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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 :)

NEW PRICES! but im very conflicted

Mike Garrick said:
@ Rob

From previous posts I assume you're an experienced DP. If your hiring experience with gear I will take that any day over gear with limited experience.

Ownership of gear is now no longer pathway to work. What is ...& always has been ................is craft & experience & lots of it.
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I NEVER used it as a pathway to get work. I used it as a way to supplement my income by renting it to my clients, rather than getting that camera package from a third party. In the case of our last Epic, that was a poor financial decision, and I feel bad about it. It has no effect on whether I get hired as a D.P. one way or another.
 
Well there was that one fella in the attitude adjusted thread that wasn't pleased..... But it seems they got it sorted out.
 
I can buy an F35 on ebay right now for 8K.

Forgive me I'm not sure of the F35 initial price but from memory 200 -250K...that was 3 years ago. Epic is now 1 year old, it has depreciated by 20K as opposed to the F35 price drop of 200K or so. Yes you could argue percentages but in no way shape or form does 200K = 20K .

In regards to not "getting " the sums of production yes I do ............................that's why I'm a Producer & have been for a .........................while.
 
i think rental rates are going to be the real killer here. ive already seen houses renting full epic packages for just under $1K. im sure that will almost half. if you bought an epic at the original price recently, it will be considerably more difficult to make your money back.

regardless of who is behind the camera, to producer, particularly one on a low budget "indie" shoot, money talks. alot of time people do hire the gear. that's not to say that someone like Nathaniel Kramer is not extremely talented. But Ive been on a few shoots where the first thing a producer has said to me is "ooh im so excited to be shooting on red!" rather than "oooh Im so excited to be working with you".

I completely understand where red is coming from, they will make more money from this decision. but it does annoy me, as pretentious and snobby as it sounds i have always liked the fact that it was expensive. The only people that were able to buy it were those that were already successful at their craft (of course the nyu kids who got one as a graduation prezzie are an exception).

while im on a bit of a ramble, i should through into the mix my frustration about the M build, I have difficulty seeing the point in having bought one now, I DIT on both an X & M and i tend to prefer the way the X operates. now with this price drop who would buy the M used without the seller loosing a great deal.

make the dragon upgrade cheaper for M users!
 
Big rental houses just kicked all those consigned owners out the door and placed big orders for half price EPIC's.
 
+1
dropped too much
I think
 
I am mostly impressed that one can buy 3 scarlets for the price of a single cooke lens :)
 
Frank Sun said:
The biggest issue here isn't if the client is hiring the DP or the Camera, or how flooded the rental market is, this is really about resale value and lost of investment dollars... regardless of how many times you've made your camera back, the depreciation of a camera by 30% is going to cut into your resale value, therefore a partial loss of an investment.

If I bought a stock that drops 30% with in a year, I would certainly be unhappy, but I made the investment and I take that risk. Which is why you have to always know that investing into a technology company has certain risks, especially one who's new and hungry to compete.

However, buying into a company that purposely depreciates their clients investment will certainly cause an uproar. But will allow other investors to buy low, sell with less loss.

That's all
Click to expand...

It's a huge mistake to talk about stocks; you're comparing apples & anthrax.

If I buy a stock and it goes down 30%, I shrug my shoulders... it'll come around, I'm in this for the long haul, five years, ten years, we'll see.

If you buy any kind of digital device, especially cutting-edge, you KNOW that in a couple of years it won't be cutting edge, in four years it'll be well behind the price/performance curve, and in six it'll be B-roll at best, doorstop at worst. You have to figure on getting your ROI while it's 'hot'. Look at the chap with the ebay F35 for $8k, and learn. An Epic is not a stock and will never behave like one; RED are just bringing a bit more honesty than this business is used to to the pricing/value. I'm sure the F35 is still in some way orderable from Sony... @ $250k...

Mike
 
Zach Gray said:
My hope in this is that the next gen of cameras will be better as well. It's theoretically possible... time will tell.
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I'd argue that with the F65 (and from the sounds of things, the Penelope Delta and F55 too), they already are. Dynamic range is equivalent, resolution is equivalent, with global/mechanical shutters motion characteristics are equivalent, high-frame rates are roughly equivalent, with the Sonys colour gamut is greater, sensitivity is far greater, affordability is better.

And if Red can somehow get a global shutter into Dragon, it'll join the ranks too.

The nice thing about reaching that point, is that it largely reduces the need to upgrade further. In much the same way that DSLRs overtook 135 film about 5 years ago, and those first 'greater-than' cameras are still perfectly usable for professional work now.
 
