NEW PRICES! but im very conflicted

[Roger Valdes]

-deleted

 

[Curran Giddens]

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.

No, not for months. When did Sony announce the F5 / F55?

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 part I agree with.

 

[Imran Farouk]

I give credit to red...they move closer to their promise of 4K for 4K and people go nuts and start complaining about their investments...
No matter what you do...people will always find an excuse to be upset...

I grasp that people who bought last week are in pain since that's money able to be spent on accessories but did you want red to hold off passing the buck go consumers? If people knew red could drop it a few K more they'd be annoyed red is too much off the camera

The investment issue is understandable but it's tech, prices drop and although it doesn't work in favour of everyone, new kids on the block who are renting the camera and not themselves...people like say Toia or Ketch would get paid even if they were rocking a 5D probably, heck bloom gets paid and he uses a 5D and he got paid when he had an epic...

It's just a matter of grasping that the small guy can't compete on the same level as the rest in the rental game - it's safer to invest in your own skills and sell those with the camera and you've carved yourself a little niche

Not the point? Well investments go up sometimes and sometimes they drop. Anyone with any knowledge on camera gear know that they'll eventually lose a heck of a lot on their investment regardless of time,imagine red one owners,they could've paid $4K instead of the crazy 17K right? It's crazy now because that's what an epic almost costs and it does more!

Glass is what you call an investment, look at super speeds and Leica r, selling well above their usual fetching prices now...

Tech like cameras depreciate so fast in this day and age it's incredible. Dragon is evidence of that, what is relevant for us today will not be next year when the DR of the camera goes up...epics without dragon won't be any less valued but once producers and renters grasp how much extra DR there is, they'll start asking for Dragon EPICs, then what happens to scarlet owners?

The point being that there is always some situation to complain about, instead of moaning here...go out and shoot, make an awesome reel, sell ur skill with the camera. The industry isn't totally dumb when it comes to skill over gear

Edit:
Not meaning go offend anyone with the moaning comment but think about it this way, sell your epic for its value and wait, Sony, Canon and the rest will now need to fight on the 4K front and drop their prices to red levels or lower....consumer wins. Canon will definitely be making a drop in their 4K cameras...they have the ability To reduce cost just like red
Or work the camera off, it'll take longer now but still possible, then sell it for whatever the price will be then and swap over

 

[Freya]

Even if you expense it, the residual value is still cut.. It's still a loss. If i could have sold last week for x, but tomorrow i can only get y ( a number less than x) I have still lost value.

So let me get this straight. You made loads of money with your EPIC. You wrote the camera off against tax so effectively got it for free, but now its remaining value isn't as much, so you are really upset and complaining that you won't be able to make as much profit as expected.

Aside from that of course you have lots of clients who don't hire you for your cameras anyway, so you are doing great business.

Have I got that quite right because seriously, I feel really bad for you. Honestly my heart is bleeding about this terrible situation you are in.

Have you thought about consoling yourself for this terrible loss in your life by buying an EPIC Monochrome at the new reduced rate maybe?

(Yes I'm from the UK)

love

Freya

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

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."

.

Interesting perspective.

Have you tested both cameras side by side ?

F55 is in Red One resolution range. F65 exceeds Epic's.
Electronic shutter/mechanical shutter. 120 fps in full resolution didn't seem to be "a little gain" for the Epic.

 

[Christian Simpson]

Very very true Steve. This is such an important attribute that doesn't get talked about very often. Your talent has to be overwhelming to still get hired despite being a total A hole. Be cool man just be cool ....

 

[Andrae Palmer]

I'm willing to buy a Meizler module for $2166 if anyone at RED is interested.

 

[Antoine Baumann]

Yeah the accessories are too expensive, that's for sure. Come on 45% price reduction on that too. I'm half joking ;-)

IMHO, if you want to invest money to get more money out of your investment, like buying one day and selling an other for more, then cameras are not the right item.

If you are a dp, why do you buy a camera if it's so hard to get your investment back, just rent it. And IMHO the camera that is the best suited for every job does not exist.

Lastly, Epic-M owner had their epic for years before this price drop, stage 2 about one year, and early stage 3 about 8 months. I understand the pain of people that just bought an Epic-X for a bit less than 40k. Sure Red is not the only company to do this. Iridas Speedgrade just droped in price, Da vinci Resolve also, blue fish don't sell their 444 board that expensive, and so on.

my2cent$.

