WHAT IF RED MADE HI ISO / HI SPEED / HI RES cameras ?

[Mark Toia]

Just throwing this out there as purely a business research question.

What say if RED made a line of cameras.
Since its very hard for a camera company to make the "PERFECT CAMERA" .. What say there was a product range that covered "prefect"

Currently there is:

The 6k "SCARLET DRAGON" 16stops of DR, 48 FPS @5k.

The EPIC 6K "EPIC Dragon". 16stops of DR, 87 FPS @6k.

The EPIC 6K "Dragon Monochrome" ????? stop of DR, 87 FPS @6k.

Now...

Lets say RED made a Hi ISO camera. Call it say the "EPIC Dragon (S)" ... S for sensitively. 2k & 4k only, 12MP , Raw, 10 bit ? Completely redesigned sensor designed purposely for Hi Iso's , noise reduction applied. Capable of 100,000 + Iso. Speeds of up to 100fps, Yes completely designed to combat Sony and others coming hard and fast behind RED.

Lets say RED also made a Hi speed camera. Call it say "EPIC Dragon (HS)"... HS for high speed. 4k only, 12 - 17mp, Raw, 16bit, Completely redesigned sensor, Capable of 1000 FPS at 4k. Yes completely designed to combat Phantom and others coming hard and fast behind RED.

The reason I'm asking this question is because for the first time in 6 years, I'm starting to look over the fence into different paddocks. I'm looking at cameras that can give me high speed without sensor crops, I'm looking at cameras that can give me super Hi ISO's...
My perfect camera would be a single camera that does it ALL !!! ... But that's sound impossible at the moment.

Love my Dragons i do. And won't part from mine or RED until the day someone comes along and squashes the Dragon, the same way RED did to ARRI and SONY.
RED are not silly, they know that loyalty only lays with a products performance, Jarred goes through monitors like I go through underwear.

So my question is to Jarred and Jim.
Would you humour this idea of making purpose built products that suite different needs. ?

I for one would jump at the chance to have all 3 in my tool chest. As I love the whole 6k resolution thing, So you have me 1/3 of the way. I also love to shoot in pitch darkness and am not worried about 6k resolution at that point. And to have a camera that shoots 1000FPS would be fantastic as well.

Make a camera that does all ! ... and you will forever win !!!! .
But in this highly competitive world of camera technology, were the perfect camera cannot be built, I'd then prefer to stick with the one brand, instead of having 3 different brands on set. For obvious reasons.

Look forward to hearing other peoples thoughts.

 

[John Hall]

Makes perfect sense. Reds' modular cameras become more modular. You have 3 brains one set of DSMC modules.
Great idea

 

[Jacobo Martinez]

Love it!

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

heh heh..... specialty or not, I have a special place in my heart for the high speed stuff.

Before RED, I met with a bunch of machine vision manufactures with my buddy Nick and we had a pretty grand ( and completely unrealistic ) idea of building a high speed camera that could shoot both 24fps as well as high speed for cinema. For some reason Vision Research ( which back then was making industrial cameras ) had faith in us and let us muck around with their stuff and tweak things just enough for us to get in way over our heads. I am pretty sure they thought we were nuts.

I can't believe this website is still up.... I don't think it has been touched for more than a decade. Pretty dopey stuff but remembering back then it was sure alot of fun.

http://purposelabs.com/

...

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

4K + high speed camera from RED that can do 1000fps .... WANT.

If it cost 2X the cost of a Dragon Brain - it would still 1/2 the price of current solution - http://www.abelcine.com/store/Phantom-Flex4K-Camera/

 

[Elsie N]

I can see value in that approach. But people like yourself who could use the three camera set you propose could also afford a multi sensor do-it-yourself changeout package. That is, build the sensors required to meet the different needs stated, and install each different sensor as needed.

Of course that would require boards to match and certainly a new ASIC to handle everything needed. But having a change of sensor + an individual firmware to cause the camera to act the way required would be a much less expensive approach.

If only we knew what RED is currently working on... '-)

 

[David Battistella]

I can see how this approach could work well.

I mean if you are going to build a camera for dedicated Monochrome capture then I can't see why it would dnot be a bad idea to develop sensors to compete in low light and High speed market. This would create an interesting ecosystem with one Color science and whole RAW system to serve productions.

I don't know how much extra it would take from a resource standpoint, but the reason a phantom is expensive is that it is a very specific use camera. Lowlight could easily be a day to day camera, but I am not sure 100FPS is as day to day a requirement. Like Low-light applies to all production and Hihg sped is more niche.

If they were doing this I'd like to see the low light first, then the high speed (as a rollout).

These cameras see more than ever before now and these low light cameras are basically doing what infra red cameras were doing just a short time ago.

It would be interesting to see what the roadmap ends up becoming.

