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Best Key ever?


Rodney West

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First time poster, long time Lurker. This experience made me come out of the closet :)

 

I had a 2 day music video using the RED CAMERA on the weekend for the first time ever, and I must admit I wasn't sure how i was going to feel about it with all the somewhat mixed feedback discussed here.

 

To my surprise, I didn't have a single issue during the production, even the famous initial boot time was not as bad as I thought it would be. Another side benefit was the camera rental came with a free DIT ( the owner ), an interesting experience that I have never had before. Something about having the owner that had a personal connection with the camera and was motivated for success beyond just his day rate I think is going to change this industry.. I started to understand the gushiness from owners that happens on other forums.

 

The real story however is, that I was able to extract some incredible keys after shooting 16 hours non stop using Green Fluros and a huge 40 foot dig-green screen. I am not exaggerating, it was the best Key I have ever pulled, and over the years i've shot pretty much everything out there, including Vipers, Genesis, 950/900s, Varicams, and of course 35mm.

 

What a pleasant surprise.

 

My next project is a 38 day feature that was originally going to shoot with the F23, and after this I am tickled pink to think we could purchase a RED camera for keepers for the same price as our 45 day Sony package would of been.

 

I have alot of questions on Workflow etc. that I have so be prepared to hear alot from me in the next couple weeks.

Edited by Rodney West
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Rodney... this board is dedicated to skepticism and theory only... no real shooting experience allowed. :-)

 

Seriously, nice to have your feedback.

 

Are you Mac or PC?

 

Jim

Edited by Jim Jannard
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Another side benefit was the camera rental came with a free DIT ( the owner ), an interesting experience that I have never had before. Something about having the owner that had a personal connection with the camera and was motivated for success beyond just his day rate I think is going to change this industry.. I started to understand the gushiness from owners that happens on other forums.

Is this the plan for red owners? To work for free with their camera when it rents? Sounds strange to me. I'm glad the camera worked well for you. It just seems strange that someone would give away their time like that. Personally, I love operating, both conventional and steadicam, but I can't afford to work for free.

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Jim,

If it's so terrible here, why do you keep coming back?

 

Well....

 

First time poster, long time Lurker. This experience made me come out of the closet :)

 

But he comes here, not certain other boards we could mention.

One is admittedly very professional but with a largely incomprehensible access and posting system, the other is well, you know :rolleyes:

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Is this the plan for red owners? To work for free with their camera when it rents? Sounds strange to me. I'm glad the camera worked well for you. It just seems strange that someone would give away their time like that. Personally, I love operating, both conventional and steadicam, but I can't afford to work for free.

 

I don't think anyone works for free. Who really knows the "value" breakdown of the rental day rate. For a person just staring out, this has always been a popular biz model. They can amortize the camera as long or short as works for them, and then know that part of the "rental" rate includes their own rate -- even if it is on the lower end.

 

It's similar to the DP who talks the producer into renting some light goodies from their personal stash, and then only using them once on the shoot. Everyone knows it was really about the day rate, even the producer. But then the producer thinks at least their getting some extra value.

 

Just my thoughts.

Chris

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Let's not turn this into one of those threads again. Even Jim's little comment complete with smiley could have avoided this, but we don't need to keep this going.

 

Glad to hear you had such a good experience. I've heard a number of people say that they've pulled excellent keys with the RED, which helps de-bunk some of the nonsense Bayer-pattern criticisms. Curious to hear how you exposed and where you found the noise floor in the different color channels. Different people have had different experiences but I'm guessing this is more about how they handled the material v. how individual cameras performed.

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Well....

 

 

 

But he comes here, not certain other boards we could mention.

One is admittedly very professional but with a largely incomprehensible access and posting system, the other is well, you know :rolleyes:

Actually, I am a very active member on reduser, dvinfo, etc.

 

The reason I have never joined is exactly for this reason, I am not sure why people like you are allowed here. Nothing about your post did any good, the only thing it did was make me regret spending 15 minutes coming here.

 

Best of luck to you all, I obviously made a mistake coming here.

Edited by Rodney West
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First time poster, long time Lurker. This experience made me come out of the closet :)

 

I had a 2 day music video using the RED CAMERA on the weekend for the first time ever, and I must admit I wasn't sure how i was going to feel about it with all the somewhat mixed feedback discussed here.