 

[PatrickFaith]

... Glass is what you call an investment, look at super speeds and Leica r, selling well above their usual fetching prices now... Tech like cameras depreciate so fast in this day and age it's incredible. Dragon is evidence of that, what is relevant for us today will not be next year when the DR of the camera goes up...epics without dragon won't be any less valued but once producers and renters grasp how much extra DR there is, they'll start asking for Dragon EPICs, then what happens to scarlet owners?

Lot of good points Imran, I think the only good investment now is in a strong visual story - which currently isn't normally under the control of the DP(i think indirectly, this will be the big positive change to the industry, forcing DP's that want to be distinctive to be involved with the visual story). What you have changed in the market place I think at least vectors DP's back into the drivers seat of visual stories. I btw don't think glass will be a good investment when dragon comes out, I mean you can take ok glass that is T2, shoot at T3 for more clarity, use in camera focus/zoom to remove breathing, remove lens problems with the extra 2k & a static transform - and you have the same final image as a master prime on the current camera.

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

Lets see... how do i get myself out of this price/asset value loss conundrum? I have to go back to the days when I worked on Wall Street buying and selling stocks.... There was only one way to lower your cost on a stock that went down in price.. you buy more at the lower price - Its known as averaging down and you only do it if you think the company is still a buy.... So to all of us complaining about the new price vs what we paid - buy a few more brains. That will lower our average cost! :rant:

 

[Freya]

Lets see... how do i get myself out of this price/asset value loss conundrum? I have to go back to the days when I worked on Wall Street buying and selling stocks.... There was only one way to lower your cost on a stock that went down in price.. you buy more at the lower price - Its known as averaging down and you only do it if you think the company is still a buy.... So to all of us complaining about the new price vs what we paid - buy a few more brains. That will lower our average cost! :rant:

You should just get out of this business altogether I reckon. Clearly it's causing you massive pain and trauma.
You will feel a lot better when you are rid of all this stuff altogether, just dump and get out. I bet you can still break even on it all and have a calmer way of life.

Just leave this kind of thing to those who will enjoy it more.

love

Freya

 

[Tom.Wong]

the sensor inside is the same as the f65, sony openly said it, and it's base sensitivity is even slightly higher than what's claimed on the f65. "resolution" only means so much to certain people. those extra K's don't mean anything when they had a failing flagship camera. the size and form factor put off a LOT of people. I know several f65 owners that bought it on day 1 and it only went out a few times. It's the flip side of the coin, image quality and framerates only give you so much. A very piss poor workflow early on, a form factor that people don't want out a digital camera really hurt the camera and its PR.

food for thought, the initial way of just offloading your 4k 3:1 raw was with their pc5 box. you had to interface with it via web browser over ethernet on a laptop, install a separate esata or 10g ethernet card into that unit, and connect your hard drives like that and download with their interface. it was clunky, and it was freakin slow. half the time esata cards didn't work in them and you were reduced to downloading the footage off the ethernet looping the data through your computer to hard drives. on top of that, the pci slot inside of that unit was probably only a 1x or 2x slot, because the 10g ethernet wasn't any faster at all compared to the esata speeds.

It took them till this summer to come out with a simple esata reader to download off their SR memory. and the camera came out how long ago? A lot of people don't even want to pay attention to it anymore, doesn't matter how good the image quality is, in a fast paced commercial and episodic industry (which is the bread and butter of NYC) nobody wanted to deal with that when you already had alexa's and epics in place. and I honestly thought the image quality off the f65 is still the best on the market right now. it was a dream to color correct the raw files, and even their hd sr codec in slog2 was a pleasure to work with. but there was no way for a long time to get your footage to your hard drives in a time efficient manner. I would have been doing non stop 18 hour days offloading footage.

f55 will have a global shutter, pretty much on par with a mechanical shutter if you ask me. no flicker either in your viewfinder.

