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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 :)

How many of you are taking the final chance to go Epic to Dragon?

Jonathan Petts

Jonathan Petts

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Hello All!

I just thought I would see how many people here are thinking of taking their Epic up to a Dragon now that the price has dropped back down.

We are currently planning to take the upgrade path so that hopefully a little further down the line (possibly a year) we may be able to take a weapon upgrade (if they allow these upgrades for long enough - I seem to get the impression the upgrade to Weapon from Dragon wont be for very long), could somone maybe shed some light on this?

If this is not the case - having the Dragon as part of kit would be a very nice upgrade to have as part of our kit and the better low light performance is very attractive for me as a shooter and those lovely OLPF's. Unlike many of you very hard working guys we cannot afford to simply jump to the latest camera system when it comes out so we are trying to plan for the future a bit here, so I guess this is a bit of a harder choice for us to make - that's why It would be nice to know what may of your Epic owners are currently thinking in terms of your next step!

Jonny
 
knew from the start that i will skip the Dragon and go to whatever is next, so let's see what that Weapon is and what it does, but i tell you my Epic is freakin awesome!
 
No hurry to go to Weapon from Dragon. Upgrades won't even start until mid-year. The only deadline looming is the ability to upgrade MX to Dragon. RED is offering extra incentive to people who already have or do buy the Dragon upgrade before NAB. And they have also dropped the price back down to the $9500 for even more incentive. In the coming months, they will phase out the MX to Dragon upgrades as they convert production lines over to Weapon. Once that happens, any non-converted MX cameras will no longer be able to get the Dragon upgrade. And for a camera to remain eligible for the RED upgrade path, the camera needs to receive these major upgrades.

We do not know as of yet what the upgrade involves and if there will be multiple options as there was when upgrading in the past from the RED One to EPIC. However, Jarred has said that there is no hurry to upgrade to Weapon from Dragon and they will continue to sell and support Dragon cameras for some time to come.

I think the only real unfortunate aspect to all of this is that even the early Dragon upgrades have only had Dragon for a year, most for quite a bit less, and it looks like the ability to upgrade MX to Dragon may end within the next 6 to 8 months or so. However, that is a big part of the RED program or philosophy. When you get onboard the RED train, it doesn't stop. They have always taken care of their customers and their upgrade plan has so far been great for a lot of us. It's not always good for everyone though and sometimes budget and schedules just don't align with the program.
 
Paramon Ivanovich said:
knew from the start that i will skip the Dragon and go to whatever is next, so let's see what that Weapon is and what it does, but i tell you my Epic is freakin awesome!
Click to expand...

You do understand that you won't be able to upgrade to Weapon unless you are a Dragon? As Jeff points out, the upgrade to Dragon ends this summer. I apologize if I am telling you something you already know. :)
 
We have an Epic-M, and was in line for a Dragon upgrade when my colleague came across the Dragon BT offer. Luckily it was a late Friday night and he had had some wine, compared the 2; Upgrade or EPIC-M and get one Dragon for $10000, or spend $20000 and get a new Dragon and keep our EPIC-M?
Luckily the wine made it easy to spend that extra $10000.
The dollar is almost 30% more expensive for us than what it was back last fall, so I don´t think we will upgrade our EPIC-M, but keep it and just upgrade the Dragon. It´s too expensive for us to do both right now.
This way we will be able to keep our original EPIC-M (that I love) and still use all our stuff that goes with it, plus being a part of the exciting new direction with the Weapon.
 
Thank you Jeff that was a really useful insite and very assuring post - very nice to hear there is no rush to go to weapon.

It's very true when you get on the RED train you stay on it :P haha which I guess is a good and bad thing.

I look forward to sending our Epic over ! It will get a well deserved 4 week holiday to the States ;)
 
Joachim, when was that Dragon BT offer.. Totally missed it.
It was 20K for a BT epic dragon?
 
Jonathan Petts said:
Thank you Jeff that was a really useful insite and very assuring post - very nice to hear there is no rush to go to weapon.

It's very true when you get on the RED train you stay on it :P haha which I guess is a good and bad thing.

