Upgrading to EPIC-W from Raven - Good business decision?

[Randy Kessler]

Hello All,
Looking to lean on the group to help us make an important camera purchase decision. We currently have a deposit on a Raven Brain with a February 2016 timestamp. This is our first RED and are extremely excited to become part of the family as we currently shoot all of our stuff on a GH4. Because RED has provided this Golden opportunity to upgrade to the 8K Epic-W for an outstanding price, we have been seriously considering this upgrade option for many reasons.

For many years we have been specializing in producing sports highlight videos for individual athletes and sports teams at both the Prep/High School and College level. As we continue to grow our business, one of our primary strategies in becoming bigger, faster, stronger as a business is to stay on top of the camera technology curve to produce videos that set the standard at this level. With that being said, we are really wanting to upgrade to the Epic-W to provide the high quality "eye-candy" for sports teams, but are struggling with the amount of investment that we will need to make to purchase this equipment. Not looking for a business plan here, just some real life experience and advice that can be shared to shed some light on our situation to help us make this decision.

To give you an idea as to the type of work that we produce, following is one of our recent game highlight videos: https://vimeo.com/189011623

Thanks in advance for your help!

Randy

 

[Alberto Guglielmi]

My 2 cents.
I come from the Sony A7s, owned a Epic Dragon, and recently got the Epic-W. Did not test it well yet. So far it looks promising. But I can't comment on the quality of it yet, and I never used the Raven nor the Scarlet-W.
I can just tell you that from the world of Canon. sony, panasonic GH4 to RED in general is a big improvement. Just the ability to shoot raw and the quality of the sensors will blow your mind.

If I were you I would try to get in the Scarlet-W. It is not much more of an investment than the Raven, but I think it is a much more capable camera.
From Raven to Epic-W is a big jump. From Raven to Scarlet-W you get a better camera, and you are still half of the cost of a Epic-W even with upgrade price. For your business it might make sense to do that first and see what else you can do afterwards.

Another good option you have now, you can rent a Scarlet/Raven and a Epic-W, and see which one makes more sense to use.

 

[Sergio Perez]

If you can afford it, always go for the top option. It never disappoints.

 

[Brody_B]

If you can afford it, always go for the top option. It never disappoints.

I'm with this guy. Plus the $10k discount, that's a pretty good place to start. But expect to spend a lot on mags, hard drives, and computer/gpu processing. 8k is an expensive platform to work in. So if you have a hard time spending that kind of money then just stick with the Raven, it's definitely a great cam.

 

[Josh Tyron]

I'm with this guy. Plus the $10k discount, that's a pretty good place to start. But expect to spend a lot on mags, hard drives, and computer/gpu processing. 8k is an expensive platform to work in. So if you have a hard time spending that kind of money then just stick with the Raven, it's definitely a great cam.

I'll 2nd that statement. We are burning up drives a lot faster. Its an awesome camera if you can afford it but then again so is the Raven. At the end of the day I couldn't pass up the discount. Other option is there are killer deals on Epic Dragons and 1.8" mags. My original plan was to stay in the older cameras and accessories. After the upgrade I am happy with the bump in resolution but it sure did cost me.

 

[Jacob Ryan]

Agreed. I ended up spending close to $8K to work on 8K platform. It's an additional 8K for 8K for sure.

I'll 2nd that statement. We are burning up drives a lot faster. Its an awesome camera if you can afford it but then again so is the Raven. At the end of the day I couldn't pass up the discount. Other option is there are killer deals on Epic Dragons and 1.8" mags. My original plan was to stay in the older cameras and accessories. After the upgrade I am happy with the bump in resolution but it sure did cost me.