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Jim Slashes the cost of the Epic.


Keith Walters

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This really belongs in the "News" section, but I can't post there.

Strictly speaking, it should go in the Red folder I suppose, but nobody seems to go there any more :)

 

Jim Slashes the cost of the Epic.

 

I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions on what is going on here.

In this era of corporate IPDPs (Individual Professional Development Plan) and short-term shareholder greed, it sounds almost heretical for a company to announce that it's making far more profit than it needs to, and so is reducing prices.

 

Either this is a refreshing example of what can happen when you don't have hordes of fretful Mom & Pop small investors snapping at your heels, or they're beginning to realize that they can only ever sell so many high-end movie cameras.

 

Personally, I think they should be investigating the potential of other markets such as high-end surveillance applications. For example, a new bolt-on module that allows 4K MPEG4 recording, and which can be configured as a standalone IP address, would be a real winner. With a progressive scan camera, you can pull damned fine 12 megapixel stills even from highly compressed MPEG4. Imagine being able to do that from anywhere in the world where there's an internet connection. They could probably even use up image sensors that don't quite make the grade for program production.

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I think that generally represents the "used" price of Red Ones.

He is still going to have a hard time overcoming "brand resistance", though, particularly in conservative TV production environments.

The name "Sony" on a camera is unfortunately worth far more than any amount of megapixels, sensor area and so on.

Just like people would pay far more for a "Panavised" Arri BL4 than they would for the real thing. :rolleyes:

Sony also stick to correct, professional, terminology, for example correctly stating the resolution of their 4K models as "twice the resolution" of 1080p, not "four times" as the cowboy element keeps calling it. (Four times the pixels, and four times the megabytes per frame to be sure, but that's what you need for TWICE the resolution).

 

of course none of the prices include the expensive media, batteries, EVF etc etc

That ordinary 4 pin cannon power socket will win a lot of hearts, and the fact that it outputs industry standard formats is another very attractive feature.

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Alexa still the same price, in fact, getting pricier!

 

R,

 

Weird, isn't it? They're losing jobs to very expensive Jap cameras, very cheap Jap cameras, and moderately expensive Kraut cameras, about equally. What does that tell you?

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Weird, isn't it? They're losing jobs to very expensive Jap cameras, very cheap Jap cameras, and moderately expensive Kraut cameras, about equally. What does that tell you?

 

what you call "kraut camera" has been for 90 years the leader in movie camera manifacturing by setting the highest quality standards for the industry worldwide. ive got the honour and privilege to be friend of one of arri's top manager, he was telling me that when they set the price of the alexa they did consider any detail, starting from the cost of the plastic buttons of the menu in order to be competitive and achieve the highest quality at once.

arri would never come out with a prototype on the market, cause they know reliability is a key factor in this business and they utterly respect the craft of cinematographers. it's serious stuff, not playing for the fan boys. .

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arri would never come out with a prototype on the market, cause they know reliability is a key factor in this business and they utterly respect the craft of cinematographers. it's serious stuff, not playing for the fan boys. .

 

Total number of Alexa failures during five weeks of shooting in the woods under all sorts of harsh conditions.......zero.

 

R,

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Had my Epic for 14 months, zero failures as well, it just worked out of the box.

 

You must have got a good one. I must have heard the ACs and ADs say 25 times on my shoot, "so glad that's not a RED product."

 

R,

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what you call "kraut camera" has been for 90 years the leader in movie camera manifacturing by setting the highest quality standards for the industry worldwide. ive got the honour and privilege to be friend of one of arri's top manager, he was telling me that when they set the price of the alexa they did consider any detail, starting from the cost of the plastic buttons of the menu in order to be competitive and achieve the highest quality at once.

arri would never come out with a prototype on the market, cause they know reliability is a key factor in this business and they utterly respect the craft of cinematographers. it's serious stuff, not playing for the fan boys. .

OK, so make that Jap cameras, Kraut cameras and Seppo cameras. Be reasonable; if I was respectful to Arri, I'd have to be respectful to everybody... :P

There is no question the Alexa is the best digital cinematography camera currently available. It's the camera I would have built.

It's also descended from the D-20, which was introduced long before any of the RED cameras, (despite all the Fanboys' claims of "revolutionary" technology). Arri went through two generations of experimental cameras before committing themselves to serious manufacturing. They sure as hell didn't have to recall their first 100 cameras :rolleyes:

 

But I was just pointing out that while there are seriously high end productions that use the Alexa, there are equally high-end productions (mostly commercials) that have used the 5D! So go figure...

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You must have got a good one. I must have heard the ACs and ADs say 25 times on my shoot, "so glad that's not a RED product."

 

R,

Nobody ever got fired for buying an Arri....

Mr Boddington is currently listed among the Greatest Living Canadians, alive, dead, fictional or non-existent.

He's right up there with Megan Follows, Pamela Anderson and Xenia Seeberg....

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You must have got a good one. I must have heard the ACs and ADs say 25 times on my shoot, "so glad that's not a RED product."

