new red camera- EPIC-S

[paul_jones]

almost as many features as main epic- 5k, same body, sdhdi, just half the data- ie 5k 60 frames (maybe will be 2k 120).

the big deal, its going to 12K.

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=53580&highlight=epic-s

paul

[fredjeang]

The thing is that there will be a worldwide queue and before you can have your Epic the competition will have made available 6K $ raw video available in your corner store...

Ps: someone asked where can I reserved it...no answer so far...the world of Red is really mysterium

[bcooter]

The thing is that there will be a worldwide queue and before you can have your Epic the competition will have made available 6K $ raw video available in your corner store...

Ps: someone asked where can I reserved it...no answer so far...the world of Red is really mysterium

Yes it is mostly a mystery, but RED will sell them and today will pretty much sell everything they can get out of the door.

That's doesn't mean it's always better, or worse, it just means that have indentified a market that everyone else has missed.

For how long that goes on . . . who knows, but today if you want a RAW motion camera you can afford to own, RED has that market.

IMO

BC

[paul_jones]

The thing is that there will be a worldwide queue and before you can have your Epic the competition will have made available 6K $ raw video available in your corner store...

Ps: someone asked where can I reserved it...no answer so far...the world of Red is really mysterium

its hard to believe that the red camera has only been around for 3 years, and yet its the main digital camera in the ad industry now (here in new zealand).
there is no other  4+ k res camera on the market (correct me if im wrong), the red is it, and theres not a lot wrong with the existing redone, the epic is the icing on the cake.
the competitions answer is 2k compressed cameras with plastic bodies, or cameras that cost 100k +.

even with their delays, i cant see any competition for red in this niche for some time.

paul

[ChristopherBarrett]

Yes it is mostly a mystery, but RED will sell them and today will pretty much sell everything they can get out of the door.

That's doesn't mean it's always better, or worse, it just means that have indentified a market that everyone else has missed.

For how long that goes on . . . who knows, but today if you want a RAW motion camera you can afford to own, RED has that market.

IMO

BC

Heh... the Cooter doesn't fall for that Magic Bullet bullshit... he's always like... this is a good tool.  I'll buy it and make money with it until I need a better tool.

[bcooter]

Heh... the Cooter doesn't fall for that Magic Bullet bullshit... he's always like... this is a good tool.  I'll buy it and make money with it until I need a better tool.

No.  Cooter falls for a lot.

Right now I somewhat lust over that stainless steel hasselblad.  Not sure what I'd do with it but it sure is pretty.

Anyway, right now, with limited shooting I love the RED.  We're in Paris shooting this week and what a serious piece of equipment.  It's not small, takes a week or two to start up and blows through 16 gig cards the way Mel Gibson goes through agents, but it's a serious camera that I hope will allow me to do serious work.

But no, Cooter ain't that smart.

I wish I was.

All the best.

BC

[fredjeang]

I was watching the Alexa stuff, that is supposed to be the Arri's response to Red but it's 45K and RAW but not 4K. I've seen some footage and it's really really good, but I'm not sure if better than Red (talking about the Alexa).
So yes, Red is pretty much alone in that "affordable" marquet niche.

[bcooter]

I was watching the Alexa stuff, that is supposed to be the Arri's response to Red but it's 45K and RAW but not 4K. I've seen some footage and it's really really good, but I'm not sure if better than Red (talking about the Alexa).
So yes, Red is pretty much alone in that "affordable" marquet niche.

I don't know about the Alexa but I think most people feel it "should" be better because of the cost and the name, but  . . . in the world of digital it all changes.

RED's direction, though sometimes confusing, is really amazing.  How many times have we all heard that America (Kodak) can't viably build a professional camera.  How many times have we heard in the still and motion world that high end cameras just aren't profitable?

Since I don't have a copy of RED's balance sheet I don't know of the profitability, but it doesn't take any insider information to pretty much figure out that RED has probably sold half a billion to a billion dollars worth of product.

Anyway, in using the RED all I can say is, it's not video.  I've owned a lot of the video cameras from the original xl1 to 3 chip prosumer high defs, 1 chip prosumer high defs, two of dslr high defs and the RED looks nothing like any of these.   

