Is this camera a joke?

[Matthew W. Phillips]

you're right, you don't see. that's beyond obvious. but that's okay.
there are plenty of people working "in the real world" with RED, myself included. I would/will absolutely recommend the use of RED whenever possible.

I am curious Shawn, how do you feel about the findings of you and Charles Haines' shootout of 35mm vs RED? Do you feel the RED performed favorably VS 35mm film? I'm not being obtuse, just curious as to your actual thoughts on that.

 

[Shawn Booth]

I am curious Shawn, how do you feel about the findings of you and Charles Haines' shootout of 35mm vs RED? Do you feel the RED performed favorably VS 35mm film? I'm not being obtuse, just curious as to your actual thoughts on that.

for what we were trying to do, I feel it went well. Obviously there were aspects to "our tests" that should've/could've been different. I also question how the RED footage was "corrected".

This test wasn't done for professional applications but rather an educational environment knowledge gathering if you will.

It was not executed in the best of manners.

 

[Dj Joofa]

I am curious Shawn, how do you feel about the findings of you and Charles Haines' shootout of 35mm vs RED? Do you feel the RED performed favorably VS 35mm film? I'm not being obtuse, just curious as to your actual thoughts on that.

I think it is difficult to answer a generic question such as Red vs. film. Though, I personally think that Red camera is not ready yet for prime-time use, mostly because of cumbersome post-production work flow, I still think that there is value to a high-quality all digital acquisition that saves time in certain situations where a film camera is not very conducive.

It is just a matter of time when digital acquisition becomes universally acceptable. And when that happens all relevant companies (Red included) would have contributed their part to it.

Red must get a special mentioning of making the technology available at a price that common people can afford it -- and that is no mean accomplishment in itself.

Remember you shoot with what is available to you and not what should have been the most ideal equipment.

 

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Red must get a special mentioning of making the technology available at a price that common people can afford it -- and that is no mean accomplishment in itself.

I'm not sure this is accurate. The "average" person in the USA is middle class and the average people in many other countries make less than that. Do you think the "average" middle class American can afford a camera that has a body that cost 17,500...add to that a lens that is between 4,950-6,500 or more. Then tack on the batteries, drives, etc and you easily have a 30k package...at least 25k. Some Americans don't spend that much on a vehicle that they finance over 3-7 years. Granted, the RED is far cheaper than other digital alternatives. It is a stretch though to say it's a camera for "common people."

 

[Dj Joofa]

I'm not sure this is accurate. The "average" person in the USA is middle class and the average people in many other countries make less than that. Do you think the "average" middle class American can afford a camera that has a body that cost 17,500...add to that a lens that is between 4,950-6,500 or more. Then tack on the batteries, drives, etc and you easily have a 30k package...at least 25k. Some Americans don't spend that much on a vehicle that they finance over 3-7 years. Granted, the RED is far cheaper than other digital alternatives. It is a stretch though to say it's a camera for "common people."

Mathew, somethings are self-explanatory and must be obvious from context. The "common people" (and not "average people" as you imply) in my message referred to mid level DPs, camera men, and other people associated with film production work and not middle-class hobbyists.

These people have previously no recourse to the high-quality digital acquisition that is available through Red unless they opted for really expensive cameras such as Sony F900, etc, and for some cameras expensive decks to go with them.

I appreciate that Red likes to keep their stuff relatively cheaper at a very high quality. However, what I don't like is that they openly flout compatibility with existing products in some cases -- it is a no-no in engineering community; backward compatibility is an almost must; this is how you bring more people on board.

(Additionally, I still don't like their website. I still think it looks more like an online retail store than a professional company :angry2: )

 

[Roberto B]

Ahh, then if not Emmanual, then it must be Patrick De Sizo? Did I spell that right? I know I'm on the right track here at least! :wacko:

oh boy the things you know.. :biggrin: on that one, you should ask them.. the last one i heard or read was the real poster would be jim jannard himself.. :excl: ###.com forums :excl:

 

[David Birdy]

In all fairness Dave, there are digital shooters out there that would be crying home to mama if they worked with film. Imagine actually having to plan your shots and rehearse a lot because you don't have unlimited resources. Many digital shooters who try film end up giving up way too early.

This is not about film shooters vs digital shooters, or (Should not be).

The original post is just a rant because someone did not prep their gear and did not hire the correct people with the correct knowledge of the equipment.

No matter what industry you are in, if you believe you know everything their is to know about your craft, your setting yourself up for a fall...and that seems to be the root of the problem here...
Just my 2 cents worth!

Dave

 

[REDHKSC]

The joker treats this camera like a Joke, and become a kind of " Toys " in the DSLR camera world + APPLE though.

I have smelled the SMOKE !!! RED is overcook by someone. Guess Who ?

STEW.

 

[Andreas Fernbrant]

The joker treats this camera like a Joke, and become a kind of " Toys " in the DSLR camera world + APPLE though.

I have smelled the SMOKE !!! RED is overcook by someone. Guess Who ?

STEW.

What?

 

[Jeff Brown]

Oh my Leige Stew!

I'll have what you're having.


Jeff Brown
RED708

 

[J.D. Frey]

This is not about film shooters vs digital shooters, or (Should not be).

The original post is just a rant because someone did not prep their gear and did not hire the correct people with the correct knowledge of the equipment.

