Please help in building a Scarlet-W system

[Michael Holmes]

I am new to RED and RedUser, so please pardon the newbie questions.
What a super forum, so many knowledgeable cinematographers.

My son and I have placed an order for the Scarlet-W package. I would appreciate some guidance before we place orders for the accessories. He will be shooting local documentaries, advertisements, etc. to pay the bills, and working on low budget indie movies when possible.

Our RED order list is:

• Scarlet-W V-Lock I/O package w/3 pack (already ordered)
• Red Brick 6-pack
• Red Brick charger
• DC Power cable (10 ft)
• Mini-Mags – 4 x 240GB
• Red Station Red Mini-Mag.

In addition to the RED gear, the plan is to use:

• Steadicam Scout
• SmallHD 702 Bright 7" monitor
• RTMotion Lattitude system for follow focus
• Manfrotto 504HD Head w/535 Tripod System
• Sennheiser MKH-416 mic
• Sound Devices 702 audio recorder.

Most shooting is expected to be with tripod and Steadicam, so we did not include the EVF, at least for now.

My son already owns Canon EF L lenses for his photography business, so he plans to use them:

• 50mm f/1.2L EF USM
• 85mm f/1.2L II EF USM
• 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
• 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM.

Canon Cinema lenses will not fit in the budget.

He doesn’t have a wide angle lens, so we plan to buy the Canon 11-24mm f/4L USM lens. I know f/4 is not ideal. We considered the Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 which is in this price range, but (a) he likes the flexibility of the zoom, (b) the Zeiss is manual focus only and so would not work with the RTMotion Lattitude system.


Questions:

1. Have we left anything out of the RED order list?
2. At 5K, 24 frame rate, 8:1 REDCODE, I calculate around an hour to fill 240GB (if I did that right). He intends to transfer from the Mini-Mags to 1TB SSD cards connected to his MacBook Pro during shoots. Can he make 4x240GB Mini-Mags work on an 8-hour shoot?
3. We’ll need to mount the 702 monitor and RTMotion receiver on the camera assembly. Should we buy the Wooden Camera basic Scarlet Kit to facilitate this? Or something else?
4. Any comments on the Canon 11-24mm f/4 as the “go to” lens?
5. Any other suggestions about anything we’re buying? Please note that we are over budget already. Such is life.

Thanks very much for your help.

 

[Andy Roberts]

Tokina 11-16 f2.8 is a good wide lens. And you could add the Canon 16-35 f2.8 to that.... You'd spend $2,000 total instead of $3000 and have f2.8 throughout.

How will you be mounting your mic?

How will you be powering your accessories like the Follow Focus and monitor?

 

[Matthew Quinn]

4x 240GB sounds good. might get better value with 2 512GB cards

 

[Michael Holmes]

Tokina 11-16 f2.8 is a good wide lens. And you could add the Canon 16-35 f2.8 to that.... You'd spend $2,000 total instead of $3000 and have f2.8 throughout.

How will you be mounting your mic?

How will you be powering your accessories like the Follow Focus and monitor?

The mic will be boomed, so will not be mounted on the camera.

Great point about powering the RTMotion receiver and SmallHD monitor. I put the bricks on the list for longer run times, but I have not looked at connections, voltage match, etc.
If worse comes to worse, both can be operated with attached batteries.
We will probably do this with the monitor, since it might at times be operated away from the camera.
Thanks for raising this point. I'll discuss with RTMotion.