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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 :)

Fan noise no fun

U

Ulf Palenius

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Hi!

Have searched this forum for posts about the noise from the cooling fan, but found nothing? That’s strange as I find the noise from the fan being a BIG problem, especially when shooting in silent indoor environment and close to the actors.

The camera is quite new (#6371, build 20) and the fan operates as I believe it should; I’ve set it on Auto and it decreases in number of revolutions when I hit the record button. It then of course makes less noise, but it’s still very irritating. Changing the mode to “Quiet” or “Silent” makes no difference, the minimum number of revolutions seem to be the same in all settings. Surrounding temp ca. 20 °C.

I know that my Røde mic isn’t the best and I’m planning to by a premium Sennheiser or Schoeps mic, but fear that won’t eliminate the problem totally. And filtering the noise in post doesn’t seems right.

BTW, have you seen the documentary on Ingmar Begman when he finds out that the irritating noise in his headphones comes from the new (2002) digital HD cameras they where shooting his “Saraband” with, the Thomson 6000? He wasn’t glad...
See also http://www.ingmarbergman.se/page.asp?guid=161E6944-82BA-4329-96DD-82EC615948E8&LanCD=EN.

So... I have at least two things in common with Bergman: I’m Swedish and I dislike camera-sounds...

Part from the fan noise, the RED is super!!!

Any advise from you experienced people? It must be a common problem to a lot of you.

/Ulf Palenius, Falun, Sweden
 
It is possible that your fan may have a bad bearing or for some other reason be more noisy than most, but I don't know how you could prove that, except by comparing directly to another R1 camera in the same space.

Do you have the microphone mounted on the camera (hopefully not)?
 
Thanks, John, for your answer.
The mic is several meters – and pointed – away from the camera.

Anyone else? There's a compact sound of silence on the forum about this, I believe...

I try the support and see what they can come up with.

/u
 
Similar to other cinema cams...

Similar to other cinema cams...

We've found our R1 to be similar in noise when recording or quieter than most other similar cams. When using a shotgun or short shotgun on a boom, even very close to the camera, we've not had a problem with fan noise. When actors are very close to the lens on some shots though with many cameras it can be an issue.

In those cases, I've heard of some folks using a simple solution with R1 and with Super 16 and even newer 35mm Arri cams when shooting actors very close to the lens - throw a heavy blanket over the thing for the brief periods you are recording.

If you are having fan noise problems in cases where the audio being recorded is not super close (like, 1 meter) to the cam, you are - no disrespect meant - doing something wrong with the audio.
 
also fans on chargers are noisy

also fans on chargers are noisy

When I have camera powered through DC - a charger, the fan noise is sometimes too strong, when in quiet environment. Any solutions for that? I have not find a place where the fan could be turned off. thanks.
 
also fans on chargers are noisy
Click to expand...

you should always use batteries, you never know....

Though I agree, even when the charger is away from the set, in another room, mine is pretty noisy and the sound guy can have it recorded sometimes, when walls are thin.

But there's a lot of noisy charger, not especially red charger.
 
Noise on set

Noise on set

We also offer a modestly priced 100W capacity D.C power source which is silent.
 
hitting the record button...

hitting the record button...

Ulf Palenius said:
Hi!

The camera is quite new (#6371, build 20) and the fan operates as I believe it should; I’ve set it on Auto and it decreases in number of revolutions when I hit the record button. It then of course makes less noise, but it’s still very irritating.
Click to expand...

makes my own fan totally silent, as far as I can judge... Anyway, I doubt even my Sennheiser 816 would hear a thing...
 
Ours (#791) is very, very quiet while recording when set to "silent" mode.

Stephen
 
I'm surprised so many people (people who own Reds, I bet!) consider the fan noise on the Red to not be a problem. I have found the Red One, with fans set to 'Silent', the noisiest camera I've yet encountered (even noisier than the D20!). It is OK for exteriors, not to mention music videos and non-dialogue commercials, but shooting interior dialogue is difficult - it's like having a ballast in the room. The camera is not really broadcast-quality in this respect, and choice of microphone is irrelevant (I'm assuming anyone shooting with a Red will be using top quality gun mics or hypercardioids).

A heavy blanket over the camera really does seem the only option, and I can't imagine many operators being happy with that! Turning off the camera between shots helps, since the fans get louder as the camera gets hotter - I'm quite willing to believe that the 'silent' mode IS almost silent when the temperature's below 16C, as suggested in the manual, but how many lit interiors are below 16C? I suspect most are closer to 30C.

A downside of having the camera in (not-at-all-)'silent' mode is that the camera then becomes even noisier between takes as the fans struggle to compensate, with the consequence that many sounds that a recordist would be listening out for (such as planes) are masked until you actually turn over - hardly ideal.

