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Red One still a worthy investment?


Vito Huizar

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I am looking for my first "cinema" quality camera to update a t2i ive been using. I have been looking at the Red One since I can get one for $4,000 with AKS, but is it still a good investment. Do people still want it? Looking to rent it out.


My other choice was the Black Magic camera but that crop factor is kind of killer. I'm just kind of stuck to put it simply.

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I suspect the people who want to rent a RED One are on a budget, so it would have to be at the right rental price. It really depends on your local market. Also, bear in mind the cost of any accessories that might be needed..

 

The Black Magic camera could be fitted with a Metabones Speed Booster, when it becomes available. http://www.metabones.com/images/metabones/Speed%20Booster%20White%20Paper.pdf This allows you to have maintain the angle of view.

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Good investment? No. It's already been discontinued, so in terms of technology, it's obsolete already. BUT, it still gets the same basic image quality as the current Reds. If you are looking to shoot 4k raw at 120 fps at the same price as an FS camera, it's a good deal. Once the Dragon is out in the wild though, no one will want to use the old sensor. I suspect that is when we will see the last of the Red One.

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I recently purchased one knowing It would barely get a return if I was to Rent it. I try to look at it this way; Its still a 4K camera, and it still shoots Raw. Thats something I would have needed to spend $20k for. In this case I put together a working system for under $6k.

 

I would always Rent gear anyway for a project if it had a strong enough budget regardless, but being able to offer the Red One to some lower budget productions can sometimes be a deal maker. A majority of the directors I work with at the level I am at now will not complain about a camera system that has been used on Major Pictures.

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Sorry for the late post guys, I agree with you completely, after further research i think i've decided to go with the red one. The BMC has a few problems as of now regarding focus and i really don't like the crop factor although the post about the Metabones speed booster was interesting. Point is, i can get a red one package used for cheaper than a BMC package all new.

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I don't think you should see it as an investment because basically, any video camera will be a poor investment because they depreciate in value so fast. However it could be an opportunity to do something with it!

 

Watch out tho... Lemo cables.... Make sure you have all the cables and treat them like gold. The cables cost more than the electronics generally.

 

Freya

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Good investment? No. It's already been discontinued, so in terms of technology, it's obsolete already. BUT, it still gets the same basic image quality as the current Reds. If you are looking to shoot 4k raw at 120 fps at the same price as an FS camera, it's a good deal.

 

Watch out! It can't shoot 120fps at 4k. It can only go that fast in 2k mode.

 

Just saying! :)

 

Freya

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The BMC has a few problems as of now regarding focus and i really don't like the crop factor although the post about the Metabones speed booster was interesting. Point is, i can get a red one package used for cheaper than a BMC package all new.

 

I've not heard of the BMC having focus problems! Seems unlikely, where did you hear this?

 

The big problem with the BMC is that so far it's seems mostly best for shooting unicorns...

 

Freya

Edited by Freya Black
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I still prefer the RED One (with MX upgrade and SSD, etc) to the Epic/Scarlet simply because the MX doesn't have a fan that blows like a hairdryer at the talent and at me (granted, usually just in between takes, but that's still annoying). I like the added heft of the MX, I like the XLRs and other i/o that's just THERE all the time. And we kept ours because it'll still be a usable camera for another 2-3 years, as we replace RED parts with other vendors' parts.

 

But as a rental item? It depends on your market. In LA? No way.

 

And it's not the camera we use most often for smaller things like corporate projects. Mainly, I'm using the RED on greenscreen type shoots.

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  • 1 month later...

The Red One wasn't a worthy investment when it was brand new.

That's an undefended, ignorant position. Those who adopted early made a ton of $$ on rentals and amde all of their money back, then had an outrageously generous trade-in to Epic. Now, people shoot beautiful things on Epics and Red Ones.

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The Red One wasn't a worthy investment when it was brand new.

That's an undefended, ignorant position. Blanket statements like that are unhelpful, and when I see so little information added to that kind of "opinion" I tend to guess the person making the statement has no information to back it up, just a bunch of FUD they read on the internet.

 

Those who adopted early made a ton of $$ on rentals and made all of their money back, then had an outrageously generous trade-in to Epic. Now, people shoot beautiful things on Epics and Red Ones that can look just as good as Alexa and F65 in the right hands. (NOT in incompetent hands that do not understand raw post and grading)

 

That said, I think technology is moving so fast now that buying any camera may no longer be a wise investment. It will loose too much value too quickly, so no way for 90% of buyers to recoup in time, not even quite busy ones. I guess we are shifting back to a more rental-oriented model.

 

6 months ago the Epic sold for $34 500 - now it's $17 500 - to have made that much money in rentals in such a short time, you'd have to be pretty busy, or a dedicated - and very popular - rental house. Brain only in our market rents for about $500 (more for a full package, I'm saying just the brain) so that $17 000 in lost value = 34 rental days, or 11 "3-day weeks" within just 6 months. I can tell you that we were NOT that busy.

 

Most people would be far better off renting for the number of shoot days during that period when they needed the camera, especially those doing ads/corpos/music videos where there is a lot of prep and selling time vs few actual shooting days.

 

Also, by not owning any camera, you can rent whatever si truly best suited to each individual shoot day. Oftentimes that may well be an Epic, other times a Phantom, other times a C500 for ultra low light - each gig is different.

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That's an undefended, ignorant position. Blanket statements like that are unhelpful, and when I see so little information added to that kind of "opinion" I tend to guess the person making the statement has no information to back it up, just a bunch of FUD they read on the internet.

 

Those who adopted early made a ton of $$ on rentals and made all of their money back, then had an outrageously generous trade-in to Epic. Now, people shoot beautiful things on Epics and Red Ones that can look just as good as Alexa and F65 in the right hands. (NOT in incompetent hands that do not understand raw post and grading)

 

That said, I think technology is moving so fast now that buying any camera may no longer be a wise investment. It will loose too much value too quickly, so no way for 90% of buyers to recoup in time, not even quite busy ones. I guess we are shifting back to a more rental-oriented model.

 

6 months ago the Epic sold for $34 500 - now it's $17 500 - to have made that much money in rentals in such a short time, you'd have to be pretty busy, or a dedicated - and very popular - rental house. Brain only in our market rents for about $500 (more for a full package, I'm saying just the brain) so that $17 000 in lost value = 34 rental days, or 11 "3-day weeks" within just 6 months. I can tell you that we were NOT that busy.

 

Most people would be far better off renting for the number of shoot days during that period when they needed the camera, especially those doing ads/corpos/music videos where there is a lot of prep and selling time vs few actual shooting days.

 

Also, by not owning any camera, you can rent whatever si truly best suited to each individual shoot day. Oftentimes that may well be an Epic, other times a Phantom, other times a C500 for ultra low light - each gig is different.

To be quite honest, I suspect the average price paid for an Epic X brain without lens mount or SSD is rather less than $17,500.

Stage 2 was a kit so the brain was about $10k , with Stage 3 brain only a lot less!

 

The M owners paid more, but had a camera that was rare so will have had no problem getting their money back.

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