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Red One Price and Your Opinion On My Situation

Matt Bowden

Matt Bowden

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I have seen some package deals for the RED one in the marketplace for around 17k including almost all accessories needed to shoot with the cam. That's less than a scarlet set-up. I live in small town USA and do mostly tv commercials and corporate videos. I currently have a HVX200 and most certainly want to upgrade.

It seems many people are wanting unload the RED one to get the Scarlet. I'm wondering if for me (even though it's not the newest cam) if the RED one would be perfect for my situation. I'd never need more than 4k.....Dynamic range is the most important thing I need. What do you guys think? Still good enough for a small independent shooter broadcast type shooter?
 
Yes. Perfect is probably not the safest adjective to use. But these cameras are a great value, particularly the kits that are turnkey. Probably now is the easiest and simpliest time to get a complete kit, before owners are forced to breakup up those kits just to get a sale. Also, it may be require due diligence to identify EOL'd parts that will affect your workflow if something goes down. Additionally, maybe speak with Red Customer support about possible service issues and repair costs as the RED One will long be past any warranty period.

But there are and will be some great deal out there.
 
Without knowing your skill level or what crew you have access to, if any, it would be a bit reckless to form an opinion or make a recommendation for you.

The HVX200 and a Red One are completely different beasts to operate. Rent one. Shoot one. Test yourself and the kit in shooting situations similar to the way you intend to use it. Decide for yourself.
 
Thanks for your comment. With respect the difference in cameras is the reason I am wanting to get one. I wouldn't consider it reckless to suggest a lens that would fit my needs. As far as renting goes....I know it's a great camera. I'm going to be spending more money that I curently have liquid so I don't have $900 to rent a Red One camera for a day to "test it out." If anyone owns one and lives in NC close to the Charlotte or Asheville areas and would let me come spend some time with theirs I would love to get more comfortable with it. Without that opportunity I was just wanting to lean on my friends here on Reduser for advice. Thanks for any and all help.
 
Matt, here is how I would break it down for you. Red One is a strange beast in that some people are able to operate the camera one-man-band style and some find it to be too much for that purpose. So definitely identify where you fall in that category. If you generally work with 2 or 3+ person crews, then Red One is definitely doable. If you shoot things with you and a sound person, could still be doable depending on your experience and comfort level with bigger camera rigs. The HVX-200 is a camera you pull out of the bag and start shooting with. RED involves interchangeable lenses, and other things that make it a cinema camera and thus best served with at least a small crew. But I will tell you this. I have shot plenty of times with it by myself, and although certainly a bit of kit to carry around, I can do it.

As for picture quality, no doubt it will be plenty of quality for what your are doing. And at this point there are plenty of workflow options for post. The camera is without a doubt a huge upgrade from your HVX and should impress your clients if you take full advantage of what it offers you.

I love the Red One. I would suggest though doing a complete cost analysis between the R1 and Scarlet. Make sure it makes sense for you and your business. Think long term. If you find the price difference between the two systems is within a certain threshold and the long-term benefits of owning a Scarlet outweigh picking up a used Red One package, then go with what makes the best business sense.

Honestly though, I can't see how you'd go wrong getting either one. Both will provide fantastic imagery and no doubt get the job done. But it's always a good idea to do a thorough breakdown in my opinion.

As for lens, hard to beat the RED 17-50 for value. You could shoot a lot of your commercial productions with that lens and rent what you need as you go along.
 
Thanks Steve. I'd say half of my work I don't need to do any sound recording. A lot of the commercials I do require voice overs to be recorded so I mainly work one man style. I do however have friends I went to college with that I hire occasionally for an extra hand. Realistically the Red one is a lot more than I need at the moment...but I don't want to buy another pro-sumer cam. And an almost complete RED one MX package with only 89 hours for $14.9 seems to good to pass by. Ill have to look into that lens...thanks again!
 
One other point Matt, if you tend to be very mobile, work fast, want to use small production gear such as portable sliders, Glidecam 2000/4000, things of that nature Red One is not the camera. In fact, since you mention you don't do audio all of the time, it makes me wonder if a camera like the GH2 (hacked version) would be a good option to add to your kit and rent a RED when you need the features. If money is no object, I'd probably say go ahead and get a Scarlet. Smaller form factor than Red One and could be used with some of your DSLR sized gear.

If you do decide to go the route of Red One, have a look at Mark Phelan's package. Pretty nice deal there. And he's not far away. maybe you two could hook up.
 
Im not to excited about the DSLR's personally. They produce some beautiful images but I do still need pro audio options and like the feel and workings of larger video cams. I do like the Scarlet and was sold on it before the new changes. My main concern with it is (1) the cost and (2) the lack of higher frame rates. I don't shoot my corporate work in 24p. It would be nice for my "for fun" short films but for paid work I generally shoot 60. You get the higher frame rates at 2k I think but I heard the crop factor in the lower rez lowers the quality of the footage.
 
