Build 17 features...

[Cail Young]

]Sorry, if I made things complicated here, but I don’t understand that all we need is a puls telling the MoCo rig when exposure is occurring. Is this not just the minimum requirement?

Yes, it's a minimum requirement. Externally driving frame ramps in a similar fashion to mechanical film cameras will be significantly harder, if not impossible to acheive. But as far as I'm aware most mocon (excluding frame ramps) can be slaved from the camera rather than the mocon rig driving the camera.

It should even be possible to have a mocon rig trigger a ramp on the camera and then slave from the (hypothetical) framerate pulse.

 

[Drew Suppa]

Jim:

From a working set in Los Angeles, I am dissatisfied with Build 17.

Our A Cam is Build 16.3.5, and is working nearly perfectly. Well done on building a solid and rugged camera body and AKS. I only say that because our A Cam took a tumble a few days ago... down an embankment... on the side of a mountain. Some canned air later, it's back up and working flawlessly.

On the other hand, our B Cam has posed nothing but problems. First the viewfinder did not escape Initializing mode in which the EVF screen appears with a green hue. Even adjusting the settings did not completely fix this issue. Second, when using the RED Drives, B Cam had a habit of resetting itself as A Cam and choosing for itself what Reel # it wanted to display and write files to.

For instance, on one 320GB drive, despite me setting the camera as Cam B and Roll 7 (thereby creating file paths B007_C001_xxxxxx.RDM and so on), after the format it decided it was to be Cam A and recorded seven clips as Cam A (A007_C001_xxxxxx.R3D and so on), before switching back by itself as Cam B and beginning a whole new folder within itself (beginning then, finaly, as B007_C001_xxxxxx.R3D).

What is up with that?

Lastly, can you guys PLEASE include DVI menu-style output in 720P mode? This is absolutely necessary for our Script Supervisor when running multiple cameras, ESPECIALLY when Cam A and Cam B refuse to sync up on Reel #s, as is happening on this show, notably because of Build 17. Life for the editor would be much easier if she could make a note of the file name when noting slate information. Please note that we are using the newer Panasonic 17" production monitors and are running HD-SDI in with BNC.

Hope all is well with all of the guys in RED, and just trying to throw out some on-set feedback from the production office. I'm excited to hear about your new still camera, Scarlet and Epic's redesigns.

Regards,

Drew Suppa
(310) 867-1207
Camera Dept.
Operator / D.I.T.

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Just finished a two-day shoot in Ohio; the Red camera with build 17 recording to Red Drives performed flawlessly with no problems whatsoever. We were running View Factor Origo, Red EVF and LCD, powered with Anton Bauer 140 batteries. The camera is power-hungry, I think we used 6 bricks the second day.

We are color grading the footage, both interiors and exteriors, as I type this; the striking aspect of the footage is how very little correction is required in RedCine compared to previous builds. We are doing almost nothing, save a few tweaks to the curves, and very subtle changes at that.

My clients, with whom I've worked on many projects, were awed by the quality of the images; the beauty and shallow depth of field of 35MM film with all the advantages of digital acquisition.

I think many here know I'm not a Cool Aid drinker, I think the Red One has some ergonomic flaws, but the camera is very easy to work with and produces absolutely stunning images. So far, it's been dead-solid reliable on the set.

Good shooting and best regards to all,

Leo

 

[Stephen Williams]

1)
Even with a very fast moving MoCo rig you should be able to more accurately (than on a mechanical film camera) time the shutter to open and close at the exact same places in a multi pass shot. Simen

Hi,

Probably not more accurately than a film camera, in many cases the camera drive is a MOCO axis.

Stephen