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RED BUILD 14 FULL TEST


Zac Halberd

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Hello everyone. I'm new to this site, however I thought I would make my first valuable contribution by posting all of my notes that I took during a three day shoot with the new RED cam. We shot a short destined for Cannes in Hertfordshire this past weekend with Cinematographer Simon Dennis. We put the camera through quite alot of situations, however this is only my observations and you're welcome to make up your own mind regarding the following issues:

 

KIT WE USED:

 

RED camera- Build 14

18, 32, 85mm Cooke Ultra Primes

2 RED brick batteries

4 PAG V-lock batteries (yes they're perfectly compatable)

8X 8GB Compact Flash cards (I'll explain why)

RED 6" LCD on-board monitor

Red Cradle

Red Shoulder pad/mount

 

 

I would rate this camera overall at about a 7 or 8 out of 10. I was very impressed by the camera overall, but I was put off due to the lack of some very simple practicality issues. There are a few things that I think RED overlooked, but can easily be fixed, or perhaps already have been addressed for build 15.

 

 

We were filming in a warehouse on pre-built sets using various lighting and mostly handheld. We had one or two dolly shots, and a few locked off shots. We had to use 8GB CF cards, because most of our shots were handheld, and the company we hired from mentioned that the RED DRIVE will drop frames during handheld work, as it's being knocked around. I cannot verify this as I have not used the RED DRIVE. They recommend the new solid state hard drive, however it costs a fortune (over £4000.00!!) so that was out of the question.

 

The little CF cards were a bit of a pain, because you only get around 4 minutes, and then you have to do a little procedure to eject them digitally first, then remove them, then insert a new one, format that one, then you're ready to go. It helps keep your takes disciplined like film, as time is precious, but it's still a bit of a pain.

 

Typically, the last sequence of the shoot went to hell as we kept recieving this weird error every ten seconds that would cut the recording. This big red flashing error would come up ' ERROR: REKATIO FAULT' or something or other. We thought perhaps it was overheating so we switched the fan mode to HOT. Nothing. Then we switched to a fresh battery, nothing. Turns out it was something about the recording method was too high a data rate for the CF cards to handle??? We had been recording for three days and never had a fault. ???

 

The menu system in the camera is kinda cool. The camera is so simple. There are hardly ANY buttons at all on the damn thing. It even has a joystick to navigate. It's almost as if the camera was designed by people who wern't familiar with typical HD camera setups (that's not a dig by the way). You would think this new high tech camera would have some serious menus. It doesn't. It has a sensor menu with exposure, white balance, and a couple of other choices, a system menu with a few choices, and a video menu with even fewer choices. That's it. Very simple to navigate, and even simpler to tweak the camera settings. It's REALLY weird at first, but after a few hours of shooting, you can change anything on the fly within seconds.

 

I was a bit annoyed that you can only select one video output at a time. We had a 26 inch HD monitor on set next to the camera, but if we wanted to see the video on the big screen, I would have to deactivate the little RED LCD witness monitor on the camera. Was a bit difficult to check my sharps during takes. Since we didnt have a viewfinder (out of stock due to availability), Simon and I had to share this little freakin LCD screen. So the camera is on his shoulders with the moose bars, and he's creaking his neck WAY back to look up to the little LCD, and I'm practically cheeck to cheeck with him so I can share the same little screen to check for focus during some crazy handheld takes. VERY impractical. However that's just due to lack of the VF. Though I wonder if that whole 'one video output selection at a time' thing will allow a VF and a witness monitor to run at the same time???

 

The RED cradle was kinda cool. Helped to keep the weight balanced. However the power cable design is crap because it's a straight coneector instead of a right angle connector, so when you plug it into the back of the camera, it sticks out a couple of inches, therefore preventing you from bringing the cradle any closer to the camera. You can attach the cradle to the top 19mm bars, but then it just gets weird. It's all a matter of preference.

 

By the way, there is no focal plane indicator. Weird huh? I had to run my own tests beforehand just to find out where the hell the focal plane was on this camera. It's actually right on the join between the camera body, and the PL mount adapter, so I think it was a bit of a design flaw. There is also nowhere to hook your fiberglass onto, so focus pullers might find it a bit annoying. I found that you can hook your tape measure onto one of the butterfly nuts that tighten the top 19mm bars, and it's kinda accurate. But c'mon... I would recommend doing your own tests though.