When I bought my $38,000 Epic-X less than six weeks ago, RED knew it would instantly lose $19,000 value when they announced this. When I spoke with them two weeks ago, and they asked me to give them some time to see if they might buy it back, they knew then they wouldn't. Because they knew it wasn't worth anything close to what I'd paid them.

This is, to my knowledge, unprecedented. A company halving their price without warning. And to then say it's just that they're more efficient manufacturing them. They weren't when they built mine? What would you do if Chrysler did this? What if they sold you a $38,000 automobile and then offered it going forward for $19,000? Doesn't Red have the responsibility to its customers to guard its products value? I fully expected my investment to retain value. They let me believe that it would. They suckered me.

When did they know they'd do this? When did they decide to cut the price of an Epic-X from $38,000 to $19,000? Was it two months ago, six months ago? Whenever they knew, from that point every sale they made, THEY KNEW its value would plunge. THEY KNEW they were taking us to the cleaners.

That's Heartless. That's Manipulative. That's Sadistic. Cold. Calculating. Brutal.
It's not illegal, but it's immoral. I trusted them. They took advantage of me.

They knew they were gutting hundreds and hundreds of buyers. For months. They knew they were gutting me when I purchased my Epic-X six weeks ago.

They knew they were gutting you, too.
 
Chris Knight said:
When I bought my $38,000 Epic-X less than six weeks ago, RED knew it would instantly lose $19,000 value when they announced this. When I spoke with them two weeks ago, and they asked me to give them some time to see if they might buy it back, they knew then they wouldn't. Because they knew it wasn't worth anything close to what I'd paid them.

This is, to my knowledge, unprecedented. A company halving their price without warning. And to then say it's just that they're more efficient manufacturing them. They weren't when they built mine? What would you do if Chrysler did this? What if they sold you a $38,000 automobile and then offered it going forward for $19,000? Doesn't Red have the responsibility to its customers to guard its products value? I fully expected my investment to retain value. They let me believe that it would. They suckered me.

When did they know they'd do this? When did they decide to cut the price of an Epic-X from $38,000 to $19,000? Was it two months ago, six months ago? Whenever they knew, from that point every sale they made, THEY KNEW its value would plunge. THEY KNEW they were taking us to the cleaners.

That's Heartless. That's Manipulative. That's Sadistic. Cold. Calculating. Brutal.
It's not illegal, but it's immoral. I trusted them. They took advantage of me.

They knew they were gutting hundreds and hundreds of buyers. For months. They knew they were gutting me when I purchased my Epic-X six weeks ago.

They knew they were gutting you, too.
Click to expand...


+1 WTF!!
 
Nathaniel Kramer said:
Timur, I think you will need to lower that 2300 epic rental day rate....
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Not a chance! That rate reflects a carefully tuned setup, and a ton of accessories that make it worth the price.

...

Also, though on a smaller scale, when I had a F3, I paid $4000 for the slog update. 4 months later it was free. That was pain at the time. 4000$ was 3 months rent. And by including it for free it ment that when I resold my f3, I instantly lost 4,000$ because the added value was no longer there. It removed instantly, 10% of funds that could have gone towards a used epic.
 
just to put some perspective back in this thread.

Sony has essentially murdered their f65 line with the F55, its' everything the 65 really should have been. you are gaining very little by shooting with the f65. some higher framerates at full resolution, and a camera 3 times the size. the people who have invested 100k into this system has had that business investment just shattered. It's not like it dropped in price, as amazing as the image quality was, when it came down to how the camera was designed for every day work, Sony practically said. "shitty first try, but now we got it right, sorry for the mix up."

Alexa which has been a raining champion of cameras these past few years only keep coming out with new iterations of the very same camera and charge just as much if not more into it. and I guarantee Arri as a 4k cam lined up, once those drop how much will all those Alexas out there really be working?

RED does a major price drop, more people own it, competition gets stiffer, rental prices aren't as high as they used to be. but it's the same camera, not going anywhere for awhile, that's gonna get a sensor upgrade that's gonna make it a whole new camera in itself.

The camera business is freakin tough, and the business model for it changes day in and day out. What's done is done, and I generally think working on creating a new foundation for your business model is healthier for all the unhappy customers out there. It's not like you're going to be able to lobby for RED to raise the prices back to where they were. That would be along the lines of price fixing. We all just have to grow with the times.
 
