UNHAPPY with Used RED-ONE price drop ! :(

[Nathaniel Haban]

PS Mark I am sure some local state school would love an XL2 if you really don't use it. I know this might shock some people who went to film schools, but state schools don't have Red cameras...

I graduated from my Alma Mater in 2007, right around when the RED 1 was first coming out. As film students, we looked at that camera in awe of what it could do, even though it was completely unrealistic that our program would ever have one. Brian is right - most programs at state universities aren't that well equipped. I'm sure they'd love whatever gear you send them, PLUS, it is a tax write off...

 

[Michael Schrengohst]

A more interesting question is how much revenue(MONEY) you Beta cam and Digi-Beta cam guys were
able to pull out of those cameras before they approached scrap value..? Anyone game..? If you don't
want to give a number just say you made 2X or 4X what the camera cost...

Those days were just before my time but I understand those cameras
had a quite a long life and were sort of only option for people not shooting film at that time.
Somehow I get the feeling shooting budgets have shrunk alot more than even camera prices
these last 20 years.

You are correct....
I probably spent in the 5 years I had it another $10K for maintenance.
If you used it a lot you could expect to replace the heads every year.
But yes those were the days you get 30K for an industrial training program.:ihih:
That camera investment paid off....of course my business partner
was against any big purchases...at that time we were spending $150K per year in post costs....for SD!!!
I just wish RED was invented in 1987....:drool:

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

A more interesting question is how much revenue(MONEY) you Beta cam and Digi-Beta cam guys were
able to pull out of those cameras before they approached scrap value..? Anyone game..? If you don't
want to give a number just say you made 2X or 4X what the camera cost...

3 years was the time frame when our 4 Betacams reached ROI 15 years ago. They served another 4 years well, go figure.

My RedOne body reached ROI in just about 1 year, that was the beginning of 2009 and has been working flawlessly until now. The same will apply for my Epix-X body, I'm sure ROI will be reached after one year or even less, thanks to Red's generous Stage 2 and 3 deals. Lenses, however, are a different story. It's important for the industry that S-35mm PL remains the golden standard for another decade and more. There are so many downsides of FF35 for daily motion picture shooting and lens design that I'm pretty confident that this is going to be the case.

Hans

 

[David W. Jones]

Hate to say it, but if you have only turned 30 min of footage in 7 months, renting might have made better sense financially.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I have a $70,000 Digital Betacam that I would be lucky to sell for $1000...this is nothing new.
What is surprising is how long the Red Ones held their value, they are after all a 5 year old camera.

Exactly. RED is on its own. While all the other companies force you to buy new cameras RED made the R1 the best camera its hardware could allow, and that is a heck'uv'a'lotta camera for a very, very low price. The fact that it still re-sales well after so long is a blessing to owners. And it still gives amazing images people would still use for theatrical release films. Girl with the dragon tattoo was shot in large part on R1-MX, right? Sure, Epic is better, but you can go out and shoot an entire film on R1-MX and be darn proud of the quality.

 

[Christian Munoz D]

No, no!! We shoot wildlife. Wildlife. And, specialized wildlife at that. Not commercials, TV movies, or feature films like most of you guys.

We have only been ABLE to shoot 30 minutes worth because animals are that way. Unpredictable, seasonal, difficult, and a real challenge. But, that's what makes it fun.

This is why our budget is so small. We're not talking millions, or even 100s of thousands here.

.

George, we shoot wildlife too. Although, we also work on commercials, features, shorts, TV, and rentals when our cameras are not in a job.
I agree with you, Natural History specially wildlife is slow, expensive and way more difficult that shooting a feature or a commercial. My latest project had a 20K budget and earned lots of awards including 4 regional Emmys. There are “large” budget projects out there, more than everyone believe, my present project have a 1,5 million dollar budget, So nothing to complain. The Red One is very well received by the wildlife filmmaking community as I noticed at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Films Festival last October, I am sure the Epic and Scarlet will be too.
Red One will not drop the value after the desperate mass of owners who want to upgrade to Epic or “downgrade” to Scarlet stops the mass sale.

Be aware that something is coming for our Red Ones, I am not selling my Red One kit for 10K, neither for the full value… I will just wait to see what is coming in the near future for the little camera that changed the world.

 

[Christian Munoz D]

Hate to say it, but if you have only turned 30 min of footage in 7 months, renting might have made better sense financially.

