Joe Walker

Don't use tape, just use one of these stickers here: http://www.aspectcorrect.com/ Just look under products, they have one for the HVX200 that has both clear and black overlay markings for 2.35:1, which is not far off at all from 2.39:1. And they're cheap too!!!!

That's more true than you know!

Hi all, So I recently started working for Leo Ticheli Productions down here in Birmingham, and low and behold, he has a RED One. So after about three weeks of working with this I thought I'd post my thoughts on the camera, the workflow, and reduser.net. So here goes: The camera: Its very straightforward, easy to operate, menus easy to navigate, pl mount seems solid, etc. I personally don't like the mini-sized connectors but that's not really a problem for us since we have the element technica adapter. I love the look around feature and judging focus is fairly easy to do, albeit we always use the tape measure. We currently have a Cooke 18-100 zoom and a set of Zeiss Standard Speed lenses. Oddly we haven't noticed any portholing with these, although that being said we have so far never shot farther open than T4. I like the weight and balance, others have argued it sucks, to me it's pretty decent. The workflow: I like the concept of taking the "RAW" material into Red Cine and adjusting the curves and what not and then being able to export to any number of codecs or still type image sequences. However, Red Cine has crashed on us a few times and occassionally rendered out incomplete quicktime files. I will say this, once transcoded to 1080 24p, the footage played back on a high def monitor, is incredibly good looking. I mean it is sharp. Just gorgeous. I have noticed that when you bump down to 2K for slow mo shooting the image becomes softer, even when transcoded to 1080. So bear that in mind for those of you needing slow mo footage from this thing. We shot some 120fps stuff of champagne pouring that was just out of this world. It doesn't have near the latitude of film, I will say that with confidence. I have to agree with what most are saying, the real practical latitude can't be much more than 9 or 10 stops. It's pretty, but it ain't film. As of build 15, there are a few occasions where we have noticed a bit of noise in the shadows, but nothing that I would worry about. The problems: We have had issues of getting acceptable downconversions of the transcoded hi-def footage. The big issue we're seeing in our software downconverted material is aliasing, and lots of it. Right now our current working version is to send the hi-def footage to our Panasonic HD-150 DVCPRO HD VTR and then route that to a second edit suite and capture it in as uncompressed 10 bit. We've sampled hardware products from several manufacturers but have found the VTR method to be the most effective so far. The only working software method for us has been to render out a DPX sequence from RED Cine and bring that into After Effects and conform as desired. The only problem with that is that you have to do it for literally every shot. Bottom line: If you're like us and just wanting to use the camera for commercial use with the end goal being SD broadcast material, you'll want to test extensively to find the best method for your needs. Red Cine has crashed on us a few times and spit out some bad renders but overall has been okay for us. I do have an issue with reduser.net. Maybe its just me, maybe I'm crazy and maybe I'm doing everything wrong, maybe I should learn a new trade or something, but I've never in my life gone to a website where people will ATTACK you if you're having problems with a product. For instance, Leo and I both posted on there looking for help and answers to our problems with downconversion and we got major slammed by some of the users there. We've been accused of being incompetent, attacking RED, being hostile, etc. It's amazing. Of course this is the internet and we take it all in stride, but I mean wow! There are some hostile people in this world. So in summation, I like the camera, I like the pictures it makes, I like the post workflow...for the most part, no it isn't the "film-killer" as some have described it, I would like to see the software get completely debugged (or as close as they can get it), and like Leo, I would like to see a professional, real names only, real owners/users only forum dedicated to this camera that can cut out the riff raff that prey on people trying to get help on their forum. While I politely choose to disagree with Phil's assertions about the camera and the imagery it produces, I will wholeheartedly agree with him about reduser.net. That's all, fire away.

Highly agreed, that's the point I was trying to make!

Sorry John, I was being facetious, I was referring to the clip on the Final Cut timeline, watching the preview out on a high def monitor via the Kona 3 card. Going to tape isn't really an issue, so long as we route to the AJ-HD150 first, from there we can pretty much go anywhere, its going the software route of down-conversion that's killing us. DJ, I'll try and make something available to you guys here soon, so you all can take a look at it.

The problem we've had is only visible in moving footage, when the playheads are parked on still frames, everything seems fine, its when we hit play we're seeing all sorts of jagged edges. :rolleyes:

John, I sort of figured it had to be a hardware fix. The blur options have helped somewhat, and we demoed a Teranex Mini. It had acceptable results and next we're going to demo the higher priced model. Our Kona 3 is....well....not the best at downconverting this stuff. Thanks for your help.

You'd probably want to add a few wide angle Ultra Prime Super 16 lenses to that, as the widest master prime is 16mm I believe, which in terms of Super 16mm shooting isn't that wide. Something tells me that the body, four mags, accessories, and some lenses is going to be more than $200k! Call it a hunch. ;)

I'll write a small review later of my first time working with a RED One camera later but right now I have a more pressing issue: So after shooting on a RED cam, we take the footage into REDCINE and convert it to 1080 23.98 Uncompressed 10 bit and it looks great. Trouble is we need to downconvert to SD. We've tried everything. Using software we've used After Effects, Shake, Final Cut, and all of our SD footage is showing mad aliasing...I mean bad! The only way that's "working" for us right now is to route the HD footage out of one edit suite and into a Panasonic AJ-HD150 deck and then route that into another edit suite to be captured as SD. That's the only way to get a clean SD copy with no aliasing. Trouble is that ties up two edit suites just to do a downconvert. My question to all those that have used the camera and successfully made an SD downconvert (in one edit suite), how did you do it? Any help would be appreciated.

