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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 :)

2K 35mm sub-$10k Red Possible?

Tom Lowe

Tom Lowe

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Jim, would it be possible to make a mini-Red with a 35mm-size chip, compact body design, and 2K RAW up to 60fps? Maybe have the chip downsample from 3K, so you're not competing too directly with the 4K Red One?

To me, such a camera could deal a very powerful kick to the cojones of Sony, Panasonic, Canon, etc, in the prosumer indie cine market. Something between Scarlet and Red One.

Dream specs:

35mm size sensor
Mounts for 35mm lenses
2K RAW
60fps onboard

What would be the price point on a camera like that? Is that camera you guys might be interested in thinking about?

I'd be interested to hear what others would list as their dream specs.
 
That would be very very cool, but would there be a very big market for it? If you already have $10k to spend, you most likely have enough for the red one...

I personally can't spend more that $5K on a camera, the rest I need to go towards actors, crew, lights, permits, ect...


Plus, once you see 3k images, are you really gonna want to go back to 2k? ;)
 
There's a fair change that chip size governs cost more than chip resolution. In other words, making a 2K 35mm chip might not actually be much cheaper than making a 4K 35mm chip.
 
TheDigitalWizard said:
That would be very very cool, but would there be a very big market for it? If you already have $10k to spend, you most likely have enough for the red one...

I personally can't spend more that $5K on a camera, the rest I need to go towards actors, crew, lights, permits, ect...

Plus, once you see 3k images, are you really gonna want to go back to 2k? ;)
Click to expand...

I don't know. I mean, if the camera was, say, $6,000 or $7,000 for the body, that would compete directly with (ie, blow away) the Sony EX1 and EX3, the HVX successor, etc. Red One is more like $20K+ once you get the accessories and all that.

3K is not even a format, so 2K should be fine. You can film out from a 2K or finish at 1080p for Bluray and HDTV.

"cojones" rectified. :)
 
Tom said:
Jim, would it be possible to make a mini-Red with a 35mm-size chip, compact body design, and 2K RAW up to 60fps? Maybe have the chip downsample from 3K, so you're not competing too directly with the 4K Red One?

To me, such a camera could deal a very powerful kick to the cojones of Sony, Panasonic, Canon, etc, in the prosumer indie cine market. Something between Scarlet and Red One.

Dream specs:

35mm size sensor
Mounts for 35mm lenses
2K RAW
60fps onboard

What would be the price point on a camera like that? Is that camera you guys might be interested in thinking about?

I'd be interested to hear what others would list as their dream specs.
Click to expand...


YES YES YES!

This is the sweet spot in the market. The chase for resolution is not the answer. It was never about resolution. It was about 35mm DOF, latitude, low-light, then resolution!

Remember, a 35mm chip with 2k resolution means fewer/larger pixels. This would proabbly mean much better low-light capabilities.

Plus the data rate would be more manageable.

The Red should have been a 2k camera, then the EPIC would have made more sense and not riled Red owners as much.

2k would have satisfied 95% of the market, including spot production and feature films. Isn't the Viper a 1080 camera?

I suspect Red would have sold just as many cameras.

Chris
 
Sounds perfect, but it's too close to the RED1.

I doubt that they'd go for it.

Perhaps, in the future, when there's a 70mm sized RED2 or EPIC2 or whatever, they would also release Scarlet2 [or "Keira" :)] with the specs you described.
 
Tom said:
I don't know. I mean, if the camera was, say, $6,000 or $7,000 for the body, that would compete directly with (ie, blow away) the Sony EX1 and EX3, the HVX successor, etc. Red One is more like $20K+ once you get the accessories and all that.

3K is not even a format, so 2K should be fine. You can film out from a 2K or finish at 1080p for Bluray and HDTV.

"cojones" rectified. :)
Click to expand...

very true about the 3k. So yeah, not next year, that would hurt scarlet sales, but maybe next year. By that time though, they might be selling $10k referbished red ones...
 
