Good Red, Bad Red

[Steve Freebairn]

Good post Brook!

 

[Kristina Winn]

Brook Willard wrote:
Moral: have a tech who knows the camera, have backups in place and prepare for the worst. Don't hold the camera's hand unless it needs it.

Very well put. We've had our film cameras go down for various reasons. Albeit a rare happening, but it does happen. Having a backup is great insurance.

On that note, our Reds have been good. We had a bad power board in one, got it promptly fixed and it's been clear (so far) sailing for both.

Kristina

 

[Kenn Michael]

I've seen a camera not even blink in situations that would've turned a film camera's innards into a fine powder.

I've also seen the camera shit its brains out because somebody gave it a funny look.

Great quote!

 

[Obin Olson]

my battery plate is still a jank, even after getting a new one camera has been good though...serial 610 build 15

 

[david farland]

This is one scarey thread,
Big T's & Brook's experience show Red is not up to the rigors of 'general' usage without failing and that when handling the camera you need to exhibit an electronic engineer's levels of care so as not to damage a 'delicate' piece of camera.
Dave

I wouldn't say that in the least.

...I've also seen the camera shit its brains out because somebody gave it a funny look.

...Moral: have a tech who knows the camera, have backups in place and prepare for the worst.

i'm not sure what to reply to here but i'll try.
Thank's for the first hand board/fault report.....nice specifics
I would dearly like to get the stats from Red's rework centre outlining the broken component (as well as the user fault reports!). I can also imagine the Red rework centre guys now now most of the common fixes and the turnaround is very rapid. i guess Red mk 2 will have alot of learned wisdom in it. also I can understand Red not wanting to give a summary/frequency of component failures but that still doesn't stop this forum producing a list of common component failures.
Hopefully trends would appear, highlighting 'soft' components (or builds).
If I knew 5% of the CF readers failed, I'd keep a spare. If i knew that it didn't matter what I did, there was a 10% chance that some component internal to the camera body failing, I probably buy a second body than wait for my pre-arranged backup to arrive.

Either way I do better with specifics not generalities.
Maybe camera operators can protect this component ...or maybe not.Was the fault due to static or not. Maybe they should get kicked off the set for wearing synthetic clothing...maybe not.
Either way when we're better informed when aware of the risks, so we can take appropriate action that would reduce these risks and not just be generally be nice to it.
D

 

[Phil Bates]

No problems with mine, love the reliability.

Several years ago our new F900R crapped out on us the first day of a shoot and we lost several hours of costly production time (50 extras and crew hanging around waiting). The problem was intermittent and appeared later on another shoot.

Phil
http://www.artbeats.com

 

[Cail Young]

Hopefully trends would appear, highlighting 'soft' components (or builds).

Right off the bat, the battery plates seem to be the prime suspect for this.