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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 :)

NAB thoughts so far

Anyone check out the 5" Marshall HDMI monitor ?

The SmallHD looks cool but it says 75 days for delivery! WOOT
 
No fcs 4, just showed a reel of partner plug-ins and developments :'( , it's all good though, Adobe picked up the ball. Coremelt has a new cmos skew correction tool that doubles as a fast stabilizer for $149, looked good from the demo video and less expensive than the foundry's. Corrects up-down wobble as well.
 
I had a chance to see and play around with the new Phantom Flex and to finally meet Mitch. Flex was awesome. We shot a cigarette lighter igniting at about 1600fps, then played it in reverse.... wow!

Also got to check out the brand-new Ruby 14-24... the rehousing is simply amazing. A smooth and beautiful lens.
 
Rick Darge said:
Anyone check out the 5" Marshall HDMI monitor ?

The SmallHD looks cool but it says 75 days for delivery! WOOT
Click to expand...

I compared them both.

The SmallHD is nice because it has 720p and optional HD-SDI in as wel as HDMI in. They had one on a RED and it looked nice.

The Marshall had better peaking for focus assist and the "predator" vision exposure tools of the larger models. Powered by AA batteries.
IMO, this made it a better option for DSLRs.
 
16x9 booth had some cool stuff, their lens attachments looked nice on the cameras they had there, not like last year where they were less than ideal. I only had enough time to walk by though, so I could try to go back today depending on the RED announcements. Also, I saw the Leica lenses, they looked pretty cool from what I could see, but the booth was crowded so I couldn't get in for an in-depth look, will have to do though as I'm looking at Leica more and more these days.

Getting ready to head over to the Tropicana for the REDuser party, I'm sure others will post announcements before I do. Will head to NAB again today though and I have all tomorrow as well to catch anything I may have missed.
 
The Black Magic Design portable ultrascope is really cool
 
Okay, reduser party is depressing. Nothing new, epic coming out soon, yay if you can afford it. After looking at red reels for r1 and mx I don't see much emphasis for epic and realize that scarlet is just going to further that note. Red needs to basically scrap scarlet s35 and simply drop the price on r1 so that it covers low, mid, and high ends or completely replace r1 completely with scarlet models. I'm speaking in practical terms because there is no need to make so many cameras that do the same thing. Will write more later, just my opinion.
 
Okay, here's the thing. We saw the RED One reel again from last year with a few updates and then we saw the MX reel. Now, it was cool to see so much new and wonderfully shot stuff with the MX sensor but ultimately there was just this overwhelming sense of "so what?". The MX sensor footage was sharper in some instances, no doubt, but ultimately it just felt like there was very little real world difference between the two. Like the Arri Alexa, the MX footage, though very technically superior on paper, was not all that much different compared to what can be done on a standard Mysterium sensor RED One. Since the same or similar sensor will be used in the Epic cameras the only thing you are really paying extra for with the Epic is upgraded user interface-based features as well as a 10-15 second (as of this moment) boot time (compared to the minute boot up of the RED One).

If RED wants to market the Epic cameras as being worth the extra cost, they should focus on the other features mentioned over the past few months such as its capabilties as a stills camera, the HDR mode developments, the multiple lens choices, and the practicall uses for the higher uncompressed REDCODE options, which are amazing as they are already. The 5K+ stuff just isn't going to cut it and arguing over dynamic range doesn't do a lick of good as its all just tech-talk in the end.

But again, RED is stuck, I realized that today. The Scarlets will ultimately make the RED One redundant, either replace it or simply cut off Scarlets. Here's the way it could be:

Scarlet 2/3 - $3,000-level > RED One Mysterium - $10,000 > RED ONE MX - $17,500 > RED Epic - $25,000+.

That would cover every market right there and would boost sales TODAY if they made such a pricing change to the RED One, plus it would get people to stop griping over the S35 Scarlet.

OR

RED could eliminate the RED One, maybe even doing the pricing switch as it would be phased out and then replace it with the S35 and FF35 Scarlets and leave it open towards the Epic cameras. There doesn't need to be a middle-ground between the two, the big boys will buy the Epics and the Scarlet will be there for the indies. Again, frame rates and advanced REDCODE options will have to be saved for the Epic cameras. I know they want to appeal to a mass audience and I was with them all the way until today when the reality of it all hit me.