 

There are a couple of buttons on the front end of the camera. Two of them are user preference buttons that you can assign. We assigned one to be the zoom focus assist, which was handy as hell on the wider end. The other was set to white balance, and the third is a big red record button which doesnt actually work??? Perhaps you have to activate it or something. I couldn't find it in the menu system though. Any ideas??? SO it was a pain in the bum to actually run the camera yourself if you have it on your shoulder, because you have to literally reach way back behind your head, and the camera and blindly find the other record button amidst all the other buttons. So, the buttons in the front are really exposed to knocking. Simon kept knocking them by accident and changing the white balance by a couple thousand K just before the take. Very annoying. Perhaps it was a blessing that the front record button was deactivated!

 

People complain about the fan being loud. However we ran in quiet mode and it was great. MUCH quieter than a film camera and even quieter than the fan in the Sony 900. You can switch it over to HOT mode and then of course it sounds like a damn microwave. We were inside a padded cell (mental insitution type set) with loads of lights and several crew and cast and it was hot and sweaty. The quiet mode seemed fine. Actually the loudest part of the camera believe it or not, was the RED LCD monitor!!! It has this humming buzz type thing going on, and was loud as hell. Sound kept complaining. Don't know what that was about. There was a slight knock on the LCD screen when we recieved it, so perhaps it was dropped by the previous crew (BBC Waking the Dead) damaged it and it was making the humming sound due to this. Tyr ofr yourself. Noisy monitor though...

 

There is no black balance. There is some sort of Black Shading test that you can run that takes like 5 minutes (it even has this really cool matrix thing going on in the background with numbers raining down like a cartoon... I think they were having too much fun designing this thing). I usually do a black balance every time I switch lenses. ??? Perhaps you dont need it for this camera. Couldn't find anything in the 60 page manual.

 

I also prefer to power down when changing lenses. However this camera takes FOREVER to power up. I mean like FOREVER. They say 60 seconds, but I know it's at least a minute and a half because I timed it. Now, imaging having to do that all the time, when you change lenses, or want to save battery on set. No 1st Cam Assistant in their right mind would want to make the DoP wait that long every time you change lenses or reboot. It boots up the software, and firmware, and calibrates... I don't know. It was just a pain in the ass.

 

The shoulder pad is built into the dovetail mount that slides into bottom of the camera. It tapers down to a small square that is about the size of a snap plate. That's all the camera rests on. I found it a bit wobbly. Would have like for there to have been at least one more screw to secure the thing from spinning on one axis. This is just a personal thing. The shoulder pad is not comfy, and is a bit small and awkward.

 

There are screw holes ALL over this thing. You can attach just about anything anywere which is cool. The extra 19mm bars on top are a cool feature as well.

 

The camera is not light. It was much larger and heavier than I thought. You see the website, and the photos and think 'that's pretty small' but its about the size and weight of an arri 235. I suppose that is light and small, however relatively speaking with the photos and what people expect, it's different.

 

I was a bit annoyed that it didnt display battery and media info on the 6" LCD screen. I had to manualy check my battery life on the battery itself, and look on the little LCD screen on the back of the camera to see how much media was left. The media display wasn't very accurate either. It needs a few percent for metadata, so you actually roll out at around 2-4%. Plus whilst recording, it counts down in chunks rather than in accurate small increments. Like two or three percent chunks that aren't very synchronous. There is a little window on the on-board LCD on the back of the camera that is supposed to give you the remaining battery life, but it just says 'AC' the whole time like it thinks youre using mains. Don't know what that's about. Build 15 fix I'm guessing.

 

The little screen does display everything else you need though, which is expected.

 

Right, the image. What can I say. It's pretty damn impressive. You can see EVERYTHING. Very clean image. The tweaking options in the camera are limited. Like master pedestal and black levels. We looked everywhere in the menus and no joy. Wasn't happy with the tweakability. However with that much image data, you can do alot in post. But I hate that phrase.

 

The depth was shallow as expected, and the colours were fantastic. The manual says you can get 11 stops in latitude at 320 ASA. NO WAY. I don't know who said that, but it aint so. We could barely get 5 or 6.

 

The blacks are a bit noisy. Low lighting is not this camera's forte. Perhaps this is an issue that will be addressed in build 15.

 

There is no GAIN (just colour gain) in this camera. Only ASA. Just thought I would let you know.

