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Is this the last Camera to Buy?

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Ron Elliot

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I have a RED EPIC M and will soon have the Dragon upgrade, I am a filmmaker/ content creator and not a rental house ( but do rent my equipment from time to time) the new specs on this camera and a few others I saw at NAB leads me to believe that we have come to the end of the road with camera technology at least for a few years and like the Arri 435 we will have a workhorse camera that will be around for a few years.


Ron Elliot
FILM MAKER
BROOKLYN / JERSEY
RED EPIC M, ALEXA PLUS, SONY F3, CANON 5D M3
 
Ron Elliot said:
I have a RED EPIC M and will soon have the Dragon upgrade, I am a filmmaker/ content creator and not a rental house ( but do rent my equipment from time to time) the new specs on this camera and a few others I saw at NAB leads me to believe that we have come to the end of the road with camera technology at least for a few years and like the Arri 435 we will have a workhorse camera that will be around for a few years.


Ron Elliot
FILM MAKER
BROOKLYN / JERSEY
RED EPIC M, ALEXA PLUS, SONY F3, CANON 5D M3
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They'll probably be Oscar winners shot on iphones and heros ... so you have your answer ... there might even be a few more good films shot on 35mm, who knows?
 
It won't be your last, but will last you a long time and pay for itself over and over again.
 
I was thinking the same thing.

With 16+ stops of DR, 2000 ISO. 6K.

How better can it get?

In the last two years, it was almost craziness to buy any camera at all, with a new one coming every two weeks. I firmly believe that know we have come to a settlement regarding camera technology for at least the next two years (I would hope 3).

I Believe the next sensor from RED is going to be inside a whole new brain, and Dragon is the last sensor we`ll se inside our current brains. Probably a FF sensor or maybe a median format sensor... So it should take a little while until we see a new camera from RED.
 
George Butterfield said:
They'll probably be Oscar winners shot on iphones and heros ... so you have your answer ... there might even be a few more good films shot on 35mm, who knows?
Click to expand...

No, there won't be commercial hits shot on iphones - unless they use a gimmick like Paranormal Activity. Thsoe "Oscar winners" are obscure docos with very tiny box office, and there si more to film than docos (that are character based and have limited visual requirements) and gimmick films. Audiences for the most part (according to many studies done by studios) like nice lensing and a lush look, otherwise the studios would have long ago replaced us all by interns.

Our Epic even without Dragon could be the last camera we ever use, and it would be more than adequate for everything we do (and we do pushed visuals, things that really depend o a lush look).


As to Dragon - it's funny, a few times we used HDRX (not many) and never more than 3 stops. As such, we can observe that in the real world out there, there is rarely more than 13.5 stops of dynamic range, and once in a while 16.5 stops. Dragon offers 16.5 stops.

6K is way, way more than enough resolution.

Then we get to ISO - how much do we need?

For us 800 (which we have now) is already enough. I guess 2000 would be nice. More than that is beginning to be useless. You can't really do night for day except in the forest (because you would see the city lights) , and even in the forest at really low light you are going to begin to get odd artifacts from heat contamination in the leaves and so on, being too significant in strength relative to the "real" light" and creating all sorts of odd problems. Those who say "well now I can film in the city at night with no light" don't really understand what lighting is. During the day, you are shaping/fighting sunlight (so you need lights powerful enough for that) and at night in the city you are shaping/fighting city lights - so you need a minimum of watts for that too. At 2000 iso that is exactly what you are doing - you are at the limit of what you need to shoot in a city at night and use "natural lighting" just enough to get a nice glow on distant buildings without having to light them. At some point you hit a wall of the realities of physics and the real world, that are there regardless of camera tech.

Besides, Dragon can, I'm sure, will go to 4000 iso and it will look maybe a hair more grainy, but be more than fine, and ultra-easy with all those pixels to clean up with Neat Video.

Then we get to ergonomics. Unless you are using a cheap octocopter with low weight limits (and these tend to have issues with wind and so on, because they are too light) you don't need a camera lighter than Epic. The inertia is a little low already, and we often add weight. Size is tiny enough already. It just has no reason to be smaller or lighter. How often do you really need or want a helmet cam? Do you shoot dialogue in helmet-mode? Landsapes? Again, lenses can only be so light before they are crap (physics) , so there is only so light a good camera rig can be - 5 pounds more from current Epic is not really an issue.

If color is dead-on, malleable and pleasing by nature, then no camera will offer more than a Dragon Epic. It's just.... Enough.

So yes - last camera, unless it gets stolen, or simply wears out from decades of use.

Our 5D is turning out to be our last stills camera (at least unless we turn to large format). For a 35mm stills camera it is basically perfect - we feel nothing is missing, we never have a shot fail just because of the camera - and Epic Dragon will likely be the same thing applied to video (in fact for me it is beyond the margin of what that would need to be).