Matt, as you probably know, Red cameras are strictly progressive. Your choice for time base with Red One varies depending on resolution. For example, if you were to work at 4kHD (which is what I would recommend for your corporate work) at RC36 you could do project time base of 23.98, 25, and 30P. In order to work at 60(59.94) you would drop down to 2K 16:9. These are for working with Red Drives, RED RAM, and SSD.

Keep this in mind as you're thinking through this.
 
Matt, have a look at Premiere if you haven't already. Allows you to drop R3D into a 4KHD 29.97 timeline and then set playback quality to whatever handles well on your system. If you are on FCP, you could transcode in 1/4 debayer to ProRes 422 to offline and then conform for final edit to R3D in grading/finishing app. Few ways of doing post, those are just a couple.

I really think the Red would be a nice step up for you.
 
Quad-core i7? Absolutely. Buy Premiere Pro CS5.5 and be happy. Nothing else needed. It just works. . .

Stephen
 
Grab a CUDA-enabled GPU from Nvidia and you'll have realtime playback in Premiere.

By the way Matt, your site is very clean. It's rare to find a photographer/videographer/cinematographer with a clean website these days, but yours looks quite nice. :-D
 
Thanks Brian. I wanted something that was simple. So people could find what they were looking for. I actually just found out last night through a fellow Reduser that somehow I forgot to add a "contact me" page. Not sure how this happened hahahaha. But I'll have to add that right away. I would love to get the Nvidia gpu...unfortunately I only have an Imac and a Macbook Pro. Both of which I think it would be impossible to add a card to.

Does anyone know where I can get a 4k 30p r3d file that I could use to test the speed on my computers? I'm sure something is floating around somewhere.
 
Matt,

I appreciate your honest question and would be happy to help. You up for a trip to Atlanta? Not too far from you in NC. Come down and I will give you a pretty good workout for free. BTW, Mark lives only 5 miles from me. I could run some things by you and in the end you will know if you want a Red One or want to go with the hacked Panasonic. And believe me, no one would fault you for sticking with normal video.

Steve's advice is priceless. You DO want the right tool for the right job. The Red One gives you amazing DR, image, and resolution. It comes with a price though. It's best utilized in a two man config. You can do the one man show (Mark does it all the time), but it's not for the faint hearted. Mark has bigger ____ than me. : = )

No strings attached. My R1 is not for sale.

Best,
lael
 
Hey, I got four daughters, remember?

...better to keep a low profile and let the guys underestimate me. They'll never expect me to swing.
 
Now that you can buy executed RED Ones you can also put Birger mounts on them and successfully use Canon lenses. That is a huge big deal for one man bands. I was one of the relatively small number of people that was grandfathered in to being able to use the camera this way and it was incredible how much bang for the buck this method delivered me. I am selling my Birger setup, so I want to disclose that. And I'll be getting the Nikon setup for the Epic -- because I've seen how effective the built in AF motors on high still lenses can be for smooth focus, provided you get a good follow focus controller. I'm trusting that RED will make a good follow focus controller.

In your case, a turnkey RED 1 with the MX chip is a smoking good camera that's ready to work at a very high level. Put it on QuadHD for hi-performance downsizing to 1080p and your golden. Get a Birger and the essential Impero follow focus controller and a couple Canon lenses and you're all set. For a total of something like $5,000 I had lens lengths from 10mm to 600mm covered WITH a wireless follow focus. Plus, the lenses and follow focus are much lighter and more compact than PL mount cine lenses and an Arri ff4 - which helps the one man band...

There are definitely ways to make the RED 1 an extremely effective, lean and mean multi-faceted imaging machine.
 
Matte,

My five cents:

Protect your investment. Buy a Scarlet.

With all the Red Ones being sold from people that upgrade to Epic I expect the price
to drop significantly.

So if you buy a Red One package today for 15 k it might be worth half of that only
a couple of months down the road.

That won't happen with Scarlet. You will always get the newest drivers and updates and not
work with a camera that is approaching the end of it's life span.

Matt Bowden said:
I have seen some package deals for the RED one in the marketplace for around 17k including almost all accessories needed to shoot with the cam. That's less than a scarlet set-up. I live in small town USA and do mostly tv commercials and corporate videos. I currently have a HVX200 and most certainly want to upgrade.

It seems many people are wanting unload the RED one to get the Scarlet. I'm wondering if for me (even though it's not the newest cam) if the RED one would be perfect for my situation. I'd never need more than 4k.....Dynamic range is the most important thing I need. What do you guys think? Still good enough for a small independent shooter broadcast type shooter?
Click to expand...
 
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