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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

It's amazing what some professionals say about RED...

Petri Teittinen

Petri Teittinen

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Hi folks,

when reading this post, please keep repeating to yourself "don't shoot the messenger" -- because that's all I am.

I got home from Paris, France a few moments ago, having attended a 3-day 3D event. I met a bunch of interesting people there and saw several enlightening presentations. I also got to chatting with some generally very pleasant people, but one discussion left a bad taste in my mouth.

I was talking with someone about shooting 3D in 48 and 60 fps. I began describing a test I had shot, when another person butted in the conversation and began explaining how RED (R1 in this case) is not a 4K camera.

[Out of respect for this person's considerable achievements in both cinematography and stereography I will not name him. Also, I did not record the conversation so the quotes are not 100% word-for-word accurate.]

"OK", I said, "sure, after debayering it's somewhat less than 4K, I agree". But that wasn't good enough for him. Instead, he went on to say that R1 is nowhere near a 4K camera. "It's a good 2K camera and makes nice 2K images, but 4K? No, that's only marketing." "But it's been measured", I said and referred to resolution charts. "Charts prove nothing", he replied, "because they don't contain real detail. Shoot a live scene and blow up a part of the image, then compare the blown up section to a similar section from an image shot with another camera. The detail is not there!"

(My impression was he meant RED's image shows no more detail than an image shot on a professional 2K camera.)

Being a total nobody I didn't really have a position to argue from, so I only said - very politely - that I have to disagree with him. And that's when the discussion took a very odd turn. "You see, it's not technically possible!", he said. "There are 8 million pixels; there's no way to capture all that detail using the bitrate RED offers. 36 megabits is not enough for 4K!"

(I have to admit I can't remember if he said megabits or megabytes... but read on.)

"I have an old HD video camera, a few years old - and it shoots at a higher bitrate than RED! And it's not even full 2K! So no way can RED save 4K detail with such a low bitrate." Then he went on to say that RED EPIC shoots at a much higher bitrate which might be enough for 4K. But I guess he wasn't done with bashing the R1 yet: "And they used to overheat all the time!", he exclaimed and began describing how the early firmwares were not using all the ASICs of the camera; how some of the ASICs were just sitting there idle; and that (somehow) caused the cameras to overheat. No, it doesn't make any sense to me, either.

Anyhoo, I told him my R1 has never overheated and I've used it in very warm conditions. He backpedaled a bit, said something about firmware fixes and ended with "Well, they used to overheat in the past." And as if all this wasn't enough, the person I had been talking to in the first place piped in a few times, poo-pooing Mr. Jannard ("the guy used to make sunglasses!") and RED in general ("they didn't know what they were doing"). I excused myself from the conversation pretty soon after this. I wanted to explain the difference between bits and bytes and different compression codecs but I got the feeling that it would've been a waste of time.
 
Yep. They're out there. And in number. There's the odd one comes IN HERE too (meaning my place of work). Sounds like you handled it elegantly and for this you should be congratulated. I'm nowadays of the policy to just walk away from these discussions. They rank with religious and political discussions and those conversations that begin with "Do you have a personal savings plan?". Back away. You can't win. Just go get another drink, scout around and find the guy who's actually learnt how to use a Red and talk to them. They're always much more fun. Enthusiasm and positiveness always is better than negative, "It'll never work mate" talk.
 
If he's confident of his opinion, invite him here or to RED Studios and we can show him in person rather than him speculating without having used the camera.
 
Deanan said:
If he's confident of his opinion, invite him here or to RED Studios and we can show him in person rather than him speculating without having used the camera.
Click to expand...
Some of the projects he has shot were presented in the event, and behind the scenes photos showed several 3D rigs populated with R1s. He was also careful to mention several times that he has shot both 2D and 3D on R1s. I suppose that was his way of saying "Don't argue with me, I know what I'm talking about."
 
That is similar to the conversation I seem to be having with most of the pros I work with lately. People I respect in every other way about their cinematography background and/or years of camera experience, but they hate Red. I have been mostly doing Alexa shows lately though. Don't know how to respectfully debate the subject against bad information and from people I look up to.

I need to find the hook up to get on an Epic show.


Dusty
 
Ha! Your discussion partners are lucky they weren't talking to me! I would have set them both to shame and straight.

I'm not known for making friends- I'm rather intolerant of factual errors and fabrications.

Also ... some of my background is in engineering.

Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling in the mud with a pig. After a few hours, you realize that he likes it.

So next time point them at me!
 
One thing I just remembered and have to add before hitting the hay... Both of these people were outright ridiculing the fact that RED created a camera "cheap enough" to sell in the thousands, "to let rich kids buy a camera and pretend at being a cinematographer". Both were simply astonished by RED selling more than 8000 cameras and scoffed at the fact like it was a really really bad thing. I honestly can't understand that attitude.
 
Dustin Cross said:
That is similar to the conversation I seem to be having with most of the pros I work with lately. People I respect in every other way about their cinematography background and/or years of camera experience, but they hate Red. I have been mostly doing Alexa shows lately though. Don't know how to respectfully debate the subject against bad information and from people I look up to.
Click to expand...

Its pretty hard to tell people respectfully that they are factually in error, wrong, close minded and stupid.

You can be diplomatic to some extent, but if they understand they'll be insulted if they are at all inclined that way.

Here is my fundamental problem - Red One was lacking a great deal. It kicked ass, but as a camera for everyday work it sort of sucked compared to the polished Arri and Sony solutions. Its like they let it out of the lab a bit too early.