 

I know that there is only so much bandwidth that you can put into a camera, but when we tried to switch to slow motion (50-75fps) we were VERY limited with our choices. We were shooting in 4k mode the entire time, and were dissapointed to find that you have to switch to either 2k or 3k mode to get the higher frame rates. Understandable. Shooting 50-75fps in 4k mode would be a technologivcal feat for any system. However the DIT we had on set told us that there is a compatability issue between 2k and 4k in post. So how were we to mix the two if we wanted to overcrank? 3k mode mixed better (dunno why???) however, we could only take it to 50fps.

 

We also shot in REDCODE 28. REDCODE 32 is limited again for frame rates and resolutions. I don't know much about this issue, but this is something you might want to address with your post guys.

 

You can set slate numbers in camera. Every time you reload a 'mag' it will roll up to the next number for you UNLESS you restart the camera. Then you're screwed. lol. It was SUCH a pain in the bum having to reset this damn number all the time. I know we went out of sinc a coupld of times with our post guys, so if any of you are reading this, good luck with the slates! lol

 

Workflow was great. Very smooth setup. DIT was on set and loading each mag into his computer every reload. He would back it up several times, then bring the fresh card to me which I would reformat and place into a little case for future reload. If any of you guys have any workflow issues or questions, I can give you our guys' contact details and he can help you out.

 

Overall I enjoyed the camera. But it has a few issues that need to be sorted before I would shoot a feature on it. I hear it's difficult to insure solid state at the moment anyway. (unless you're hollywood and have gazillions to spend)

 

The RED team definately did a great job designing and building this camera. My hat is off to them. As you would expect, there are always issues that need to be addressed when a camera is in it's infancy.

 

I just hope that feedback like this helps in the long run to improve the camera for future shooters.

 

Hope you enjoyed this post.

 

Z

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I thought I might highlight a few misinformed things in this post...

 

They recommend the new solid state hard drive, however it costs a fortune (over £4000.00!!) so that was out of the question.

 

Not sure how they can "recommend" the SSHD when it hasn't even been released yet--unless they meant for in the future...

 

I was a bit annoyed that you can only select one video output at a time. We had a 26 inch HD monitor on set next to the camera, but if we wanted to see the video on the big screen, I would have to deactivate the little RED LCD witness monitor on the camera. Was a bit difficult to check my sharps during takes. Since we didnt have a viewfinder (out of stock due to availability), Simon and I had to share this little freakin LCD screen. So the camera is on his shoulders with the moose bars, and he's creaking his neck WAY back to look up to the little LCD, and I'm practically cheeck to cheeck with him so I can share the same little screen to check for focus during some crazy handheld takes. VERY impractical. However that's just due to lack of the VF. Though I wonder if that whole 'one video output selection at a time' thing will allow a VF and a witness monitor to run at the same time???

 

Build 15 will address this issue and allow, I believe, both outputting to the LCD, EVF, and a HDSDI/HMDI ports all at the same time. But I agree, not having multiple outputs is very annoying!

 

By the way, there is no focal plane indicator. Weird huh? I had to run my own tests beforehand just to find out where the hell the focal plane was on this camera. It's actually right on the join between the camera body, and the PL mount adapter, so I think it was a bit of a design flaw. There is also nowhere to hook your fiberglass onto, so focus pullers might find it a bit annoying. I found that you can hook your tape measure onto one of the butterfly nuts that tighten the top 19mm bars, and it's kinda accurate. But c'mon... I would recommend doing your own tests though.

 

The RED has a focus hook...it's even called the focus hook. However, it seems whoever you rented the camera from did not buy that (Yes, it probably SHOULD be included with body like any other camera.)

 

There is no black balance. There is some sort of Black Shading test that you can run that takes like 5 minutes (it even has this really cool matrix thing going on in the background with numbers raining down like a cartoon... I think they were having too much fun designing this thing). I usually do a black balance every time I switch lenses. ??? Perhaps you dont need it for this camera. Couldn't find anything in the 60 page manual.

 

Jim has mentioned on REDUSER that the black calibration only has to be done once. It is not like a traditional video camera that you need to do it more often.

 

No 1st Cam Assistant in their right mind would want to make the DoP wait that long every time you change lenses or reboot. It boots up the software, and firmware, and calibrates... I don't know. It was just a pain in the ass.

 

What "calibration" is the camera doing on boot? Or is that something you chose to do?

 

I was a bit annoyed that it didnt display battery and media info on the 6" LCD screen. I had to manualy check my battery life on the battery itself, and look on the little LCD screen on the back of the camera to see how much media was left. The media display wasn't very accurate either. It needs a few percent for metadata, so you actually roll out at around 2-4%. Plus whilst recording, it counts down in chunks rather than in accurate small increments. Like two or three percent chunks that aren't very synchronous. There is a little window on the on-board LCD on the back of the camera that is supposed to give you the remaining battery life, but it just says 'AC' the whole time like it thinks youre using mains. Don't know what that's about. Build 15 fix I'm guessing.

