Alright, I figure I might post up what I think now that the *real* show has gotten underway…
Personally, I was underwhelmed with the first lot of cameras shown. Panasonic gave us boxy, ugly and not much new, although the HD-SDI was a great trade-off for the Mini DV tape mechanism, and I think that the HPX-170 could find its place among the HVX200 crowd. Panasonic’s other little camera impressed me much more, with its SD-card based solid state recording, and 720p60 capability. The picture quality will need to be proven, but I reckon that MPEG4 720p at 24Mbps should trounce the 19.7Mbps MPEG2 HDV that JVC uses.
Sony left me feeling exactly the same as I always have. Their Cinealta group cannot design a camera that will operate without a rail system and full shoulder harnessing or a steadicam. I think the EX3 will find a market, but with its extraordinary price facing competition from what I consider to be vastly superior cameras, I think it’ll fit in a niche, just like the EX1. The EX3 was just beautiful under the hood (like the EX1, back focus issues aside), but I simply cannot see myself carrying that camera around. Not at all.
JVC…were advertising Canon stuff. WTF? Who knows?
Canon…impressed me. My criticisms of the XL series have been basic omissions, and they’ve seen fit to finally fix it with the Canon XL-H1s. Better focus ring! Manual aperture ring! Allegedly improved ergonomics! Huzzah! Congrats Canon, I don’t automatically write off the XL-H1 anymore!
Now, I think most important, the announcement of Scarlet (Epic was also important, but for me, Epic is a *little* on the unattainable side).
Scarlet has a fixed 8x zoom lens, full automatic or manual control, shoots 3k (3072×1728) at 120fps (up to 180 in burst mode), and carries a USD price tag of $3000. Yep, 3k for $3k. Its phenomenal, because whilst RED ONE put the Indy producer closer to a fully capable Cinema camera, there’s no reason each and every film-maker can’t just *own* a Scarlet for themselves anddo whatever they want with it, whenever they want. I expect that 35mm lens attachment systems will be announced leading up to its release.
Scarlet shoots on Compact Flash cards and has two card slots in the back. Nice bits include a single link HD-SDI (4:2:2), HDMI out and Wifi control. The post workflows will be similar to RED, so this still isn’t a run and gun camera, but its pretty damn close. And the thing is TINY!
Basically, my original plan was to see how things shaped up, and then consider selling my JVC to grab Scarlet depending on how it was designed/marketed. However, with that price, I’ll grab Scarlet to shoot film-like production on, and continue doing jobs that require a more ENG style run and gun with my JVC. Looks like I wont be upgrading to the HD-251 anytime after all. I’ll probably try to put at least ten grand into grabbing Scarlet and some bits, because this is simply too good to pass up, and I want to jump on the bandwagon with this one. I’d love to have been there with RED ONE, but despite its impressive price, it was still just too much for me at this time (I am only 21 after all, I’d like to think a fifty thousand dollar camera set-up is still a bit unachievable).
In closing there – Scarlet was all that mattered to the low end market. Canon made some LOOOONG needed fixes to the XL lens, Sony made another ergonomic nightmare that’ll garner a big fan base and Panasonic showed that they were committed to the low end market, and had no interest in moving beyond that. Personally, I’m still stuck firmly in the JVC camp as far as the 1/3″ to 1/2″ cameras go, because despite the better hardware, as I said, I like to be able to comfortably operate my camera. I abandoned my plans to buy an XL2 based entirely on ergonomics back in the day…and that awful lens. I think the improvements to the XL-H1 have have made it a viable camera, and with the IDX V-loc attachment on the back would probably be a winner as far as HDV 1080i capture was concerned.
Scarlet will just change things though. After we know more about the lens (pesky pics and mockups reveal nothing and can’t really be trusted) I think we’ll have a good picture painted for us as to what its all about. The fixed lens is a bit of a worrying point for me, but the small size of the camera redeems it a lot, so attaching a Red Rock Micro (if there’s one made) or a P+S Technik mini35 or whatever wont turn the camera into the video equivalent of a missile launcher.
Its an exciting time!
