@vicharris I would think that most actors would want good skintones. :)

Honestly, though, I have found that RED skintones can look great with a good LUT (or heck, normal grading - it doesn't really matter how you get there) but I'm sure there's something that makes it difficult for some people that I'm missing.

What exactly is it about the footage skintones that makes them more difficult to grade than other cameras?

hmm skin tone look almost as 5DM3 with ML RAW (now you can stone me)

If you see "Knowing", Nick Cage has a plastic face (I don't know if he have a plastic face even in the real life, anyway...). My impression is, but i can say a wrong thing here, that more you go into real face colors, and more the footage seems more videoish.

Try to take a look at some movies: Taxi Driver, Carlito's Way, Scarface, Apocalipse Now, The age of innocence, The silence of lambs. Tell me if you see some natural skintones, or a strong make up and lights that makes the shot composition.

Cinema is not like real life, it never was. I met Cameron Diaz (just to bring an example) in Rome when they did Gangs of New York, she have a ton of freckles, in her face, in her decolleté. Did you saw her freckles in the movies she made? Did you know Sharon Stone use to have her personal DP (Zigsmond) for close up and body shots?

Now this skintones thing is becoming a concerning for many DPs, maybe it's the cinema evolution, but good make up artists use to fix this issue at the best possible way. On set.

Now all must be perfect and lifelike just out of the camera? I think it does, but just for neo-neorealism movies and some comedy-drama.

I think big studios don't give a damn about this skintones problem, just take a look at the blockbusters they make. The concern stays more in the low budget, independent things.

Then, if you bring up the DR, everybody are happy to have great DR, that's why the Alexa success, since two years ago, over Red and Sony in my opinion.

As @nomad said, 5DM3 is good with skintones, and i agree with him. Videoish image, good skintones.

It is not in HD, ok, but tell me about skintones here: I have the blu ray of this movie, and there is no separation in skintones.

Arty one here hmmmmmmm - I dunno guys. I just still think that it's a lot of kite to spend on a camera to get pictures lacking in mojo. I know you can make it look how you like within a range and it is incredible tech for our time and sure the colour science is being fiddled with as we speak. But I just seem unable to connect somehow. And in the dark scenes - noise - you can have as much resolution to capture the scene but what if your grains of noise are about four pixels each or larger? Kinda missing the point then? HD seems fine to me. I can see the excitement surrounding the Arri Almira. Not hating on RED - just perplexed how it is soooooo hard to just give a punchy fat colourful image. I dunno - I love the specs but the pic looks like very clean high resolution moving DSLR pics in good light. It will have its place no doubt - time will tell how much of course........

Compare Real 35 mm

Compare DOF Adaptor

Compare Arri Alexa. I though tit was film before e-mailing the colorist and he said it was Arri Alexa 4444 logc

Well at this stage I cannot afford any of these but if I wait long enough????????

Boobs test. Someone prefer Alexa boobs, someone prefer Sony boobs. I think analogic is still best choice for boobs. :-)

@Tobsen

LOL