Guys like this are the ones that are pulling the camera market down

[Nick Morrison]

Robert Rodriguez: Rebel without a crew.

In my opinion, you did the smartest thing in this market. And also: your customers have more respect for you, you are not the guy that comes there and ask for certain equipment vs other, or who need to test cameras before the job, to see how operate in the best way.

I embrace your mentality (i'm buying everything too), and unless you are not into movies and big $$$, in my opinion that's the best way to go.

Jean thanks for the kind words. Owning has been a risk, but it's created new opportunities. So far...it's been worth it. I'm glad it's a gamble that seems to be opening new doors for me. Those, usually, are the one's worth taking...

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

If they can generate the work to pay for and make money from the camera then there is financial benefit. If they can't generate the work then yes, they should rent.

It also depends on who many days of shoot vs prep your work tends to be. If you shoot doco, that is many days of shoot, often very little prep. But "grip truck shooting" involves many meetings and plans. For ads, I just worked one month as director/DP to shoot one day and this is not atypical in advertising. Each case is different.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

For me the value of my Red One MX is the beautiful pictures it makes, the reliability by knowing where it has been and how it has been treated, that it can be placed in high risk situations where I do not want to put my Epics in, and it goes out on jobs as often as my Epics as budgets dictate. My Red One will probably never become obsolete for making fantastic images, and will only be retired when repair costs exceed income generated by it. So far it has been 100% reliable since I purchased it new (SN 0269). How about that Canon, Arri, Sony, Panasonic, etc.? Someone a few years ago predicted that 4K raw was the future and the way to go. Thank you Jim Jannard and Red Team. The Red One MX's value has always exceeded its cost when placed in capable hands.

There I agree with you - there is value in knowing where a camera has been and who it has been treated. Nad yes, Red one has it's place - they call wanting an Epic, cannot afford it, the Red one goes out.

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

I took a look at the thread mentioned earlier here about someone selling their Red Ones at knock down prices.
Regardless of what people may think here, I think it was absolutely out of line for another member to come into this individual marketplace ad/thread and chastise him for not selling it at a high enough price. As if he somehow had a responsibility to the whole community to sell higher than he wanted to. As the owner of the camera, the only responsibility he has is to himself with regards to his material property. Further, if one is not interested in buying it is extremely bad etiquette to come into someone's classified just to knock him or challenge pricing. DVXuser now has a policy surrounding this for instance. If you are not a potential buyer and don't have any specific questions about the item, hand's off! People may say that the seller responded poorly, but in the beginning he did not and for me he was clearly provoked. If I were mod here, I would definitely have cleaned up that thread, warned those individuals who made comments extraneous to the sale and restated a policy of respect in the situation.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

I took a look at the thread mentioned earlier here about someone selling their Red Ones at knock down prices.
Regardless of what people may think here, I think it was absolutely out of line for another member to come into this individual marketplace ad/thread and chastise him for not selling it at a high enough price. As if he somehow had a responsibility to the whole community to sell higher than he wanted to. As the owner of the camera, the only responsibility he has is to himself with regards to his material property. Further, if one is not interested in buying it is extremely bad etiquette to come into someone's classified just to knock him or challenge pricing. DVXuser now has a policy surrounding this for instance. If you are not a potential buyer and don't have any specific questions about the item, hand's off! People may say that the seller responded poorly, but in the beginning he did not and for me he was clearly provoked. If I were mod here, I would definitely have cleaned up that thread, warned those individuals who made comments extraneous to the sale and restated a policy of respect in the situation.

This is a community. When you do things that harm the well-being of the community, you get slammed. You are being a jerk.

In some rental markets under-cutting will get you a beat-down (after a threat of one), as the rental market is partially mob-controlled. This is true in some European cities, and some say it is true in Montreal although I have no proof of this. I will say that I would never go below a certain price for rental.

Many products have minimum retail pricing new - including most Sony products. I don;t see why used would not have minimum pricing, and if I ran Reduser i would instigate minimum prices. Super cheap Reds hurt the Red brand. Sad fact is the less money someone has (with some exceptions0 the more likely they are to use the camera to make complete crap.

The free market does not really work. See abject poverty - food insecurity, even starvation - in very high percentages within the United States as proof.

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

This is a community. When you do things that harm the well-being of the community, you get slammed. You are being a jerk.

