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

[Han Vogen]

Correct, but it seems that people don't understand what wholly-owned subsidiary means. And we have zero idea about any terms that are hinted at.

It's um... in Nikon's best interests to keep RED growing as well. From a market point of view, RED had 4 of their biggest years likely majorly fueled by Komodos mainly and certainly Raptor playing a big role.

I'm sticking by the obvious. Nikon gains a lot of tech. RED gains a lot of resources. Nikon is who owns all of that not. RED as a subsidiary just got access to so much it's freaky.

I'll just put one crazy thought out there. RED hasn't implemented H.265 in cameras mainly due to licensing costs (ironical), but Nikon being big has put that in their cameras. So for those that want that, I think that's now possible financially speaking.

This will go the way it almost always goes. Everything worth a dam will be integrated into the acquiring company and the original company will be gutted. Companies don’t pay for redundancy… I’ve seen it too many times. They will keep a few key people, most will be fired. They will likely rebrand Red. This is not like Hasselblad, with a long an illustrious history.

 

[Dustin Schmidt]

I know this is a camera forum, so the commentary is going to be very specific to Nikon's cameras, RED's cameras and the specific tech and models that each company bring to the table, respectively. Although it's been mentioned several times by others, I think there's some failure to realize how big of a company Nikon is.

It's a publicly traded company, with numerous divisions and tens of thousands of employees. The announcement of the acquisition of RED didn't even make the tiniest little dent in their stock price today. Nikon isn't "struggling" or having any issues as a company.

There's no fallout from any court decisions or anything of that nature either. (Especially since there was no court decisions of any type. The case was dismissed without prejudice and they moved on). They've simply decided to invest more heavily in their imaging products division at this time and decided purchasing RED would help move them in the direction they want to go. There's no doubt that their resources will help move RED cameras forward.

 

[Phil Holland]

This will go the way it almost always goes. Everything worth a dam will be integrated into the acquiring company and the original company will be gutted. Companies don’t pay for redundancy… I’ve seen it too many times. They will keep a few key people, most will be fired. They will likely rebrand Red. This is not like Hasselblad, with a long an illustrious history.

I don't mean to be the one pointing out the obvious, but it's in the press release that they well be a subsidiary and still operating separating as Nikon and RED. From our side of things, RED will continue, just with ownership under Nikon.

There are huge advantages to having a US based camera manufacturer from a business perspective. I think Nikon is very aware of that. It actually opens up new business corridors for their scitech imaging as well. I think strongly one of the main reasons to buy a company like RED is down to the engineers, image scientists, and various assets related to manufacturing and production outside of several of the obvious technology related interests.

RED has a strong brand presence in the motion picture industry being one of the main 3 systems used for major production work, with the main cameras in that specific category being the top selling while the others retain top renting, though much few units. Which has been the seesaw thing to watch as Sony entered the arena. RED and Arri own the production world that I particularly float in with Sony in there as well. Canon is around, but usually in other markets and market segments, but I expect Canon to jump hard and aggressively back in shortly. Politics aside, even Arri Rental has a fleet of various RED cameras as the industry is dynamic in that way and some of those reasons are for specific features that RED cameras have that no others currently have.

Nikon in particular hasn't exactly diluted any of their acquisitions that have any foothold in specific fields. Historically they build on it. Which is why I'm more enticed by all of this.

Perhaps too much of a deep dive, but if you're curious, Nikon does list their various companies worldwide:

Nikon Group Companies | Corporate Information | Nikon About Us

Introducing Nikon group companies in Japan, the Americas, Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Middle East.

www.nikon.com

And the only thing I see here is potential that didn't exist yesterday for both companies.

 

[Vince Chavez]

Very interesting - my long bet was a Canon acquisition of RED.

 

[David Collard]

Wow! To me this is great news. It's really both a beautiful ending and a new beginning.

Red from its very early days had a roadmap which it fulfilled. Jim got paid back, a lot of people made careers from the camera and a lot of good vibes all around, despite some learning curves.

This a major win-win for both companies. Nikon, as a part of the Japanese brotherhood of companies, will probably end up licensing the RAW to other competing Japanese companies.

The writing was obviously on the wall for more cameras like the Sony FX3, so if Nikon follows that lead and brings to market another iteration of the original plan for Komodo type cameras, we are all winners and the latent dreamers will get their cameras too.

