in resolution and frame rates. There is one new limitation: HDMI and HDSDI will not work simultaneously on Scarlet. Epic has the same limitation now, but it's a firmware issue that might be resolve early next year. But it sounds like with Scarlet, it's a processor limitation, which makes sense.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Theoretically, no. (And practically, to a first approximation, also no.) If a photon of wavelength corresponding to "red" enters, it goes down the route to the sensor dedicated to the red channel. Same for green, blue.

With any single sensor device, if a photon of "red" light hits a red photosite it passes through the filter and registers, if it hits a blue or green photosite, it gets absorbed in the dye and hence is lost for photographic purposes.

Hence why a 3 chip device is inherently more sensitive than any current single chip one of the same size format.
I wouldn't expect colour artifacting as the photosites for each output pixel are so close together. And what we don't know is what low pass filter Canon may use.
Not necessarily, it depends on how they get dealt with. If corresponding green values just get added together, that will well impact on sensitivity, but not detail. And remember what is important is luminance detail. Because of the formula for deriving luminance (Y=0.3R+0.69G+0.11B, if I remember correctly :-)), that's why it's true to say that the green channel is most important. But most is not the same as all.

The direct read out system used as in the C300 ignores spatial differences between corresponding R,G,B photosites. In true deBayering, those spatial differences are not ignored - and blue, red photosites also correspond to luminance resolution. Not as much as green, but......

And that's why the more you go into it, the more difficult it becomes to think in terms of the headline numbers. I can't pretend to understand the most subtle points, but "more green sensors than the F3 has total sensors" is not necessarily true.

Maybe - maybe not.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Sensor theory is one thing, real world performance is another. Prism designs are ver efficient at splitting the light into the R, G and B wavelengths. There is very little loss and very little leakage between colours. But the light has to pass through a very thick piece of glass and this then causes issues of it's own (flare being just one). Bayer is clever because it relies on the fact that most real world scenes don't contain discreet primary colours and 2x2 CFA is clever because it does not need to be de-bayered. Each system has advantages and each has disadvantages. For example bayer is known to alias in some colour frequencies due to sub sampling and CFA may have cross colour issues as there may be little compensation for the overlaps in the colour filters.

In the end, I'm sure all of the current crop of cameras will produce great images. The skill will be in exploiting the strengths of the overall package. Some have simpler workflows, some have better dynamic range but maybe at the expense of a more complex workflow. Thus the "package" becomes more important than just the sensor.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

We can count photosites. The C300 has many more green. But you're right in that the total area (and sensitivity) should be equal between the two cameras. However the C300 photosites are perfectly distributed. Calculating spatial differences makes up some of that difference in the F3, but still has to have lower true resolution. You can't measure much less and get back to the same resolution.

Debayering helps with a lot of bad pixels. So I think the iphone will debayer for many more generations. I think pro video debayers because that was historically the way to make less expensive cameras. It's remarkable camera companies have been able to do with post capture processing. But all other things being, starting with an image that resembles reality has to be better than what comes off a traditional bayer sensor that is less than 4x the resolution of the final output.

I think the F3 debayers because that is what fits in Sony's low mid tier product line. I think Red debayers because that's the technology they could buy. I think the C300 doesn't debayer because they are now technically capable of doing it right, and don't have Sony's product cannibalization problem.

Of course, as a large corporation, Canon had to mess it up by squeezing it down to 50 mbs and 8 bit. Which for me makes the Scarlet more interesting. Maybe shooting 4K for 1080p at a somewhat higher than normal compression. I just need to get over owning 10-12 batteries.

I have no illusion that Epic or Scarlet will be meaningfully upgradable. The electronics aren't good enough. These are 3 year purchases. But that said I do agree with Alister that all of these products are likely very good. We've reached something of a golden age in lower cost high end DV. If all TV for the rest of the decade was shot with the F3 no viewer would request higher quality. I'm not even sure that anyone cares if projected video is more than excellent 1080p. My friends and family usually don't see a difference between cable SD and HD.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

FWICT, for all intents and purposes, it's a quad-HD Bayer pattern sensor (photosite color ratio of 1R:1:B:2G).