 

 

Actually, I am a very active member on reduser

 

With all due respect to Mitch who tried to steer this on course after Jannard created the iceberg. Those two quotes and the fact that you're running away instead of answering Mitchs question make it harder for anyone to take you seriously. I mean if you're a very active member of REduser why weren't you sure how you where going to feel about using the RED ? You're looking like shill.

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Bravo! Another Scintillating thread!

 

Jim, why show up to stir the poop? Nothing in his post illicited that comment.

 

Rodney, I was actually curious in what you said. Don't be so thin-skinned.

 

Why are we debating the merits of the various forums? Let's talk about the tools.

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Bravo! Another Scintillating thread!

 

Let's talk about the tools.

 

Thank you; I agree that I may of been a little thin skinned.when I was drafting my post last night i kept telling myself " I am about to say something nice about the red camera, this is gonna get ugly"

 

And when it did; I guess I was just a little dissapointed.

 

Back on track; I wold like to know if anyone here has any experience grading Red footage on a pablo?

 

I have grown accustomed to pablo tools and I would love to he able to continue using it so I am not wasting alot of time and money in the suite learning something else. Anything I should know about a traditional dpx transform ingest?

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Actually, I am a very active member on reduser, dvinfo, etc.

 

The reason I have never joined is exactly for this reason, I am not sure why people like you are allowed here. Nothing about your post did any good, the only thing it did was make me regret spending 15 minutes coming here.

 

Best of luck to you all, I obviously made a mistake coming here.

Well just for the record, I do not recall anybody here (apart from Phil perhaps:-) saying anything particularly negative about the RED itself. I have even defended the use of Bayer technology, attempting to explain how it is indeed possble to get more than 2K resolution of real resolution from a 4K sensor.

 

Many of the barbed comments here are directed at the large number of sad individuals who have convinced themselves that simply purchasing a RED package is going to be a panacea for a lack of experience, talent, contacts or money and so on. Or that posting like a shill is somehow going to be to their advantage RED-wise.

 

If we attempt to point out potential probems, we get called RED haters and worse. This is not a fan site. If you have been an active member of the two forums you mentioned, I don't know how you could have not known this, since it seems to be a regular topic of conversation over there.

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I really do not think there is anything wrong with thinking that you can get your foot in the door if you buy a Red Package. I suppose you would be in for a rude awakening if you thought you could get away with buying a HDV camera because the fact of the matter is that no one is going to take you seriously. But Red is not a HDV camera and it should be very competitive with any camera in its price range. I mean what are the alternatives to Red? A $250,000 Sony F23 or a Panvision Genesis or a Dalsa or some other outrageously priced camera? If you get your foot in the door you can always surround yourself with people with experience.

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I really do not think there is anything wrong with thinking that you can get your foot in the door if you buy a Red Package. I suppose you would be in for a rude awakening if you thought you could get away with buying a HDV camera because the fact of the matter is that no one is going to take you seriously. But Red is not a HDV camera and it should be very competitive with any camera in its price range. I mean what are the alternatives to Red? A $250,000 Sony F23 or a Panvision Genesis or a Dalsa or some other outrageously priced camera? If you get your foot in the door you can always surround yourself with people with experience.

 

I'm not sure why these things have to be repeated endlessly. You use the camera your budget can stand and different cameras have advantages and disadvantages. You can't buy a Genesis or a Dalsa, so you can't really compare them price wise, because the business model is entirely different.

 

Getting your foot in the door is a matter of who you know, plus the skills and talent you bring.

 

Can we get please get back to the subject of the thread.

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.... Sony F23 or ....

F-23 is a 2/3" three chip camera. Sony's new F-35 is the more comparable model, it's a 35mm size single CCD. Think of F-23 as Sony's answer to Viper, and F-35 as their answer to Genesis.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Is this the plan for red owners? To work for free with their camera when it rents? Sounds strange to me. I'm glad the camera worked well for you. It just seems strange that someone would give away their time like that. Personally, I love operating, both conventional and steadicam, but I can't afford to work for free.

Have you considered that the owner may have had some spare time on his hands and simply been interested in seeing for himself how the Red performed in this, somewhat unusual situation? I could imagine myself doing that. You usually get a half-decent free meal if nothing else. A lot of small but successsful rental outfits start out that way.

 

You can't get all your operational knowledge from reading Reduser and taking home movies of your cat.