Party-on RED! Thanks for everything. We love you.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

If you told me a week ago somebody was about to buy RED, my money would have been on Canon, with Apple second. IAC, while I hear the concerns about a large global conglomerate being nimble and aware enough to keep innovating the way Jim and RED did - I also see the potential for great things. I guess we're going to find out...

Cheers - #19

 

[Zack Birlew]

I believe on Facebook it said RED Studios is still RED's so it may be more of a partnership in appearance but owned by Nikon, like having different divisions. I'm sure in the next months we'll have more of an idea how things will be going forward.

 

[Christopher A. Bell]

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.

Once upon a time(back in the 90’s), Nikon made broadcast ENG lenses, so…. Who knows…?

 

[Marc Fisher]

I was surprised by the dismissed lawsuit against Nikon last year. A deal behind the scenes was obviously done. It appears that this may have been the deal. Perhaps RED was made an offer it decided it was best not to refuse. Pure speculation on my part.

 

[Phil Holland]

I believe on Facebook it said RED Studios is still RED's so it may be more of a partnership in appearance but owned by Nikon, like having different divisions. I'm sure in the next months we'll have more of an idea how things will be going forward.

Jarred replied to a few comments on that. RED Studios Hollywood isn't apart of this deal. It's also a separate company from what I can tell. There's a lot of stuff I don't think will experience change due to this deal.

Got a lot of love for that place. I've filmed there back when it was Ren-Mar. RED had an event there, a RED Day, very memorable. Shortly after that event, they pulled the trigger and bought it. I remember thinking "wow" when that went down. Incredibly smart move IMO on that one. I've filmed there since and it's always hustling and bustling with shoots and occasional events. I've even rented out stages for a couple workshops myself. Did one with Sigma that was freaking awesome for a couple hundred attendees a while back.

 

[Emanuel A.]

Jarred replied to a few comments on that. RED Studios Hollywood isn't apart of this deal. It's also a separate company from what I can tell. There's a lot of stuff I don't think will experience change due to this deal.

Got a lot of love for that place. I've filmed there back when it was Ren-Mar. RED had an event there, a RED Day, very memorable. Shortly after that event, they pulled the trigger and bought it. I remember thinking "wow" when that went down. Incredibly smart move IMO on that one. I've filmed there since and it's always hustling and bustling with shoots and occasional events. I've even rented out stages for a couple workshops myself. Did one with Sigma that was freaking awesome for a couple hundred attendees a while back.

I was wondering about the same, actually, glad this will keep it the way we know : ) I think 'subject to change' has always been a mantra of RED, anyway.

Good to Jarred and Jim, I think, we community are much more poor today almost twenty years later without both of them, no more no less.

RED Studios is the trace of those good old times, yet, as much as the presence of this community, what's left? :- )

 

[Mike P.]

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/



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.

If this *isn’t* the case, it’d be pretty frustrating to read for those in the know who are (presumably) legally not to able to talk about it/set the record straight.

Conversely if it *is* the case, I guess JinnyMag got the last laugh (the argument about redcode’s ‘public introduction to patent date’ timeline discrepency that Nikon used in their attempt to invalidate the patent were nearly identical to one of Jinny’s videos)… Did anyone else who challenged the patent (Arri, Apple, Canon, Sony, etc) get ‘dismissed without prejudice’ like Nikon or did they all flat out lose?

Regardless, we’ll know for sure if compressed raw starts popping up in cameras from other manufacturers moving forward (granted it sounds like Nikon could afford to keep challenges in litigation until 2028 when it runs out anyway).

 

[Han Vogen]

I don't mean to be the one pointing out the obvious, but it's in the press release that they well be a subsidiary and still operating separating as Nikon and RED. From our side of things, RED will continue, just with ownership under Nikon.

There are huge advantages to having a US based camera manufacturer from a business perspective. I think Nikon is very aware of that. It actually opens up new business corridors for their scitech imaging as well. I think strongly one of the main reasons to buy a company like RED is down to the engineers, image scientists, and various assets related to manufacturing and production outside of several of the obvious technology related interests.

