Observations...

[Christopher Probst]

Does Zeb know about this? '-)

All I can say as someone who just shot a week with 2 Weapon cameras is that once you get one in your hands, you can never look back. I can honestly say without any hesitition, the Weapon is the definitive camera on the market today. And when the 8K version is available, I'll again be first in line.

 

[Bob Gundu]

All I can say as someone who just shot a week with 2 Weapon cameras is that once you get one in your hands, you can never look back. I can honestly say without any hesitition, the Weapon is the definitive camera on the market today. And when the 8K version is available, I'll again be first in line.

Hey Chris. Glad to hear the weapons are working in the field already. What were highlights working with them? Thanks!

 

[Brent Carter]

Brent, please ignore these outlying opinions. Thanks. Or, to paraphrase Jim, just invoke your right to refuse upgrades to certain people.

Terry, thanks for the reality check. Time for a nice Maker's Mark then getting a good night's sleep in my own bed.

NAB is awesome. Seeing so many people I have seen for 8 years running now. Being able to just catch up - hearing Curt's stories back when he rode BMX for Oakley, seeing Mark wearing the same red shirt that he wore at the first NAB with RED, getting a bear hug from Andrew, and watching Kelly get choked up seeing our reel showing the "greatest hits" of RED footage - from Elmo to the ISS. Priceless, really.

So, yeah, RED is family. And just like every family on the planet, we are a little dysfunctional. Maybe even a touch crazy. Ok, more than a touch...

Talk to you folks more tomorrow....

I will get off my nostalgic soapbox and give the floor to Chris : )

All I can say as someone who just shot a week with 2 Weapon cameras is that once you get one in your hands, you can never look back. I can honestly say without any hesitition, the Weapon is the definitive camera on the market today. And when the 8K version is available, I'll again be first in line.

 

[Christopher Probst]

Ergonomics are amazing. The cooling path is WAYYY improved. The camera is freakishly quiet now. Runs much cooler right off the bat and the location of the fan exhaust on the bottom rear is a much better spot. Also, it's so damn light it's hard to believe, and I didn't even have the Carbon variety.

This pic is from the camera prep as we were kitting it out for the shoot... and YES, I see that the motor cable is stretched, we were playing with different options on where to place all of the accessories we planned on using.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I want 8k but if I'm frozen out because of cost, then I'll have to stay at 6k or turn to a new RED-type camera maker to get me to 8k affordably... and that is something I never imagined I would ever (have to) say.

Yeah, I was sitting in the bmagic Booth (mostly because I wanted to check out Resolve demos). And I was doing the math of... "If they added 50% more resolution in one year to their sensor tech. And if they add another 50% next year they'll have a 60p 5.6k compressed RAW sensor in one year with probably 16+ stops of dynamic range for $5000.... that's uncomfortably close to my Epic Dragon. Hell even if I upgraded that's close to 6k Weapon." And around this time next year Vistavision will be rolling out... to $70k Carbon Fiber Weapons--I'm not going to be owning one of those... where does that leave me? Will Epics get access to the sensor upgrade after Weapon? Jarred said Body (REDOne) -> Sensor (MX) -> Body (Epic) -> Sensor (Dragon) -> Body (Weapon) -> What next happens when you "only" have an Epic on the next Tick. Do I need to Tock now or will I be abandoned? I spent $20k on upgrading from Scarlet MX to Epic Dragon and that was a brain dead easy decision.