Similarly, the fan noise prevents normal boom operation, since reangling of a gun or hypercardioid mic even slightly will change the pitch and level of the fan noise, making it much more difficult to filter in post.

I've done a couple of theatrically-released features with the Red, each with several camera bodies, and would be surprised if this is just a problem specific to the individual Reds I've seen. I'd be very interested in seeing some technical statistics regarding the SPL of the camera's fans to see if it tallies with my experience...
 
I've had some problems over the years with camera fan noise as well. Typically in small live rooms. One tip I would offer is to consider the pickup pattern of your mic and the various sound-reflective surfaces of the room.

For example, with a hypercardioid mic, you are going to be picking up some sound coming from directly behind the mic. So pointing the mic directly away from the camera may actually be worse than pointing it 45 degrees away. Also, I now think about how the fan noise might bounce off the ceiling and make its way to the back of the mic. Putting a flag or something to block that pathway can make a difference and not be that big of a pain.

I've had plenty of that 2100hz fan noise end up on my recordings, but I do feel I've gotten better at minimizing it. Oh, and finally, my most common mistake (other than not hiring a sound guy!) is not booming close enough to the actor. That causes the ratio of fan noise to dialog to get really out of whack.
 
Andrew Rowe said:
A heavy blanket over the camera really does seem the only option, and I can't imagine many operators being happy with that! Turning off the camera between shots helps, since the fans get louder as the camera gets hotter...
Click to expand...
Steven Soderbergh went into some detail about the heat problems during the production of Che, solved by using ice packs and all kinds of stuff to cool down the camera (as he discusses at this link). But this was an extreme situation where it was often over 100 degrees on location. Any digital camera would have trouble with this kind of situation.

Camera issues are often exacerbated by problematic locations. If the room has lots of hard reflective walls or lots of windows, it's going to make any camera noise even worse. A good sound mixer will know when and how to control these problems with sound blankets and other techniques, including the use of shotguns vs. hypercardioids vs. lavs (or a combination).

Having said that: not too long ago, I was on the set of a certain major Hollywood comedy, being shot with three simultaneous Panavision Panaflexes. I couldn't believe how noisy the cameras were. I turned to the sound mixer and asked, "doesn't anybody hear this?" He shrugged and said, "I think they saved money by getting film without sprocket holes. The cameras are punching the holes as they roll." I would almost believe it, since it was almost as loud as a toy machine gun going rat-tat-tat in the room.

The dialog editors were able to fix a lot of these problems in the mix, and I think there was very little ADR in the final film. But it's never ideal when you move cameras very close to actors in critical dialog scenes. Microphone selection, mike placement, and the mixer's experience make an enormous difference. The TC Electronic DNS1000 (and newer DNS2000) can also reduce steady-state noise quite a bit in the final mix, and I see this being used in lots of TV shows where there's little or no time for ADR. It can reduce fan and camera noise by about 50% in some situations, but all of these solutions have pros and cons, and there's no magic bullet that works in all cases.
 
The only camera I have encountered that was louder than the Red was an Arri 435.
Whoever says that the Red's fan noise was not an issue has no idea what he is talking about. Period.
 
When I set my camera to silent, when I hit record it literally goes silent. You would have to put your ear to the camera to hear anything.

Either there are some settings you are not getting right, or there is a difference with my camera.

If I leave my camera on the HOT fan setting it would be a problem.

As some have said, if you are using the CHARGER to provide power, it's internal fan will be a problem, but this is solved by using the Red Power pack or batteries.
 
Build 30.4.1 has gone back to being about as quiet as I remember Build 17 being. Camera recording, no noise. Camera in standby, loud fan.

I think Build 20 or 21 was where it got really noisy when recording.
 
Mine is silent under build 21. Are you sure there weren't extra settings that were missed?
 
jimhare said:
Mine is silent under build 21. Are you sure there weren't extra settings that were missed?
Click to expand...
Could have been. All I remember was that when recording the fan would actually go faster as if it was dealing with more heat. Was only using one camera at the time so do not know if it was just specific to that camera, but I'm pretty sure I was using default fan settings. Didn't bother me much so I never sought out the reason.

Edit: Could have changed fan settings while setting up a new build but do not recall doing so.
 
Makes sense. Glad to hear it's quiet again! :bigear:

Just seems like there are a lot of users making blanket statements about the camera as if they were clear facts rather than potentially issues caused by their own settings.

Gets a bit frustrating, particularly when it doesn't match the experience of most users. :cheers2:

It's like when I give tech support to my family. When they ask "why did the computer do that stupid thing!!?" I usually answer "because you told it too..."

Then they throw something at me so I tell them how to fix it.
 
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