Glass for Wildlife Filmmaking

[Christian Munoz D]

Jim et Alii,

I understand that you have a very good business plan for development, marketing, production and sales of Red products. I don't know if in your business model you are considering the wildlife filmmaking grounds, but I am very interested to know if at Red Co. there is or will be in development some glass for wildlife and sports use, like the Canon zoom 150-600 or super telephoto 800, 1200, etc.
I am a little worried about your new large sensors and the compatibility with the glass available on the market, because as a Natural History filmmaker long lenses are key equipment on the production of my work, and now they will be almost useless.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Steve Gibby]

Jim et Alii,

I understand that you have a very good business plan for development, marketing, production and sales of Red products. I don't know if in your business model you are considering the wildlife filmmaking grounds, but I am very interested to know if at Red Co. there is or will be in development some glass for wildlife and sports use, like the Canon zoom 150-600 or super telephoto 800, 1200, etc.
I am a little worried about your new large sensors and the compatibility with the glass available on the market, because as a Natural History filmmaker long lenses are key equipment on the production of my work, and now they will be almost useless.

Thank you for your help.

Wildlife is one of my genres of production, and for wildlife production, for over 18 months now with RED One, I've been using long focal length 35mm stills lenses (and the RED 300 cine prime), with excellent results. My usual long lenses on RED One for wildlife have been:

Canon FD 150-600L f5.6
Nikon 400 f3.5 AIS, with 1.4x and 2x as needed
RED 300 f2.8, with Optex 2x as needed
Nikon 50-300 f4.5 AIS

As a wildlife focal length candidate, RED has announced (12/3) a new RED Electronic Lens 300mm f2.8 prime, which has stabilization and auto focus capabilities, They also announced 1.4x AF and 2x AF extenders.

Hopefully at some point RED will make longer focal length RED Electronic Lens primes and zooms, targeted at the sports, wildlife, and nature DSMC crowd. A 400mm and 500mm would be cool, but a 150-600 zoom, a 100-500 zoom, and a 50-300 zoom would be fantastic.

 

[Christian Munoz D]

Wildlife is one of my genres of production, and for wildlife production, for over 18 months now with RED One, I've been using long focal length 35mm stills lenses (and the RED 300 cine prime), with excellent results. My usual long lenses on RED One for wildlife have been:

Canon FD 150-600L f5.6
Nikon 400 f3.5 AIS, with 1.4x and 2x as needed
RED 300 f2.8, with Optex 2x as needed
Nikon 50-300 f4.5 AIS

I have been using almost the same glass, except the Red 300 with my Red One for 8 Months now, with great results; but my post is based on the new Epic brains. With my Arri SRII I have had a bald eagle full frame, with Red One the bald eagle at the same distance only fill half of the frame. So with the new sensors my eagle will be just another component of the landscape?

As a wildlife focal length candidate, RED has announced (12/3) a new RED Electronic Lens 300mm f2.8 prime, which has stabilization and auto focus capabilities, They also announced 1.4x AF and 2x AF extenders.

Exactly, that is why I am asking about longer focal length! There is some light at the end of the tunnel... for sure I will be buying all this new Red Electronic Lenses, and I bet you too...

Hopefully at some point RED will make longer focal length RED Electronic Lens primes and zooms, targeted at the sports, wildlife, and nature DSMC crowd. A 400mm and 500mm would be cool, but a 150-600 zoom, a 100-500 zoom, and a 50-300 zoom would be fantastic.

I am hopping the same; just I want to be sure the big boys at Red co. know our needs.
Thanks for your input Steve, precise as always.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I would bet that included in the price of this lens would be RED compatibilty...

The site does say Zeiss Cine.

 

[Denis Buhot]

big lenses

big lenses

are one thing for sure... cropping to 3 K or even 2 k in post another option. And getting closer to your subject something you might consider for close-ups. Sure.. not so easy, not so fast. I'm perfectly well with my sigmonster 300-800 when it comes to big lenses, and so happy to give some "room" to my subject, let it "breathe" instead of look like it has been taken in a zoo.. and still have resolution for full details, however reduced its size is.

To me, red major flaw for wildlife use is just bootup time...

 

[M_Sanderson]

I have had some awesome results recently filming wildlife, similar setup with 400mm/3.5 AiS, also the 80-200mm/2.8 has been good. would love to try the 300-800 sometime as well

Buhot I agree bootup time is a huge problem so I end up leaving the camera on, but then needs LOADS of batteries, I am using SWIT's 180Wh, and only have 4 at the moment which I found out the other day isnt enough for even the short winter days for filming non stop. Need more!
Do you use RED bricks? Would it be better to stick them or is it the same?

I am loving swirtching between 4k 3k and 2k at different speeds, I usually go for as slow as possible at 16x9 unless there is not enough light. Can always speed it up in post.
Does anyone know if the resolution drops when you higher your frame rate? Or is it negligible?

Still no sleep mode? So many requests, it must be hard to crack?

 

[Christian Munoz D]

I would bet that included in the price of this lens would be RED compatibilty...

The site does say Zeiss Cine.

Well, the Zeiss Apo Sonnar 1700 is 500 punds. So, I don't think I can walk to far in the Andes Mountains with that monster... great lens but not realistic to use in my kind of jobs.

 

[Christian Munoz D]

are one thing for sure... cropping to 3 K or even 2 k in post another option. And getting closer to your subject something you might consider for close-ups. Sure.. not so easy, not so fast. I'm perfectly well with my sigmonster 300-800 when it comes to big lenses, and so happy to give some "room" to my subject, let it "breathe" instead of look like it has been taken in a zoo.. and still have resolution for full details, however reduced its size is.

For my clients cropping or post effects are not an option, only 2K high speed is welcome 90% of the time. Because of physical/geographical limitations or strict regulations from FWS, DCR, etc. getting closer to the subject is not always possible.