RED has a strong brand presence in the motion picture industry being one of the main 3 systems used for major production work, with the main cameras in that specific category being the top selling while the others retain top renting, though much few units. Which has been the seesaw thing to watch as Sony entered the arena. RED and Arri own the production world that I particularly float in with Sony in there as well. Canon is around, but usually in other markets and market segments, but I expect Canon to jump hard and aggressively back in shortly. Politics aside, even Arri Rental has a fleet of various RED cameras as the industry is dynamic in that way and some of those reasons are for specific features that RED cameras have that no others currently have.

Nikon in particular hasn't exactly diluted any of their acquisitions that have any foothold in specific fields. Historically they build on it. Which is why I'm more enticed by all of this.

Perhaps too much of a deep dive, but if you're curious, Nikon does list their various companies worldwide:

Nikon Group Companies | Corporate Information | Nikon About Us

Introducing Nikon group companies in Japan, the Americas, Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Middle East.

www.nikon.com

And the only thing I see here is potential that didn't exist yesterday for both companies.

That’s pretty much what they always say. Then a year later the layoffs start. Seen it too many times. This is business, zero reason to believe “this time” will be the time that’s different.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I could be way off base, but I do see a lot of potential for Nikon to jump into the high margin cinema glass market using a ruggedized Z mount. They certainly have the portfolio - including well established supply chains, special purpose facilities, highly trained lens techs, etc.
I have been pitching for cinema lenses with proper internal motors for years. Yes, I know external motors offer compelling levels of control, you can swap a bad one quickly and the best pullers in the biz play them like a concert violinist. I know. I also know we have entered a whole new level of precision control that allows not just AI integration, but the ability to manually adjust AI parameters in real time. Don't forget that another moving part (pun intended) of the AI revolution is the physical control mechanisms for robotic arms and their advanced specialized progeny. In 2024, I believe creating small, high reliability, high torque motors inside the outer barrel of the lens geared for the kind of moves you want for narrative production is within reach.
I haven't been keeping up with sales figures over at Nikon, but with so much of the mass market having decamped to cell phone photography... Just seems like a good time to stimulate the market for expensive lenses. Just sayin'

Cheers - #19

 

[Phil Holland]

I haven't been keeping up with sales figures over at Nikon, but with so much of the mass market having decamped to cell phone photography... Just seems like a good time to stimulate the market for expensive lenses. Just sayin'

I do my homework like my life depends on it. Nikon currently is in 3rd place of the total global camera market. Canon leads by a big amount, Sony is in second, Nikon third and about the combined side of smaller companies like Fuji, Hasslelbad, etc. Smartphones btw make up a larger camera market, but hey, who's counting. RED basically jumped from the gray area of that pie graph where the companies aren't even listed, where Arri also sits, and are now in the hands of #3.

And yes. I agree. Nikon physically both makes and designs glass. I've wanted to see them throw some resources into making cinema lenses. This seams like a very logical time to reinvestigate that. That could be released under the RED or Nikon brand for that matter. That would take a minimum of 6 months to a year. But new Pro Primes or whatever would be rocking. That said, we have more glass options than ever. So who knows the real value there.

The potential for innovation and advancement is staggering here. But it will take time to see how their combined efforts can create the future path. Knowing a bit about product development, we might see some stuff early, but more likely a year or three away from hardcore results.

 

[Björn Benckert]

the infrastructure to make new school cinema lenses with internal motors and decent margins. RED provides a tech forward platform that could leverage a number of AI driven features at a higher level. The obvious low hanging fruit is an auto focus system purpose designed for motion that taps into the processing power in the RED camera brain.

I do my homework like my life depends on it. Nikon currently is in 3rd place of the total global camera market. Canon leads by a big amount, Sony is in second, Nikon third and about the combined side of smaller companies like Fuji, Hasslelbad, etc. Smartphones btw make up a larger camera market, but hey, who's counting. RED basically jumped from the gray area of that pie graph where the companies aren't even listed, where Arri also sits, and are now in the hands of #3.

And yes. I agree. Nikon physically both makes and designs glass. I've wanted to see them throw some resources into making cinema lenses. This seams like a very logical time to reinvestigate that. That could be released under the RED or Nikon brand for that matter. That would take a minimum of 6 months to a year. But new Pro Primes or whatever would be rocking. That said, we have more glass options than ever. So who knows the real value there.

