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Underwater Bubble Blowin' Users Group

Nekton housing rod RED ONE

Nekton housing rod RED ONE

Peter Scoones has announced that his Nekton broadcast video housings will shortly be available with RED capability. They will be available for rental from Jan 2009 through TopTeks (www.top-teks.co.uk).

The housings will provide controls for Cooke and Zeiss primes first and these lenses will be marketed by Top Teks in the new year. Leaving aside the 3K option for RED, the 2K format is close to Super 16 and 2/in broadcast format. Nekton housings and lens control systems are already set up for these.

The RED fits existing Nekton housings with space for battery and hard drives etc and operating the RED will be no different so anyone familiar with Nekton housing handling will hardly notice any difference.

There are four housings that will be RED capable from January 2009.
They will be for hire as with the current Broadcast housings available from TopTeks (Sony 759, 790 and 900 and Panasonic 900 and Varicam).

Cheers ...
 
I didn't expect much from the BBC, but why people make square, heavy coffins for their cameras?

Anyway, here is a render of my new titanium back plate specially designed to accomodate Red LCD monitor.
 
Pawel Achtel said:
I didn't expect much from the BBC, but why people make square, heavy coffins for their cameras?

Anyway, here is a render of my new titanium back plate specially designed to accomodate Red LCD monitor.
Click to expand...

Looks to me like they are converted from existing Betacam/HDCam/Varicam housings (notice the window on the left rear for time code window). I'd be curious as to the displacement of those housings - looks to me like 70 to 80 pounds as opposed to the 9 inch OD tubular size we use at about 55 pounds displacement, with room for battery, drive, and LCD.

David, how are they doing all of that gearing - through the tube of the port? Looks like a Canon L lens (14mm?) on a birger mount right now.

Pawel, I know you mentioned many posts ago but what diameter is your tube?

Anyway, look for an announcement from me in the next couple days for a discount on our RED housing and upgrade/trade-in policy for an Epic housing - if you are interested in a much smaller housing that was actually designed for the RED.
 
Looks like great fun to me

Looks like great fun to me

Mark Thorpe said:
Lucky Bugger.......
Click to expand...

Wish I were there also.

Frazier

Friend of mine in Hawaii was filming one of these and got a bit attached to the
pointy end of the animal, trip to the hospital for him.

But the footage was terrific.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
Looks to me like they are converted from existing Betacam/HDCam/Varicam housings (notice the window on the left rear for time code window). I'd be curious as to the displacement of those housings - looks to me like 70 to 80 pounds as opposed to the 9 inch OD tubular size we use at about 55 pounds displacement, with room for battery, drive, and LCD.

David, how are they doing all of that gearing - through the tube of the port? Looks like a Canon L lens (14mm?) on a birger mount right now.

Pawel, I know you mentioned many posts ago but what diameter is your tube?

Anyway, look for an announcement from me in the next couple days for a discount on our RED housing and upgrade/trade-in policy for an Epic housing - if you are interested in a much smaller housing that was actually designed for the RED.
Click to expand...

Mike,

Yes, the core of the housing is the same, front plate will be different.

PL mounted lenses will be servo controlled (to maintain housing controls behaviour the same as today).

DSLR lenses, Canon or Nikon lenses, will be primarily for personal use and not for hire (the unit in the shot is my R1 & Birger for some early tests & measurements).

Keep us posted on your upgrade/trade-in policy fo Epic ... I'll PM you on this subject separately :biggrin:

Cheers
 
Preliminary discount/trade-in announcement

Preliminary discount/trade-in announcement

Since I posted this on another thread, I figured I ought to post it here. I will post the full deal tomorrow or monday - this deal will probably be only a 2 or 3 week offer, but should help people with making a decision before the end of the year which can have some good tax consequences as well.


ibloom said:
Mike are you going to make a new housing for Epic? New tray?

Ian
Click to expand...

Absolutely, the Epic should be no more difficult to house than RED and a little shorter/smaller.

We could certainly modify RED housings for Epic but usually it is better more sensible to make a new dedicated housing. I think I can make good sense out of allowing a substantial trade in for the RED housings - and would either refurbish/resell or simply spread them around the country at rental houses like Pete Romano did with his Arri Housings and the HMI lights he built for the Abyss.

