Time Lapse? Is it coming?

[Andrew Walker]

Who says that the camera "should" do this? No one from Red has ever said anything like that. That potentially requires a different type of sensor, shutter, etc. I don't know all the design details or limitations, but I have never been under the impression that an Epic (MX) was ever going to compete with dedicated stills cameras for astro or long-exposure. That's just the reality. If you want to use your cine glass, do like I do, and get a PL mount Nikon or Canon. That's your best bet.

Jim said at both of the RED Days back in 2010 that I went to that Epic would have the ability to do 30 second exposures. I asked him directly when he was taking questions and that is what he said. So yes the cameras should be able to do long exposures...longer than 1 second. I understand that things change but this doesn't seem to be as big a problem as they are making it out to be. Not sure why 2 years ago it was possible and now its not.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Well I never heard that from Jim, but Deanan was basically saying all along to me " don't count on it." It has something to do with the way the sensor was designed, something about black levels, how the shutter works, etc. I never got into the details with him. Maybe Jim knows better, but I wrote off Epic MX as an astro camera over a year ago. DSLRs do the job just fine for me now. And even if Epic MX could do 30 sec exposures, I doubt it would be able to hang with newer cameras like the 1Dx, for example.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

I am so hanging for 1fps, used all the time on my R1

You can do 1fps now... just double tap the frame rate on the LCD, then type in 1...

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Interesting note Tom, perhaps Deanan was referring to some noise killing technique they employed on the MX that has time limitations. All speculation anyway.

I still maintain that they are working on it, but if its as difficult as Deanan inferred then it may be down the priority list.

Cheers - #19

 

[Adam Clark]

i'll just be happy when the epic can perform timelapse as the red one did.

 

[Peter Savage]

OK, stupid question: Can you set the Scarlet/Epic trigger to just take one frame on each button push (as it was possible on the R1)?

Sadly you cannot do that at the moment I tried it. You get a bunch of R3D files - not a clip. So stop motion animation - something a movie camera might be reasonably expected to do is also not possible at the moment. I also tried with an external trigger set to 5 sec intervals and the camera on 1fps in the hope that it would at least record 1 frame every 5 secs. That didn't work either. Hopefully it will come soon

 

[Peter Savage]

I should add that the consensus seems to be that long exposures are for "astro work".. maybe 30 sec exposures are but there are situations where say a 2 or 3 sec exposure would be good and certainly longer intervals than 1 fps. One of the advantages the Red One and the Epic have for me is that there is no mechanical shutter which means I get flicker free time lapse every time. And like other people here I do not want to carry an additional camera for time lapse when I have been under the impression from the days of the Red One that the Epic would do at the very least everything the Red One can do (and more!)... so it is disappointing to find the fog surrounding time lapse on the Epic. I truly believe it will come eventually I just wish it was here by now.

 

[Andrew Walker]

I should add that the consensus seems to be that long exposures are for "astro work".. maybe 30 sec exposures are but there are situations where say a 2 or 3 sec exposure would be good and certainly longer intervals than 1 fps. One of the advantages the Red One and the Epic have for me is that there is no mechanical shutter which means I get flicker free time lapse every time. And like other people here I do not want to carry an additional camera for time lapse when I have been under the impression from the days of the Red One that the Epic would do at the very least everything the Red One can do (and more!)... so it is disappointing to find the fog surrounding time lapse on the Epic. I truly believe it will come eventually I just wish it was here by now.

The RED One was great at shooting timelapse during the day. The Epic could be the same thing if RED would just put a timelapse function in with one of the next firmware updates. It just blows me away that Epic has been out for over a year and a half with no timelapse function.