Not upgrading to Weapon

[Tim Morten]

Red is outstanding for providing an upgrade path, something no other manufacturer does. For the first time since R1, I will probably not take advantage of it.

- Dragon image quality is already outstanding and offers plenty of res
- $15k upgrade cost for a camera on the same sensor is a lot (I'm sure Weapon gets more from it, but how much more can it get? Perhaps half a stop?)
- ProRes is not useful to me personally; I understand its value to others
- Lighter weight, quieter, and higher FR would be nice, but I shoot 24p on sticks 99% of the time and sound has never been a problem
- Automatic recalibration sounds great, but not worth $15k to me
- I don't want to buy new accessories... cage, case, media
- I can add wireless to my Dragon already

I think Weapon looks like a great new system, and I'd love to shoot Vista someday. However, the value provided by even the cheapest magnesium upgrade does not seem to justify the cost, at least not for me personally. I feel like I will be left behind somehow, but it doesn't make sense to spend against a vague fear of future obsolescence. Unless there is a $15k increase in image quality from Dragon-X to Weapon-Magnesium, I just can't see investing the $$.

Who else is not upgrading, and why?

 

[Milan S.]

I think it's little early to dismiss this upgrade since we still don't know the the details that really matter, like the frame rates and compression ratios.

 

[Hal Long]

It's premature to make that call until we know specs for the Mg and CF models. No doubt we'll know more within hours/days.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

its all about story.. who can write and shoot the best story..

cameras don't matter. your mom can log onto her amazon account and get a camera that can shoot cinema quality for under 5 grand now.. even less than that actually...

people will always chase the dragon (no pun intended) and try to remain relevant in the gear market, and end up never producing anything other than "tests"
I love my original epic mx.. it looks great.
i love the original alexa, which you can seriously buy for 25 grand now..

weapon will def be a rental for me when i need it, and its cool to see red continue inovating and creating. I'm personally just out of the gear game. I will be a user, I will be a renter, I will tell my stories on whatever format I feel best tells the story... but I'm not worried about filling my closet with equipment anymore..

don't get me wrong.. red MADE me. nothing but love. I'm just coming at this as a guy who would like to buy an airplane instead, and already has a great tool for my personal projects (red epic mx)

 

[Damien Molineaux]

Hi Tim,

I'm with you. I've been on board the Red train since day 1, nearly, since IBC in Sept. 2006. I put down my deposit for Red One #500 and decided to keep hold of it, and yes Red has been offering an upgrade path no other manufacturer has. I however can not keep up with the pace things are going and the cost linked to it. Weapon sounds great, at least the specs do, I'm too sure about the name, but it's just a name after all. I do miss the early concept of a fully functional camera for $ 17'500. That's what it was about back then, then it became body only, now the camera is 49'500, what happened?

I'm really bummed out about ProRes, I want ProRes, I''ve been begging for ProRes for ages. I put down a depost for a Meizler module as soon as that was possibe, only to be told months later it was indefinitly pushed back. I guess today we can assume there will never be ProRes for the existaing Epic and Scarlet cameras.

In the eraly days I had the impression Red was abput passion and putting tools in the hands of filmmakers not available otherwise. Today I get the feeling Red is first and foremost a business. We've spent tens of thousand of dollars buying into Red. We have a Red One, an Epic-X a Scarlet-X and an Epic-Dragon. At this time, we cannot afford the upgrade, what happens, we fall off the train and get left behind. For those that can't fork over the money now, well too bad.

I'm sorry to say, I like using our Red cameras, but i'm disappointed by Red's business model. Makes me sad actually to feel this change, I don't feel taken care of as a customer. We'll see what the future holds.

Cheers,
Damien

 

[sander kamp]

Same here. Original Red One #441 owner, took all the upgrades so far to Epic Dragon but this is the first upgrade that doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Martin Whittier]

These prices and upgrades are getting out of control. I am seeing so many of my fellow owner/ops putting them selves into debt to upgrade so they don't become obsolete when the lines cut off and new products come out. I'll stick with my Epic MX for awhile, my clients don't seem to mind the outstanding quality of 5K.

 

[Tarquin Cardona]

I got my Dragon (finally!) in May 2014 and that was the first chance from the point of availability given my place on the 'list'. Over the next months we rode out the noisy blacks question, DR not as claimed and so forth. Bought the OLPFs to remedy the low-light issues. A short blink later it is time to get on the upgrade train again. My journey with the Epic began with Epic M. A 'privilege' that I paid heavily for thinking I was getting the camera to end all cameras. With that one I rode the whole business with the SDI not being full HD, poor color science, the bugs, the bricking and the fixes and the Red-hating from many reviewers due to Beta release etc which I believe helped establish the Arri gang as Mr Reliable. Which kind of sucked for a Red Epic owner. It cost about 34K for the brain at the outset, up to 50K for camera and accessories. So with bells and whistles and the 2014 dragon upgrade we are looking having spent about 65K to end up with a camera worth about 15K that still needs a spa-like sensor temp to really work as advertised. Now before someone goes apoplectic this is simply stating facts without commentary. So now if I upgrade to Weapon, it will cost another 17K for the basic package and then various other accessories probably bring me to more like 24K. So that means that I am into the Epic train (non Carbon) to about 90K+. If I take the Carbon option which prevents the camera from being a dead end, and then take the 'deal' for 8K - I would be looking at at least 116K or thereabouts to this point. So you look at that, and you ask yourself. Is that some form of lunacy on my part? What am I running, an R&D charity? If you do decide to take this step, would you end up with another iteration of an Epic where there is some other technical problem that will need to be worked on. Will you have another iteration of a product where there is always the need for an explanation or the 'fix' that is just around the bend? So for me the path is not the cheap version from the days of Red One but really the high road where I have paid handsomely to be an Epic owner. I really don't have an opinion honestly right now. I feel like Red may rightfully be making a move towards being the esoteric camera company it really is. Having realized that unilke Sony and Canon it just does not have the bandwidth to make foolproof affordable gear. And in that case perhaps it is becoming more for label drinkers and connoisseurs, and people who like to test things. Or at the very least best left to rent for most people. I have been lucky in that my business has been successful and we have been able to make these sorts of purchases without screwing ourselves. But I am sure for many others this is not a good situation. Especially for those who recently upgraded only to watch their upgrade money kind of vanish. On the other hand there are many others who have been killed with stuff like F65 etc...if that makes anyone feel better. So it is hard. The Dragon makes good images. Where is stymied is that it is complicated and needy. So automatic calibration, pro res etc are all good positive steps. Maybe steps that one wishes had not been so hard to come by. I think the question for me about upgrading is not one of just quality, but one of 'trust' in the kit and the relationship.