Every indication is we are almost a year away from Epic availability with a few more months for housings. In order to stimulate RED housing sales and get some people off the fence, I am about to announce a discount and trade in policy that would give people effectively about a 60% trade in value and since the housing price now is $8599 they would be able to use their RED housing for a year or more for a cost of only about $3500 in lost value if they trade it in. And of course that could be even less if they can get more in a resale. The $3500 is a worst case. The other thing is that I could offer an even greater trade-in by simply making a high price on the Epic housing but I don't really want to play the used car tradein game.

By the way, lest someone think I am suggesting in any way that RED is doing that let me make clear that I think the RED case is different. If RED were not doing the REDONE trade in program I suspect that they would sell only a couple hundred Epics in the first year because most people that have REDs could not justify the cost to switch and you would have a much smaller universe of people that could justify those prices (particularly when scarlet will exist as well). However once people think about it for awhile I think they will see that it is foolish NOT to upgrade. The REDONE is a great camera and clearly the best bang for the buck in comparison to anything else out there, BUT it has serious issues with size/weight; power consumption and heat; boot up time; etc. so even if there were not picture quality/frame rate improvements I think you would have to consider upgrading. The fact that we also get much higher data rates (so presumably better recorded picture quality) higher resolution, higher frame rates than REDONE just makes the EpicX upgrade a no brainer. One of our local rental companies - that had resisted buying REDONE - just bought one specifically because of the trade in program. They were waiting for the 2nd gen product but with the trade in they can rent out the R1 for close to a year and then get the camera they wanted at a better deal than just waiting and buying it outright.

I think at least 50% of people will upgrade and this guarantees RED a large number of Epics to get the quantity price breaks for parts and manufacturing costs to make both the upgrade program and the higher level/lower volume Epics feasible. In fact, it seems like even more cameras might get traded in as even those who were stretched to get a REDONE will see that it makes more sense to sell it to someone to trade in and then buy a Scarlet. Which may be a part of the master plan since RED would be getting most of their users on the 2nd generation product.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
Pawel, I know you mentioned many posts ago but what diameter is your tube?
Click to expand...

It is 10" with wall thickness of just 3mm. The main shell is machined 316.
 
Hey David, nice housing there. Coming from 'Scoonesy' I am sure it will function flawlessly, unless of course he has cast the 'break down' spell on it that seems to plague his HD Cams :) The number of times I've heard that in the middle of a shoot he's had to dismantle the camera circuits to find a fault. Thats a great skill to have in the field.

Keep us informed of your experiences with the system. I will have some feedback pretty soon on other housing developments.

Cheers,
Mark.
 
Mark Thorpe said:
The number of times I've heard that in the middle of a shoot he's had to dismantle the camera circuits to find a fault. Thats a great skill to have in the field.

Cheers,
Mark.
Click to expand...

used to be pretty good at that stuff in the Betacam days... but I don't think we are allowed to do that with RED - what with voiding the warranty and all. It's one of the things that concerns me as I plan some longer trips next year but I guess I'll be out of warranty then anyway.
 
Not much to screw up on a solid state camera though. If it fails I guess scenarios of a creek with no paddle come to mind! Isolation is the name of the game, am writing a book at the moment so that keeps me busy when not brushing away the natives to get to the pristine dive spots of Indonesia. All good stuff.

Cheers,
Mark.
 
Mark Thorpe said:
Not much to screw up on a solid state camera though. If it fails I guess scenarios of a creek with no paddle come to mind!
Click to expand...
Most of the major issues I have had with the F900 in the field have been with the tape transport mechanism. The two times a board has gone in the camera I was happy to have a spare body on hand.
Matt
 
manfishmatt said:
Most of the major issues I have had with the F900 in the field have been with the tape transport mechanism. The two times a board has gone in the camera I was happy to have a spare body on hand.
Matt
Click to expand...
Sounds like the same record with a number of cameras. Could just be that tape transport mechanisms and salt water make bad bedfellows.

Cheers,
Mark.
 
Just got the SCR ticket. Diving the Voyager system able to switch between SCR and CCR. It may not be the best out there but I like it 'coz its the first one I have tried. Things will only get better from here. I'm the good looking one on the left.

Heavy-Breathers.jpg


Cheers,
Mark.
 
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