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Time-Lapse-- We Sure Could Have Used You This Week

Joe Taylor

Joe Taylor

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Not to beat a dead horse, but this week was the 4th job in the past month that I had to outsource a Red ONE from Salt Lake City because my Epic will not shoot anything over 1 fps (that is not time-lapse.) This Sat-Mon will be the 5th (same job.)

Summer is my busiest time of the year-- especially late July and August. I eat the rental costs when I have to outsource but the producers are far from impressed when we have to break out a 4 year old digital camera when they are expecting the latest and greatest.

I'm losing out on a big portion of my income here and making producers hesitant to rent my equipment. This is getting very discouraging.
 
Jake Bastian said:
When it comes to timelapse, even if timelapse features were enabled, 5D3>Epic. That's just how it is, and I'm sure even Jim and Jarred would admit to that.
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I agree with you Jake. The 5D3 smokes the Epic as a timelapse camera. But there are certain timelapse sequences that you just can't get with the 5D3 and that's where the Epic is very useful. I really hope RED enables a timelapse mode on Epic soon. But with the way everything is right now I'm happy with the jobs I have tasked for both cameras. They are just tools.
 
Joe Taylor said:
I offer to use the 5D for time-lapse (and often do) but when they want nothing but R3D files to simplify post production, which I totally understand, my hands are tied. For this type of work-for-hire (time-lapse) the Epic has been a big step back for my business and as of yesterday has come to a head.

Please do not get me wrong though. I LOVE this camera. I use it extensively for my personal work and consider it my pride and joy. But I also freelance as a living and specialize and offer a unique service (time-lapse) that I have been doing professionally since 1998 beginning with 16mm and 35mm in 2000 for Discovery Channel and have not looked back since then.

But Epic has been out in the world for well over a year now and still cannot do (What matters to me most) what Red ONE could do out of the box in 2008. For the sake of my livelihood, I wish I would have held on to the trusty beast of a ONE because she served me damn well. Epic will to, some day, but I wish would have happened last week.
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Sure is weird that your clients don't want to use one fo the best timelapse tools out there. I mean you would could give them out a 5K render from the 5D3 timelapse in whatever format they want. Just seems kind of silly is all.
 
Andrew Walker said:
Sure is weird that your clients don't want to use one fo the best timelapse tools out there. I mean you would could give them out a 5K render from the 5D3 timelapse in whatever format they want. Just seems kind of silly is all.
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Word......

You can spit out any file from a frame sequence very quickly.....
Why do they only want a RED RAW file?
 
Can we AT LEAST get an intervelometer? Red1 had that super early, just give us the ability to put time in between the 1fps
 
I understand your frustration, but the others are right. As technician, it should also be your duty to inform your client that with a 5DII time lapse they get:
- better definition than the Epic (21.1mpx)
- better control over the time lapse
- better image quality (no compression in RAW stills)
- a lighter camera that can go in smaller spaces
- a cheaper solution!!!
- the option to use a huge panel of automated sliders and motors (Kessler) custom fitted to the 5DII
- the option to shoot the time lapse as B-roll while still shooting on the Epic (saving time, therefore money, for a better end result)
I mean, COME ON!
Again I understand that an intevalometer is definitely missing, but it should not be killing your business.
 
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I would also like to get a real time lapse mode in the Epic, but I've already shot dozens and dozens of time lapses using Epic's current 1 fps mode. It works fine, and if it's too slow you can always speed it up in post, any NLE can do that very easily and you get to chose the best speed afterwards. Plus, you get the option to do some frame blending in after effects if you want, which is very useful in some situations. So in my opinion, the Epic is already perfectly usable as a time lapse camera.
The only thing I would really like to see are longer exposures than 1 second... But the Red One can't do that neither...

Oh and btw Joe, you have some gorgeous time lapses on you Vimeo page !
 
Jarred Land said:
Time Lapse is functional in the Lab..... Time Lapse you guys should see in the next big Build, along with Speed Ramping.
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YES! this is awesome, I have already been doing a bunch of 5k 1fps HDRX TL's so I am excited to see with what you guys came up with!
 
so thankful that it is coming soon. While I understand those people who keep advocating using a 5D, I will keep saying I don't want to carry another camera and other stuff around. A 5D may be great for some people but it is not for everyone. I think we've heard enough the "get a 5D" response. The point is the Red One had these capabilities and I think most people reasonably expected they would get at least the same functionality (if not better) from the Epic. I for one am grateful that some level of better time lapse is coming soon and I hope for and will continue to ask for longer exposure times. Please....
 
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