In some rental markets under-cutting will get you a beat-down (after a threat of one), as the rental market is partially mob-controlled. This is true in some European cities, and some say it is true in Montreal although I have no proof of this. I will say that I would never go below a certain price for rental.

Many products have minimum retail pricing new - including most Sony products. I don't see why used would not have minimum pricing, and if I ran Reduser i would instigate minimum prices. Super cheap Reds hurt the Red brand. Sad fact is the less money someone has (with some exceptions0 the more likely they are to use the camera to make complete crap.

The free market does not really work. See abject poverty - food insecurity, even starvation - in very high percentages within the United States as proof.

The last time I checked there was no one here setting a policy of minimum pricing. In fact if anything I would say that Jim Jannard/RED adheres to a free market policy.

Wasn't it RED that brought the pricing of high quality digital cameras down from $250,000 to $40,000? How would Jannard have reacted if Sony, ARRI and all the rest, had said "hey you should keep your pricing in line with where WE as a community of equipment suppliers for flmmaker's, think the market price should be!"? Which is essentially price fixing. I have a pretty good idea of how he would have reacted and it wouldn't probably have been all that different than the seller's. I leave you to imagine the exact terms he would have employed.

Further, I might add that now instead of one RED owner of 5 cameras, there are now potentially 5 RED owners about to enter your community, who when the time comes (and it always does) may just enjoy the product so much thanks to this opportunity that they are willing to move up to a newer, more expensive camera. That is more for your community, not less.

In any case this changes nothing. It is poor form and disrespectful to come into someone else's marketplace ad and quibble about pricing if you are not a prospective buyer.

 

[Jean Maurizio]

In some rental markets under-cutting will get you a beat-down (after a threat of one), as the rental market is partially mob-controlled. This is true in some European cities, and some say it is true in Montreal although I have no proof of this. I will say that I would never go below a certain price for rental.

AFAIK there are "cartel" for everything: cheese, meat, milk, pizza, bread, etcetera. Drug lords in Mexico didn't invent anything. But it happens mostly in food product, mineral water, and everything that is necessary for everybody (also cars and, for many people, drugs). Mobs into camera renting business? That is not really a great market for mafia. The thing is, if tomorrow you go out to beat who rent for less than you, you're automatically a mob, and here's come your statement: someone can be so desperate or so violent to act in that way. But i think no real mobs are interested in camera business (my opinion, take it like a grain of salt, i never knew mobs or mafia people in my life).

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Here's an idea for a productive thread. Call it something like Projects Shot On Red One 2013-2014. Everyone can post their work they have done with the Red One recently. So rather than focus on all of the negatives such as lower camera value, you highlight the positives by showing that good work is still being done with these cameras. That probably has a better chance of helping the camera retain some value in the marketplace than a thread that focuses on why others are hurting the market by selling lower than might seem fair.

Supply and demand will continue to drive this market. Too many cameras, not enough buyers prices are bound to drop, sometimes to uncomfortable levels. There's simply no other way around it.

What Rob referred to as "mob" control is probably better described as something like Local Standards of Pricing. I know ENG cameramen used to implement that in Boston and I'm sure elsewhere so that when a client called up they were getting a similar rate and based their hiring on who they liked to work with and availability. Price fixing? Call it what you want, but I think it worked out well for these guys. Not sure what the deal is at the moment, maybe it's not like that anymore.

 

[Vance Colvig]

Hey Dunkan, please ask your friend to contact me when he decides to sell his Red One packages for $3000 dollars each. I am very interested to buy another one for that price.

 

[David W. Jones]

Considered getting another Red One as the prices are so low, but with the passing of my avatar Kodi Bear, I think I will use that cash for a new puppy.

 

[Humberto Ramos]

I think you should mind your own damn bussiness. If there's anyone to blame for the price drop, it's Red themselves. Not some guy on the used market. (incase you're interested, a friend mine will be selling his 4 Red One packages for 3000$ each within a few weeks)

Welcome to the community Dunkan...

Will pass that, instead will buy a 5DIII, it will keep is value for longer, and it makes full HD 4:2:0 8bit.
Who cares about 4K, you will buy those 4k RAW cameras at a price of a Bigmac in a couple of months.

 

[Elsie N]

Considered getting another Red One as the prices are so low, but with the passing of my avatar Kodi Bear, I think I will use that cash for a new puppy.

Thinking along the same lines, but only because the price is so low. If it were higher I wouldn't consider it even knowing the continuing relevance of this camera.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic.