Like I said, Epic MX could be a last camera - so Dragon? Way more than adequate for that.
 
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People said that each time there is something new and amazing in technology.

There will be another red camera for sure.

Enjoy the camera you have or you can buy. That's it !
 
Features on the camera will keep improving. Eventually, a $500 camcorder will have -
- "No-focus" requirements (cause you can do it in post)
- No lenses (cause the one lense will capture whatever you need and you can change perspectives in post)
- A "Dome of Silence" meaning the camera will record clear crisp audio in a specific ratio - no need for booms or lavs
- No need to set anything on the camera cause it'll be changeable in post
- The ability to float - with a remote to make it float higher then superman

Funny thing innovation. Can you imagine a few years back not having to white balance or need ND filters or record film quality video? It'll never end. It'll simply be improved. Still, the Epic will be with us for a long time. Probably even a decade or so...till everyone's shooting 3d "no glasses" films. Or "Smell-a-vision"...ha, ha.
 
Rodrigo Prata said:
...With 16+ stops of DR, 2000 ISO. 6K. How better can it get? ...
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You can count on them continuing to innovate and pushing boundaries. Yes, they might stop pursuing resolution and dynamic range briefly, but then you can be sure to expect some oblique progress - maybe the focus array lytro-type thing, or seamless frame rates for adjusting shutter angle in post. The successor to film has been achieved, but now that's done the sky's the limit. You can probably stick with your Red Dragon for years to come, but you probably won't want to once you see what new tools they'll have cooked up.
 
You guys must be joking.

I think it will not take long before gopro cameras have the spec of the dragon, and by then any kind of professional camera will be so much more. Singel lens 3D stereo capture, RAW focus, super high ISO's, resolution frame rate and sensor size etc will rapidly improve. I think RED has only take some of the very first little baby steps for digital motion cameras. It will not stop at any point soon.
 
I don't think the Epic dragon will be the last camera I would buy, but I believe that RED will be the last camera company I will buy from. Bare in mind cinema camera wise.
 
Wil Wong said:
Features on the camera will keep improving. Eventually, a $500 camcorder will have -
- "No-focus" requirements (cause you can do it in post)
- No lenses (cause the one lense will capture whatever you need and you can change perspectives in post)
- A "Dome of Silence" meaning the camera will record clear crisp audio in a specific ratio - no need for booms or lavs
- No need to set anything on the camera cause it'll be changeable in post
- The ability to float - with a remote to make it float higher then superman

Funny thing innovation. Can you imagine a few years back not having to white balance or need ND filters or record film quality video? It'll never end. It'll simply be improved. Still, the Epic will be with us for a long time. Probably even a decade or so...till everyone's shooting 3d "no glasses" films. Or "Smell-a-vision"...ha, ha.
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Much of what you say while amusing is limited by the realities of physics.

And say what you will, but with many things, enough can really be enough. It's a reason why the PC market tanked at a certain point - because computers were more than fast enough for what most people wanted to do with them. You don't need more than 16.5 stops of dynamic range, because like I said the real world basically never has more than that in it, so what would you do with 20? Or 40? There would be nothing you could find that would benefit from that, and it would just be flattened out in the grade. Even 13.5 - I've rarely encountered a scene that stumped our Epic's dynamic range. It has happened, and we used HDRX to fix it, but very rarely.

I'm still young, so we'll see (and our Epic I suppose will just wear out at some point, despite our taking meticulous care of it) but I can tell you, and I am very much a technophile, that for stills, I'm just not shopping anymore for new 35 format stills cams.

Even our Kessler jib - it's perfect for what we do - when I go to NAB I feel no need to look at other jibs.

As as far as I am concerned, it can happen. You can just have it all and be satisfied.
 
I feel similarly Rob -- at this point all the top cameras are fantastic. If you can't get a great picture with them its certainly not the technology's fault. And I don't think you'll get a massively more compelling picture going forward. I'm sure we'll continue to be interested in various helpful features... but the image itself is pretty fantastic.
 
Umm I'm sure many a person said....WOW...Horse AND cart.....awesome man, I can get from point A to point B heaps quicker now.....lets stop technology, it cant ever get better then this....this is perfect. You might as well just say that Red has built a camera that cannot be ever improved, their is no room for improvement ever, do you suffer from Microcephaly ?
 
GREAT POST AND GREAT QUESTION... I do think it will be at least 3 to 5 years before another technology is introduced.. Until then.. Red will be the workhorse for many production's house.
 
I think you're correct Ron. I'm just praying that the Dragoon sensor is equal to Alexa - if not better - in low light.
 
Jon Carr said:
I don't think the Epic dragon will be the last camera I would buy, but I believe that RED will be the last camera company I will buy from. Bare in mind cinema camera wise.
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My sentiments, exactly.
 
Got me thinking, after the Dragon, we get the "Shark"! I'm saving for a RED Shark Monochrome!
 
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