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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 :)

Nikon to Acquire US Cinema Camera Manufacturer RED.com, LLC

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Brian Timmons

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I'll quote myself from my 2015 NAB Journal. "Hi Nikon.". Also this gives me a good reason to dust of my N90.
 
Wow, the amount of questions this brings up going forward is many and varied.

What does this mean for RED cinema cameras? Will Nikon simply fold them into the rest of their offerings? No more “RED” but just Nikon Raptor X for example? What about the RF mount? And on and on… crazy times.
 
WOW
 
MarkKilligan said:
I'm pretty sure that this means that RED as a product line will cease to exist. Same with this forum?
Click to expand...

Last time I checked, Landmine is the owner of this place...
 
A few things to consider...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/crew-production-slowdown-1235843877/

variety.com

IATSE and Teamsters Warn of Another Hollywood Strike at Massive Rally: ‘Put Your Helmets On’

IATSE and the Teamsters warned that Hollywood could face another Hot Labor Summer if no deal is reached by July 31.
variety.com variety.com

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/these-32-nikon-cameras-are-sonys-in-disguise

https://petapixel.com/2022/05/20/nikons-profits-are-up-but-its-market-share-is-still-worryingly-low/

Too early to tell which way this will go.
Like many unexpected turns in life you take it a step at a time.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA
 
To answer a few of those questions or respond to some points.

Based on the press release from Nikon, RED will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary, which means RED lives on.

There is an interesting bit in the release, "subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions thereunder". We won't likely know whatever that is whether it happens or not, but I can speculate on a few things.

REDUSER isn't owned by RED, but rather Landmine Media, which Jarred owns. At least that's how it started. I have no idea what the now is.

If you want really based and grounded thoughts. This puts Nikon as a whole back in the digital cinema game in a big way. It was clear they had interests here with other acquisitions like Bolt and all that. Nikon had a good year last year, things moved up about 20%. Moderately surprised Canon, the larger company, wasn't the one to make this move and I don't know if that was ever a consideration.

As it's fairly clear to all, Nikon is a larger company than RED. RED has literally 1% the amount of employees comparatively. Often this can lead to good things in pushing things forward and I can see potential there. I've been asking Nikon to make cinema glass for at least 12-13 years now. I stand by that and hope that can happen. They could potentially do that through RED or whatever. Who the hell knows.
 
I guess we should also mention, Nikon gets all of RED's patents, which are valuable. Not just the RAW stuff, but ALL the stuff. This allows them to implement technology across brands as well. Curious to see where that leads.

And probably of higher value is RED's engineers, programmers, and sensor design team, as that can play a role in their future. It's certainly true Nikon has used OEM Sony sensors in their cameras like many others. RED's world is design and have them fabricated and they are experienced here. Also, Nikon can greatly expand RED's manufacturing capability, it would be wild to potentially see any of that happen.
 
As a former RED owner who switched to Nikon I think this makes sense. RED was probably having a hard time keeping up with developments in the camera world like auto focus, subject recognition, IBIS and computational photography.
 
Well, this feels like a "told you so" moment as I've said numerous times that the competition of lower cost cameras will start to eat up the reasons to buy into the expensive lineup of Red cameras. Maybe "The Creator" was the final straw, showing how an IMAX movie can actually be filmed on a cheaper camera.

The fact that this is a 100% takeover and not just a a major stake in the company hints at a coming decline in Red Cinema. I wouldn't be surprised if Red gets killed off and that the purchase of the company was purely to acquire the cinema camera tech to implement in their own cinema camera lineup. Nikon has been struggling against Canon and Sony so this feels like a desperate attempt at pushing into a valuable space to compete with everyone else. I mean, who's seen a Nikon brand on anything used for video and cinema capture? Let alone for photography? Sony and Canon dominate still photography and aren't stopping with innovation. Buying Red seems like a last resort attempt at getting any kind of part of the action.

But I can't shake the prediction that this will tumble down into a big mess, that we are now probably witnessing the beginning of the end of Red cinema cameras, regardless of the marketing jargon surrounding this acquisition. Nikon will assimilate all the tech developed by Red, chew it and spit out their own lineup of cameras in the attempt to balance the scales against Sony and Canon.
 
