RED narrative production issues- R&D priorities!

[Tonaci Tran]

I agree with everybody that Morpheus tone makes it hard for us to exactly understand his position but the point might just be that this could happen to ANYBODY who picks up the camera without going through these boards everyday and without direct access to technical support from someone from RED. How brilliantly the camera was designed and how great value for money it is, at the moment it still a technical challenge to work with and we have to give Morpheus some credit for pointing that out. I am trying to imagine myself on a set with fifty people all waiting for me to load different firmware that might or might not solve a problem :waaa:

Also the fact that not all cameras seem to respond to new firmware in the same way worries me a bit. How are new camera owners supposed to find out whether there problem is unique?

I hate the waiting game but it might be a good thing that RED is not shipping new cameras until certain things are worked out.

"it still a technical challenge to work with and we have to give Morpheus some credit for pointing that out."
"this could happen to ANYBODY who picks up the camera without going through these boards everyday "

Morpheus points out really nothing new. You don't need to read these boards everyday to know the firmware progress. The software feature issues he has pointed out are noted in Red.com's suppport section which lists everything thoroughly:
http://www.red.com/support/release_history/4
Most of his rants are already solved, playback/fan noise, or at least will come in due time.

"at the moment it still a technical challenge to work with "
Yes, but look at what has been accomplished thus far with this camera. Feature films, music videos, commercials already completed. I worked 3 weeks straight with RED on an independent feature film (5 weeks total) that just wrapped, and though issues came up, we were able to work through them. You have some choices: wait until the camera matures more to your liking, complain/use another camera, or venture where few have gone before and rise to the occasion..the choice is up to you.

 

[dino g]

at the moment it still a technical challenge to work with and we have to give Morpheus some credit for pointing that out.

Also the fact that not all cameras seem to respond to new firmware in the same way worries me a bit. How are new camera owners supposed to find out whether there problem is unique??

It is not a technical challenge to use this camera. he gets no credit for pointing out something that is just not true!

here are the steps....simple simple simple

plug in the battery cable
plug in the monitor cable
plug in the monitor cable to the monitor
load a battery on the shoe
turn on the camera with the power on button (90 seconds)
set your project config (4k, 2k, 4k2:1)
set frame rate
load cf card
format cf card (8 seconds)
set shutter, asa, color temp and f-stop
press the red button
NOW YOU ARE SHOOTING
press the red button again....
STOP Shooting.

repeat until card is full
unmount card
load into your computer
drop qt proxy into fcp
cut your show.

do not load new firmware during a shoot...it is that simple.

load your firmware the day or night before and spend a few hours testing it and learning about it. it is just common sense stuff, it is by design not that complicated. this is how you test whether or not your camera works with the firmware.

finally, if your camera does not work properly...BRING IT BACK!!!!

they want you to be happy, they really really do and will do anything and everything to make sure you are. (period)

 

[Tonaci Tran]

Morpheus, I have a couple questions for you:

"We took one look at both the primes and the zoom and sent it all back."

What primes are you talking about? There are only two RED lenses available. Your statement suggests you worked with 3 red lenses.

"The drive also reverberates a lot"
What drive are you talking about? RED drives have not been released yet.

 

[sander kamp]

I haven't seen or worked with the camera. I just (im)patiently waiting on the other side of the world and reading everything there is on the internet. It's hard for me to see from this distance what's true or not true. I think people who have problems with the camera have the right to complain, but then again they should not complain about problems that are avoidable or even fixed already.

Anyway, just give me my camera and I'll be happy to find out myself. I live in a country that would fall apart without adhesive tape and rubber bands and people would probably freak out about a camera without any problems

I just wonder: should I warn possible clients that some problems are to be expected? In the sense that it is a new system and still being worked and such? Or is there a possible workflow that just works?

 

[dino g]

no need to warn, in my humble opinion. if you learn your camera you will be fine, the camera works great. again, i have posted many play by plays of recent jobs, two days ago an 18 hour day 45 cards used not 1 problem, not 1...clients, dp, director, artist all very very very happy.

get your camera and use it for a week, then go big....

 

[sander kamp]

no need to warn, in my humble opinion. if you learn your camera you will be fine, the camera works great. again, i have posted many play by plays of recent jobs, two days ago an 18 hour day 45 cards used not 1 problem, not 1...clients, dp, director, artist all very very very happy.

get your camera and use it for a week, then go big....

Wow! That sounds just great. Thanks a lot for the info and I'l happily take your advice.

 

[morpheusfilm]

drives reverberate

drives reverberate

Morpheus, I have a couple questions for you:

"We took one look at both the primes and the zoom and sent it all back."

What primes are you talking about? There are only two RED lenses available. Your statement suggests you worked with 3 red lenses.

