First impressions of RED One for wildlife shooting

[Lauri Kettunen]

Originally Posted by Caleb Royer

What exactly is a RED camera???

Caleb, see RED

Meryem, yes indeed feel the same way. In principle changing the current mounts sounds easy, but there are all sorts of pitfalls before getting everything to work properly. Mine works now fine without problems but it has taken an effort to get there.

Once have time, I'll try to make a comparison of wildlife still images taken with Red One and Canon DSLRs. Need first to work out how to fix the lens to the tripod and thereafter change the camera body without moving the lens to get exactly the same images. Once have the images it's no longer about words and opinions but instead everybody becomes able to make their own conclusions.

[Ofer Levy]

Originally Posted by Lauri Kettunen

Caleb, see RED

Meryem, yes indeed feel the same way. In principle changing the current mounts sounds easy, but there are all sorts of pitfalls before getting everything to work properly. Mine works now fine without problems but it has taken an effort to get there.

Once have time, I'll try to make a comparison of wildlife still images taken with Red One and Canon DSLRs. Need first to work out how to fix the lens to the tripod and thereafter change the camera body without moving the lens to get exactly the same images. Once have the images it's no longer about words and opinions but instead everybody becomes able to make their own conclusions.

Hi Lauri,

You don't really have to get wildlife shots in order to make the comparison. It will be easier to do a test with easier subjects which will show the same thing.
Regards,
Ofer

[Meryem Ersoz]

Originally Posted by Ofer Levy

Hi Lauri,

You don't really have to get wildlife shots in order to make the comparison. It will be easier to do a test with easier subjects which will show the same thing.
Regards,
Ofer

Where would the fun be in that?

[Ofer Levy]

Originally Posted by Meryem Ersoz

Where would the fun be in that?

Yes, you are so right!! I actually can never test anything any other way but doing it in the wild....
Please ignore my silly comment.....(-:

[Lauri Kettunen]

While making a search on my old footages discovered that I have taken shots with Red One and XL H1 from the same place. Although the Red One shot is taken in June 2008 on a cloudy and gray day with one of the early camera builds (likely build 15) and the XL H1 shot is taken under bright skies in September 2006, I thought you may also be interesting in a comparison of the two shots.

If I took now a shot from the same place --which I may well do in couple weeks once the indian summer starts-- the Red One image would be (even) better. For, the latest build 20 and the Birger mount allowing me to use Canon lenses produce sharper images than what I was able to take with some second hand Nikon lenses I used in early summer 2008.

The Red One frame was shot on 4K 2:1 mode and I downrez and cropped it to 1920 x 1080.
The XL H1 frame was converted to a Cineform file and then exported to Photoshop with After Effects. The 1920x1080 tif-files can be downloaded from

www.luontovideo.net/Kuusamo-RedOne.tif
and
www.luontovideo.net/Kuusamo-XLH1.tif

Below are also 960x540 jps files. If you give comments, it will be interesting to hear what you say.

More on Red One and DSLR still images later on.

[Steve Phillipps]

I do like these sort of comparisons, thanks Lauri!
To me there is more detail and sharpness in the XL-H1 image. I must say I'm not that surprised, even though you'd probably expect the RED to blow it away. I think a lot of the difference in these type of comparisons will come down to detail settings in the camera, giving much more apparent sharpness. The sunny day will definitely help though as well, as it'll boost contrast which aid apparent sharpness too. I assume the RED shot has not been manipulated? If so then a bit of post-processing could well bring up sharpness, colour and contrast. It's also donw-rezzed (as it would be for HDTV) so maybe it'd have an advantage on the big screen when left in 4k, but not so for broadcast.
Interesting.
Steve

[Lauri Kettunen]

Originally Posted by Steve Phillipps

I must say I'm not that surprised, even though you'd probably expect the RED to blow it away.

Well, in fact, I'm trying to figure out whether I could use some of my old stock material in a document shot with Red One.

About the images, take the tif-files and look closely at the trees on the top of the mountain. That reveals quite a lot of sharpness.

Below is a better sample of the sharpness and dynamics of Red One. I would consider the conditions very difficult. Notice how bright the greens are in the front altough light comes towards the lens. The zoom-in is a 1-to-1 crop of the full 4K image showing the true resolution of the camera. This was shot with Canon EF 24-70mm/f2.8 lens.

[Steve Phillipps]

It's that really gentle, peotic look to the images again! Have you seen Kennan Ward's Alaska film? It's just amazing, right up your street I'd think!
Steve

[Lauri Kettunen]

Steve, thank you for your kind words. Yes, fully agree, Kennan has shot first class wildlife material with Red One.

[Gilles Debord]

Hi Lauri

Properly amazing for sharpness and dynamics. The only problem with the RED is the price.



Gilles

[Steve Phillipps]

It's an insanely-cheap camera for what it is though.
Steve

[Jonathan Shaw]

That's great to see the comparison....thanks
And RED is definitely a great buy...

[Jonathan Shaw]

Also I forgot to post ages ago some screen shots from RED when shooting Australian Sea lions...

Here you go:

[Don Miller]

Originally Posted by Steve Phillipps

It's an insanely-cheap camera for what it is though.
Steve

I like the idea of shooting 2K for 1080P. The shot can be used as, it can be reframed, Shake can be used to smooth out a pan and not loose pixels.
Considering the difficulty of getting great, unique wildlife shots, being able to fix a shot without reducing quality is valuable.
The feature list of XDCAMs are much longer, but most attributes aren't particularly usefu for wildlife. The power needs of the current red is high, but that's likely to improve with the next versions.

[Jonathan Shaw]

Also the new versions will boot up at some sort of reasonable pace. Especially for wildlife I have missed shots due to the 1.5 hr wait... sorry 1.5 minute wait for the thing to fire up.

Love the camera though and you put up with the bad for the good.