Blair S. Paulsen
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2006
- Messages
- 5,503
- Reaction score
- 34
- Points
- 48
- Location
- San Diego, CA
- Website
- www.alacritymedia.com
For those folks in the industry who are curious about what RED is up to and don't care to peruse RedUser I think Jon has given them a reasonable overview. After all, until Weapon ships, any article anyone writes will fall short of a complete recitation of features/specs.
FWIW, I appreciated that Jon pointed out the flexibility of the 20x40 8K sensor to support a wide range of lensing via windowing. I took his 4.8K note as worst case with some vintage optics (see Phil's note), which I agree with. Most S35 lenses will cover 5.2 to 5.5K, some even manage 6K-HD.
The rub is that most of the lenses designed for narrative cinema work, which includes precise and repeatable mechanical operations, adhere to the S35 spec - so anything outside that window "doesn't count" in those situations. IMO, as long as you can get at least 5K worth of pixels imaged you should be able to make a credible 4K picture.
For many years, the entire marketplace for optics designed for narrative cinema applications was quite small and mostly a rental house item. Perhaps the continued growth in motion imaging applications across a far wider spectrum of use cases will bring more vendors and more price points into the marketplace. As this area evolves; Zeiss, Canon and others just might start offering high quality versions of their existing full frame stills lenses with decent support for motion applications.
I'm particularly excited about the possibilities of custom motors inside the lens housings that can handle both the quick auto-focus demands of stills capture - AND - the precisely controlled focus (and zoom if applicable) moves required for narrative motion work. Perhaps a cam, gear or power modulation would allow one to switch the lens motor profile to suit either modality via a toggle - sort of like switching an EOS lens between manual and auto focus.
I'm more than happy to have an Angie, Cooke, Leica-C or other proper cinema lens with a C-Motion controller and a rock star focus puller. On the gigs where that's a pipe dream, it would be nice to have a hybrid option between full bore cinema kit and stills lenses with tiny focus throws. This would be even more welcome if the lenses covered 20x40 and didn't require mounting motors to iris rods, Lemo cables everywhere, etc.
Cheers - #19
FWIW, I appreciated that Jon pointed out the flexibility of the 20x40 8K sensor to support a wide range of lensing via windowing. I took his 4.8K note as worst case with some vintage optics (see Phil's note), which I agree with. Most S35 lenses will cover 5.2 to 5.5K, some even manage 6K-HD.
The rub is that most of the lenses designed for narrative cinema work, which includes precise and repeatable mechanical operations, adhere to the S35 spec - so anything outside that window "doesn't count" in those situations. IMO, as long as you can get at least 5K worth of pixels imaged you should be able to make a credible 4K picture.
For many years, the entire marketplace for optics designed for narrative cinema applications was quite small and mostly a rental house item. Perhaps the continued growth in motion imaging applications across a far wider spectrum of use cases will bring more vendors and more price points into the marketplace. As this area evolves; Zeiss, Canon and others just might start offering high quality versions of their existing full frame stills lenses with decent support for motion applications.
I'm particularly excited about the possibilities of custom motors inside the lens housings that can handle both the quick auto-focus demands of stills capture - AND - the precisely controlled focus (and zoom if applicable) moves required for narrative motion work. Perhaps a cam, gear or power modulation would allow one to switch the lens motor profile to suit either modality via a toggle - sort of like switching an EOS lens between manual and auto focus.
I'm more than happy to have an Angie, Cooke, Leica-C or other proper cinema lens with a C-Motion controller and a rock star focus puller. On the gigs where that's a pipe dream, it would be nice to have a hybrid option between full bore cinema kit and stills lenses with tiny focus throws. This would be even more welcome if the lenses covered 20x40 and didn't require mounting motors to iris rods, Lemo cables everywhere, etc.
Cheers - #19