It looks like 3 light telecine film, and since the format is close to 1:85 gated film it looks very cinematic and I know that sounds like a silly romantic term, but it's quite a thrill to look through a viewfinder and see the throw and look of an image that is just like the look of the image we all grew up with staring at the big screen.

Last night shot backgrounds and insets of scenics at the grain is minimal, not near as obtrusive as Kodaks pushed negative film which looks like Ant's crawling up a wall, but still has a moveable grain that few people could tell from film, if at all.

What really surprises me is how it works in low key.  Shooting from shadow to highlight in a upward pan, the shadows are rich and deep and as the light changed from midtone to bright highlight the movement was smooth and gradual, not typical digital.

Actually, shooting a awning blowing in the wind with the Sun behind it, the blow out around the sun to the subject is soft and it wraps like film.  None of my digital still cameras does this.

One thing I'm doing which probably flies in the face of shooting raw is we are balancing the camera out to neutral then adding Lee filters to produce the color look we want.  Even some grad filters.

I know this seems like old school, but it sure is pretty.

At least so far and I'll know a lot more by the week's end. 

IMO

BC

[Morgan_Moore]

One thing I'm doing which probably flies in the face of shooting raw is we are balancing the camera out to neutral then adding Lee filters to produce the color look we want.  Even some grad filters.

BC

Having read on the red fora various moans about noise in the blue channel when correting tungsten (rather then gelling or filtering it) it seem that Red (like all digital chips?) has a native position that the cam is most neutral at

it would seem IMO that filters and gels are indeed far from illogical

raw will always have its limits - it cannot invent information

S

[bcooter]

Having read on the red fora various moans about noise in the blue channel when correting tungsten (rather then gelling or filtering it) it seem that Red (like all digital chips?) has a native position that the cam is most neutral at

it would seem IMO that filters and gels are indeed far from illogical

raw will always have its limits - it cannot invent information

S

I'm kind of digitaled out and though I'm not trying to go back in time, it's pretty cool to put some lee filters over a lens and look at the image and go wow that's pretty.

Looking pretty is the only goal. Unfortunatley I've filed my head with a lot of 1's and o's and like everyone talks about this stuff like it's science and not art and it's really art aided by science.

I don't know about the blue channel, I've never looked at it by it's lonesome, but I know if I shoot it, it looks pretty, I view it, it looks pretty, then well, that's good.

One thing I really love about motion is the fact that in and out of foucs is as much a beautiful transition as some kind of get it sharp excercize.

Anyway, I've purposely stayed away from the RED forums because I don't want to know what's wrong with the camera. 

I believe in the value of the uncluttered mind.

BC

[ChristopherBarrett]

Another Spin...

I don't need a P65 back and New Digital Lenses to make my images.  I made thousands of them on ektachrome with extremely low tech view cameras... often with 20 points of magenta on the lens and filters on my lights.  No big deal... except... that was a pain in the ass and the pictures were simply not as good as what I'm doing now and... I'm really having way more fun making them now... no more stress over "yeah, I think we got it"  I just look at the laptop and go "yeah, that's fuckin IT!"

But sure, it's sooo easy to get mired down in the technicalities.... me, I try to beat that stuff into my brain so hard that by the time I go out to make pictures the knowledge has settled to the bottom, flows on a subconscious plateau and thankfully stays the hell out of the way of creativity.

High ISO RED.... agreed... the noise that does exist begins to look like projected film grain.  Actually kind of beautiful.  James, you get your hands on an EVF?  I didn't even think I'd want one, but am quickly changing my mind.

CB

[michael]

I'm enjoying the turn of this thread, because I've received a number of emails asking me why I'm shooting with a GH2 in Mexico, rather than my Leica, or Phase.

The answer I give is that I am less concerned with ultimate image quality than I am in the ultimate image, so to speak. No other camera I know can shoot quality stills and video in as small and versatile a package. Yes, the M9 would give me higher image quality, but doesn't have the reach and can't shoot video. The P65 is just the wrong camera for street shooting.

Speaking of video, I'm waiting for my Panasonic AF100 to arrive next week. Not a Red One or an Epic by any means, but early reports are very favourable.