I love it, but I like fiddly techy things. You know how if you have to reboot the camera everyone thinks it takes forever and they are all cranky? I secretly LIKE that. That isn't normal.

Epic fixes every single "complaint" I have about R1. If Red was another company then the "Red Two" would have been just that.

Then it throws HDRx, 5K and 120fps in the mix.

OK, sorry fanboying.

Here is the real problem I have with most Red opponents: They don't argue based in accurate understanding of the system or the technology.

They aren't bitching about the true stuff, like the boot time on R1, but on made up or confused BS.

I really hate that.
 
Petri Teittinen said:
Both of these people were outright ridiculing the fact that RED created a camera "cheap enough" to sell in the thousands, "to let rich kids buy a camera and pretend at being a cinematographer". Both were just astonished RED has sold more than 8000 cameras and scoffed at the fact like it was a really really bad thing. I honestly can't understand that attitude.
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I think I understand why they would feel that way, but it's kinda silly. I don't care what camera you're shooting on; it takes talent to make any shoot look great. Red has never said "buy this camera, it'll make you a professional." And I've seen plenty of Red footage from people who didn't know what they were doing. Boy did it look terrible...

The industry is changing and people get grumpy about it. Simple as that.
 
One problem is that professionals get to know new equipment in irregular spurts because they can get on one show for awhile and be using the same technology for a two-year period (especially TV people) and then look up and find that the technological landscape has changed a lot in two years or whatever. So there are a certain number of DP's whose opinions about Red were formed in the early pre-MX days and haven't had the time or opportunity to get acquainted with the latest developments and improvements -- they are still bitching about a camera that existed three years ago, not the camera that exists today (nor the workflow and processing that exists today.)

I think a lot of them will come around over time.

A smaller percentage just have a beef with Red, or they have favorite manufacturers, or whatever small-minded personal reasons they have -- it's hard to argue with those people. But even those people can change their minds over time, shift loyalties. Any decent DP has to be highly adaptable or else they wouldn't be successful -- the profession breeds out or weeds out a certain level of complacency. They have to keep up with their competition.

Part of the lack of respect for Red is probably just the result of being affordable, the same way that expensive cars are more respected than cheaper cars, even if actual performance is the same. But even there, most DP's are results-oriented because in the end, that's all that everyone else ever sees of their work, the final results. So picking technology just because it's hip or cool or new, etc. only gets you so far before you have to deliver real results. In the long run, Red will rise or fall in large part due to the quality of the images, and if that's so, I wouldn't worry.
 
Well, David have said it all. So, now we can move on and shoot wonderful footage with our Red(s) and/or Epic(s).
 
Great post David. Making beautiful images is what it's all about. We're happy to explain what we do to anyone, but we can't force our camera on anyone. As Deanan says, there's always an invite to the studios where they can get a personal demo. It's not really worth arguing with anyone about cameras. If you feel like correcting the odd detail, do so, but beyond that it can be like tilting at windmills. All we can do is keep facilitating the creation of fantastic images as in the end, that's the only "argument".

Graeme
 
What David and Graeme said :) I can't always count on them to say something more profound, intelligent or eloquent than I would .... but I will add that with all the incredible features and unbelievable-looking images starting to roll out from Epic, the haters days are numbered and there's not much more they will be able to say.

(Not that their arguments or biases against the Red One were valid, but everyone - even the most skeptical Red hater - has been blown away by the Epic. The user experience and images from the Epic will do all the convincing needed, IMHO)
 
I would argue that part of the job is being up to date on the current technologies in the world as they come. Just because you're working on a show that's not using, say, a new camera, doesn't mean you shouldn't know it exists.

I don't understand "camera bias." The more diverse you are in what you can shoot, the more jobs you will get. I'm not saying you can't dislike a camera, but to simply dismiss one outright almost seems a sin to the industry. You shoot with what you shoot; be it DSLR or 65mm, everything makes images and everything has their quirks and advantages. To understand and embrace these to simply create the best image you can is what makes a true DP.
 
Peter Jackson- "like Vista Vision" (EPIC)
John Schwartzman- "more info than Vista Vision" (EPIC)

Unnamed guy- "like 2K".

:)

Jim
 
'A good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.'*

*An adage I always try to keep in mind. Part of being an expert is weeding out things that probably won't work so that you can quickly get to a working solution but sometimes a good working solution is good enough and not worth the effort to find something better. It can be tempting and easy to find a workable solution and be averse to testing your assumptions if the results are good. Inevitably though reality always catches up. Personally I like to stay ahead of it as long as I can. ;)
 
Jonathan Stevenson said:
And I've seen plenty of Red footage from people who didn't know what they were doing. Boy did it look terrible...
Click to expand...

Yes, and I've seen terrible dvd's from 'professionals' with HD cameras making terrible footages of concerts and on stage performances. I still use my old Canon XL1 and waiting for RED Scarlet fixed, but if the footage is edited with love and passion the results are always better.

The camera don't make the story, you do.
 
Had a similar conversation but with two different people, one guy just hammering on about the R1 being terrible and useless, which I dismissed cause he had nothing to back it up on and he was filming on a Sony FX1 at the time and from experience, anything is better than that camera, considering the amount of tapes that I have stacked from filming with that, I'm happy with tapeless,
The other situation was with a guy saying that the R1 kept freezing and overheating on set, supposedly tons of technical issues...

Which I could only think that the DIT on set didn't update the R1 since they were filming in the UK as far as I know and lets be honest, anyone that knows the UK knows that if an R1 can be stopped from overheating in the tropics there is no way it can overheat in the UK.
 
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