"The drive also reverberates a lot"
What drive are you talking about? RED drives have not been released yet.

Didn't work with multiple primes. I'm talking about the 300 mm and the zoom offered right now.
The 300 mm breathed terribly and if you can not get a tele lense to not breathe then please don't even attempt a wide angle. The problem with optical physics design involved with breathing on a tele vs. a wide prime are quite different and if the optical designers at RED can't get even get a 300mm to play nice then the likelyhood of them getting an 18mm to work correctly are slim to none. I won't even go into the travesty that is the zoom lense they offer. That is why I again say; FORGET DEVELOPMENT OF A PRIME LENS SET AND FOCUS THE COMPANIES RESOURCES ON MAKING THE CAMERA WORK TO FULL PROMISED CAPACITY. No DP worth his salt is going to waste his time with lenses other that the Zeiss Ultra's, Master's or the Cooke S4's.
The drive I speak of is the RAM buffer which ramps up with the fan to ensure the information sent to the card slot is secure and regularized. Put your ear to the left bottom rear of the camera next to the square cowling that encases the card slot. It is really loud especially in "Normal" mode. And unfortunately, if you plan to shoot in LA in the summer, Normal mode is the only mode to shoot in to insure that the camera doesn't shut itself off. We are in winter time now, but summer is coming and a camera that can't be silent in 90 degree heat is not going to cut the mustard. Period. And please, will you people stop with your asignations and pronouncements upon my view of this camera system. I love the system and the potentialities it represents. I know that it will most likely change the face of film making. I say High5 to kicking ass on Sony and Panasonic and JVC and all the other crappy corporations that want to string us out with small increments of new technology and then make us pay through the nose. But if the RED is going to take over the field of digitally captured narrative cinema, then they have some basic problems to solve so a DP won't be embarassed on set and have to make excuses for the limitations of the medium he has chosen, layed his reputation on the line, and diplomatically talked the producers into embracing.

 

[morpheusfilm]

And one more thing- I have been watching these boards and listening to the development for the last two years, PSS - Trolls are people too.

 

[dino g]

The DOP's that have used my camera in the last 2 1/2 months are HEROES to their directors and producers for recommending the camera. the time is now, the development is passed the point of what ifs and maybes....it is a reality and high end people are very very happy, not sure why you insist on bringing up negatives that quite frankly do not exist and in a very real way have the potential of scaring people (producers and directors) away from the systems that works great NOW.

i feel bad for you that you had a camera that did not work properly. and it is amazing what can be done with air conditioning these days, not to mention simple $2 ice packs and $10 fans.

 

[Tonaci Tran]

Jim has offered owners the option of waiting until all the features are enabled before taking delivery of their camera, likewise, no one is forcing you to use this camera now. If the features that you want are not enabled then it looks like you will simply have to wait. Your responses are so punitive as if to suggest that RED is slacking and not prioritizing. They have released a working camera that has been capable of shooting full length features, music videos and commercials.

There have been target dates for enabling of features, but RED has never made ANY promises in regards as to when ALL features will be enabled. In fact, Jim has pointed out that we will continually receive improvements to the camera.

Since you have stated you have been following development how is that you can't understand there is just so much a relatively small team can accomplish in such a short timespan?

 

[sander kamp]

Of course I don't know but it seems unlikely to me that RED is developing their own lenses in house. The last thing I heard they are a small team of 25-ish people and hard at work making a camera. They probably outsourced the lenses or they buy them from someone else and with the potential of selling thousands of them they get a nice discount. Some have even suggested they come from Cooke since they have the same interface to connect to the camera.

But why the bold words and calling the zoom lens 'a travesty'? Are you really suggesting nobody should buy these lenses?

 

[Álex Montoya]

Someone stated he was sure that RED lenses were re-housed Sigmas. Only sure thing is that they don't do them in-house. It has been stated several times.

And I find funny that he states that there's "no way to skew" exposure to take full adventadge (sp?) of RED's dynamic range and afterwards he explains that it can, in fact, be done: what he meant is that producers can get nervous looking at the monitor. LOL.

 

[I Bloom]

This thread doesn't belong in General Cinematography. IMHO

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I understand exactly that the sensor is linear and in fact does not have the gamma curve configuration of the f900 or varicam. What I'm suggesting is that this is perhaps a flaw since the camera is definitely showing it's midpoint to be closer to the highlight end of the scale.

You see, that's exactly what I mean! There's a vast difference between a camcorder recording a processed YCbCr or RGB image in 8 (or 10) bit range, and a camera that's recording raw 12bit sensor data. You can't use knowledge from the former on the latter as how they work is fundamentally different.

The sensor in the F900 and Varicam will be linear too. That data then gets processed and curves put on it to get into a form recordable by video technology. That's why altering said curves can get you more or less DR on tape.