 

I really do not think there is anything wrong with thinking that you can get your foot in the door if you buy a Red Package...

I couldn't agree more, but there is a vast difference between getting a foot in the door and demanding a key to the executive washroom.

 

By the way, here's an excellent post from Reduser on that subject.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Yes, could you please tell us more about your key. Post some stills?

 

PS: if the user included himself in the camera package, he hardly worked fo free. And in any case, one has the right to do whatever he pleases. Especially if he wants to experience a great shooting subject and opportunity to use his gear and see what it comes like. Don't forget, Red is new. There's a lot of excitement and curiosity about the use and result, still. I would have loved to accompany my camera on a MV shoot and see what it's like on the screen, meet the crew, help with the cam, etc... I'm sur this guy had a great time too. Some people should rather spend time unpaid on a film set and serve a creative purpose, practice their social skills and learn some film stuff, than be pointless arrogant and sarcastic cunts on this forum, for the same salary.

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Rodney... this board is dedicated to skepticism and theory only... no real shooting experience allowed. :-)

 

Jim

 

Hi Jim,

 

Don't be fooled, there are many people who have used or tested your camera, I think they may be waiting to test Build 16 or Epic before premature thoughts of retiring from the industry.

 

I have not published my recent Kodak or Fuji tests, so why should I comment on Red in public? I gave you some feedback in reply to an email you sent me today, feel free to share.

 

Stephen

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Hi Jim,

 

Don't be fooled, there are many people who have used or tested your camera, I think they may be waiting to test Build 16 or Epic before premature thoughts of retiring from the industry.

 

I have not published my recent Kodak or Fuji tests, so why should I comment on Red in public? I gave you some feedback in reply to an email you sent me today, feel free to share.

 

Stephen

 

Stephen... using a film-based ISO/exposure methodology to side by side test a digital camera vs. film is just not valid (which appears to be exactly what you did). Conversely, using a histogram approach on a digital camera to get the correct exposure... translated to the film camera doesn't work either. But no one is using that methodology to do these tests. Only the 1st one. The proper way is to independently set exposure for film and digital the way each needs.

 

We, and others, have tried to force an ISO number on all digital cameras, because the industry "thinks this way"... when really, that is not the way they work best. Again, see Macgregor's post on RU. It is the approach I posted, no so elegantly, over a year ago.

 

Everyone is trying so hard to make these tests fair by doing everything the same... including setting exposure. If you use traditional film thinking, the digital will not show it's best face. I think Keith pointed this out a few days ago.

 

Part of what makes build 16 so interesting is the fact that it re-addresses this disparity between film and digital ISO/exposure methodologies.

 

RED does not have the same amount of latitude as film. We never claimed that. But it does have more than reported here. You just need to know how to get the most by knowing the difference in exposure and process methods.

 

If this board spent more time talking about subjects like this...

 

Jim

Edited by Jim Jannard
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Hi Jim,

 

I bracketed my exposures in half stop increment's so I could see what happened by underexposing & overexposing by 1/2 stop. FWIW the traffic lights were no more accurate than that.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, it's actually impossible to monitor the sensor, we are monitoring a LUT, so using experience from testing and a meter would IMO be the way to go.

 

I have not yet had the opportunity to test Build 16, I look forward to its arrival and Epic next year.

 

Stephen

 

Stephen... using a film-based ISO/exposure methodology to side by side test a digital camera vs. film is just not valid (which appears to be exactly what you did). Conversely, using a histogram approach on a digital camera to get the correct exposure... translated to the film camera doesn't work either. But no one is using that methodology to do these tests. Only the 1st one. The proper way is to independently set exposure for film and digital the way each needs.

 

We, and others, have tried to force an ISO number on all digital cameras, because the industry "thinks this way"... when really, that is not the way they work best. Again, see Macgregor's post on RU. It is the approach I posted, no so elegantly, over a year ago.

 

Everyone is trying so hard to make these tests fair by doing everything the same... including setting exposure. If you use traditional film thinking, the digital will not show it's best face. I think Keith pointed this out a few days ago.

 

Part of what makes build 16 so interesting is the fact that it re-addresses this disparity between film and digital ISO/exposure methodologies.

 

RED does not have the same amount of latitude as film. We never claimed that. But it does have more than reported here. You just need to know how to get the most by knowing the difference in exposure and process methods.

 

If this board spent more time talking about subjects like this...

 

Jim

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