Just my thoughts.

No for wildlife.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Hate to say it, but if you have only turned 30 min of footage in 7 months, renting might have made better sense financially.

Just my thoughts.

It's a good point. There needs to be good reasons for owning, if not becoming an equipment geek is a main motive. Second-hand Red One prices were too high too long, normal resell price of second hand equipment is 50-60% of new price. The almost artificial high prices of second hand red gear, might have tricked people into believing that owning is not expensive... owning IS expensive!!! 30 min footage for a 30 000 dollar investment seems absurd... thats 1000 dollars a minute, just for the camera....

 

[Joel Wilkieson]

You are at least somewhat right (probably VERY right) when you say "The greatest camera in the world now, will be obsolete a year from now." But that is the nature of technology.
:thumbup:

Not every aspect of technology. This 'a year from now' is a temporal notion of obsolence that is mainly related to digital technology'.On the other hand, I bought Canon Super8 camera few months ago on eBay because I needed it for a project, and the price was roughly the same as it was 30 years ago. The same thing applies to my Bolex HS16 Rex 5. It all depends about the product and what was its role in the history in way. In other words, minidisc players..you can buy them now for £0.0001, but if you wanna buy a turntable, then you pay more. Something like that. So, if I was him, I'd sell Red One and buy Scarlet X or save and buy ScarletX and keep Red One forever. I think, that is the decision he has to make because there is some historical evidence that goes against Red One holding its price. Just my opinion.

 

[Maxi Claudio]

I think the economic issue is, if you purchased the camera for only 30 mins of footage, you would have been better off renting. If you put hundreds of hours, or hundreds of rental days on it, you'd be very much in the black over renting it, even at the lower resale value. i hate to say this, but once scarlets and C300 become plentiful in production and rental market. The competition of every scarlet owner wanting to make some rental coin, will dramatically bring down the lower end of the rental market. And if a Scarlet is dirt cheap to rent, why would someone buy a Red one.

 

[George D.]

George, we shoot wildlife too. Although, we also work on commercials, features, shorts, TV, and rentals when our cameras are not in a job.
I agree with you, Natural History specially wildlife is slow, expensive and way more difficult that shooting a feature or a commercial. My latest project had a 20K budget and earned lots of awards including 4 regional Emmys. There are “large” budget projects out there, more than everyone believe, my present project have a 1,5 million dollar budget, So nothing to complain. The Red One is very well received by the wildlife filmmaking community as I noticed at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Films Festival last October, I am sure the Epic and Scarlet will be too.
Red One will not drop the value after the desperate mass of owners who want to upgrade to Epic or “downgrade” to Scarlet stops the mass sale.

Be aware that something is coming for our Red Ones, I am not selling my Red One kit for 10K, neither for the full value… I will just wait to see what is coming in the near future for the little camera that changed the world.

I'm afraid Christian, that you're the only one on this thread that gets it.

If more people knew what it REALLY took to shoot wildlife, they'd understand. The kind of wildlife we shoot means that sometimes we have to wait "weeks" to get 10 seconds of usable footage. Animals are not like actors or cars or laundry detergent boxes. You have very little to no control over them and you have to wait for them to do their thing. Unless, of course, there are some of you out there that can "speak" Fox or Weasel or Frog or Woodpecker. If you can, well PLEASE make sure to PM me so I can hire you to talk to our subjects..

And, then, of course, there are those plants and animals that do their thing only specific times of the year. What do you do? You "wait" for it, that's what.

.

 

[nigelsmith]

I don't know where all this "5 year old camera" schtik is coming from, but it is a lie.
FOUR years ago , a FEW people became beta testers of the newly available Red One.
It couldn't even record audio at the time, and ALL cameras were recalled to have a new audio board fitted, oh and then an intelligent PL mount fitted, 3 years ago.
Digibeta, by comparison, was THE broadcast format , from 1993 until about 2008 at the BBC.
I know times have changed, and technology accelerates, but please get a grip.
For most buyers Red One is 2 or 3 at most years old. A short time to lose 75% of its market value.