The potential for innovation and advancement is staggering here. But it will take time to see how their combined efforts can cr

I think to win the game Nikon should do the following.

Create a cine lens series with both internal motors and external gears. Then create a onboard cinemonitor with built in stereo and lidar dept vision and aAI board calculating focus. And then make it possible to use that together with the built in motors of their lenses or attached focus motor and any lens. And use it all in combo with Pdaf focus to dial in the last critical focus or set calibration.

The above is not a far fetch for a company that owns what was red and the Nikon line up of glas. If the above was their primary target / goal then I think they could step in and start a huge revolution in the film industry. They are one of the few that could do it at such scale that the cost for such development would be so little so they could implement it in their tourist line up of cameras as well as the absolute high end.

 

[AndreasOberg]

I have been part of several companies being bought by large companies (like Microsoft) and it has turned out for the better in almost every case. So hopefully that is the case here.

The improvements I have seen:
- More money so projects that require heavy investments can be done, a smaller company would not have been able to invest as much.
- Access to skill in other areas. I think software development has slowed down a bit from Red. Hopefully this would be accelerated with access to more programmers.
- larger recruitment in areas of need suddenly being possible.

The key in all those areas was that the new parent company really appreciated and wanted the company to keep being what it used to be, just stronger with more resources. So hopefully with Red that will still be the case. Only time can tell. What I do now is that Red cameras has been my favorite since Red Epic MX and we have 3 of them.

 

[Phil Holland]

I think to win the game Nikon should do the following.

I think to win the game RED and/or Nikon should do the following.
- Don't rely on internal lens motors, they break and a whole damn new thing needs to be created
- Do rely on /i Data, it works!
- Create a smart motor system that plugs into the EXT Ports on DSMC3 bodies that can run Focus, Iris, Zoom that in tandem works with the Phase Detect Autofocus
- And perhaps create a LiDar vision based accessory that can also be added into the mix for tricky shots.

Those last two, I think right now come from a different company working in collaboration perhaps.

If you threw some resources at this, you can get that smart motor system done in a few months of R&D, plus likely a smidge more for refinement and manufacturing logistics.

Down the line. Have enough memory and some new protocol for making and keeping lens profiles or being detected via metadata, as well as customizing and sharing such things, and boom Bob's your uncle.

I go deeper into how I want controllers to exist and interactivity with RED Control, but you get the idea.

The mere aspect of touch to focus on a PL mount lens with a motor and interface that works would be massive.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

It's um... in Nikon's best interests to keep RED growing as well. From a market point of view

That's not for certain, it makes as much sense that they infuse their own brand of Nikon cinema cameras, with their own design and target group, to have most of the acquired tech from Red in them. There's nothing that conclusively hints at them letting Red go on as if nothing has happened. Remember, it's 100%, that means, they will have full control over the trajectory of Red cameras and it's not far fetched that they have other ideas of where to take this. Just wanting to enter the cinema camera space does not equal to them having a good idea of where to take things; it may just be a pure Excel spreadsheet decision rather than having any actual vision as to what to make of this purchase. Like, enter the cinema camera business to compete with Sony and Canon, check... now what?

You’re making a lot of assumptions. That is not always how these things go. That happens sometimes. But if you stop and think about the Tech in the current lineup of RED cameras. Nobody else is even in the ballpark with Global Shutter. Even with Sony’s new GS camera, there are some serious issues. The core technology that nikon now has could lead some incredible cinema cameras. It could be completely rebranded or maybe it won't. But the nikon money being thrown at REDs sensor tech isn't going to make anything worse.

We need to wait before we start crying too hard over it.

As far as I see it, the assumptions seem to be mostly made in the opposite direction. People speak about Nikon and Red being a merger or partnership, but that's not what 100% means. It is a total acquisition. The bias people have towards Red produces some idea that there's some grand plan by Red through this acquisition, but everything so far points to it being a pure cash out. If it had been a merger, a minority stake or even a majority stake; then the idea of Red still having agency makes sense; in the same way DJI has majority stake in Hasselblad. But this is a 100% takeover. I don't think people understand what that means.

