Michael Peploe

Here is a site where REd owners upload Red footage for you to download. In R3D, DPX,Tiff and smaller video files, free. You can view and tweak to your hearts content. But I somehow feel that 'real world environment' ( whatever that means) is a loophole you set up and this still won't be satisfactory. http://www.redrelay.net/index.htm

Great post Evangelos. I think it will be hard to convince Jim of any of this because he is in the business of selling cameras. The cost of R&D wait time to get it right would have juiced the cost of the camera up and that the RED accessories are cheap relative to other companies similar but better ones, says that the overriding concern was to keep the cost at a certain price point lulling the buyer into as sense of its affordability and the surprise would come later when one had already and irrevocably invested a small fortune. And ultimately the cost issue is the reason this camera even exists and with so many people willing to spend a small fortune better for those of us willing to rent one and take advantage getting some great images for cheap.

Situations where the color temperature is very low and you are using ND filters. Especially stacking ND filters. Diimmed tungsten lights, fires, those beautiful susnsets.

Nice review. Would agree with most of the accessory issues. Thats why i recommend not getting them. Never ever had a problem with the pl mount. Smooth as butter Have heard of mounts without lube but yours sounds way too tight. And really this should have been tested at the checkout. And it doesn't sound like anyone did one. They do make a longer noga for the lcd for better placement. Guy you rented from went with the shorter one. Definitely would be nice to have a door for the compact flash. There are now three vendors that sell some great cabling breakout boxes for the cam. Red cradle not only needs brighter colored screws but also need to be longer. So many other parties have come up with better, stronger, more thought out accessories that have solved most of these problems. But this is gonna cost you dollars. There are also some great rental houses that have it all setup right with other party accessories so you don't have to run into any of these problems or mortgage the house to own a headache free RED.

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.

You know Keith you've proven with your own words you are a petulant and scared child. Stick to editing, your knowledge of production is non existent.

Okay Michael, didn't think I needed to add this but regarding output to what: One light raw-convert to format of your need- wait a long while for conversion-edit -color correct- rent a tape deck- output. Or output to hard drive/LTO to go to post house that you've previously talked to. As i mentioned in a previous post: I use FCP. I convert proxies to prores or DvcproHD with compressor. A breeze. Conversion is very fast. I edit. Bliss. Phil I wrote that may be Jannards sin. He may have released the cam too early. For you it definitely was. Valid. For me, no. Valid too. It works and I have had no problems. No one can tell me different. I've done it. Hands on, fact based, and conclusive without issues. You refuse to get involved with it. Its your prerogative. This camera is an imaging computer that runs on code and software. Every piece of software I own now and in the past has had updates, bug fixes and new features added sometimes weeks from its debut and still years after owning it. Hasn't stopped my computing. Not making excuses for REd but thats the world I live in. I have used the camera days on end without issue so how about this for a suggestion Phil, if god forbid you have to use it: get a backup body on the truck or make sure one is nearby (like every important shoot does) if there isn't who the hell made the decision to use the cam then, tell the production office to call Red to ask for a loaner to be sent next day, send a PA to ship off the bad cam, the next day you'll have a another body. FEDEX Phil, even to England. Don't believe me? Give RED a call tomorrow ( don't use your real name Phil, please) and throw them that scenario, see what they say and report back to us. This way you'll know what to do in the future if you ever get 'involved' instead of just speculating.

You don't have to tell me about fixing in post. I fixed police car strobes shot with the EX1. Its all fixable but why when there are so many other cameras out there where you don't have to worry about it, eliminating the waste of time, money, and resources in post to fix it. John in all seriousness dimming blue and red lights up and down on dimmers to simulate emergency light flashes is ridiculous. Imagine how that would look if you are seeing the emergency vehicle lights and all. Am I'm not going to bring up a host of other issues your suggestion creates. So I should tell the rental guy to throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars of his old HMI ballasts because the RED has a problem with them. Okay. Like I said -changing the shutter angle will fix this anyway. Just be aware of it. Rolling shutter is not FUD. Its a real, provable occurrence.

