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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Weapon 8k Queue

I got contacted from ready offering to upgrade my weapon to helium right now or else wait for VV. I'm also in the first 20 on the list. I decided to wait because I don't really need 8K, but I would love a larger sensor. I have the new set of Zeiss CPZ zooms and they look great at 6K Super35 - I I think they are going to blow everything else away at 8K VV.


Wynn
DP
www.wynnpadula.com
 
My hope is that some of the original Vista upgraders will actually prefer the 8k Helium over the Vista 8k... (People with high res S35 spherical primes for example) that way hopefully we all get what we want a little quicker... and I am confidant the original 'put your money down' guys wont have to wait into next year!
 
Rumor? Fact?

Rumor? Fact?

?Has anyone besides Wynn who pre-paid for VV Dragon heard from RED about when they will be able to get an 8K Helium sensor to hold us over (or keep if desired, last I heard)?

I like the idea that RED might take care of VV waiters first, as they roll out Helium and whatever other news they plan to announce October 11th. If so, it seems odd that only Wynn would have been contacted. I don't want to bang on my BS rep, they have plenty to do - so perhaps a clarification here on RU?

If the reality is: "still in progress with more info in the October announcement", just confirm that and I'll try and get my heart rate down ;-). If, OTOH, enough 8K Helium sensors have passed QC to start offering them to the VV waiters...

Cheers - #19
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Has anyone besides Wynn who pre-paid for VV Dragon heard from RED about when they will be able to get an 8K Helium sensor to hold us over (or keep if desired, last I heard)?
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Have not heard anything yet. I did get my side handle and the GDU replacement handles.
 
I would love to hear an offer from RED to install a 8K S35 in to my Weapon. I am in between projects right now so it would be a great time to experiment for a while and then when the VV comes have at least the 8S35 experience and understanding to reference.
From what I have downloaded from others 8ks35 stuff Im chomping to get to see what it can do for my uses. Who knows maybe Ill be happy but my gut tells me that when my VV option comes Ill be more than happy to take that from RED.
HINT HINT HINT RED!!

PS sidehandle is no where to be heard from and Im pretty sure I was pretty early in the line up...
 
Russ Fill said:
I would love to hear an offer from RED to install a 8K S35 in to my Weapon. I am in between projects right now so it would be a great time to experiment for a while and then when the VV comes have at least the 8S35 experience and understanding to reference.
From what I have downloaded from others 8ks35 stuff Im chomping to get to see what it can do for my uses. Who knows maybe Ill be happy but my gut tells me that when my VV option comes Ill be more than happy to take that from RED.
HINT HINT HINT RED!!

PS sidehandle is no where to be heard from and Im pretty sure I was pretty early in the line up...
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Ok that was pretty quick... what about 4 hours... I just got my notification of allocation for my DSMC2 side handle.... Ya Hooo!!!
 
Was the new version of Daredevil shot on the new VistaVision Weapon? Very cool. I was wondering if they were using F.95 Leica lenses or something... very cool.
 
Russ Fill said:
I would love to hear an offer from RED to install a 8K S35 in to my Weapon. I am in between projects right now so it would be a great time to experiment for a while and then when the VV comes have at least the 8S35 experience and understanding to reference.
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Ditto. But it looks like Helium is October and it will go in the order of the queue. From what I'm seeing of Helium, I'm not so sure I'll ultimately go to VV Dragon. I'd love the larger sensor area, but Helium looks to be the superior sensor. After all it's the newer design.
PS sidehandle is no where to be heard from and Im pretty sure I was pretty early in the line up...
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I was real early in the side handle queue. Like order in < 30 seconds from it going live. They just shipped mine the other day, should have it tomorrow. Oh, I see you have one allocated now. At least these side handles seem to be showing up right about when Jarred said they would.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Ditto. But it looks like Helium is October and it will go in the order of the queue. From what I'm seeing of Helium, I'm not so sure I'll ultimately go to VV Dragon. I'd love the larger sensor area, but Helium looks to be the superior sensor. After all it's the newer design.

I was real early in the side handle queue. Like order in < 30 seconds from it going live. They just shipped mine the other day, should have it tomorrow. Oh, I see you have one allocated now. At least these side handles seem to be showing up right about when Jarred said they would.
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I was early on ordering the side handle, but haven't heard, but I have a Helium and ordered the side handle in white as part of the user group, so waiting...as far as the VV upgrade, I am in line for a couple, but this Helium is just amazing, it is a dream camera, but the VV with it's wide angle lens possibility is something I have been dreaming about for years...and with all the new stuff...upgrades and all else, I just figure that RED will take care of us early VV adopters. I would love to see RED offer a Helium version of VV.
 
