Re: Start scratching your head... correction already!

Mike,

I think what he means is that it's all very relative, and everybody is kind of twisting and turning things when it comes to the specs of the cameras. I also think that in reality where we see a difference is in how the cameras are set up and what glass you put in front of it and how talented the DP is and how well the material is color corrected, and eventually how well the 35mm projector is set up. The tool is but a tool in the hands of a great artist.

As for getting a 4;4;4 camera, I don't think I'm going to bother for a long while still. I think true movie makers will head towards cameras like the new digital Arri with some exotic storage medium, with a 35mm sized imager, and 2/3" HDCam SR will be judged "expensive but like not really good enough to compete with those types of cameras" and my VariCam (and your F900) will still be high enough end for certain budget projects that it won't matter. I might consider some form of uncompressed storage, though, depending on how that comes out. CineRAM is way too expensive, but the quality coming out of the HD-SDI port is so much higher than the compressed DVCProHD that I think this is where I will try to extract as much juice from the camera as possible...

Right now we're shooting with two VariCams on a big, albeit rather flawed feature film down here, and while the acting and directing might suck a bit, the image quality is wonderful, and I can't wait to see the whole thing on 35mm later this spring. So far everything we've put on 35mm has looked every bit as good as the other stuff being projected, so I totally stopped worrying about that.

--rune