 

[Ted Parkes]

At the momentI am inclined to agree. If I need Weapon res I can rent it. And there are some great prores cameras out there for far less then the upgrade. Now if they made something like the Weapon "Base Expander" available for the Dragon then that might be something I would consider.

 

[Zeb B]

My guess is that there will be a recalibration of this program in the very near future. Working at RED I'm sure is like an echo chamber. It's only when the program / product is announced that brutal honesty occurs.

That all said - we still don't know some fundamental facts about Weapon's Tech / Specs since they have not been published. If it's $30K for a form factor upgrade then I'm out. Opportunity Cost dictates that I invest in those things that drive my business and that's a whole lot to spend on form - not function. We'll see once the curtain really goes up.

 

[Joachim Hoge]

We won´t upgrade straight away, thats for sure. I need a big job coming in before we do that.
The incredible strong dollar makes it a lot tougher to swallow (obviously not REDs fault). The dollar is 30% more expensive than when we bought our EPIC!

 

[Cosmo D]

My guess is that there will be a recalibration of this program in the very near future. Working at RED I'm sure is like an echo chamber. It's only when the program / product is announced that brutal honesty occurs.

That all said - we still don't know some fundamental facts about Weapon's Tech / Specs since they have not been published. If it's $30K for a form factor upgrade then I'm out. Opportunity Cost dictates that I invest in those things that drive my business and that's a whole lot to spend on form - not function. We'll see once the curtain really goes up.

Jarred just announced: "The Weapon squeezes about half a stop extra out of the Dragon sensor from the new internal processing". I guess i will go scarletD->epicD instead.

 

[Domenic Barbero]

After seeing all of the prices and what it offers and what my trade in value is, plus selling all my current gear, plus getting lots of new modules to get the features i want, Ive never been more tempted to give up on RED altogether and move on to other systems. Im literally having a hard time typing this after how much RED has gotten me in this business and allowed me opportunities. But at these prices, its no longer a real operator/owner type deal and I just can't see the benefits in paying that much for a system that is still going to be less desirable than other platforms. RED is now moving into the ARRI price range and while the Dragon does offer a few things over the Alexa line, There are still a lot of things Arri offers that RED does not. I just dont understand why RED cant just go get an alexa st and be like "yea we need to add this this and this to our line and offer it for less".

I just hope something magical happens in the near future. I love RED to death and appreciate everything they've done, but this is the first NAB post announcement where ive been really bummed out. I own two dragons and to go to two weapons is damn near half years pay.

 

[Max M.]

I'm also out. Will stick with the epic dragon. Difference is too small, price to big. Everything is getting cheaper, red is getting more and more expensive. No built in ND's is a dealbreaker, that could have pushed me over the fence. To much of a mess with different body's future upgrade paths blabla.

It's funny red started the whole "a camera can be 20K and not 100K, and are now selling a package for 70K.." an 7" touch screen for $2950, sound devices sells the pix E-7 for $1600 now and does a hell of a lot more... This makes al of the red stuff feeling more and more overpriced...

 

[sam karr]

I'm out also. I don't really see anything that I want in the Weapon. I don't need prores, I don't want to get a module to plug the power cable, I heard Jarred talking about half a stop better in lowlight. All these new modules and accessories that are so damn expensive. Nobody will see the difference in the final image. Putting 25-30k from my scarlet D for the same image would be insane.
Now I'm hesitating between getting out of the red game which is becoming super expensive and go Arri, or upgrading to Epic Dragon knowing that it will be my last red camera but i guess there will be a lot of cheap accessories to buy in the following monthes.
Red is less and less indie.

 

[Elsie N]

I'm only really interested in doing the 8k V,V sensor upgrade. But the only way I can swing that upgrade is to sell one of my two Dragons.

Having two cameras on a shoot has made my life much easier, but I can live without the second camera in order to have the V,V sensor.

By the same token, I can also continue to live with two Dragons if I'm unable to get true value for my 2nd Dragon.

 

[Domenic Barbero]

I just dont understand why the hell you would even want vista vision unless you are literally on a 100mil dollar movie with an insane post department and all the support. Shooting vista vision for motion makes no sense in really any way on normal productions. and then like everything else the crop is gonna make it so you have to shoot at 8k to have the benefit i would imagine.

 

[Elsie N]

We won´t upgrade straight away, thats for sure. I need a big job coming in before we do that.
The incredible strong dollar makes it a lot tougher to swallow (obviously not REDs fault). The dollar is 30% more expensive than when we bought our EPIC!

Yeah, with the dollar being so strong, if RED were a Norwegian company, maybe we could benefit here in the US. '-)

 

[Nook Kim]

All very valid points.

 

[Kwan Khan]

I just dont understand why the hell you would even want vista vision unless you are literally on a 100mil dollar movie with an insane post department and all the support.

LOL, however I agreed