Look, I don't want RED to have everything blow up in their face by having all of these cameras in their lineup and I hope it will work in the end. However, all I'm saying is that if there isn't ENOUGH of a difference between the different models, then it will simply confuse the buyer and the market. It's good to have options but not if things will have to be phased out later due to unexpected sales results. I don't know it's been a long day and I hope RED makes more developments to alleviate this issue in the future, no doubt through further software developments a'la the series of RED One updates over the years.

I didn't mean to go on a big rant about RED in a NAB update thread but since this event took place during NAB I feel it fits in to the grand scheme of things. Also to note, nearly every new book in the NAB store mentions or has RED on the cover, I think that completes RED's established presence in the world of film and I can't wait to see what happens in a year's time.

I hope to go back to NAB tomorrow and catch up on everything I had wanted to see today. Stuck at the RED Party due to some unorganized registration practices, it was really bad guys, people were getting angry, then had to stay to make it for the presentation, showed nothing new for me, then had to stand around for the imminent raffle, may go back tonight for the second portion, we'll see.
 
Sack,

Thanks for the feedback.

This year I went to NAB for checking the new glass for my future Epic.

Angenieux
There was nothing really new in the Optimo world except a 0.75x wide angle adapter for the 16-42 Optimo.
Angenieux have an amazing 3D system. They used a scanning iris inside of the 16-42 Optimo. That gives a very natural 3D without the cut off between the in focus image and out of focus background we have on the regular 3D footage. It was so beautiful, I really though I was looking through a window. I heard Offhollywood was involved in the development of that technology.

Cooke
It was the first time I saw the new S5. I like the lenses, these are wonderful optics. They seem to have been very successful selling them, the new orders will be delivered in 2011.

Fuji
I discovered the Fujinon Alura 18-80 T:2.6 and 45-250 T:2.6 at the Arri booth. This is a nice range for the 18-80, it seems to be pretty close to the 18-85 Red in size and performances. It may be pretty succesful because of the price, but it's not as sharp as the other Fujinon 18-85 or the 17-80 Optimo. The 45-250 has low breathing, it gives a very redish color at the image at the very long end.
The 14.5-45 and 24-180 are now available.

Leica
Band Pro is showing the Leica primes. These lenses are amazing, no breathing, very fast, very sharp, very light. They have common focus scale which is a very nice feature. They are going to be a top sell/rental package for Epic S35. Can Leica make them for half of the price?

Unicoptics
These lenses look like the RPP. They look very nice optically but are too big.

Zeiss
The new 12mm Master prime is very nice. There is almost no distorsion.
Zeiss did a nice package with the new Compact primes.

The choice for new lenses is very difficult. It seems the price / quality / weight is all other the place. I'm not sure if I should go with the high end lenses like Leica, Cooke or Angenieux which are well establish and have a good resell value or if I should try to take a chance with affordable lenses like the Zeiss Compact or Fuji Alura that may be good enough for 4k but not top quality for the future cameras. Any advice on that?
 
Zack Birlew said:
The MX sensor footage was sharper in some instances, no doubt, but ultimately it just felt like there was very little real world difference between the two.
Click to expand...

Hi Zack,

Are you shooting the RED One much? I ask not sarcastically.

I ask because pretty much everyone I've talked to that has the upgraded sensor is super pleased with the outcome.

I own a RED and it's a fine tool, but I've happily laid out the money for the upgraded sensor because there are a few areas where the current sensor is a bit of a pain to use, and the MX sensor really increases the utility of the camera in those areas.

It' hard to judge real world performance at a industry event, so I get that it might not have been obvious looking at the reel. But I'm confident that if you'd asked a RED One shooter about the low light stuff in the MX reel, or particularly the live output from the Epic, he or she would have said, nope, I'd see ugly blotchy noise if I shot that, and now it's really clean.

My $.02
 
Francis, the Zeiss Compact Primes are a great value, but you missed the new Schneider Cine Xenar primes. They are at the Abel booth.
 
The biggest differences between the M and MX is a much lower noise floor and increased dynamic range.

It's not like used to be in black and white and is now in color, it's more about all the new opportunities to shoot and greater flexibility.

Worth its weight in gold!

Stephen Lovett said:
Hi Zack,

Are you shooting the RED One much? I ask not sarcastically.

I ask because pretty much everyone I've talked to that has the upgraded sensor is super pleased with the outcome.

I own a RED and it's a fine tool, but I've happily laid out the money for the upgraded sensor because there are a few areas where the current sensor is a bit of a pain to use, and the MX sensor really increases the utility of the camera in those areas.