Like, look at Sony acquiring Minolta:

"Originally, in the negotiations, Konica Minolta wanted cooperation with Sony in camera equipment production rather than a sell-out deal, but Sony vehemently refused, saying that it would either acquire everything or leave everything that had to do with the camera equipment sector of KM. Konica Minolta withdrew from the photography business on 30 September 2006."

Total acquisition usually leads to assimilation into the owner company. It will fuel Nikon, but there's nothing that says that Red will continue other than marketing speak to calm down a market when stuff like this happens. However, we've seen the same thing before, some calm and positive spin in press releases and yet a few months or years later, that acquired company becomes a skeleton of its former self.

causing cinema to take huge leaps back into the dark ages of the BIG camera companies owning everything. Sad news, if canon bought red, or if Sony did i wouldnt feel like this.

Aren't Canon and Sony also BIG camera companies? But still, what we're seeing is that the tech in large cinema cameras trickles down into the consumer market. I've been saying this for years, it only takes one low-cost mirrorless semi-cinema camera that features enough tech to make a dent into the cinema camera industry. We will see more stuff like "The Creator" being made, especially if internal compressed RAW gets released into the wild.

Things will not be thrown back into the dark ages, cinema cameras will lower in cost further and further. Arri and Sony can survive the high cost of their cameras since they're niched into the film industry. But tech is moving fast and it's a matter of time before there's no meaningful gap between an off the shelf camera and an industry cinema camera.

There is only a few more years on the patent. I think it runs out 2028. Sony Venice raw, DJI raw and r3d... The difference in work flow, convenience, picture quality etc is what? I don't see any major differences.

Yeah, and that's a good thing. The patent is limiting competition in which the features of the camera competes and not a limitation of the format. The convenience is in not needing external recorders for RAW and not needing huge disk space to store it. I'm not sure what you mean by not seeing any differences? The convenience of having R3D or a similar format of compression and 16-bit quality in something like the FX3 is obvious compared to how the RAW workflow is on it now.

The announcement of the acquisition of RED didn't even make the tiniest little dent in their stock price today. Nikon isn't "struggling" or having any issues as a company.

There's no fallout from any court decisions or anything of that nature either. (Especially since there was no court decisions of any type. The case was dismissed without prejudice and they moved on). They've simply decided to invest more heavily in their imaging products division at this time and decided purchasing RED would help move them in the direction they want to go. There's no doubt that their resources will help move RED cameras forward.

And this just sounds like what I fear, that them acquiring Red was made solely for the purpose of acquiring the tech. If the acquisition isn't even noticed properly, then there's nothing that points to it being a business decision for the gain of Red, rather, it seems to be for the gain of Nikon. To further improve their cameras, not continue improving Red cameras.

If we are to be even more pessimistic, they might even have acquired Red to just strip the tech and Frankenstein it into some other lineup that they focus on, not caring at all for the cinema camera space, but I doubt it's that doom and gloom.

I don't mean to be the one pointing out the obvious, but it's in the press release that they well be a subsidiary and still operating separating as Nikon and RED. From our side of things, RED will continue, just with ownership under Nikon.

Press releases are marketing for stakeholders. They don't have to correlate with what's going on behind closed doors. Read the press release for Sony acquiring Minolta back in 2005, it reads similar to Nikon's press release, all talk about the joint effort, the collaboration etc.

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/News/Press/200507/05-0719E/

They effectively purchased the tech, developed together with Minolta, released their camera and then killed off Minolta and now it's a purely Sony camera. Why wouldn't Nikon do the same with Red? What's stopping them from that? Good intentions? I'm too much of a realist to expect good intentions out of business moves like this. Hopefully proven wrong, but I think the writing's on the wall.

I have been part of several companies being bought by large companies (like Microsoft) and it has turned out for the better in almost every case. So hopefully that is the case here.

I've witnessed the opposite, maybe that's why I'm more of a pessimist in this case. But then again, I've been the forum pessimist for years now. I just think that there's a lot of bias towards the positive due to an overwhelming trust in Red. But I've seen questionable choices made by Red in the past and I'm not sure this was made in the interest of Red, but instead a way to opt out of the market before it gets saturated by cheaper cameras with cinema camera capabilities. It's telling that we see this at a time when movies like "The Creator" gets made.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Whoa! After the death of AATON’s Cantar and RED sold, movies will be shot with less companies. Less competition… less options.