 

Unless it is a RED battery, the camera cannot communicate with the battery to know how much juice is left. I have not completely understood RED's explanation of why it can't read the voltage like other cameras do (something to do with a lack of a microchip), but that is the reason.

 

There is no GAIN (just colour gain) in this camera. Only ASA. Just thought I would let you know.

 

Why would there be GAIN if you are shooting RAW? You can adjust the ASA to see what you will be getting in post if you need to raise the levels. RAW ASA raised in post is no different than GAIN--except with the RAW you haven't baked in the gain and being stuck with it later if decided it didn't need so much gain.

 

I know that there is only so much bandwidth that you can put into a camera, but when we tried to switch to slow motion (50-75fps) we were VERY limited with our choices. We were shooting in 4k mode the entire time, and were dissapointed to find that you have to switch to either 2k or 3k mode to get the higher frame rates. Understandable. Shooting 50-75fps in 4k mode would be a technologivcal feat for any system. However the DIT we had on set told us that there is a compatibility issue between 2k and 4k in post. So how were we to mix the two if we wanted to overcrank? 3k mode mixed better (dunno why???) however, we could only take it to 50fps.

 

Jim has said from the beginning that 60 FPS was MAX for 4k--that is the sensor's max clockspeed. I am not sure what the DIT was talking about with mixing 4k and 2k in post. If you recorded 4k 24p and 2k 72 fps (but for playback at 24p), there shouldn't be any issues with recording both on the same media--and should have no problems in post. Of course, there are a million different ways to do post on RED footage (as with P2 footage, or really any other camera) so it's not really clear what the "compatibility issues" are.

 

Not trying to be mean or anything. Just trying to clear up what I believe to be some misinformation. I hope it helps (and do keep up the suggestions, I saw MANY I agreed with!)

 

Matthew

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I thought I might highlight a few misinformed things in this post...

 

 

RAW ASA raised in post is no different than GAIN

Matthew

 

This is not true. GAIN setting on camera is useful if it is implemented before ADC as it has better noise characteristics than digital gain in RAW after ADC

Edited by Joofa
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Many great comments...

 

One I have to take exception on is the dynamic range comment. As you must know, 5-6 stops would not be a useable camera. I'm not sure where you got that number or what methodology you were using but we have posted an Imatest chart showing 11.4 stops. http://www.nattress.com/StoufferImatest.jpg

 

If you are having trouble getting the most out of the RED ONE, we would be happy to make suggestions.

 

Many of your other points are valid. Some have been addressed, some are being addressed.

 

Jim

 

The depth was shallow as expected, and the colours were fantastic. The manual says you can get 11 stops in latitude at 320 ASA. NO WAY. I don't know who said that, but it aint so. We could barely get 5 or 6.

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The RED has a focus hook...it's even called the focus hook. However, it seems whoever you rented the camera from did not buy that (Yes, it probably SHOULD be included with body like any other camera.)

 

Matthew

You would be amazed at how many "Film is Dead" wannabes I have encountered who have no idea what a focus hook actually does.

Or what a focus puller actually does for that matter (apart from turning the focus ring until the picture looks sharp:-).

On the other hand, the Movicam Compact doesn't come with one as standard either, make of that what you will...

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Regarding the focus hook, I guess we just didn't get one in the kit. We didnt get a VF either due to availability so... But I think RED needs to address the focal plane indicator issue. That's a bit of a necessity. Can anyone here verify the focal plane? I put it right on the join between the camera body and the PL mount adapter.

 

Also, the latitude issue. I must admit that while we didn't actually do a full scientific test with line graphs and computer analysis, the DoP and I just didn't really feel like it was on par with 11 stops. I cited 5-6 stops just because we were in a couple situations that I could only get around a 6 stop range. Perhaps I am wrong, and if so I apologise. These are only practical observations from a 1st AC.

 

I'm glad to hear the multiple output issue is being sorted in build 15. I thought so, as it was definately worrying.

 

I see that there are a few RED supporters in here standing by this camera to the death. This is good. lol. ;)

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The RED has a focus hook...it's even called the focus hook. However, it seems whoever you rented the camera from did not buy that (Yes, it probably SHOULD be included with body like any other camera.)