I went from 4k @ 30p to 6k at 100p. I went from 13 to 16 stops of dynamic range, an unbelievable upgrade and for $20k. Yes sensitivity didn't really improve at all. Yes I picked up cmos smear but I am really really happy with Dragon overall. Biting the bullet and bootstrapping up two upgrade levels was financially difficult but worth it. Doing another $20k upgrade and replacing out all of my accessories less than a year later for really no immediate benefit (?ProRes?) and an ambiguous roadmap for even Weapon's future leaves me in the same terribly uncomfortable position Elsie. It wouldn't be uncomfortable in the slightest if I wasn't loyal to RED, I would just say "Sweet I'm getting a 6ishk camera from bMagic in a year for only $5k!", and then I would sell my Epic, buy an Ursula Jr. and take a round the world trip in first class with my Fiancee. And this is all from a diehard RED user. You should hear some of what people are saying off of REDUser. I'm one of the optimists. With all due respect Terry, I feel like comments like this

Brent, please ignore these outlying opinions.

are missing the point. Dissatisfaction isn't necessarily an outlying opinion. It might be awkward but ignoring it doesn't make it go away, it just makes it go quiet and I know from experience that the worst feedback you can possibly get is no feedback at all--because when people stop even complaining then it means they don't even care enough to complain.

This pic is from the camera prep as we were kitting it out for the shoot... and YES, I see that the motor cable is stretched, we were playing with different options on where to place all of the accessories we planned on using.

It is a world class camera. It is also not difficult to argue that it's the greatest camera on the planet. I would also argue that the Master Anamorphic on that bad boy is the best set of glass in the world. But I can't afford a $200k set of lenses and I can't justify spending $50k on camera gear in 2 years. Nor spending another $20k or $30k over the 2 years after this. I can't speak for others, but what I personally am looking for more than a discount is just an acknowledgement that Weapon is prohibitively expensive to many of RED's customers but not to worry, our current investment in RED isn't a dead end. When I hear RED talk about how great the REDOne "still is"... I start wondering if RED means "get used to your Epic, because it's the last camera from us you'll be affording for a while, so I hope you really like it." And when I hear RED encouraging Scarlet MX customers (A $7,500 camera) to invest $10k in their camera for the opportunity to spend another $30k I begin to wonder if RED has forgotten what "affordable" really means to those of us who don't just have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around willy nilly.

I'm sure a big rental house won't blink at spending $70k on a camera to get a Full Frame sensor, but I'm not a big rental house. Are we going back to High End Digital Cinema cameras being a rental item? I hope not. But I would understand if from RED's business perspective if that was just the way the market had gone. However, if that is the case I would also like to know now that their focus was shifting away from market disruptive pricing to something more in line with all of their competitors.

 

[David Battistella]

It's been fun following NAB online this year. Looks like you all had a blast!

should be a very interesting year.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Ergonomics are amazing. The cooling path is WAYYY improved. The camera is freakishly quiet now. Runs much cooler right off the bat and the location of the fan exhaust on the bottom rear is a much better spot. Also, it's so damn light it's hard to believe, and I didn't even have the Carbon variety.

This pic is from the camera prep as we were kitting it out for the shoot... and YES, I see that the motor cable is stretched, we were playing with different options on where to place all of the accessories we planned on using.

Chris what power distro are you using there at the back? I've seen you use that before!

 

[Christopher Probst]

I have a Gold mount plate that I typically counter weight off some top/back carbon fiber rods. In this pic, we added a Preston MDR3 bracket into the mix so that I could leave the top and side of the camera accessable. The Weapons I had each came with an XL batter back that I used for hot-swapping. Here you can see the camera fully stacked, there my 7" onboard which I elected to play from a Noga arm for flexibility, my jerry-rigged eyepice system for when I go handheld and then the aforementioned Preston setup. All in all, pretty lean and mean if you ask me. When not doing handheld, I usually pull the eyepiece off and operate via the touch screens.

 

[James Falco]

Hey Jeff... module adapter isn't a possibility. It is the first thing we wanted to do but the signals are completely different, sent in a different way with different voltages and originating from different sources. It would of needed a FPGA to do even the basic conversions and the module would take alot of power and made everything bigger.. So the penalties were too much.

Of course people can make " mechanical " adapters all day long for some things and 3rd party stuff.. I assume that is happening as we speak.

