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Camera shootouts or comparisons are usually taken with a grain of salt. For many of these shootouts, it's common that a camera manufacturer, or an organization, will have a particular agenda that will often sway desired results. Thankfully, The Great Camera Shootout 2011 (GCS11)—a three-part documentary about the Single-Chip Camera Evaluation (SCCE) directed and administered by cinematographer Robert Primes, ASC (Quantum Leap, Thirtysomething)—doesn't follow suit. Camera manufacturer and original content producers Zacuto Films financed production of the SCCE for the exclusive Internet and documentary rights, with additional funding from Kessler Crane. The GSC11 was directed by Zacuto founder Steve Weiss (FilmFellas, Critics) and produced by Weiss, Scott Lynch, Eric Kessler and Jens Bogehegn. In 2010, Zacuto and Primes put together a successful camera shootout that pitted popular DSLRs against 35mm, and proved that DSLR technology could be considered for professional evaluation. Both series went on to receive Chicago Midwest Emmy nominations with the 2010 Shootout winning an Emmy® award for outstanding excellence in informational programming.
Director and Zacuto founder Steve Weiss and producer Jens Bogehegn discuss a setup with cinematographer Nancy Schreiber, ASC. |
The project was kickstarted by Primes taking a conference call from Weiss and Bogehegn, who according to Primes, wanted to do an "absolutely unimpeachable, monumental and historic film test of single-chip cameras." After making a few calls, Primes was convinced that he could get the Hollywood technical community to sign on for free if the project was strictly for public service and not run by a private company with an agenda.
For their part, Zacuto felt it was important not to get too involved with the tests, so they only shot behind-the-scenes footage for the documentary. Most importantly, they went out of their way not to employ their own gear for the shootout. "I love to make films, documentary films especially," explains Weiss. "I wanted to make an informational and objective documentary and at the same time educate people in the industry. The SCCE crew didn't use any Zacuto equipment, except in two situations where Clairmont didn't have certain lens support."
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According to Primes, they decided to limit the shootout to single-chip cameras, which proved to be a difficult task, since many of the cameras were just being released. They ended up receiving an ALEXA from Clairmont Camera, who had just received a shipment. RED declined sending an EPIC because, at the time, the camera was still in beta stage. Also, Panavision refused to send a Genesis since its build is similar to the F35. "It's not that easy to add cameras, and adding a single camera totally changes your shoot," says Primes. "It makes the project longer, as well as more expensive."
Each camera tested used PL-mount Fujinon 4K-rated zoom lenses, except for the Nikon D7000 since a PL-mount adapter wasn't available. In regards to codecs and bit rates, it's a known fact that all digital camera systems aren't created equal. "We tried to get the most uncompressed or purest signal we could get from each camera," explains Primes, "and when a camera had multiple modes like the F3, we would record with the SxS cards, as well as output to the Codex or S.two. In the end, we had massive data files." At one point during the production, Primes says he had 20 terabytes of footage sitting in the editing room.
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