Who needs to read about motion picture when you can watch it? Check out this video lesson narrated by our Uncle Rodney on dynamic balance for all of you fancy pants that like to prance with your Glide Cam. Enjoy!

We have a few great camera systems at our disposal, and it's important to know when to apply what tool for what job. I always knew that the Red rendered sharper pictures than other cameras, but I wasn't sure if it was because each pixel was higher quality, or if it was just sheer resolution that tipped the scales in favor of the Red.

We set up a test that would negate the huge resolution advantage of the Red, in order to do a pixel-for-pixel comparison of two sensors: the Red One Mysterium and the Canon 7D. We set up both cameras with identical lighting, and equalized their field of view by using different focal length lenses to ensure that each camera was getting the same perspective on the scene. We took the video clips and cropped a 500 x 500 pixel area from each video, thereby setting up an apples-to-apples comparison. 1 pixel on the screen = 1 pixel on the sensor.

Above: The setup



It was surprising to see that the two cameras actually render out very similar sharpness on a pixel-for-pixel basis... with a slight advantage going to the Red.

Above: Side by side comparison



One of the tests was quite telling, confirming the amazing low-light capability of the Canon camera. Truly the Red couldn't compete, with the 7D yielding a much better quality image.

Above: Low light comparison



Even though the Canon 7D out-performed the Red in low light, the Red still maintains it's edge when it comes to a straight pixel for pixel comparison. Plus, on a side note, I observed that the 7D must split the monitor path from the recording path at some point, because the apparent sharpness when judged from the focus-assist function on the camera is startlingly better than the video file that is actually recorded. This seems both dangerous and deceptive. With the Red, what you see is what you get. Playback = Monitoring.

I also wanted to find out the difference for myself between the nominal resolution and the practical measured resolution of the 7D. The Red benefits from 4K capture because almost any modern playback format will involve some sort of down-sizing, thereby sharpening the image. The image from the 7D looks soft at full 1920x1080 resolution, and we actually had to shrink it by almost 2/3rds in order to get it to appear sharp to our eyes. Our test placed the practical measured resolution of the 7D at about 1174 x 660, which is similar to results obtained from more scientific testing done between the 7D and its big brother, the Canon 5D Mk II, using a zone plate in place of a live subject.

So, what does this mean in terms of image sharpness? Well, if the practical, measured resolution of the 7D is 1174 x 660, that equates to 774,840 sharp, well-defined pixels, from a total pixel count of 2,073,600.

In comparison the practical, measured resolution of the Red Mysterium in 4K 16x9 mode (4096 x 2304) is about 3000 x 1687 or 5,061,000 sharp, usable pixels from a total pixel count of 9,437,184.

If the Epic sensor scales at a similar quality to the Red One, we can expect the 5120 x 2700 nominal sensor resolution to result in 7,603,200 sharp, usable pixels. Meaning images so sharp, you're likely to get a paper cut just from lookin' at 'em.