I look forward to sending our Epic over ! It will get a well deserved 4 week holiday to the States ;)
Click to expand...

Be prepared for a huge step forward :-)

Cheers, Ulf
 
Yes Patrick, sorry to make you aware of that offer half a year too late. They got quite a few back from some military thing and they were gone in less than 24 hours I think. They all had only 5 hours of use, ours looked like new.
 
Stacey Spears said:
You do understand that you won't be able to upgrade to Weapon unless you are a Dragon? As Jeff points out, the upgrade to Dragon ends this summer. I apologize if I am telling you something you already know. :)
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no, of course i know that, but if MX to Dragon deal will still be on when i'll be able actually test drive a Weapon - i am still good, if not - probably there is a reason for that.
 
I will be upgrading my last two Epic MX to Dragon before NAB. It was a choice to not upgrade them before the price change. When customers don't want to pay our Dragon day rates, we say no problem, use one of our Epic MX at a lower rate. It allows us to get better rates on our Dragons, so it made us more money to keep them MX and pay the extra cost for Dragon later. Now that there is a real deadline, I will upgrade them before NAB. And I am super happy about the upgrade price change! Thanks Jarred!!!

I have no idea what Weapon is or if we will want it, but I know I want the option!


Dusty
 
Paramon Ivanovich said:
knew from the start that i will skip the Dragon and go to whatever is next, so let's see what that Weapon is and what it does, but i tell you my Epic is freakin awesome!
Click to expand...


It will probably cost you a lot more I'm afraid. But it depends on what you do, if you rent out or clients have demands, Dragon demands will increase over time. MX will be non-desirable
 
I will upgrade my Epic MX to Dragon and then to Weapon eventually (when more funds) because I don't want to have an EOL product. Hopefully the weapon is not another 10K but I have a feeling it will, maybe even more... one step at a time :)
 
Christoffer Glans said:
It will probably cost you a lot more I'm afraid. But it depends on what you do, if you rent out or clients have demands, Dragon demands will increase over time. MX will be non-desirable
Click to expand...
more - probably, a lot - i don't think so, 2-3K maybe, maybe not even, i don't rent out , and all my clients are web delivery, the ones who know cameras hire me for what i do, the rest can't tell Scarlet from Epic, and never even heard about Dragon, all they know - Red is good!
 
Upgrading from MX to Dragon, makes more sense to me then before after hearing Dragon sensor can be popped into the Weapon. Also I hate the idea of trying to sell my epic MX, eBay is the worst and I probably would have drummed up a few jobs to pay for the upgrade in the time it would take to finagle a sale on the MX.
 
Paramon Ivanovich said:
more - probably, a lot - i don't think so, 2-3K maybe, maybe not even, i don't rent out , and all my clients are web delivery, the ones who know cameras hire me for what i do, the rest can't tell Scarlet from Epic, and never even heard about Dragon, all they know - Red is good!
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you are right.

I debated doing the Dragon upgrade last year, but from what I've seen it wasn't worth $10k for me. I'm very very happy with MX and will hold on to it until sometime down the road when I know what I'm buying and have the extra resources to pay for it. I doubt it will be more then $5k loss to avoid the upgrade path and in 2 years that's nothing.

In the meantime I'm shooting on the same camera that shot Prometheus, the Hobbit etc. If I can't make amazing pictures with it, then I'm doing something wrong!
 
Paramon Ivanovich said:
more - probably, a lot - i don't think so, 2-3K maybe, maybe not even, i don't rent out , and all my clients are web delivery, the ones who know cameras hire me for what i do, the rest can't tell Scarlet from Epic, and never even heard about Dragon, all they know - Red is good!
Click to expand...

Then that will work for you... but to run the numbers. I bought a used Scarlet brain for $4700 I upgraded that to Epic MX $9500 and then bought equipment for $12500.
If I upgrade to Dragon for $9500 I have in the end bought a Dragon with all necessary side equipment for $36200...
A new Epic Dragon brain is $29000. That's a $5300 difference by doing a upgrade path compared to a whole new Dragon.
That's money I could put into the Weapon instead if I want or have the Dragon while it's still hot and then upgrade.
 
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