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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 :)

Man Handle camera handle And first impressions of Red

N

Nick Gardner

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My AC and I looked at the available handle choices for the Red and decided that there wasn't one that met our specific needs, so we made our own.

The things we wanted were -

Adjustability, we wanted to be able to slide the handle to be over the CG of the camera, tools free. and take the whole assembly off without tools.

We wanted it strong as hell.

I like the ET cheese plate, but I don't want to have it attached to the camera all the time, and unscrewing stuff takes time. If it takes 4 mins to do, and you do it twice a day, over a 100 days of production, thats 13 hours you spent dicking with screws - a whole day of production. So, the handle comes off with one bolt, and then you have a mini cheese plate. the surface of the mini cheese plate is about 25/1000" taller than the ET top mounts, so a steadicam dovetail can overlap for maximum flexibility.

It suits our needs and we are very happy with it.

In the second picture you can see that we replaced the allen bolt on the battery mount with a cam lock so instant no tools adjustments are possible. We also milled off the extra material on the Red Battery plate (when we switched it to AB mount the plate was about an inch longer than the AB mount it's self).

We also took a Red Shoulder dovetail that we got on Ebay and recut the dove tails so that they fit into the ET Arri base plate. A speedy little solution to a hand held pad.

We did all this prepping for a feature that starts on the 6th. We are VERY pleased with the camera over all.

The Manual is clear and makes sense, and was obviously written by somebody who speaks english. Anyone who has ever tried to read a sony manual knows what I mean.

The menu system is intuitive, and straight forward. I haven't gotten lost yet. In my days of testing, I have been unable to get the camera to hiccup at all.

The whole concept of top rods is great. It makes mounting motors for Jib and steadicam a breeze, and makes mounting of all AKS easier, while providing more options.

The pictures are stunning. I did a side by side with my varicam, and even the 720p preview out of the Red blew the doors off of the varicam.

In short, we are all thrilled. It's a monumental achievement to have built this camera at all, let alone in such a short period of time.

Thanks, to all the RED team,

Nick Gardner

Cheers,

Nick
 
Google search. I think they are for snow board bindings. We had to do a little machine work, we made a 3/8-16 stud to accept the 1/4-20 cam lock.

Nick
 
Are you thinking of producing these nuggets for the masses, perhaps in a black-zapped finish? I agree wholly with the ease/time/strength equation.

I was just surfing RED ONE - "KNOWING" (the movie) production info today and came upon several concept-RED ONE pics and curios from way back when! ;>) They remind me of your finish; like the first Scarlet, too.

But really, not only has RED's image improved along with ease of use (of course through enabling features, too), but their hardware continues to rocket along. What they've accomplished since the last time I was sober is close to unreal....

Good luck on the feature and thanks for sharing!
 
I might make a run of them after this movie, but I have to get my CNC set up going and learn Flash Cut etc.

This will be black. Right now it's just been bead blasted, and I haven't had a chance to get to the anodizing shop yet (My AC won't let me keep buckets of acid at his house to do it my self ;-) )

Nick
 
Hey nick- Nate Clapp here. once you are done w/ your feature I might want to stop by and take a look at your mods (and the as yet not invented ones that will surely be created on feature) Do you have red drives yet? I am guessing not, as I haven't gotten mine yet either.....
 
Hey Nate, how you been? Hell we are shooting just north of Baltimore if you want you can swing by set one day. I heard you got a Red. Good to know. We should talk about what each of us has etc.

No drives yet. Give me a ring. I'm in the 600 directory if you don't have my number anymore (although it's still the same).

Cheers,
Nick
 
if it's the same, i've got it. once i lose this cold I've had for a week I"ll give you a call. in any case before 6th
 
This thing looks pretty cool.. nice work man. Name is priceless..
 
Hey, thanks ;-)

It looks much fancier from the bottom where you can see all the cut outs and such, to make it lighter. We are pretty pleased. You should have seen th ridiculous lathe set up to make the bridge piece between the handle and the rod mount. I made one on the mill, and my AC said it looked too hillbilly so he made one on the lathe.

go Red,

Nick
 
I can, but it's going to be a few days. I fly out of town on a job tomorrow, get back thursday, I'll try to it then.

Nick
 
Hey Nick, is it Thursday yet?:innocent:

Would love to see pix of your dovetail mod. Have you decided to put your handle into production?
 
Ah, sorry, got back from that job and jumped right into this feature. I'll try to take some pics on set tomorrow. So far my still camera has sat on the camera cart and never fired a frame.

I'll do my best,

Nick
 
Ok, so here are a few pics that were requested, and some that were not.

First the modified shoulder dovetail.

Second, I had a voltage meter pass thru made up that plugs into the AB power tap, and then has a female power tap on it, so I can monitor my non red battery voltage.

Then there is the zacuto viewfinder mount modified with a knob instead of a pain in the ass to get to screw.

And finally just the Red in steadicam mode.

Cheers

Nick
 
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