No matter what industry you are in, if you believe you know everything their is to know about your craft, your setting yourself up for a fall...and that seems to be the root of the problem here...
Just my 2 cents worth!

Dave

I agree- The only problem this camera has is that it is new. One of our team went to pick up two red one cameras from a rental house, and he knew more about the camera than they did. I was also talking to an AV installer and told them about the camera and that we wanted to buy a 2k projector. His answer to me was that even though the red was an expensive camera built by sony (WTF) that is was more of a pro-sumer camera...

My jaw dropped- I'm a client of this guy and he's making wild untrue accusations (not to mention basically telling me i made a wrong choice) about 100 grand worth of gear we use every day!

WTF is up with people in this business!

Anything that happens to be new, brilliant, and (comparatively) inexpensive raises doubts, which cause people to go looking for failure where it doesn't exist.

 

[Michael "Dorkman" Scott]

I think it is difficult to answer a generic question such as Red vs. film. Though, I personally think that Red camera is not ready yet for prime-time use, mostly because of cumbersome post-production work flow, I still think that there is value to a high-quality all digital acquisition that saves time in certain situations where a film camera is not very conducive.

If you shoot film, the film must be developed and transferred to some kind of editing medium, either via scan or telecine. You have to pay someone to do that and you will either get video streams or, if you're working on a feature or something like that, DPX sequences.

Instead of paying the lab, you can pay a post house to do the conversion of RED to your preferred format (or invest yourself in ScratchCine) and after that point be working on exactly what your workflow is set up for.

Now, granted, I'm coming out of video so what I know of film is what I've learned second-hand, but I don't see how RED's post workflow is necessarily any more "cumbersome" than film's.

 

[Steve Sanacore]

Hi,

If that is so then any financial advantage of using a cheaper camera just evaporated! Extra bodies seem to cost $800 (4%) per day.

Stephen

I have never been on a location shoot without a backup camera. Recently on an island location, both Arri's went down, (435 and 235),with two separate problems causing a huge delay before one of them started working again.

Unless a rental house is down the street, how can anyone shoot without backups?

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I don't see how RED's post workflow is necessarily any more "cumbersome" than film's.

It's not really. The problem is that it's "favored" right now to workflows that is not that well implemented into the daily workflow process with the production companies. This + it being a new camera and more importantly format leads people to speculate and those speculations are generally in third hand and completely wrong or untrue.

Let's face it - FCP and Scratch were not the most used systems, they're very good and there are post houses that provides with them, but they're not that many. This means that to shoot on RED means production need to go to Post Porduction facilities that they maybe haven't used in the past. That's what's the problem.

People have been using AVID for a long time and are very used to it. To have a format that doesn't support that feels "uncomfortable" it doesn't matter that you actually can solve it. It's that it's not solved already that bothers them.

I've been a FCP user for years and prefer to edit my stuff in FCP but the amount of times I've argued with producers because they can't (don't want to) find a FCP suite or that the editor "only" knows AVID.

I think the problem here is that only certain systems has had support and it's know been a little to long for it. RED had most probably been better of not bothering about any support for the camera (except for RED Alert) and then let the market solve itself, but it wouldn't have been easy for us instead.

I've been pushing RED for my productions and they've all put it on my head to make sure it works. I've been working double time to see to it that it has and if anything had gone wrong I would have been blamed. It doesn't matter that it could have gone equally wrong if we've shot it on film. Now I took that chance because I'm in many ways stupid :whistling: and like the challenge, but I think there's many people out there who prefers to wait instead.

My two cents

Fredrik Calliinggard

 

[David Birdy]

I have never been on a location shoot without a backup camera. Recently on an island location, both Arri's went down, (435 and 235),with two separate problems causing a huge delay before one of them started working again.

Unless a rental house is down the street, how can anyone shoot without backups?

Steve,

Bingo!

Dave

 

[Stephen Williams]

Unless a rental house is down the street, how can anyone shoot without backups?

Hi,

I have been working in this business for nearly 30 years, I have never had the budget for back up equipment, so in effect you always have 2 of everything do you? 2 milo motion control units, that will be the day!

Stephen

 

[M Hsu]

I've heard all this stuff before when audio recording went digital and then again when photography went digital. I was there for both of those revolutions and made enough money to buy me a RED camera for the next. I personally don't mind being the guinea pig. If I have a serious shoot though, you can bet I've got backups for my backups.

 

[laguun]

We typically backup in remote location and/or with tight schedules - i.e. for lamborghini commercials in desert all cameras, including the ones for the aerial units were backed up. Working principle, no matter if 435, hdcam or red.

Also, production insurances sometimes do insist on having backup.

 

[jbeale]

backup gear

backup gear

Even at the bottom end of event video (weddings) I always had backup gear. I guess everyone has their own ideas about acceptable risk.

 

[jon erwin]

I've shot six music videos on RED and I love it... But I wouldn't suggest just jumping in. On the first one we did I called the label and said, "can you throw me a low budget video for a smaller artist and not put any pressure on me on set. This is a new camera and I need to figure it out". This gave us plenty of time on set to experiment and get used to it all.

Since then we've gotten faster and faster as a crew with RED. The guys are right it's NOT a video camera... not at all. But it's still faster / easier than shooting film if you ask me. Not to mention the $$ savings!