Tom said:
I don't know. I mean, if the camera was, say, $6,000 or $7,000 for the body, that would compete directly with (ie, blow away) the Sony EX1 and EX3, the HVX successor, etc. Red One is more like $20K+ once you get the accessories and all that.

3K is not even a format, so 2K should be fine. You can film out from a 2K or finish at 1080p for Bluray and HDTV.

"cojones" rectified. :)
Click to expand...

Tom, was it you who about a week ago said that RED One was in reality "a 2k camera" If it was you indeed, I'd like you to help me understand what that means. And based on that same logic (or knowledge, perhaps), will 5k in reality be a 2.5k-3k camera? How so? I'm here just trying to learn from y'all. Thank you.
 
The whole idea of Red is not to compete with Sony, Pany, and all the other "so called" big boyz.

As far as I am concerned there is no comparison, and no competition.
 
jaadgy akanni said:
Tom, was it you who about a week ago said that RED One was in reality "a 2k camera" If it was you indeed, I'd like you to help me understand what that means. And based on that same logic (or knowledge, perhaps), will 5k in reality be a 2.5k-3k camera? How so? I'm here just trying to learn from y'all. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Yeah, in my own mind I've been thinking of Red One as a 2K camera for a while now. Haakon and some others have more or less said the same thing. Graeme mentioned a couple weeks ago that Red had an "effective" or "actual" (I cannot remember the term exactly) resolution of something like 2.5K. That sounds about right.

Based on DLSR performance, especially in lower light, it just makes sense to me to downsample the 4K footage to a 2K finish, which will result in a more pristine image. This is only my own opinion and my own outlook regarding the Red One sensor. Others might disagree.

And yes, based on that same logic I view Epic as a 4K camera, and Scarlet as a 2K camera. Just by default, stuff shot at 3K will probably finish at 2K and stuff shot at 5K will probably finish at 4K.
 
Graeme mentioned a couple weeks ago that Red had an "effective" or "actual" (I cannot remember the term exactly) resolution of something like 2.5K.
Click to expand...

Tom, I remember it being closer to 3.2k.
 
Tom said:
Yeah, in my own mind I've been thinking of Red One as a 2K camera for a while now. Haakon and some others have more or less said the same thing. Graeme mentioned a couple weeks ago that Red had an "effective" or "actual" (I cannot remember the term exactly) resolution of something like 2.5K. That sounds about right.

Based on DLSR performance, especially in lower light, it just makes sense to me to downsample the 4K footage to a 2K finish, which will result in a more pristine image. This is only my own opinion and my own outlook regarding the Red One sensor. Others might disagree.

And yes, based on that same logic I view Epic as a 4K camera, and Scarlet as a 2K camera. Just by default, stuff shot at 3K will probably finish at 2K and stuff shot at 5K will probably finish at 4K.
Click to expand...

Yup since the only real color correction option is Color which is a 2k finish. I don't see any Scarlet owners buying a scratch system.
 
Craig Ryan said:
Tom, I remember it being closer to 3.2k.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong. I think it was on that F23 vs Red vs HVX shootout thread, but I can't seem to find that thread with the search feature.
 
I think it was on that F23 vs Red vs HVX shootout thread, but I can't seem to find that thread with the search feature.
Click to expand...

It was Adam Wilt who said 2.5K, here: Three three-letter cameras (p. 3).

A good rule of thumb seems to be multiply each side by 1.5.
That's what the Arri D20 does. It outputs 1920 x 1080 RGB but its Bayer sensor is about 2.9K.

And an article about DSLRs says to get twice the Bayer megapixels you want to end up with in RGB. So if you want 4 megapixels RGB, get an 8 megapixel camera. Which is saying the same thing as multiply each side by about 1.5 (1.5 x 1.5 = 2.25).

Remember, if you're talking about length of a side (4K), divide by 1.5.
But if area (12 megapixel), divide by 2.

These numbers are not exact. Different debayering algorithms yield different results.
 
Thanks, combatentropy.
 
Scarlet + 35mm DOF adapter + external body [to wrap around the whole shebang and make it feel natural] = <$10,000 3K camera with 35mm DOF... and less sensitivity.

It's a work-around.
 
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