Leica's Red Dot and RED

[pcsmythe]

Over at the Luminous Landscape, Michael Reichmann writes about the coming convergence of still photography and video. Gotta admit, the RED 5K EPIC is pretty intriguing - up to 100 frames per second with a full 35 mm chip. Oh, and the sensor is going to be upgradeable.

[giordano]

Originally Posted by pcsmythe

Over at the Luminous Landscape, Michael Reichmann writes about the coming convergence of still photography and video. Gotta admit, the RED 5K EPIC is pretty intriguing - up to 100 frames per second with a full 35 mm chip. Oh, and the sensor is going to be upgradeable.

What's more, the LCD looks like an optional extra. But some Leica users will probably complain that there's no clockwork motor.

Alas, it's not full-frame 35mm, more like a 1.5X crop. It's S35mm which is roughly 24X15mm - the biggest 16:9 frame that fits on vertically running 35mm film.

Here's a useful picture. I found a link to it at Visual Sensor Format Comparisons - Page 2 - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking :

[randy@rleffingwell.com]

The RED camera has tantalized still shooters since the company first announced it would show prototypes at NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) in Las Vegas in 2006. This year, with working RED ONE cameras on hand to, umm, handle, the potential is closer to reality. The EPIC with 5K resolution will come close to what still shooters need for two-page magazine spreads at 300dpi. According to RED, the EPIC should be available by this time in 2009.The EPIC, like the ONE, will shoot in RAW code.

Two things will keep these cameras from most people's hands: First a RED ONE (4K resolution) with a COOKE 18-100mm T3.0 lens, a couple of batteries, a "viewfinder," and some kind of medium onto which you will record your images will cost you more than $100,000 US. The RED ONE camera (only, no finder) sells for just about $18,000.

From what RED staff told me at the RED booth at NAB this year, the body on the 6-pound RED EPIC alone is $55,000. (That is why they are offering full trade-in allowance on your "old RED ONE" if you pre-order an EPIC.) That same Cooke 18-100 that will not even cover the sensor at full wide zoom, and it sells for another $45K. RED is producing its own lenses, and Cooke and others are manufacturing lenses as well for the camera.

Prime lenses from Cooke range from $6,000 to $10,000 each.

However, if you are well endowed financially, you still will need to be well-endowed physically because the camera (the ONE) is roughly 10 pounds and that lens is another 13.

On a recent National Geographic shoot in Mexico, the director used two Panasonic HD handicams and experimented with his RED ONE. According to my buddy who was the underwater still shooter on the project, the director said stills from the RED were "almost but not quite there."

While obviously not conceived as a still shooter's camera (who really needs 100 frames per second?) the potential to pull magazine or book quality images from its sensors and lenses still has a lot of us very curious.

In LA, RED ONEs with a ready-to-shoot kit rent for about $4,000 a week, $1,400 to $1,800 a day depending on accessories.

[earleygallery]

If that is seriously of interest just get a video camera and take movies. Why bother with still images?

[randy@rleffingwell.com]

Among still shooters, the need for those kinds of cameras comes from those who have made a transition to video shooter for HDTV programming but also need to provide images to magazines such as National Geographic which requires high def for its broadcasting and demands hi-res for its print repro.

A whole different category of cameras will more affordably take care of on-line publications that want stills and video of the same event for their e-magazines.

I think to a great extent it boils down to hedging bets against Murphy's Law, which has always guaranteed me that at the moment of best light and most compeling image interest, I'll frequently have the "other" camera in front of my eye.