Sorry for the loss of your companion. Hope the next one measures up.

 

[Eric M Hurt]

I think you should mind your own damn bussiness. If there's anyone to blame for the price drop, it's Red themselves. Not some guy on the used market. (incase you're interested, a friend mine will be selling his 4 Red One packages for 3000$ each within a few weeks)

+1

Please give a yell when your friend unloads the Red Ones for 3K.
Cheers!

 

[Jean Maurizio]

In all seriousness, with all these $3000 to $5000 ready to shoot Red One MX in the market, offered by people even with 2 posts in reduser, is there anybody (please, not people with 10 posts) here that bought these cameras?

I'm asking because, if i had a cinema school (or if i was a broker, with cinema schools as my customers), i would takeover 20-30 red one, knowing that i'm fit for the next 5 years. 30 red one for $4000 each, you can win a war with it. One body die? You take the accessories for the other bodies, you take off the SSD module and the mount. How many people out there that need an SSD module for their R1mx?

i think someone is "buying" here, i don't trust all this depreciation. EOL? Sure it is, but only for rental.

 

[Humberto Ramos]

In all seriousness, with all these $3000 to $5000 ready to shoot Red One MX in the market, offered by people even with 2 posts in reduser, is there anybody (please, not people with 10 posts) here that bought these cameras?

I'm asking because, if i had a cinema school (or if i was a broker, with cinema schools as my customers), i would takeover 20-30 red one, knowing that i'm fit for the next 5 years. 30 red one for $4000 each, you can win a war with it. One body die? You take the accessories for the other bodies, you take off the SSD module and the mount. How many people out there that need an SSD module for their R1mx?

i think someone is "buying" here, i don't trust all this depreciation. EOL? Sure it is, but only for rental.

+ 1

 

[Humberto Ramos]

I think you're a elitist jerk...

Only 5 posts to show your caracter, great way to start on REDUSER...

 

[Björn Benckert]

Sorry to say. But I'm quite sure that the price for RED ONE will fall alot more quite quickly.

The schools will not pick them up as they will be to afraid that the kids will look at them as old cameras. And most private shooters will look at them as to big and heavy, the RED one is built to be handled by a camera team. It's not really run and gun / one person out shooting kind of camera.

And there is so many Red ones out there and now they do not really rent any more, simply because there is newer cameras and the rental companies needs to move on, so when the rental companies does not want to have them on the shelf any more and they do not want them around in a near by school or such, as that would work against them and slightly hurt their market .... So what do they do? Well , they sell them of on ebay for a low price, As the low price make sure it goes quick and not locally... when every rental house does that at the same time it's quite obvious that the price will fall as a rock. Why it's happening now? Well Epic goes dragon Alexa goes Alexa XT... If you rent out cameras you do not want to sit on to many generations, is a bad thing, the old camera takes market from the never one etc.... And remember that the RED ONE is sold in higher numbers than any cinema camera before it so it's super high in supply and quite low in demand. And again, it is a studio camera, and for such use people tend to pretty much only use the latest and greatest simply because the costs for renting a studio, fisher dolly, techno crane, steady cam op and all the rest of the crew is so expansive so then the rental cost for the camera body is the least of your concerns, better then to simply pick the best one possible.

So simply there is no clear market for it any more. Of course there will be skate kids and indy film makers that will buy RED ONE's but I doubt that they are many enough to keep the prices up. And they will look at it and value it against BM, C1, Scarlet and all the other cameras that are much smaller and easier for them to use.

Do not take me wrong Personally I really think RED ONE is a top notch camera and I very much believe it was sold for way to little even when it first came out but that does not change much. Supply and demand is in play, it does not matter what we think of it.

 

[Aaron Champion]

Hurts the small business production company. Still owe a LOT on the original MXed red one's. We have two, and we cant get out of debt with them. Not one rental in past two months. What's a guy like me supposed to do?

I love them, and use them on all my own projects, but no one wants to rent them any more. Just Epics. Fine and all for those who could afford to make the jump to Epic, but for me, I was still in debt with the red ones, so I could not make the jump.

All in all, the 4k price package for a red one just means I'm really hurting. Not because used ones go for so cheap, but because now so many people have them, and at 4k a package that puts the evaluation of a day rate on the package at around $200 a day. Ouch. That's a lot less than my 1/20th of 90k rates that we used to get.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Hurts the small business production company. Still owe a LOT on the original MXed red one's. We have two, and we cant get out of debt with them. Not one rental in past two months. What's a guy like me supposed to do?