If you look at ARRI, they made this super production friendly "documentary camera" to tap into all that discover and Nat geo production pipeline. If RED made a more "broadcaster friendly" version of dragon (built in Full XLR, prores proxy recored, etc) then I think people might migrate to that.

But as Gretzky's dad said, skate to where the puck will be not to where it is. Meaning whatever RED does it should be bringing a new thing to the table (three years from now what will production want), innovating, rather than just making what someone else makes too. Why chase after something someone else is good at and has been doing, when you could be paving a whole new road, Like the RED ONE DID.

So, it's more like then should be anticipating rather than following.

Battistella

 

[Lakis Amarantithis]

I like to see Red developing a small camera, the smaller the better with the same quality of Dragon. Hi speed is good but 1000fps is needed too rarely. The future points to nano tech. I personally think 3D also.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I like to see Red developing a small camera, the smaller the better with the same quality of Dragon. Hi speed is good but 1000fps is needed too rarely. The future points to nano tech. I personally think 3D also.

In my opinion, small is not what it's cracked up to be. I find ultra small cameras like the BM Pocket cam to be very difficult to operate smoothly handheld and require rigs to smooth it out. So, the real answer to the small camera is to build one that has "magic" stabilization built in so you get the benefits of a small camera and a stabilized rig.

 

[Eric Z]

Great idea, Mark.

but I was thinking about something else:
What if RED could incorporate all that into a single brain, where us users could set the camera bias towards High Sensitivity / High Speed / High DR.

 

[Vladimir Eugene]

I think you're on to something Toia

 

[Tom Greenberg]

RED has created an entire ecosystem of aks and modules to support the DSMC form factor. If the cameras Mark is proposing could be made to work within that ecosystem, it would be a huge benefit in ease of use and cost-savings. You could purpose-build your camera (including brain) for the task at hand….that would be amazing!

 

[Ces Peynetti]

The other day I was thinking that I would love a weather sealed camera. This could potentially be combined with "high sensitivity" and/or a motion mount for those of us that love going into the wild where the weather and our surroundings can be rough or unpredictable.

 

[Elsie N]

Great idea, Mark.

but I was thinking about something else:
What if RED could incorporate all that into a single brain, where us users could set the camera bias towards High Sensitivity / High Speed / High DR.

Eric, what you propose would surely be advantageous, but if possible would have to be an entirely new line of camera from the Dragon. Just like the Scarlet Dragon fits the needs of many who don't require 6k @ high frame rates, so do many Dragon owners not need all the things Mark proposes.

And I'm no engineer but I think it might require different sensors, as Mark implied, to reach those three goals... at least at present.

ADDITIONAL: Might add a fourth thing to all the above... shooting each of them in the Infra Red.

 

[ericyoung]

I'd prefer Mark's separate brain approach, sacrificing maximum resolution (maintaining S35 field of view though), but only because then each brain could potentially be cheaper. But I wouldn't want to sacrifice low light for dynamic range or normal daylight shooting performance.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

RED has created an entire ecosystem of aks and modules to support the DSMC form factor. If the cameras Mark is proposing could be made to work within that ecosystem, it would be a huge benefit in ease of use and cost-savings. You could purpose-build your camera (including brain) for the task at hand….that would be amazing!

Yes - kinda like the Monochrome Brain. I've fantasized about a 4K + High Speed DSMC brain for extreme specialty slo mo for a long time. If it's purpose built for high speed - you could do some stuff like a huge RAM buffer, etc. - or better yet - pumping the uncompressed RAW camera signals off the camera via fibre - and connect to an off board "capture deck/module" that could cache the RAW camera signals prior to REDCODE compression - so the compression happens off camera - just thinking out loud ...

I'm sure Military / Industrial use would exceed entertainment & sports industry.

 

[Bob Gundu]

IMHO, I totally expect the next generation of RED cameras to be smaller. This is the biggest advantage over the Alexa. The mini-mags are a hint of where things are going.

 

[Elsie N]

IMHO, I totally expect the next generation of RED cameras to be smaller. This is the biggest advantage over the Alexa. The mini-mags are a hint of where things are going.

I expect (and hope) you are right. I would certainly embrace a lighter camera but only if it compares to Dragon footage. In the current size and configuration, it takes away that "walk-about" style of carrying the camera with me at all times and being able to shoot spontaneously.

ADDITIONAL: Didn't Jarred start a thread asking for interest in a super high speed RED camera? Didn't follow it at the time because that didn't suit me. Still doesn't but the fact Jarred asked means RED thinks it can be done.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

I have a feeling we may see a HS option from RED at some point in the future...

 

[Elsie N]

I have a feeling we may see a HS option from RED at some point in the future...

I agree... Jarred suggested as much in a thread a few months ago.

Looked for it but couldn't find it.