Chris Knight said:
This is, to my knowledge, unprecedented. A company halving their price without warning. And to then say it's just that they're more efficient manufacturing them. They weren't when they built mine? What would you do if Chrysler did this? What if they sold you a $38,000 automobile and then offered it going forward for $19,000? Doesn't Red have the responsibility to its customers to guard its products value? I fully expected my investment to retain value. They let me believe that it would. They suckered me.

When did they know they'd do this? When did they decide to cut the price of an Epic-X from $38,000 to $19,000? Was it two months ago, six months ago? Whenever they knew, from that point every sale they made, THEY KNEW its value would plunge. THEY KNEW they were taking us to the cleaners.

That's Heartless. That's Manipulative. That's Sadistic. Cold. Calculating. Brutal.
It's not illegal, but it's immoral. I trusted them. They took advantage of me.
Click to expand...

OK... let's talk about cars. But digital cameras are new, not a mature technology. So Google "Model T Ford price cuts"

http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.php?lid=692&type=educator

In October 1908, the first Model T Fords were sold for $950. As Henry Ford found new ways to reduce production costs, he passed the savings on to consumers as lower prices. By 1912, the car was selling for $575. It was the first time that a new car had sold for less than the average wage of U.S. workers. The price of the Model T would continue to drop during its 19 years in production, at one point dipping as low as $280. With each price cut, more and more consumers could afford to buy the cars.

Does this help? Except understand that Moore's Law moves even quicker than this.

We are in the world of cutting edge research projects using pieces of silicon. They depreciate a lot. Like SD cameras did once HD cameras hit. Like the 5D Mk2 after the 5D Mk3 came out. Or like how Apple announces a new workstation and then suddenly the old ones are available as refurbs for a fraction of the new price.

When Epic launched it was a niche product that for a long time has had few competitors...

Since then let's list the "pro" S35 and / or 4K cameras announced: Canon 1D C, C300 and C500, Sony F65, F700, F5 and F55, Panasonic announcing 4K S35 cams in development, Blackmagic entering the RAW game, GoPro going beyond 1080p (and I'm sure they didn't buy Cineform for nothing so there will likely be a 4K RAW cam coming), JVC made a 4K camcorder for $5000, Aaton Penelope... and I'm sure Arri will announce something 4K at NAB.

Suddenly the niche is filled with competitors.

More than asking "Why can't RED keep prices the same?" perhaps you should have asked "Why haven't they dropped sooner?"

It's a testament to the quality of the camera, IMHO.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Tom.Wong said:
just to put some perspective back in this thread.

Sony has essentially murdered their f65 line with the F55, its' everything the 65 really should have been. you are gaining very little by shooting with the f65. some higher framerates at full resolution, and a camera 3 times the size. the people who have invested 100k into this system has had that business investment just shattered. It's not like it dropped in price, as amazing as the image quality was, when it came down to how the camera was designed for every day work, Sony practically said. "shitty first try, but now we got it right, sorry for the mix up."

Alexa which has been a raining champion of cameras these past few years only keep coming out with new iterations of the very same camera and charge just as much if not more into it. and I guarantee Arri as a 4k cam lined up, once those drop how much will all those Alexas out there really be working?

RED does a major price drop, more people own it, competition gets stiffer, rental prices aren't as high as they used to be. but it's the same camera, not going anywhere for awhile, that's gonna get a sensor upgrade that's gonna make it a whole new camera in itself.

The camera business is freakin tough, and the business model for it changes day in and day out. What's done is done, and I generally think working on creating a new foundation for your business model is healthier for all the unhappy customers out there. It's not like you're going to be able to lobby for RED to raise the prices back to where they were. That would be along the lines of price fixing. We all just have to grow with the times.
Click to expand...


Really didn't wanted to get in to any of this nonsense posts, but yours deserved a "Well put Tom" reply... ;)
 
To be honest I'm pissed as the owner of 2 Epics which have both depreciated faster in one day than shares in the White Star Line.

On the upside, I recently hopped the fence in favour of an Alexa and since I took delivery of it, none of my Red cameras have been out the door so at least that was a good decision on my part. I know where I'll be more comfortable investing money in the future - both technically, artistically and financially. Red just cut our throats in my very humble opinion - they could have done a soft series of drops to meet the market instead of switch hitting customers who've invested in their products. Plus I don't buy that it is entirely down to manufacturing savings so much as responding to Sony's announcement which seems uncannily coincident. This won't, I appreciate, be everyone's situation but for those who have personally invested heavily it feels like a kick in the teeth. Let the race to the bottom commence! I know whose going to win that one as they've ably demonstrated. The company that will do anything to win.
 
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