It' hard to judge real world performance at a industry event, so I get that it might not have been obvious looking at the reel. But I'm confident that if you'd asked a RED One shooter about the low light stuff in the MX reel, or particularly the live output from the Epic, he or she would have said, nope, I'd see ugly blotchy noise if I shot that, and now it's really clean.

My $.02
Click to expand...
 
wow, Zack...did we even attend the same event?

I got to stand at the shoulder of the head of the company and listen to people pepper him with questions, got to ask one or two of my own, and got to watch him demo its lowlight performance - since I've spent a lot of time looking through the RED LCD, in some very challenging lighting conditions, I had a pretty good idea of what I was seeing, without having to see actual footage - and it's absolutely a remarkable improvement.

What other head of a camera company stands around with his customers talking shop with his customers and potential customers, answering each question with absolute grace and respect??

It was such an incredibly unique opportunity. If all you did was watch the footy, then you really did miss out on the best that the event had to offer.

(Consider that the reason that the M/M-X footage didn't look that differentiated by quality - more by lowlight performance - because it was shot by some fine shooters who knew how to light the scenes...and believe me, it is not cheap to light the RED ONE properly, it takes a lot of horsepower...but EPIC will have far less expensive lighting requirements.)

Add to that all the ergonomic improvements...my barest RED ONE rig weights about 16-17 lbs...EPIC will clock in at around 9 or so. Can definitely, I would say easily, be rigged under 10...

And the higher data rates, speeds, and the much-unheralded ability to record separate settings for stills mode and motions mode, without even toggling between them - the ABSOLUTELY SICK ability to roundtrip camera looks from REDCINE-X to camera and back, using the looks created in the Magic Bullet module, so less. The ridiculously cool REDMOTE, the H.264 module + ethernet which will allow you to upload fast dailies, the already rapidly expanding iPad data management interfaces.

RED is the future. The have learned that they aren't building a camera anymore, but a total imaging and data management system, for which the camera is a cornerstone. They have learned a ton and they are doing everything they can to get the fruits of this knowledge in our hands.
 
as someone that has shot as much if not more than anyone with both the redone m and the r1mx i can tell you zack that you are dead wrong. we shoot american idol ford music videos every sunday and we use one m camera and my red#0031 mx camera and the dp constantly comes over to my camera and gets mad at me because my shot looks so much better than his (he owns the 7000+ s/n r1m). same lighting, same talent, huge difference. like many others you are missing the boat, and in a few months you will be wishing you didn't.

i can appreciate one man's perspective, but please go shoot several hundred days with each camera as i have and then talk about it, spending a few hours a day on reduser and being at a tradeshow for an hour can not give you an understanding of the sensors capabilities.

and that reel is 90% stuff that i either produced, shot or was shot with my camera, so i take particular offense at you saying it was just ok...please post your reel!

dino
 
Huh?

Huh?

I've got Dino's back on this one Zack. The combination of the MX sensor and the new color science is a significant step forward in real world image making. My guess is that the M sensor stuff looked so similar to MX footy due to a combination of the reel producers choosing great footage, and top flight color grading. Oh, and the projector they were using makes everything look better.

FWIW with enough artful lighting and a reasonable DR requirement the M sensor - with the new color science - does match quite well with the MX. That said, you'll have to pry my MX sensor from my cold dead fingers.

Peace - #19
 
Zack Birlew said:
Okay, here's the thing. We saw the RED One reel again from last year with a few updates and then we saw the MX reel. Now, it was cool to see so much new and wonderfully shot stuff with the MX sensor but ultimately there was just this overwhelming sense of "so what?". The MX sensor footage was sharper in some instances, no doubt, but ultimately it just felt like there was very little real world difference between the two.
Click to expand...

The MX sensor shines in low light and in comparison with the M sensor. We are shooting a feature in Thailand right now mostly at night and we have two MX cameras and two M cameras. In bright light and not too much contrast the difference is not that much and they both can shoot nice images. But in low light and high contrast the MX sensor is much better. My guess is about two stops better in noise and dynamic range.

edit: What hardly gets mentioned here is that you can do much more with MX footage in post. The lower noise floor not only helps in low light but also in grading, being able to push areas two stops up without a noise penalty is a huge benefit.
 
I second that emotion Dino. The MX is a huge step forward. Shoot with it once and you will see it's not just specs on paper, the image will speak for itself. Once you go MX, you never go back.

# 193 -568
 
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