RED in the air: methods for using RED in helicopters?

[Robert Kurhajetz]

Posting to see if I can retrieve any additional insight on the success that folks have had with using the RED One in helicopters.

I've seen a number of posts referring to successes with WESCAM and SPACECAM from last spring and summer. Wondering if there have been any significant developments in this area recently? Along those lines, is anyone aware of any helicopter service that has a RED as part of their normal inventory?

thanks in advance,

[Costelloe Michael]

Wildcat in the UK . David Baillie and I have successfully mounted a Red One on his system. The only problem is choice of lense. The HD crowd have got used to having 8mm to 160mm lenses 2/3rd inch chip factor and there is little in cine glass that matches this weight focal length distribution. (Correct me if am wrong guys.)

But 'it flies' as they say.

Mike C

[Paul Leeming]

Well someone here in Japan recently flew an Optimo 24-290 on a Red with a customised RedDrive anti-shock mount, so it can be done....!!

The new RedRam would make recording a breeze anyway. Then it's just up to the mount and motor options.

HTH

Paul

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

To use the drive in the heli shoot we used a simple trick
take the red drive into YOUR hands
With this technique there will not be any dropped frames while flying.

[J. Eric Camp]

I have used both the drives and the ram with a heli. Wescam and not.

Mounting the drive in the bubble means an et shock mount. The hands trick is pretty good too.

Ram is solid across the board, do what you will. I know pictorvision has a red.

[Costelloe Michael]

We had good success mounting the hard drive in the vibration isolated mount for the camera, before ET's shock mount.

As I say the only issue was the length of lens, which was by the way a restriction placed by the dome of the aerial mount. A larger mount bubble would solve this I'm sure and allow 'bigger' lenses.

Still, a 21x factor on a 2/3rd chip HD lens is hard to beat in terms of pure focal length abilities, not even the optimo, which is probably the favoured mid to long glass can match this.

Mike C

[Oliver Ward]

www.helicopterfilm.tv

UK based, in house Red + Wescam with Angenieux HR zoom 25-250mm T3.5 lens as standard

+ in cockpit HD monitoring

Regards

Oliver Ward, UK

[Elliot Leboe]

Cineflex...........google it.

[Brent J. Craig]

I would never risk using a spinning drive in a helicopter. Use the SSD drive or 16G cards. Compare the cost of a helicopter reshoot to the cost of fedexing a red ssd drive in from somewhere.

Even with the 8G cards it would be no different from shooting film - you have to land every 4 minutes of screen time and reload. Not a big deal. We have been shooting like that for years.

[Steve Gibby]

Using the RED Drive mounted with the ET Shock mount we've had great results in vibration situations - no dropped frames whatsoever in helicopters (shouldered and Tyler mount), boats, cars, skateboards, etc. For what we shoot, CF cards just don't have long enough record time - so the ET Shock Mount has been a very effective solution for us.

For our long focal length requirement aerials we've been using a Cineflex V14 gimbal system containing a Sony HDC1500 with a Fujinon 42x9.7 lens mounted. Great results with that setup.