REVIEWS GEAR
THE small box format IS GREAT FOR flexibility ”
ARRIRAW. Bump up to HQ and recording time drops to only 39 mins per 1TB card. The UI is functional and much improved over previous RED systems, and the assistant side menu window makes for very comfortable on-set adjustments. It would be interesting to see how much can be controlled from a focus puller’s handset, particularly whether remote adjustment of the electronic ND is supported. For use as a DOP, one area that takes a little adjustment is the false colour and exposure tools. It’s great that the top LCD user buttons can be assigned to quickly bring up false colour, and having both ‘Exposure’ (based on the LOG image)
and ‘Video’ modes (affected by LUT and camera settings) gives useful flexibility. In practice, though, we personally find an ARRI-style false colour – showing middle grey, one stop over and approach- to-clipping zones – more intuitive for making fast exposure decisions on-set. As heavy users of in-camera LUTs, we like being able to judge skin tone exposure while also monitoring true RAW highlight clipping, which the current system requires a bit more familiarisation with. That said, many experienced RED users will be perfectly comfortable with this once dialled into their workflow. The revised sensor-mode menu – grouped into 8K VV, 8K Anamorphic, S35
6K/S35 Anamorphic and S16 3K – is a welcome improvement. That said, we’d personally prefer a workflow where you first choose (a) spherical or anamorphic squeeze (1.0, 1.3, 1.5, 2x, etc), then (b) aspect ratio (17:9, 16:9, 2.35:1, etc) and finally (c) available resolutions and crops (8K, 7K, 6K, etc). In practice, lens choice and aspect ratio tend to stay consistent across a project, whereas resolution often changes to take advantage of different frame-rate options at various sensor crops. It’s also worth noting that, on RED systems, lowering resolution results in a sensor crop rather than downsampling, which can affect field of view and, at more extreme crops, have some impact on image quality. It would be great to see an option in future systems to prioritise higher frame rates via compression before cropping, where possible. IMAGE QUALITY This is where the V-RAPTOR XE shines. The sensor size offers a beautiful cinematic richness and excellent depth-of-field control. Due to its 17:9 native sensor, it is wider than most competing full-frame options, revealing more of a lens’s image circle, which brings new character details to even quite familiar lenses. It also maximises the ‘LF’ feel of the images, with an even wider field of view forcing cinematographers to lens up to retain the same framing compared to Super 35 – or even other full-frame cameras – which naturally leads to a shallower depth-of-field. Of course, the many sensor options mean the camera can be shot in S35, S16 or practically any crop mode in between! DYNAMIC RANGE & HIGHLIGHT HANDLING The sensor has a very graceful highlight roll-off, and transitions from bright points into midtones rarely feel harsh or digital. In real-world shooting, the shadows feel very natural, not clipped or crunchy. Highlight retention and roll-off is a
TOP QUALITY The V-RAPTOR XE’s sensor size offers cinematic richness and excellent depth- of-field control
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