I think I might have found the only module that is possible to adapt to Weapon:

 

[Alex Bros]

-I'm really gonna miss my side handle

-I think the Epic is an outstanding shoulder camera. Shot with an Amira recently and was very disappointed. Not with the image, just the ergonomics; We could have done the same or better with my Dragon and had way more fun doing it.

-ProRes has to be taken seriously. I'm shooting a couple jobs over the next week where shooting ProRes is ideal. I own a Red, so I wanna shoot my Red but I'm gonna take a stab at my rate in order to budget more for post. These aren't big jobs, they wouldn't have shot this raw/Dragon if I didn't happen to own one, but I'd rather shoot on my Dragon than what they budgeted for. So much that I'll take the cut, I want them to look good... With ProRes onboard, they don't need to hire someone to transcode/make dailies and I can charge more for eliminating that time/cost. Personally, I'm more interested in the Weapon being either R3D mode or ProRes mode; having the same frame rate capabilities is better than being able to do both at the same time, for me. Being able to do both at 24fps is great. Pushing that to 60 is better, but I think beyond that it's reasonable to expect some transcoding to happen. Both CF and M should be able to do 4k ProRes. It would be nice if CF is able to do 4k ProRes and 6/8K R3D at the same time. That said I have no idea what is actually viable, I'm just some punk...
(if you need 4k Offlines, CF could probably still be cheaper to rent in the long run with that model (for high end workflows)

- Red is no longer competing in the "Race to the Bottom". Kudos for that. They've become the American Arri and I don't think that's a bad thing.

 

[Curt Pair]

Ergonomics are amazing. The cooling path is WAYYY improved. The camera is freakishly quiet now. Runs much cooler right off the bat and the location of the fan exhaust on the bottom rear is a much better spot. Also, it's so damn light it's hard to believe, and I didn't even have the Carbon variety.

This pic is from the camera prep as we were kitting it out for the shoot... and YES, I see that the motor cable is stretched, we were playing with different options on where to place all of the accessories we planned on using.

What top plate are you running there! That's sweet! I didn't notice anything like that at NAB!

 

[Alex Boothby]

Ergonomics are amazing. The cooling path is WAYYY improved. The camera is freakishly quiet now. Runs much cooler right off the bat and the location of the fan exhaust on the bottom rear is a much better spot. Also, it's so damn light it's hard to believe, and I didn't even have the Carbon variety.

This pic is from the camera prep as we were kitting it out for the shoot... and YES, I see that the motor cable is stretched, we were playing with different options on where to place all of the accessories we planned on using.

Hi Christopher. It looks like the Lemo adaptor can be flopped so the Lemo connection is facing either the smart or dumb side. Is this true?

 

[Patrick Grossien]

We are just spitballing here... but a pure form-factor upgrade from Epic to Weapon in aluminum form isn't the worst idea in the world.

Ears Open...

To be honest, I thought this would be on your roadmap already. Maybe for next year. Producing AL Weapon form factor Epics and Scarlets I mean...
I was thinking that the Epic/Scarlet form factor would be dying out soon, because the Weapon is so much better and makes more sense in every which way.

So yes definitely do it. If at around Epic-X Dragon price point we could get Weapon AL - I'd rather upgrade to Weapon AL from Scarlet than to Epic - nowadays

Sending in Scarlet with side SSD (1.8" or mini) for a Weapon AL (with standard Epic ASIC power) trade in incl. Base Expander and Lemo Adaptor A and nothing else, it should be a 1:1 trade in terms of port functionality? If that would be anywhere close to $10K oh baby.

For additional sugar on top if there would be an option for sending in acc at the time of purchase of the camera upgrade, that would be sweet!
Send in side handle to get a (small / tiny) trade-in discount towards sidekick AL and/or REDVOLT expander purchase.
Send in side handle + battery mount for some sort of discount towards sidekick and REDVOLT expander or weapon battery module (or future side handle )

Thinking out loud again

 

[Ulf Krentz]

snip

For additional sugar on top if there would be an option for sending in acc at the time of purchase of the camera upgrade, that would be sweet!
Send in side handle to get a trade-in discount towards sidekick AL and/or REDVOLT expander purchase.
Send in side handle + battery mount for bigger discount for sidekick and REDVOLT expander or weapon battery module (or future side handle )

Thinking out loud again

If you want to see RED survive as a company you will probably realize this does not sound realistic...