I've been eyeing this puppy for awhile now myself. I would love to try one out. For my line of work it would probably be pretty nice. I would assume the body and accessories wouldn't be terribly more expensive than the SR3 Advanced High-speed, but who knows. If I won the lottery I might buy one, until then it's rental all the way! ;)

I gotcha, that makes sense. So (out of curiosity) in your professional opinion John, when do you see a "high speed" 1080 Varicam hitting the market?

I wouldn't call it a rarely used feature. At least, not in my line of work, which is primarily music videos and commercials. That last music video I worked on we shot at frame rates all over the place... 6fps, 22fps, 24fps, 48, 60, 70, 75 (Aaton XTR Prod). My original intention of starting this post I guess was to comment on the relative lack of "variable" (i.e. from very high to very low) frame rates in a 1080 native solid state high def camcorder, excluding the Phantom HD of course (beat you to it Mitch). I don't know, maybe I'm asking too much :huh:

Would you say its on par with an F900R image-wise?

Hi all, So I read on Panasonic's website that the new Varicam 3700 is basically a full raster 3 2/3" chip 1080 camera with support for 4:4:4 dual link HD-SDI recording to P2 cards in AVC Intra and can do between 1 and 30fps variable frame rates, with the estimated price tag at about $60,000 for the body. This all sounds good, but a colleague and I got into a deep discussion about this and we have to ask this burning question: Why just 1-30fps? Is it a limitation of the codec, the camera, etc.? In my opinion thats pretty limited for what they bill as a "variable frame rate cinema camera". I know we've all gotten by with far less for a while now in the HD realm but it just seems to me that they ought to be able to go higher than that. To me, and this is just my humble little opinion, but wouldn't this camera be a heck of a lot more competitive in the 2/3" HD camera market if it was not only full raster 1080 native but could do something like 1-75fps? You know, put it somewhere on par with what the latest super 16mm cameras from Arri and Aaton can do. I know not everybody needs that degree of slow motion but the option alone to me would seem more worth the price that they have projected. Again, just my opinion.

Tim, You're definitely right, that pic is from a pkg deal that was for sale on ebay in late 2006. Definitely a scam. I'm thinking some of us around here ought to start a small "mini-database" of old cameras that come up for sale on ebay so we can cross-reference them when they look "too familiar" :lol:

Wow!!! And it takes anamorphic lenses too!!!

I believe it's due to the fact that its one of the very few truly orientable viewfinders on a soviet camera. Or are you referring to the pic with the extender?!

Tim Maurice-Jones in "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels"......... he's the guy getting drowned in the barrel of water at the beginning of the film by Barry the Baptist!

That was my old Slow Motion Inc modified Kinor CX Super 16mm camera. It had a PL mount, digital footage counter, 2 lemo connections, 2 run/stop switches, 4 pin XLR power input, 1.78:1 ground-glass, crystal sync motor, 8-50fps, etc. I taped all the mags on that camera because like Olex said, they have a tendency to not always seal properly.

Back in '03, we sure as heck taped the mags on this puppy!

James, I highly agree with your assesment, which is the exact reason I never decided to buy that model. I was only linking this model to show a rare example of a Kinor P2. I just find it fascinating is all. I know some on here are collectors and what not, and I thought I would reference them to one of the "neater" Kinor cameras. You're absolutely right that the Konvas cameras are a better buy, as you can find plenty of parts and modifications can be made relatively easily. Just think of it as a camera museum history lesson. :)

For all of you kinor fans, one of the rarest models of the kinor cameras, the PII or P2, is for sale on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/RUSSIAN-35mm-MOVIE-CAM...1QQcmdZViewItem Obviously, it's an Aaton 35 copy. This one has come up for sale before, namely back in late 2005. I wanted to buy it, but couldn't justify spending that much money for a camera that may or may not be B&H film convertible and is quite noisy. There are a few people in Russia who can work on the thing but it could be costly. Here's what I know about these cameras: 1. They're 52db at 24fps. 2. Fixed mirror shutter at 180 degrees. 3. Must have a separate controller to adjust the speeds, i.e. the belt pack in the pictures. If I'm not mistaken the batteries plug into that pack. 4. It uses 200ft and 400ft mags. 5. Orientable viewfinder with extensions. 6. OCT-19 mount. 7. It is rumored that only 13 of these prototypes were ever made. Anyways, thought I'd just share that with you guys. I myself had a Kinor CX 16mm that Anatoly at Slow Motion Inc converted to Super 16 for me a while back, so I can appreciate these Russian tank cameras!

Thanks for that, but my original post was to obtain more information than what the website detailed, i.e. will the camera shoot higher than 40fps, like the 35-III, will the shutter angle be fully variable, instead of the four position version that the 35-III currently offers, etc. Just the basics. Occasionally I get asked to do a music video or short film in 2.35:1 and to me, the 2 perf format would address this perfectly, since most of my work goes straight to video and such. I just love the latitude that 35mm offers, I haven't found anything better at this point. That's all, nothing huge. Thanks for all the replies I've seen here. The possibility of going 4k/6k down the road should make for a very unique camera. Cheers.

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Excellent. Can't wait to see it.