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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 :)

Announcing WEAPON DRAGON 6k Magnesium

It's a lot of money for Prores. And a lot of this should have been in the original Epic. But at least Red listen to what there customers want. 8 years of asking and now there's a full size XLR option! Now where's that 2nd SDI output.
 
any word on brain weight?
 
Q.@Jarred:

Will there be a Thread: Announcing Weapon Dragon 6K Aluminum

?
 
I just did the Epic MX > Dragon upgrade (a couple weeks ago). I have no regrets. I have an amazing camera that does all I need (really more) and should be relevant for years to come - although I arguably already had that with Epic MX.

But as someone that bought in with Scarlet X, then upgraded to Epic-X and now Epic Dragon, for the first time I do feel like this will probably be my last Red camera (if I maintain the same relative financial situation). I don't see myself upgrading to Weapon. The regular 6K weapon dragon is a marginal improvement, it seems, for nearly twice what the Dragon sensor upgrade was. And all of my accessories are pretty much end of line now. As sexy as the Weapon is, I don't see anything I need with it. 8K Vista Vision is another story, but it's also way beyond what most of us need and way beyond what most of us can afford. It's certainly weird to have progressed from the lowest end Red to the highest (aside from CF) and in one day feel like I'm kind of back to the bottom of the upgrade totem.

I love RED. I've loved all three of my RED cameras over the last 4+ years. I don't regret a penny I've spent with them. But I suspect that next time I spend $9,500+ on a camera it will probably be a different brand. I've been lucky enough to barely manage to make the upgrades I have. But they're happening too frequently now and getting too expensive. Again, I love my camera and don't regret the investment AT ALL. But like others are saying in this thread, I'll probably have to hop off this train eventually. Or get by solely in the used Red market.

We're entering a phase of technology where we're no longer catching up to a standard like 35mm. We've passed it. The last ten years have made sense to aggressively improve until we surpassed film. 1080>4K was an easier sell to me than 4K>8K. I can't help but feel like anything past Dragon is kind of a luxury. I suspect that Epic Dragon may actually have one of the healthiest lifespans of any RED to date though. Because it's creating the same gap that RedOne > Epic did, but the Epic/Scarlet is a much more established camera than the Red One was. And with a Dragon sensor, it's still way ahead of the competition.

However, I am thrilled to see what movies will look like on 8K VistaVision. It's still as fascinating as ever to watch RED evolve.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
RED will also continue to sell EPIC and Scarlet Dragon for some time to come.
Click to expand...

Not knowing the time scale is a big problem. "For some time" is not good enough. Nobody expected a new camera this soon.
I would have hated it if I upgraded to Dragon last week after the MX was declared obsolete with hope of upgrading to Weapon and seeing the specs today...
this is essentially what you are in for if you don't upgrade to Weapon early - two upgrades in a row that superseed the price of the new camera - it doesn't make sense.
luckily, I've had the Dragon for 8 months now and was able to recoup the cost.
MX is obsolete and Dragon will become "sometimes" soon ( 18 months?). If you don't upgrade early you are essentially off of the upgrade train.

I think that saying: "you don't have to upgrade" is not fair. If you don't upgrade now, be prepared to hop on the obsolescence train.
 
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I am interested in seeing if there's more of a credit toward the magnesium body, since in the original post it looks like a copy/paste from the CF thread. It says for Epic Dragon, a $15,500 credit to Carbon CF. Though the info on the website does not give me much hope.
 
I am surprised now that the tech specs have been posted that no one has mentioned that while the ProRes supports up to 120fps in each format, it's only 2k!!! Why RED???? You could totally have Alexa on the ropes by outputting 4k ProRes like a $3,000 Blackmagic 4k doesm but no?? I just don't understand the thinking why.
 
Matthew J said:
I am surprised now that the tech specs have been posted that no one has mentioned that while the ProRes supports up to 120fps in each format, it's only 2k!!! Why RED???? You could totally have Alexa on the ropes by outputting 4k ProRes like a $3,000 Blackmagic 4k doesm but no?? I just don't understand the thinking why.
Click to expand...

That's for the next upgrade :biggrin:
 
Matthew J said:
I am surprised now that the tech specs have been posted that no one has mentioned that while the ProRes supports up to 120fps in each format, it's only 2k!!! Why RED???? You could totally have Alexa on the ropes by outputting 4k ProRes like a $3,000 Blackmagic 4k doesm but no?? I just don't understand the thinking why.
Click to expand...

Where did you read that? I thought it said Prores all resolutions...
 
I have very mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, I'm kinda glad the ProRes doesn't go beyond 2K. The real purpose to shooting with these cameras is for R3D RAW and the control it provides. If RED gave 4K or 6K ProRes encoding, then the cameras would need more powerful internal processing for that process to start with. On top of that, we would see a huge number of productions make a shift away from R3D workflows back to ProRes, negating the potential benefits of RAW.

OTOH, I could see a lot of benefit for 4K+ ProRes recording in terms of super-fast turn arounds where LUTs can be tailored and monitored on set. It's all about options....
 
Also relieved of the specs. I'm so surprised for the price point that the major benefit is Prores. And we can't uograde to vista anyways unless we go all in on the carbon. I'm still a happy Dragon owner. Don't need a weapon
 
Just got this in an email. I think the wording is incorrect as I think the $2500 is supposed to be towards Scarlet Dragon upgrades after NAB: "Those who have already paid to upgrade to DRAGON prior to April 13th, or who own an EPIC DRAGON or SCARLET DRAGON, will qualify for an additional $2,500 credit towards the value of their camera."
 
Apologies in advance for the stupid question.
Does the upgrade come with the bundle shown in the store?
If yes, can we replace the XL Module by something different in terms of power solution?
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
OTOH, I could see a lot of benefit for 4K+ ProRes recording in terms of super-fast turn arounds where LUTs can be tailored and monitored on set. It's all about options....
Click to expand...

I do a ton of quickie jobs that we have controlled lighting on set and nail the look in camera. Doing RAW on those jobs is quite pointless and wastes time in post. So 4k ProRes was what I was expecting, but am now kinda disappointed. My logic is, yeah, raw is great, but there have been a ton of great looking movies shot in ProRes on the Alexa. Obviously, many productions want to roll with ProRes capture, so make kickbutt ProRes 4k capture and meet their needs instead of trying to shoehorn everyone into one type of capture.
 
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