It's not Debayered b/c the multiple readout allows for a full HD image to be reconstructed by simply combining the 4 photosites to one pixel. The F35 does a similar thing, only using a vertical stripe pattern and it doesn't sample G twice.

What's left out in all this is that this is a very inefficient usage of a photosites and pixels. A good Debayering algorithm would increase resolution by quite a bit. But then you'd need a higher than 1080P frame size for the recorded image.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Ah, but you're not taking into account the colour element of the subject. It helps to think of "input photosites" and "output pixels". And an output pixel has three values - one for luminance, and two for the two colour difference signals.

It's pretty easy to work out (to a first approximation) what will happen in the C300 case. Four "input photosites" go directly to make up one "output pixel" - end of story. Luminance resolution will be 1920x1080 - same as from a 3-chip system.

With deBayering it's different. If you deBayered the C300 chip, you firstly go to a 3840x2160 "output matrix" - each pixel having the three values for luminance and two chrominance. Here, for luminance, each "output pixel" will have the luminance value of it's corresponding photosite - plus a percentage of the luminance of neighbouring pixels. The clever part is how the weighting gets done. That means a sort of averaging - which will mean the output luminance resolution must fall short of 3840x2160. But it will be far better than 1920x1080. The chrominance values for each "output pixel" must also be calculated - and it's easy to work out that this must be coarser than for luminance - hence a function of deBayering is better luminance resolution than chrominance. Just like the human eye!

So the next question is, for a chip that's going to be deBayered how big does it have to be to match one read out in the same way as for the C300? For luminance, the answer is "about 25%" in each direction, so nominally about 2400x1350. Now isn't that strange!? Very close to what the F3 actually is! Clever people these engineers - put the right numbers into the number cruncher, and it's pretty obvious what they will say should be done!

It's why I quite agree with Alister when he predicts that for resolution at any rate, there won't be a lot to choose between the cameras. I do wait to see what the aliasing will be like for the C300 - especially for chroma, and especially out of band. I'm not going to try and predict that one..... :-)

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

It might be inefficient resolution wise, but in every other respect is optimum. From what I've read so far it's not a bad decision. Which brings back the haunted question. Why Canon took so much pain to create a superb color image and doesn't allow the end user to take full advantage of it...

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

I agree, Canon's method seem to be optimized for an HD signal and the C300 is only an HD camera. De-Bayering has disdvantages too, such as reconstruction errors and computation power necessary to do the de-Bayering. Part of the reason why the C300 uses less power is because it doesn't need to de-Bayer. Less power means less heat so the cooling system can run silently. Also, the C300's DIGIC DV III chip is expecting direct color readouts like the 3-chip sensors in the XF305 and the C300's sensor emulates this. It really was the best, most elegant solution for Canon, IMO.

Emmanuel, I think you're referring to the 8-bit limitations? The reason is just a practical one: Canon did not have a DSP chip that could handle a 10-bit baseband at the time the C300 was developed. All they had was the DIGIC DV III. However, this chip does process the sensor data at 12 and 13 bits before being conformed to 8-bits. We have to remember Canon isn't in the same situation as Sony or Panasonic, who have an established line of CineAlta and Varicam cameras that have the 10 bit infrastructure already developed.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

Another reason for 8-bit is that there is a trade-off in terms of resolution quality and color quality at work. FWIU, at low bit depths (and 50Mbps is probably on the border of this characterization), it's better to use those pixels for resolution than for color depth.

Now it's true that when DR is large, then 8 bits can lead to more color banding. But even XDCAM-EX, which is 35Mbps 4:2:0 8-bit can accurately record the expanded range that the Hypergammas provide. Now it might crap out w/ S-Log or whatever the F65 spits out.

But I don't believe that C-Log is as aggressive a log curve as is S-Log, since Vincent Laforet and his editor said that C-Log looks good w/o using a LUT or adding a color correction layer on top of it.

Re: Reasons to go for C300 over RED Scarlet X?
 

If 8 million sensors is too much, Canon could have gone with a less dense sensor and the XF100 chip set. Perhaps we'll get that in a C100.
It is interesting that in the three camera, C300, F3 and Scarlet, we have the three current better sensor designs for producing a 1080p file. We should be able to learn something from that spectrum of products.