I love them, and use them on all my own projects, but no one wants to rent them any more. Just Epics. Fine and all for those who could afford to make the jump to Epic, but for me, I was still in debt with the red ones, so I could not make the jump.

All in all, the 4k price package for a red one just means I'm really hurting. Not because used ones go for so cheap, but because now so many people have them, and at 4k a package that puts the evaluation of a day rate on the package at around $200 a day. Ouch. That's a lot less than my 1/20th of 90k rates that we used to get.

Aaron, when did you guys buy in and are you in a saturated market? There was a very short window of time where one could buy a Red One and make money based on the short supply of them, the novelty of a 4K camera, etc. Once that window ended it was back to normal business. Having established clients, being in markets where demand is high, supply is lower. Once that window closed buying a Red One was no longer an automatic cash cow. I'm not sure it was ever actually an automatic, but there was a period of time where it was easier to get rentals for sure.

We are six years in now. The Red One is past its rental prime. Where it is valuable is as a production tool. You can still use it and get great results that hold up with current generation cinema cameras. Yes, it shows its age in certain ways but still very formidable.

Please don't take this the wrong way because this is meant as respectful as possible but how much a production company owes on these cameras doesn't really come into play for what is influencing the price reductions. Someone who bought in in 2008 had 6 years to recoup. Someone who bought in in 2012 has had a couple of years. Either scenario could result in a profit or a loss just comes down to sound business practices.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Sorry to say. But I'm quite sure that the price for RED ONE will fall alot more quite quickly.

The schools will not pick them up as they will be to afraid that the kids will look at them as old cameras. And most private shooters will look at them as to big and heavy, the RED one is built to be handled by a camera team. It's not really run and gun / one person out shooting kind of camera.

And there is so many Red ones out there and now they do not really rent any more, simply because there is newer cameras and the rental companies needs to move on, so when the rental companies does not want to have them on the shelf any more and they do not want them around in a near by school or such, as that would work against them and slightly hurt their market .... So what do they do? Well , they sell them of on ebay for a low price, As the low price make sure it goes quick and not locally... when every rental house does that at the same time it's quite obvious that the price will fall as a rock. Why it's happening now? Well Epic goes dragon Alexa goes Alexa XT... If you rent out cameras you do not want to sit on to many generations, is a bad thing, the old camera takes market from the never one etc.... And remember that the RED ONE is sold in higher numbers than any cinema camera before it so it's super high in supply and quite low in demand. And again, it is a studio camera, and for such use people tend to pretty much only use the latest and greatest simply because the costs for renting a studio, fisher dolly, techno crane, steady cam op and all the rest of the crew is so expansive so then the rental cost for the camera body is the least of your concerns, better then to simply pick the best one possible.

So simply there is no clear market for it any more. Of course there will be skate kids and indy film makers that will buy RED ONE's but I doubt that they are many enough to keep the prices up. And they will look at it and value it against BM, C1, Scarlet and all the other cameras that are much smaller and easier for them to use.

Do not take me wrong Personally I really think RED ONE is a top notch camera and I very much believe it was sold for way to little even when it first came out but that does not change much. Supply and demand is in play, it does not matter what we think of it.

I think the trend towards smaller cameras is fine and in some situations really does provide a distinct advantage. However, it also has disadvantages and has resulted in some lazy, unmotivated handheld in my opinion. Also, very light cameras don't always stabilize so well and I see that in some camera moves as well. For run and gun work, sure I think having a small camera with smaller support systems is great. But on narrative shoots in controlled environments where solid tripod systems, jibs, dollies, etc are used I have never found the Red One to be a problem. I think the size thing is overrated. First, it's a self contained camera meaning a lot of the I/O is built into the camera. No modules. Yes, people put tons of Gak on it and it builds up to be a beast but I've seen BMCC rigs that look silly big as well due to a ton of accessories being added to them. The Red One body is only 10 lbs. I've had it configured in 15lb rigs. That's not a lot of weight. Even 20lbs is not that big a deal. Bottom line, on a shoot with an appropriate sized crew, camera size is usually not a limiting factor unless you need to get into a very tight space. But these days, people try to get by with less crew, so guess it depends on what kind of projects you work on. I would not categorize it as a studio camera though. It's still small enough that I have been able to work out of a backpack with it.