 

R,

 

I heard the same with my shoot last week, we had 2 Epics & shot for 37 hours over 3 days, both cameras were perfect. It's more of a 'people problem' rather like horror stories of film being scratched or fogged on every shoot!

 

Alexa produces some great images , however suffers from IR pollution which was very obvious in Skyfall, outside with heavy ND's skin tones often looked very odd!

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Alexa produces some great images , however suffers from IR pollution which was very obvious in Skyfall, outside with heavy ND's skin tones often looked very odd!

 

I can't believe people are still unaware of this problem.

The explanation isn't exactly rocket science, as I pointed out here 3 years ago

I never got back to my carbon filter project, because I never got round to buying a stills camera with manually settable iris.

The crude ones I made definitely attenuate IR just as well as they do visible light, but I don't have a camera good enough to test the resolution hit, if any.

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Alexa produces some great images , however suffers from IR pollution which was very obvious in Skyfall, outside with heavy ND's skin tones often looked very odd!

 

Hardly an issue that only affects Alexa! Usually solved with the right IRND (or Tiffen's T1, T1/2) filters.

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Nobody ever got fired for buying an Arri....

Mr Boddington is currently listed among the Greatest Living Canadians, alive, dead, fictional or non-existent.

He's right up there with Megan Follows, Pamela Anderson and Xenia Seeberg....

Nobody ever got fired for buying an Arri....

Mr Boddington is currently listed among the Greatest Living Canadians, alive, dead, fictional or non-existent.

He's right up there with Megan Follows, Pamela Anderson and Xenia Seeberg....

 

Actually Xenia's from Germany

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0781462/

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Hardly an issue that only affects Alexa! Usually solved with the right IRND (or Tiffen's T1, T1/2) filters.

 

I suspect Mr Deakins knows perfectly well about IRND's, it's not as if he never tested the camera or the budget did not run to them. i had always heard Alexa produced the best skin tones, even with one of the best DP's in the world, it really did not cut it!

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Actually Xenia's from Germany

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0781462/

 

All right, all right. Mr Boddington is currently listed among the Greatest Living Canadians, alive, dead, fictional, non-existent or not actually Canadian but with a body that would have Straight men weak at the knees and Gay men wishing they were Lesbians...

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Total number of Alexa failures during five weeks of shooting in the woods under all sorts of harsh conditions.......zero.

That's what I'm hearing from the rental houses around me. 8 cameras operating for over a year in harsh rental conditions with zero failures. They love film but don't miss the maintenance. They can keep those Alexa's constantly moving.

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That's what I'm hearing from the rental houses around me. 8 cameras operating for over a year in harsh rental conditions with zero failures. They love film but don't miss the maintenance. They can keep those Alexa's constantly moving.

 

Quite a few Alexa sensors have needed replacing, 2 out of 3 cameras in a local rental house.

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Quite a few Alexa sensors have needed replacing, 2 out of 3 cameras in a local rental house.

 

First time I've heard of such problems. Maybe there's more to this story than just bad sensors?

 

I've never personally seen one go bad and we have over 60 Alexas working pretty much non-stop since the camera released.

Edited by Matt Kolze
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I suspect Mr Deakins knows perfectly well about IRND's, it's not as if he never tested the camera or the budget did not run to them. i had always heard Alexa produced the best skin tones, even with one of the best DP's in the world, it really did not cut it!

 

I'm sure Deakins knows what he's doing too, but the fact remains that IR pollution can be controlled with IRNDs and testing, and any green colour shift can be corrected with a white balance on a grey card and/or in post. Maybe you should blame the colourist not the camera? I haven't seen Skyfall so I can't comment on it in particular but can you name any other movies shot on Alexas that show the problem?

 

One point of interest, Skyfall was I believe one of the first movies to use the Alexa Studio (including prototypes), which has a built-in ND filter that can be moved in front of the sensor when more than 4 stops of ND are needed. The filter has some IR filtration, but gives a slightly different colour shift than a standard Alexa using IRNDs. Alexa Plus and M were also used on the shoot. May or may not be a factor.

 

There were also apparently issues with the Imax conversion affecting the colours.

 

Deakins' own website has some interesting discussions about Skyfall, including his disappointment that RED footage had to be used (for 2nd unit aerial shots), because it shows clipping.

 

Quite a few Alexa sensors have needed replacing, 2 out of 3 cameras in a local rental house.

 

Not our experience either, the rental house I work for has 6 Alexas including the first one in the country and no major problems encountered.

 

No camera system is perfect, and coming from a background of servicing Arri film cameras I've had a few issues with the Alexa build quality (mainly the EV), but in this age of lowest denominator disposeable digital products it seems to be the best and most reliable product out there. Certainly preferred by virtually every DP and operator I talk to.

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First time I've heard of such problems. Maybe there's more to this story than just bad sensors?

 

I've never personally seen one go bad and we have over 60 Alexas working pretty much non-stop since the camera released.

 

Next you will tell me all 60 Alexa's are still have the original fan Saw one being stopped out yesterday easy 5 minute job!

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