I fully expect a VV sized Helium sensor to rear its head with 10.5K or 11K resolution. Going to take some more powerful internals though. But I don't think that's too far off and I'm betting RED had the larger size in mind as they designed Helium. Hopefully it scales a lot better. It will be interesting to see what they offer to all of us early VV people who put our money down 18 months ago. Sure, they will set us up with Helium, which is awesome, and still allow us to transition to VV Dragon once available, if we choose. But how long will that door be open? And how fast will a transition to VV Helium take? Will it require the next body upgrade beyond Weapon or will there be available components to make it happen within the Weapon body?

I'm really conflicted with this. I'm really looking forward to VV, and even larger frame sizes and the lenses that come along with them. OTOH, Helium is the sensor tech as we move forward and even though Red has not finalized the color science and a few other aspects of it, I can already see where it's superior to Dragon. I also don't think I've seen a fully comprehensive list or comparison of frame rates and compression options between 8K Dragon and Helium. And will there be different levels of Helium cameras? Do our 8K VV setups we have pre-paid for offer any increased performance at 8K (Helium or Dragon) than what is out there now in the white Helium brains?
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I fully expect a VV sized Helium sensor to rear its head with 10.5K or 11K resolution. Going to take some more powerful internals though. But I don't think that's too far off and I'm betting RED had the larger size in mind as they designed Helium. Hopefully it scales a lot better. It will be interesting to see what they offer to all of us early VV people who put our money down 18 months ago. Sure, they will set us up with Helium, which is awesome, and still allow us to transition to VV Dragon once available, if we choose. But how long will that door be open? And how fast will a transition to VV Helium take? Will it require the next body upgrade beyond Weapon or will there be available components to make it happen within the Weapon body?

I'm really conflicted with this. I'm really looking forward to VV, and even larger frame sizes and the lenses that come along with them. OTOH, Helium is the sensor tech as we move forward and even though Red has not finalized the color science and a few other aspects of it, I can already see where it's superior to Dragon. I also don't think I've seen a fully comprehensive list or comparison of frame rates and compression options between 8K Dragon and Helium. And will there be different levels of Helium cameras? Do our 8K VV setups we have pre-paid for offer any increased performance at 8K (Helium or Dragon) than what is out there now in the white Helium brains?
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Pretty much going through the same set of mental discussions as you.

My current thinking is to adopt the Helium sensor loaner program for an upcoming project, then when the VV allocation happens, go back to the VV and put that camera out for rent through a rental house/agent.

Then I can purchase the Helium camera that suits my needs... they should be available for direct purchase by then since I have come to expect my VV allocation to occur in the magic hour period of history. '-)
 
The road to shooting VV Dragon on Weapon CF is clearly not cheap or fast. Once it's available, it's hard to imagine the case for not getting it. As Elsie notes, one can always buy or rent a Helium equipped RED body for low light situations.

I am 100% with Jeff on wanting to have both the newer sensor tech (Helium) and the bigger VistaVision-ish frame. That said, unless the current internal boards can actually deal with 10-11K rasters - doubtful - then Dragon is the only way to go VV in the near future. Moreover, if you think 8K post is a beast - what do you think 11K will be like...

Fortunately, RED is going to give those of us who put our $10K on the table 17 months ago 8K Helium sensors to tide us over until they can deliver the 8K VV Dragon sensors we pre-paid for. This will give us a great opportunity to judge the image dynamics of each sensor tech for ourselves before making a choice. Now if RED could just design a swappable Sensor mount, ala swappable OLPF... ;-)

Cheers - #19
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
The road to shooting VV Dragon on Weapon CF is clearly not cheap or fast. Once it's available, it's hard to imagine the case for not getting it. As Elsie notes, one can always buy or rent a Helium equipped RED body for low light situations.

I am 100% with Jeff on wanting to have both the newer sensor tech (Helium) and the bigger VistaVision-ish frame. That said, unless the current internal boards can actually deal with 10-11K rasters - doubtful - then Dragon is the only way to go VV in the near future. Moreover, if you think 8K post is a beast - what do you think 11K will be like...