Besides a focus hook, most film cameras also have an sign on the body of the camera itself showing where the filmplane is. This is on both sides and is most useful.

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While I have not done any real world dynamic range tests with RED, I have done plenty with many video and still digital cameras. I often find that specs for dynamic range are based not on the real world nuances of life but on software measurements and chip charts. My cars tachometer goes to 9000 but you wouldn't want to be driving near that number. My speedometer goes to 140, but get near that and you'll find how rough the car feels. One of my lenses goes to 300mm but you'd never want to shoot anywhere near that number if you didn't want a picture that looked like you were shooting through the bottom of a bottle. It's one thing to tell me how white white can be, but another to aim a camera at a person in a setting and realize that like everything else in the chain of lens to record, there are prescribed ranges, and there are ranges where things look and work best. It seems the discrepancy I keep reading about on boards like this regarding many of these cameras comes from manufactures giving you software results for dynamic range, and users who say that in real world situations, they just don't find the reported limits to be pleasing. Nothing wrong with either. To me, these discussions are often not about what the camera can do in the right hands, but about about what it should do, even if I don't need it to. I just think it's important to know that the volume in life might go to 11 but you'd never want to turn the volume that high. And in my experience, I never shot anything constantly asking why a format can't do what someone said it should. Rather I find where it does what it does best and make the best pictures with it.

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> Why would there be GAIN if you are shooting RAW?

 

Because you're not actually shooting raw - you're shooting raw for a certain value of raw that only exists in Jim's imagination, which means "extremely compressed." You would have thought the best place to do gain would be before compression, but apparently certain laws of mathematics also exist only in Jim's imagination...

 

This is where all these little cheats come home to roost, and you end up thinking "so how can they... but... ah."

 

P

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> Why would there be GAIN if you are shooting RAW?

 

Because you're not actually shooting raw - you're shooting raw for a certain value of raw that only exists in Jim's imagination, which means "extremely compressed." You would have thought the best place to do gain would be before compression, but apparently certain laws of mathematics also exist only in Jim's imagination...

 

This is where all these little cheats come home to roost, and you end up thinking "so how can they... but... ah."

 

P

 

Phil... you certainly have chosen to make this personal. I have to congratulate you for having so much influence over so many. Is it really my imagination?

 

Jim

Edited by Jim Jannard
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The red cameras I have worked with can only show the power status of the red brick batteries. Seems like red made it so that their batteries are the only ones that can use this feature. All other V-mount batteries I used worked fine with the camera but they all read AC on the back pannel.

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Even the RED brick batteries didn't give me a readout of power status. Dunno... We had a set of four PAG v-lock batts that worked like a charm. I mean, it's simple enough to reach over and press the status button manually on the battery. But sometimes when the camera is on the operators shoulder, you don't want to have to reach around him/her and start pressing buttons.

 

love you too Freya!

 

Z

Edited by Zac Halberd
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Also, the latitude issue. I must admit that while we didn't actually do a full scientific test with line graphs and computer analysis, the DoP and I just didn't really feel like it was on par with 11 stops. I cited 5-6 stops just because we were in a couple situations that I could only get around a 6 stop range.

 

What method were you using to determine a 5-6 stops? The image on the LCD? Zebra stripes/histogram? Did you look at the images in post compared to on-set images or meter readings? Many LCD's will clip the whites prematurely if you crank the contrast up too high for a brighter image. How was the video signal path to the monitor, and could there have been any termination issues?

 

I'm not taking sides here, but you have to be careful with "non-scientific" tests because it's easy to draw the wrong conclusion from incomplete or contaminated data.

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Again, there is a difference in how an engineer measures latitude and how a cinematographer thinks of it practically on the set. Practically, you tend to think along the lines of "I shouldn't underexpose film by more than four stops... nor overexpose it by more than five stops... before it goes mostly black or mostly white." Now that's only a 9-stop working range, but obviously an engineer can measure more like 14 stops of dynamic range with color negative. Plus it's the difference between measuring specific tones versus a more general attitude towards bright and dark areas in the scene. Cinematographers mainly think in terms of faces (usually Caucasian...) and how they look overexposed and underexposed. On most digital cameras, a face is near black under four to five stops and clipping at three stops over, so that's a 7 or 8-stop range, but again, measurements of charts tend to show more like 10 or 11 or 12 stops for some digital cameras.

 

Sure, I'm speaking "unscientifically" but most of us deal with real world shooting scenarios and generally aren't playing any important information on the extreme ends of the dynamic range.

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