Imax is a small market, though that probably won't stop RED and I love their cameras, but RED doesn't really spend much time listening, though they have gotten better.
In regards to a larger frame size, I don't know where anyone is going to get the cinema lenses, but that's probably another issue.
I think RED needs more refinement. The fact that don't have an easy proress solution, is one example and the fact they dropped their lens line, which I tested and bought and found to be as good as anything we tried, at a much better price.
I was told their lenses were made by Cooke, so maybe that's why they stopped selling them, but my RED primes are beautiful.
Honestly 2k, 4k, in the higher end cameras I don't see any difference, as motion is much different than stills. For the smaller cameras you see a difference, but the smaller camera have a smooth look like noise reduced stills, where the RED and Arri have a more film like look, the RED close to Kodak Vision.
Red also could drop the fanboyism on their website. It's incredibly difficult to find any real information without wading through the terms, Canon killer, Arri Killer, Film Killer. Nobody cares about that, they just care about usability, costs and post workflow.
Personally I'd upgrade my Scarlet to a Epic Dragon, except for the new red rocket card. I've already spend $12,000 on the older RR cards and positively refuse to spend another $6,5000 just to get to proress.
They should open the processing up to Sonnet or some other lower cost card and find a way to make them more stable, which becomes difficult given the new Mac Pro with thunderbolt doesn't allow an 8x lane through a separate box and RED requires an 8X lane.
Now given that I love my R1's, wish RED had continued development on that form factor because it's a proper movie camera and doesn't require modules to make it work.
I bought two, at first because I was worried about the rumors I heard of RED reliability, later for two and three cam shoots, though shooting twice around the world, I've only had one RED file corrupt and that was because of an operator knocking a v lock off the camera.
And the conditions I've worked from the Winter in Moscow the summer of Thailand, I can't think of more difficult extremes.
But Imax, ok I guess, though I've viewed 4k downsampled to 2k and there isn't that wow factor in look, not with motion.
In fact traveling from London to LA and back when we go to a movie in London whether it be the Odeon in Leicester Sq., or a smaller art theatre, the is a big difference in quality.
The screens at the Odeon, compared to LA are small or smaller, but the depth of color and the quality of production is at least 40% higher. I think the Odeon has their own proprietary projection system, but regardless the imagery is beautiful.
RED, whether anyone in the film industry appreciates it or not, built a robust, full featured camera that is not only useable for anything Hollywood demands, but is affordable for the small production company.
Just give me instant proress conversion and I'll be fine.
IMO
P.S. In regards to a phase or Hasselblad digital cinema back . . . I'd forget about that.
BC