 

[Patrick Grossien]

If you want to see RED survive as a company you will probably realize this does not sound realistic...

Very true it's the same thing I said before when people posted stuff like this, and I know this is pretty unlikely. But I said it anyway because I believe it doesn't hurt to put any idea on the plate. No matter how unrealistic it may seem at first.

What I believe is that if it's realistic or not depends on the amount of discount and if it would make sense for RED to sell the trade-in acc. as BT ware. I think the unrealistic part of it is that it's too much of a hassle and that you would spend too much in man power handling and checking these acc. But I further believe that the more people jump onto the Weapon form factor the better off RED would be. (Of course this is a simple assumption but having 1 production line instead of 2 sounds more efficient)

But the part above is probably as unrealistic because I put a price tag next to it.

The thing is Weapon is an exclusive deluxe platinum premiere dragon. And Scarlet is already out of the reach for a lot of folks. I just would love to see the Indy portion of us who are already in the game not having to abandon RED because we can't afford it anymore in the future. RED made cine quality available to a bigger crowd. If they can keep this a reality, I'm a happy camper

EDIT: to me my idea sounds as unrealistic as the trade-in price for the 64 REDMAGs of $950 towards a purchase of a 512GB mini

 

[Angus Mackay]

First of all, congratulations to Red on another quantum leap, the Weapons look amazing. I don't think the price of the cameras is out of the way at all, given the incredible specs.

From our perspective, the magnesium weapon is probably a bit out of reach but not a million miles away. Simply re-bodying multiple Dragon Epics seems pretty pointless.

I guess what we're hoping for is that there will be a Weapon X next year that would have a similar price ratio to Epic M vs Epic X - i.e. the same (or virtually the same) electronics in an aluminium body that would take advantage of manufacturing productivity improvements to offer a pricepoint that's manageable for the wider market. We're quite happy to sit tight for now and hope that Red follows that path.

 

[Anton Shavlik]

Just an observation

Just an observation

Sounds like the CF 8k will be a cool 70k new when it's released. But, if you order right now and already own a dragon you get:

-10k off the sensor
+9k worth of gear in the package
+5k credit for whatever gear you buy next
-the value of your trade in which could be as much as 22,500.

So the 70k camera for new users gets anyone with a dragon who upgrades now 84k worth of stuff for something between 37,500 (CF Epic) and 55,000 (Scarlet). Not to mention the deal on the mini mags. How much was the CF Epic Dragon when it was released, and what did it come with?

 

[Ulf Krentz]

snip

EDIT: to me my idea sounds as unrealistic as the trade-in price for the 64 REDMAGs of $950 towards a purchase of a 512GB mini

Sorry, I did not intend to offend you. Now with the SSDs that was a generous move from Jarred I agree, and I took advantage of that - but still, you have to pay 1500€ for a 512GB SSD.
Let´s see, what they come up with

Cheers, Ulf

 

[BrendanLeahy]

So your vote is we abolish upgrade campaigns moving forward? Copy that.

That's actually not what I'm saying at all... Brent, you said you consider RED to be family... your response is like saying, "So you have a problem? Fine, we'll get divorced."

I, and quite a lot of others, are asking about issues and trying to get answers so we can work through them and figure out a good middle ground...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hey Jeff... module adapter isn't a possibility. It is the first thing we wanted to do but the signals are completely different, sent in a different way with different voltages and originating from different sources. It would of needed a FPGA to do even the basic conversions and the module would take alot of power and made everything bigger.. So the penalties were too much.

Good to know. I figured there would be some form of translation going on within the adapter, but since you put it this way...