We don't do that because we don't need to make you make any decisions like that while recording that could come to bite you back later on. RAW is RAW is RAW. Yes, it's "compressed", but it's still RAW and still (always) carries the full DR that the sensor can produce (no matter what you tweak on the visual look).

As for the visual look through the LCD or EVF while shooting, there are numerous on-board controls that allow you to alter the "developing" curve (the curve that develops the raw linear image to a viewable image) in such a way as to render it "pretty" for the crew to watch.

So yes, as much as we need good feedback from users, we need that feedback to a) make sense, b) be educated by an understanding of what we're doing and c) not be written in the format that makes us think someone is trolling. We're all very approachable people here, and I've had numerous tech discussions with all kinds of people wanting to learn how the image processing flow works, and how they can get the best out of it. If you want to join in that discussion, talk about the subject, pass on information and generally join in the general education of all that goes on here, then we're all happy to talk.

Graeme

 

[Adrian T.]

Put your ear to the left bottom rear of the camera next to the square cowling that encases the card slot. It is really loud especially in "Normal" mode. And unfortunately, if you plan to shoot in LA in the summer, Normal mode is the only mode to shoot in to insure that the camera doesn't shut itself off. We are in winter time now, but summer is coming and a camera that can't be silent in 90 degree heat is not going to cut the mustard. Period.

Can't you see that nobody else is complaining about this? That can only mean that there was something wrong with your particular camera. Get it serviced!

And please press your enter key once in a while. Your posts are hard to read - not only for their content.

 

[Stuart English]

The drive I speak of is the RAM buffer which ramps up with the fan to ensure the information sent to the card slot is secure and regularized. Put your ear to the left bottom rear of the camera next to the square cowling that encases the card slot. It is really loud especially in "Normal" mode. And unfortunately, if you plan to shoot in LA in the summer, Normal mode is the only mode to shoot in to insure that the camera doesn't shut itself off. We are in winter time now, but summer is coming and a camera that can't be silent in 90 degree heat is not going to cut the mustard.

There isn't a RAM buffer Morpheus, if you hear anything ramping up it is the fan. What operators will probably want to be using in wintertime is the new VARIABLE fan setting that we have started to alpha test (beta test firmware will be available in a few days). That mode keeps the camera pretty much silent in both preview and record modes when the ambient temperatures is 10C/50 F or below. As for Summer in LA, the first feature film shot on RED was in Spain in an ambient of 100F+, here the dual speed concept - higher fan speed during preview, slower during record works well. You will have to be the judge though if its quiet enough on set for your specific application.

 

[planet e]

I won't even go into the travesty that is the zoom lense they offer. That is why I again say; FORGET DEVELOPMENT OF A PRIME LENS SET AND FOCUS THE COMPANIES RESOURCES ON MAKING THE CAMERA WORK TO FULL PROMISED CAPACITY. No DP worth his salt is going to waste his time with lenses other that the Zeiss Ultra's, Master's or the Cooke S4's.

what part of "then don't use them" don't you understand? RED never claimed to make the best cine lenses, only the best cine lenses at an affordable price point. they are bringing this technology to a broad range of users, and affordability and accessibility are core to their mission. if you can afford better lenses, then you should *use* better lenses.

glad we have that problem solved. next!

 

[Mark Crabtree]

Lifeboat

Lifeboat

As Red owners/users we are all riding together in a lifeboat. You are in the boat if you have a camera in your hands now and are able to post first hand experience, but be careful what you post! These posts will be printed and proclaimed by Red naysayers and Red enemies (Sony, Panasonic, Arri) as proof that Red is not the right choice. How many times does Jim have to say that this camera is still being developed? We have it in our hands now so we can get started with our projects and help in the developement. Most of the people using the camera right now are greatful as hell to have it and are producing exceptional work. If you want to express scathing criticisms I suggest you call Red on the phone or send them an email. Tone on this forum is important because we are working with this camera right now and do not want our clients spooked. If you want to push yourself out of the boat don't take the rest of us with you.

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Well, as somebody who plans to shoot classical concerts, he has me worried.

Jochen

 

[Tonaci Tran]

There isn't a RAM buffer Morpheus, if you hear anything ramping up it is the fan. What operators will probably want to be using in wintertime is the new VARIABLE fan setting that we have started to alpha test (beta test firmware will be available in a few days). That mode keeps the camera pretty much silent in both preview and record modes when the ambient temperatures is 10C/50 F or below. As for Summer in LA, the first feature film shot on RED was in Spain in an ambient of 100F+, here the dual speed concept - higher fan speed during preview, slower during record works well. You will have to be the judge though if its quiet enough on set for your specific application.

Thanks for clearing that one up. I didn't have a RED on hand to verify his drive noise claim.