Are hours on the clock important when deciding which RED Camera to buy??

[Adi Jani]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if having over 2000 hours on the clock on a RED One MX camera can actually affect it's performance? I'm looking to buy one very soon second hand, and would like some advice on it please if possible.

Thank you

Adi

 

[Louis Maddalena]

Number of hours on a camera like the RED does not matter since there are no moving parts.

 

[Robert Hart]

There are few ways to look at "hours".


Whilst things have improved vastly in modern times, there probably remain in all things contrived by amazing engineers, some components which will age into failure regardless of use or lack of it. A highly used appliance or a hardly used appliance might therefore lay down at about the same calender time from "birth".

An example is the old Sony half-inch EIAJ vdeo recorders. Stored or thrashed, same age machines would eventually develop a dead motor due to hung brushes. A foam insert in a leaf-spring arrangement would degrade and shrink, pulling the brush surface away from contact. A new-in-box sample could equally chance being DOA.

High "hours" numbers may equate to very many times turned on and off which means many heat and cool cycles and higher likelyhood of mechanical failure of metal tags, soldered joints.

High "hours" might also mean an appliance spent a lot of continuous time powered "on" in a studio environment and long standby times. This is a better operating state but things like fan motors may be tired.

High "hours" might also describe a camera that has done an awful lot of arduous work, travelled a lot and has been thoroughly flogged. That same camera may have also had a lot of repair/servicing so all may not be as bad as it might seem.

High "hours" WILL mean moving parts like fans will be more worn. Then again, they may also have been replaced. Plugs and switches are also likely to have worn more and soldered joints inside the case may have become brittle through vibration over a hard work life.

A fair indicator might be how much skin and hair has been knocked off the camera body, in particular the lens mount surfaces in its use but that can also be misinformative if there has been an internal rebuild.


This comment probably confuses more than it informs. Sorry about that.

 

[Jonathan Petts]

I seem to remember a thread about this a while ago.

Some good points that were raised included it depends what those hours were spent doing. Was it only used in a studio environement by someone who cleans the camera every evening and is very careful with it - or was the camera used in the desert and thrown around by the owner running around over sand dunes and inside cars or was it even used as a Rental camera, this could have been treated well by the rental house or not treated well, I have certainly come across some beaten up Epic's at some rental houses.

As two people above have said there are no moving parts (apart from the fans) so in theory there should be no real differences between a camera that has 100 hours vs 2000 hours bar general wear and tear and how the user decided to use the camera.

So maybe when looking into a camera ask the owner about what he shot with it, how well did he maintain the camera and then possibly request that it get's sent to RED to get checked up on (Im pretty sure they offer this service, I have never used it but I have seen people talking about it.)


If you want to be very picky you could request the owner to fire off a few frames if he would be so kind for you to look at to see if there are any obvious issues with the sensor or anything like that - but I cant say I have seen many people requesting for that. If you can ask if you can view the camera in person as either way the price of a RED One MX is still an amount you want to make sure you get a camera in good condition.


Good Luck!

Jonny

 

[Emily White]

google is a good friend

 

[Adi Jani]

Thank you all for your replies, very informative and helpful. I've bought the camera now, it's really well maintained and I'm really happy with it. Thanks again