Click HERE and you will see a sequence with two Snowy Owls shot 2K-120 fps with my Canon FD 150-600L f5.6 and Canon FD 800L f5.6 PL mount. Unfortunately was a very windy week, plus I wasn’t allow to walk outside the trails or have a blind...Town Regulations! So, no head shots!!!!

To me, red major flaw for wildlife use is just bootup time...

Yep….and battery life/size.... With Epic the problem will be solved!

 

[rod bradley]

Lovely...

 

[Jason Murphy]

Christian - I could be totally misguided here, but it seems to me as if the 2/3" Scarlet with a Nikon or Canon mount would be a useful tool in some of these situations. Obviously, Epic provides far greater options, flexibility, and resolution which no doubt is incredibly useful in some situations. But if delivery is at 2K/HD (and of course, that may be a big if), the crop factor of the 2/3" would provide for a much greater telephoto effect, and the brain can do 120 FPS (150 burst) as well.

Or at the very least, a 2/3" Scarlet might make a useful complement to an Epic package.

Of course, I don't know what your needs are. Just throwing this out there as an idea.

 

[Steve Gibby]

Christian - I could be totally misguided here, but it seems to me as if the 2/3" Scarlet with a Nikon or Canon mount would be a useful tool in some of these situations. Obviously, Epic provides far greater options, flexibility, and resolution which no doubt is incredibly useful in some situations. But if delivery is at 2K/HD (and of course, that may be a big if), the crop factor of the 2/3" would provide for a much greater telephoto effect, and the brain can do 120 FPS (150 burst) as well.

Or at the very least, a 2/3" Scarlet might make a useful complement to an Epic package.

Of course, I don't know what your needs are. Just throwing this out there as an idea.

Actually that is very good thinking Jason. I've been thinking along those lines too. Initially I'll be buying two Epic (Epic X and FF35), and three Scarlet (one FF35 and two fixed lens). Depending on the resolution, frame rate, and mobility needs of the project at hand, I'll select what combination of Epic and Scarlet models will be used. Each project will have different needs.

 

[Christian Munoz D]

Christian - I could be totally misguided here, but it seems to me as if the 2/3" Scarlet with a Nikon or Canon mount would be a useful tool in some of these situations. Obviously, Epic provides far greater options, flexibility, and resolution which no doubt is incredibly useful in some situations. But if delivery is at 2K/HD (and of course, that may be a big if), the crop factor of the 2/3" would provide for a much greater telephoto effect, and the brain can do 120 FPS (150 burst) as well.

Or at the very least, a 2/3" Scarlet might make a useful complement to an Epic package.

Of course, I don't know what your needs are. Just throwing this out there as an idea.

Jason,
I agree with you, I think you are totally right, I have Scarlet on my purchase list. But my question and worries are related directly with the larger sensors.

 

[Steve Harryman]

I'm going along those lines as well. Will be starting out with a 2/3" Scarlet with Nikon mount and utilizing my long Nikon telephotos (good tripod of course). The 3.78x crop factor plus the 120fps slow motion and I've got a good rig for wildlife.

 

[Dominic Jones]

Bear in mind you can always window those Epics down and get an even higher fps image at S16 size...

Incidentally, you're not going to see any change in FoV (or at least, not an appreciable one) between a 2/3" Scarlet and an R1 shooting in 2K - they're pretty much the same sensor size at that point. Of course, your wallet will see a difference!

Just in case someone hasn't thought of those things - but you probably have!...

Cheers,
Dom.

 

[Christian Munoz D]

As Steve (Gibby) wisely said, "Each project will have different needs."

 

[Steve Harryman]

Interesting about windowing the Epic or Scarlet sensor. Do you (or Gibby) have an idea what the crop options would be and relative fps with an S35 Scarlet? Does it work to crop to a 2/3" sensor size and gain faster fps? That would be the best of both worlds then----5K/4K resolution in some instances and 2K resolution with faster fps for slow motion in others. Sounds too good to be true. What are the downsides---I'm sure I'm missing something. Thanks for the input.

Bear in mind you can always window those Epics down and get an even higher fps image at S16 size...

Incidentally, you're not going to see any change in FoV (or at least, not an appreciable one) between a 2/3" Scarlet and an R1 shooting in 2K - they're pretty much the same sensor size at that point. Of course, your wallet will see a difference!

Just in case someone hasn't thought of those things - but you probably have!...

Cheers,
Dom.

 

[Dominic Jones]

Hi Steve - best of both worlds indeed, in my view...

Crop options are available on red.com/epic_scarlet.

You should find that the Epic's 2K mode (max 250fps!) is about 2/3" sensor size.

No downsides really beyond doing a similar thing with the R1 - if you're finishing 1080p then you're a little below the ideal resolution for a bayer sensor (although all the talk is that there'll be less noise from the Epic's sensor, which will help), it will cost a lot more than getting a 2/3" Scarlet model, and it will weigh a little more (and glass will need to be 35mm rather than S16, of course).

I'd say, though, that for someone wanting to take a single camera, be mobile, take some beautiful landscape/timelapse shots and also shoot long-lens high-speed wildlife work, an Epic S35/FF35 would be ideal...

Cheers,
Dom.

EDIT: I should add, that the Epic also sports a 3K mode, max 160fps and will be a little larger than 2/3" / S16. Just for completeness...

 

[Steve Harryman]

One final question on this subject: by cropping down to 2K (approx. 2/3" sensor size), I'm assuming there would be a field-of-view/mag.ratio of approx. 3.78x using a full-frame Nikon telephoto lens---similar to if I were to utilize a Nikon mount on a 2/3" scarlet. Am I correct in my understanding---or all wet? Thanks.