My first thought was a bit of shock. But I always liked Nikon, even though I have never had one.
I think what Nikon was really lacking serious video cameras, so this is probably their way of reaching in. Red being super talented but a bit small could probably benefit from more resources for especially software and maybe accessories. The core cameras they are already market leader in. Hope everything goes well for everyone working at Red.
 
Christoffer Glans said:
But I can't shake the prediction that this will tumble down into a big mess, that we are now probably witnessing the beginning of the end of Red cinema cameras, regardless of the marketing jargon surrounding this acquisition. Nikon will assimilate all the tech developed by Red, chew it and spit out their own lineup of cameras in the attempt to balance the scales against Sony and Canon.
Click to expand...
Well, we have seen other purchaces that have worked out quite well. Hasselblad have not exactly suffered under DJI, they still make great cameras.
 
AndreasOberg said:
Well, we have seen other purchaces that have worked out quite well. Hasselblad have not exactly suffered under DJI, they still make great cameras.
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But that's what I meant, that's a minority stake, not a total takeover. Hasselblad is also such a quality brand that it would be suicide to dismantle it in any way. DJI need them to keep doing what they're doing while they take advantage of some of the patents.

This, however, is a total takeover by Nikon, and Red doesn't hold the brand value like Hasselblad. I think it's essentially due to this little thing:
https://petapixel.com/2023/04/27/re...kon-dismissed-z9-gets-to-keep-compressed-raw/

When asked if this had the potential to affect cases in the past and future, Maddrey says it’s possible.

“For other companies who might look at this case, it would only make sense that if you have a blueprint to a settlement in front of you, which this could possibly be, you would follow up on it — as long as the previous battles were not dismissed with or without prejudice,” he explains.
Click to expand...

Losing the grip on R3D is a huge loss for Red and setting a precedent that the patent validity isn't as strong as they thought. If others start using the same kind of compression, it would essentially put an end to the reason of using Red cameras, since the R3D format is a major key reason why the quality and workflow is so good.

At the moment, the only way to shoot RAW with off the shelf cameras is to use the HDMI tap. But shooting compressed RAW to the cards in the camera means that the problem with shooting compressed H265 files are essentially gone and you have something just as effective as a Red camera in its workflow. If you can get something like a FX3 and also internal compressed RAW, why would you buy a much more expensive full frame Red camera when it covers 90% of the needs?

Losing R3D would kill Red and they lost it to Nikon. Therefore, exiting before shit hits the fan seems the most reasonable outcome.
 
Christoffer Glans said:
Well, this feels like a "told you so" moment as I've said numerous times that the competition of lower cost cameras will start to eat up the reasons to buy into the expensive lineup of Red cameras. Maybe "The Creator" was the final straw, showing how an IMAX movie can actually be filmed on a cheaper camera.

The fact that this is a 100% takeover and not just a a major stake in the company hints at a coming decline in Red Cinema. I wouldn't be surprised if Red gets killed off and that the purchase of the company was purely to acquire the cinema camera tech to implement in their own cinema camera lineup. Nikon has been struggling against Canon and Sony so this feels like a desperate attempt at pushing into a valuable space to compete with everyone else. I mean, who's seen a Nikon brand on anything used for video and cinema capture? Let alone for photography? Sony and Canon dominate still photography and aren't stopping with innovation. Buying Red seems like a last resort attempt at getting any kind of part of the action.

But I can't shake the prediction that this will tumble down into a big mess, that we are now probably witnessing the beginning of the end of Red cinema cameras, regardless of the marketing jargon surrounding this acquisition. Nikon will assimilate all the tech developed by Red, chew it and spit out their own lineup of cameras in the attempt to balance the scales against Sony and Canon.
Click to expand...
First time I have ever totally agreed with you. Sad.
 
I felt totally betrayed by RED when they killed the value of my Komodo by releasing the komodo-x. This is a real slap in the butt. I don't ever see a NikEd in my future. Long live BMD.
 
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