i was trying to explain to a friend something, something about the RED Scarlet. the information provided here is as good as my understanding. read it at your own risk :)
before the advent of digital cameras, traditionally, movies have been shot with 35mm film. 35mm has been dominating for more than a century. 35mm has been unchallenged for a long time until the digital revolution gave rise to the digital camera and digital cinema. besides the quality, the advantages of digital over film are obvious. speaking of quality, it was a problem for digital before, but no longer it is. digital has caught up and is able to produce stunning quality.
when we speak of quality, disregarding the other factors, the simplest comparison is resolution. what resolution means is the the number of horizontal pixels X the number of vertical pixels. this is how much detail that you can put in a picture. what you hear a lot nowadays is HD. HD comes in 2.5 flavors: 1. 1280x720p, 2. 1920x1080i, 2.5. 1920x1080p. Not going into too much details, full HD is 1080. this is the best resolution that you can get at home at the current moment.
since 35mm has no pixels, 35mm film is usually scanned in and processed at 2K (2048x1080) or 4K (4096x2160). For a long time, digital cameras would not to able to produce films at these levels.
then comes the RED ONE camera, manufactured by RED, to my knowlege, the first digital camera that could capture at the maximum of 4.5K (4480x2304) and really pushed the envelope of digital cinema and closed the gap. a lot of the movies have been shot with the RED ONE. if you go to RED's web site, you can see the long list of movies. the RED ONE has been sold and in use for a while now.
the RED EPIC is the next generation. it can capture at a maximum of 5K (5120x2700). the body has scaled back. the brain weighs only 5 pounds. whereas the RED ONE only captures motion pictures, the RED EPIC not only captures motion pictures but also still pictures. the EPIC comes in different models varying in prices. what i really like about RED cameras, besides the superb quality, is that they have the modular design, meaning that all the components are interchangable. why this is good? you can change or upgrade a certain component without upgrading the whole thing. they have a lot of accessories. better yet, they even work with Canon and Nikon lenses using lens mounts. it has a lot of inputs and outputs. in short, it's really robust, flexible and extensible.
since the EPIC is quite expensive, it's not for common consumers. what i'm really waiting for is the SCARLET which is supposed to be cheaper. i haven't seen the specs on the SCARLET yet, but i will be happy at 3K for a price of $5000 (brain only.) adding a lens and a component or two, it will end up like $10,000.
you probably have heard of the Canon 5D Mark II. it's one of Canon cameras that is video capable. it's very popular. amazon retails it for around $3200 (body + lens). it can capture motion pictures at HD. it's supposed to be very good in low light. if you want something now and don't care to shoot at more than HD, it's a good one to have. if you want something to shoot more than HD and are willing to spend more money, i think SCARLET will be awesome.
if you have a lot of money and don't care how you spend it, i would recommend the top model of the EPIC. since you don't care how you spend your money, get me one too, will you? :)