Fortunately, RED is going to give those of us who put our $10K on the table 17 months ago 8K Helium sensors to tide us over until they can deliver the 8K VV Dragon sensors we pre-paid for. This will give us a great opportunity to judge the image dynamics of each sensor tech for ourselves before making a choice. Now if RED could just design a swappable Sensor mount, ala swappable OLPF... ;-)

Cheers - #19
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That would be a good idea. Another approach might be to make the sensor box a swappable module attachable to the big horsepower box (also as a module for those who want to upgrade eventually)

ADDITIONAL: This would be especially good for rental houses as they could mix and match horsepower to sensor. That is, if a client only wanted a 24 framerate but on a larger sensor, that could be accommodated by matching a MG Weapon hp sized box with even an 8k VV sensor I would presume?

This would be taking modularity to its finest form.
 
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Where have you heard that they will give us Helium to tide us over? When they contacted me they said that I could have a helium chip INSTEAD of a VV chip. I said NO WAY. Of course, if I could just use one in the meantime I'd take it.

8K - even 6K is plenty of pixels for me. But the bigger the pixels the better. Fundamental physics says that bigger pixels will have more latitude and higher sensitivity. Also, a larger format lens of the same quality will always resolve more detail than a smaller format lens + it will have less depth of field and more gorgeous bokah. Right?
 
Wynn Padula said:
Where have you heard that they will give us Helium to tide us over? When they contacted me they said that I could have a helium chip INSTEAD of a VV chip. I said NO WAY. Of course, if I could just use one in the meantime I'd take it.

8K - even 6K is plenty of pixels for me. But the bigger the pixels the better. Fundamental physics says that bigger pixels will have more latitude and higher sensitivity. Also, a larger format lens of the same quality will always resolve more detail than a smaller format lens + it will have less depth of field and more gorgeous bokah. Right?
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Agree, I thought the 8k helium option was just a hold gap till the VV came, there is no way I'd want a 15mm high helium over a 21.6mm vista vision sensor. Can RED please clarify this point???

If there was a 4 perf helium sensor that was 18.5 height with same width, i'd probably go helium over dragon vv.
 
Wynn Padula said:
Where have you heard that they will give us Helium to tide us over? When they contacted me they said that I could have a helium chip INSTEAD of a VV chip. I said NO WAY. Of course, if I could just use one in the meantime I'd take it.

8K - even 6K is plenty of pixels for me. But the bigger the pixels the better. Fundamental physics says that bigger pixels will have more latitude and higher sensitivity. Also, a larger format lens of the same quality will always resolve more detail than a smaller format lens + it will have less depth of field and more gorgeous bokah. Right?
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Smaller pixels does not need to have less sensitivity or latitude. pixels have been improved over time in new iterations of sensors. Dragon is now a few years old so it´s quite likely the development continued from there so helium could have smaller but better pixels.

Regarding lenses the development is not that fast. Simply put the bigger image circle you need the slower the lens will be. there are no large format 0.95F lenses and so on. But yes the precision of the lens is less important the bigger backplane is. But there are quite a lot of good S35 glas and I think a lot of people will continue to use optimo zooms and such and I also think that everyone is not looking for a bigger backplane. When 35mm film was made they could easily have done it 40mm, 50m or what ever, like 70mm but for some reason they choosed to make it 35mm. The size is simply a quite well fitted balance sensor size to capture motion with.

But sure I really want the VV instead of the helium if possible. I even went ahead and sold my HAWK S35 lenses and bought full frame glas etc to be prepared for the VV delivery around christmas. Then I had no doubt that I would have it before end of January... Well, now in retrospect that was possibly not the smartest move I made. lol.

Second dumb thing I did was not to pay for the White helium. I got so many cool requests for its maddening. it would pay it self off before christmas if I had it.
 
AFAIK, VV waiters will be offered an 8K S35 Helium sensor to tide us over until RED has a VV Dragon for us. At that time, we would be able to elect to keep the 8K S35 Helium OR send it back to RED for installation of the VV Dragon.

In terms of swappable sensors, that is just a "what if" discussion point - I have no idea if that's even remotely possible to do. It would be great, but it seems like a very difficult engineering challenge.

Cheers - #19
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
AFAIK, VV waiters will be offered an 8K S35 Helium sensor to tide us over until RED has a VV Dragon for us. At that time, we would be able to elect to keep the 8K S35 Helium OR send it back to RED for installation of the VV Dragon.

In terms of swappable sensors, that is just a "what if" discussion point - I have no idea if that's even remotely possible to do. It would be great, but it seems like a very difficult engineering challenge.

Cheers - #19
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I thought they allready had swapable sensors on red cameras and they called them brains :)
 
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