Michael

[bcooter]

The answer I give is that I am less concerned with ultimate image quality than I am in the ultimate image, so to speak.
Michael

I agree.  We all say it, we all say it all the time that it's about the image, but of course every project has different requirements, though I wish it was always just about a pretty picture, but sometimes it's not.



This image is from the RED ONE, at about 2 billion iso, 24 fps, 1/48th sec shutter, F 2.8, from a casting today, lit by one single battery powered led light.

No retouching, other than fixing a spot on the wall.   In fact the color is about 75% there out of camera.  I think I spent 7 minutes in photoshop.

In fact it's captured at 2k rather than 4.5k because it's a casting and we're burning through cards like water.

It ain't no medium format in detail, but it looks good, at least to me and to me shows the power of where all of this can go.  (But then again I'm in Paris and I think everything in Paris is pretty).


BC


P.S.  

CB, no I didn't buy the evf because the bomb isn't out and you can't buy the old one new.  The old one weighs about 700 lbs, but even with that I tried to buy a few used, but they wanted too much so I passed.

Instead I use the 5.7" for focus and a second one mounted on the top of the camera so clients can kind of see what I'm shooting.  I also have a mounted breakout box (it's small) so I can tether to a field monitor.

P.S. again.

Speaking of cameras I brought the RED, a 5d, 1ds3.   Thought I'd use the 5d for tight video and backup to the RED, but the 1ds3 just went down (never fired a single frame).

I could kick myself for not bringing the Contax and my medium format backs because one of the two projects we're shooting just screams out for medium format, but we traveled with 15 cases (some of the cases were wardrobe) and I just could bear adding another case.

Dumb me man.

[BJL]

A caution about trying to compare sensor resolution between RED, Sony CineAlta and ARRI Alexa products: RED's sensors use a Bayer CFA, whereas AFAIK, the CineAlta's and Alexa are outputting all three colors at each pixel. Sony in particular does this by producing each output pixel from a 3x2 block of photosites with color filter pattern
RGB
RGB
with each photosite of 2x3 shape and then binning each same-color pair to give the three color signals for a square "super-pixel".
So Sony's Super 35mm sized 1920x1080 sensors have about 12 million photosites.

If that is true for the ARRI Alexa's 2880x1620 output, then its resolution is probably comparable to a RED Bayer CFA sensor of about twice the pixel count, so about 4K. And for "X3" fundamentalists, a comparable Bayer CFA sensor would need to measure all three colors at each of those 2880x1620 locations, requiring 5760x3240 photosites --- I do not buy that though.

P. S. The change of plans from the Scarlet S35 to the new Epic-S with higher specs (and higher price?), leaving the Scarlet line with only the fixed lens 2/3" format model, looks like a necessary response to the arrival of relatively affordable large sensor video options based on still/video cross-over sensors (most recently the AF100). RED's S35 efforts have been chased to higher ground, based on the higher quality it can get from a dedicated video sensor, but at a higher price due to not sharing sensor R&D costs with the far larger still camera market.

[fredjeang]

If that is true for the ARRI Alexa's 2880x1620 output, then its resolution is probably comparable to a RED Bayer CFA sensor of about twice the pixel count, so about 4K. And for "X3" fundamentalists, a comparable Bayer CFA sensor would need to measure all three colors at each of those 2880x1620 locations, requiring 5760x3240 photosites --- I do not buy that though.

Yes, I do not buy that either.

It reminds me to some extend the Foveon sensor, and if the absolute resolution fools I doubt the calculations match that reality. But hey, this is another price and another planet. You have access with the Alexa to anamorphic lenses. Uncompressed Raw 12 bits CMOS in data mode, YCbCr in HD, lens motor connections, 4:3 aspect ratio etc...
Some infos about the Mscope format in creative cow: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/227/15102

Footage I saw caught my attention in the sense of "germanic precision and clarity". (thinking of Sinar here)

But I doubt it smokes the Red strictly talking about image. I think the advantages of the Arri are in and for cine structures as a proofed system.

The think is using the Raw to 4:3 you are in 25 fps. I do not know if that really matches with the tendency or at least the desire in the cine industry to definatly move to higher speeds. Has 25 fps made its time? This is a question I can not answer but it's in the air everywhere.