120 fps worked out great for epic because you have manageable file sizes at high quality. and you got it in such a small tight package. image quality vs ease of use are always huge debates. fact of the matter is, ease of use and pricing can usually win out, especially in a producers eyes. I'm a phantom tech as well, and have had jobs that dumped the phantom flex to go with shooting epic at 300 fps. it's windowed, quality is nowhere close to what a phantom can put out, but price and ease of use won out over image quality.

so this is all personal opinion, but this comes from my own experience and what I've seen. and from what I've seen, the f55 is everything the f65 should have been. image quality, if it's gonna be "just as good" is kind of a null point right now. If it's 90% of what the f65 can do, it will still kill the f65 line. because it's a lot better in other areas.

sxs workflow off the bat, raw workflow that has been paved by the f65 but never took off, but it's in place now. form factor everybody knows and loves. it can be close to the size of an epic for high quality compressed recording, or it can expand out to the size of an alexa for your highest quality recording. options of multi codec, baked, not baked, all at the same time. raw, etc.


image quality is academic at this point. they still claim the same color gamut as the 65 with the 55, and you are still getting 16 bit 3:1 or 5:1 raw recording on it. at higher base sensitivity. f65 isn't moving as is, ease of use is gonna win out for the f55 imho.



but I think that's just gonna be the last I'll discuss on this, if you want to go further on this pm me. I don't want to derail this thread anymore.

Interesting perspective.

Have you tested both cameras side by side ?

F55 is in Red One resolution range. F65 exceeds Epic's.
Electronic shutter/mechanical shutter. 120 fps in full resolution didn't seem to be "a little gain" for the Epic.

 

[Chris Knight]

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

I understand your opinion, but I believe you're arguing for argument's sake without addressing my position. As to Ford, are you saying there was a day where the price dropped 50% in one day? Those cuts were incremental, over time, and customers could make a decision to wait and save, or pay a reasonable premium as early adopters. But that's not the case here.

My point is that RED knew, when I was purchasing, that I'd be screwed. You can write about Moore's Law all you like. This was predatory.

 

[Sulekh Suman]

For the record, the saying is: Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.

Thank you for the correction. Isn't that ominous?

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Thank you for the correction. Isn't that ominous?

Has much more visual impact this way, don't you think? :smiley:

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

Bulls , Pigs and Bears

Bulls , Pigs and Bears

For the record, the saying is: Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.

I don't know Terry- the US consumes a lot more beef than pork:yesnod:
I haven't heard the stats of bear meat consumption- it must be very low:wink5:

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I don't know Terry- the US consumes a lot more beef than pork:yesnod:
I haven't heard the stats of bear meat consumption- it must be very low:wink5:

Thats because, first, you have to catch the bear!

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

Let the race to the bottom commence!

Haven't we been racing to the bottom since 2007? These price drops represent a climactic moment, for sure, but the sword of innovation always cuts two ways - it's a great time to be an artist, but not such a great time to be a business owner.

You plays your cards and takes your chances. Same as it ever was. We live in extremely turbulent times where the only certainty is uncertainty.

 

[Tom_Gaudet]

I wonder if RED had done the typical industry standard thing - Bring out a new model with massaged feature list, cheaper price... I wonder then what the Epic would be worth on the resale market? No way of knowing, but I bet the net result would have been about the same. Doing it this way, Epic is still a current model and upgradable, just cheaper.

That does not make it any easier to swallow for those who bought and feel they have lost out. But how would you feel if the abovementioned would have taken place?

 

[Arnold F.]

1) There is no denying the new Epic price is great for us who would like to buy one.

2) I didn't buy an Epic for $35K but I'd be unhappy if I had. Here's why:

No business owner buys a piece of equipment without considering it's resale value. This is particularly true in a business like ours where the landscape changes rapidly. We are always hoping to get the most in resale for our gear in order to upgrade to the next thing.

We do have to face incremental decreases in value due to wear and tear, small decreases in retail price (example: 5DM2 among many others), obsolescence, etc. All of us accept that.

What many current Epic owners do find hard to accept is an unexpected, manufacturer-imposed free-fall - an instant loss of something like 40% of the resale value they planned for. These people, who lost $15,000-$20,000 overnight, are the folks one member here is calling "whiners." Nice.

That resale value is important to someone who spends $35K on equipment appears to be missed by the following list of less than well-reasoned thoughts directed at current Epic owners. These are all REAL statements by users here:

- you still have the camera
- your camera still turns on
- you already made your money off it
- whiners
- you're anti-RED

If your new car gets totalled three months after you buy it is it consolation that you still own it, or that it starts? If you're unhappy about your totalled car are you a whiner? Does it make you anti-car?

3) There is no denying that the new Epic price is great for us who would like to buy one. There is no denying that the new Epic price is hard for those who already have one.