On the other hand, it's still a good camera, once you get away from the fickle market prices [driven by fan boys].
A camera that is as high quality and useful to you as the day you bought it.
But it is clearly "old hat" for the hype conscious.
I reckon the "clever money" is buying up the cheap kits on offer!
IMHO

 

[Daniel Doherty]

I have to agree with you Nigel, RED MX is not old or outdated. It's the same camera used to shoot Girl with Dragon Tattoo, Social Network, Contagion, Muppets, Pirates 4. These are films with larger budgets and more talent then anyone can hope for. To think that you can own the camera used to shoot those movies for 15K is insane. RED MX is worth more than that IMO.

 

[Erik Franzén]

Anything you buy today will (or you should at least expect it to) be deprecated within 12-18 months. Deal with it.

Besides, it's not like it's dropped all of it's value. Surely selling it wasn't your plan for making a ROI within that timeframe?

 

[Brian Merlen]

I think his Red One has a lot of life left in it. There is no reason to get a Scarlet as opposed to what you have. HDRX, light weightness, and fast turn ons are cool, but hardly worth getting rid of your Red One. I think it'll take several more years for 4k to become mainstream enough that the Red One becomes obsolete. You can probably make good money on your camera for another five years until 4k has became mainstream enough to warrant needing an Epic/Monstro.

May I ask why you feel the need to sell it for a Scarlet? They are fairly similar, other then your current camera has more over cranking options and the above mentioned Scarlet benefits. What does the Scarlet have that your Red One doesn't have that is so imperative? I guess HDRX could be the deal breaker for some but I'd figure the overcrank options on the Red One would kind of off set that benefit.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

I'm confused.. Are there people out there buying cameras based on their re-sale value? Cameras?! Lighting I can understand, grip equipment, some sound also... But cameras!? There was a time about 15 years ago when that kind of worked, but that world left us long ago. I always felt the shelf life of the images mattered far more than the re-sale value of the camera.

I.E... Can the RED still give you the footage you are looking for? Are you LOSING work cause people don't like the RED? After all, it has the SAME SENSOR as the EPIC.

Regardless of this I'm sorry you are upset. But please rememeber we are in a very different world where cameras are concerned. I think you are going to see very short shelf lives for cameras for a while...The good news seems to be that this is not the case for everything else.

Jay

 

[Emanuel A.]

(...)

I always felt the shelf life of the images mattered far more than the re-sale value of the camera.

(...)

Jay

That is the whole point BTW. Who doesn't understand it, can go in a good way to find another business

I am from a small country with 10,000,000 people as of today, tiny market. However, speaking of current and upcoming numbers, a native film producer still in mission (Tino Navarro) once told me at the door of an international film festival (already gone along its mentor) more or less in these words but in portuguese: «People are not good in maths. The pictures produced by a camera remain, and they work out as same as a property even decades later».

I'd add to agree... like a hotel room (or house, farm, etc to rent. Each viewer is a guest, or tenant of ours. The better a product we have to offer is, the more number they are; or/and longer their stay with us is.

Emanuel

 

[Gunleik Groven]

The R1 2nd hand re-sale value has been held high by reds Stages and other programs from RED, essentially making it a piece of electronic equipment that didn't lose value. Really a paradox. Those times are over.Simple as that. And if it isn't really good, it is very expectable...

The cameras hold the exact same production value, as they did - though.

Which is a nice thing.

My R1 paid itself back within 1 month of use.

I cannot really complain.

G

 

[Mark Deeble]

George - I also film wildlife exclusively, so I know what you are talking about. In your R1 though you have pre-record, decent high-speed capability, intervalometer etc - so, depending on you're subject, it is still arguably the best camera out there for shooting wildlife at 4K.
I joined the RED community only recently when I bought an EPIC but there are still a lot of features the R1 has that aren't enabled in the EPIC - pre-record, intervalometer etc - at the moment there is nothing to compare with the Origo remote - who would have thought a simple cable release would prove so problematic? I think you'll be good for some years yet.

 

[George D.]

George - I also film wildlife exclusively, so I know what you are talking about. In your R1 though you have pre-record, decent high-speed capability, intervalometer etc - so, depending on you're subject, it is still arguably the best camera out there for shooting wildlife at 4K.
I joined the RED community only recently when I bought an EPIC but there are still a lot of features the R1 has that aren't enabled in the EPIC - pre-record, intervalometer etc - at the moment there is nothing to compare with the Origo remote - who would have thought a simple cable release would prove so problematic? I think you'll be good for some years yet.

Thank you Mark.

I agree 100%, and I'm glad we didn't get the Scarlet after all.

Have a wonderful Xmas.

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