My point in the rendering overnight thing was for those without finances. You do what you gotta do. There are many editing worlds out there not just professional editing bays. You know the no budget filmmaker. I don't expect a pro house to do this. No one said your assistant has to one light. They can do what they've always done with files instead of tape. The option is there though if you want a look already applied to your footage. You don't have to do it. Respectfully. Almost all camera manufactures have non taped based workflows now. Working with files instead of tape is valid and doable on a professional basis. Its being done right now professionally as I'm sure you know. Ignoring it, being scared of it is just limiting. The train has left the station.

Police car strobes, old fluorescents, old magnectic HMI's, still camera flashes, nightclub strobes, flash effects and Bourne identity like pans. Rolling shutter will give you problems with these situations. Not something I would say is insignificant. Old florescents, old hmi's can be dealt with with in camera shutter adjustments yes, but if you're using a RED you better be aware to cover yourself. And what would I do if my scene had alot of emergency vehicles in it. Do I shoot that scene on a differnt camera? or do i shoot REd and budget for a post guy to fix it up? I would not agree that going rolling shutter was the right way to go. It would be have been great to have the option of global or rolling if possible.Choosing cost over no limits shooting.

Valid up to a point. What person shooting RED is going to a post house without preproduction work making sure that their post house can handle Raw redcode? No one does these things off the cuff. Or maybe I should say shouldn't. More and more places are dealing with it. If the post house has a Scratch system they pretty much are on it already. This will only grow. From Sept 07 to Dec 07 100 beta cameras working out the bugs. All of those 100 got brand new upgraded cameras in January The bulk of finalized but never to be finalized cameras 100 and on have only been shipping since January so saying 'like many things surrounding REd it just hasn't happened yet' isn't really fair with only 3 months out of the gate. Puling a tape and handing it to an editor is easy for you, the shooter to do, but the editors assistant has to log and transfer those tapes before the editor can edit and that is time consuming. Using RED camera generated proxies lets the editor edit immediately while the assistant one lights the Raw footage and coverts to format of choice while the editor edits. If the editor has no assistant they can edit proxies all day and before they go to bed they can setup their machine to spit out the one light RAW files to whatever format they like. I personally love this. Maybe what this all comes down to is Jannards sin was to release this camera too quickly. Or not depending on your perspective. From what I have read the reason to go with rolling shutter instead of global was keeping that $17,500 number from going up. A global shutter is expensive. From a business perspective you can see the logic in it. From a shooters perspective you have to wonder how much more it would have cost if you're already spending $30,000 minimum on a RED. Since the camera sensor is upgradeable I'm not sure if its possible to put a global shutter in a RED without changing electronics and code also.

Fair enough John. I personally don't like 'lists' because there are nuances that can't be put on it. I am not here to convince people one way or another. I will offer my point of view though when I know someone to be mistaken.I believe that everyone thats curious should go and test for themselves. I am not here to push the REd, Jannard has enough resources to do that himself. Your plus list hit all the right notes. What i will say is that your plus list lacks detail that would expand it into something else if you're willing to look deeply (not suggesting you aren't). The same would go for your minus list like; a marketing campaign that pushed the camera as costing $17,500 but in truth is its more than twice that minimum without a lens, accessories that are just terrible, and getting clear concise info from its makers. And that some of the negatives are trifles except for one. (Me trying hard not to make a list)- The choice of lenses from still ones to super 16mm to B4 to Panavison mount to pl to anamorphic (soon), Raw workflow, post workflow, modular design for sensor upgrades, on set looks that can be created immediately, 2k,3k, 4k shooting up to 120fps in 2k leads me to say that this one camera offers so many tools unlike any other. It a swiss army knife camera thats too detailed to put on a list. Whatever you think of the image quality this single camera offers DP's endless possibilities no other camera I can think of has offered with immediate gratification in one small 9lb.body . And like the ancient Greeks realized , all things have an achilles heal. That rolling shutter. Gary i will give you an A+ too.

Just realized this. This is wrong. You can shoot 2k and 4k on the same card you just can't change the timebase becasue of timecode differences. You can shoot any same timebase like 23.98 in 2K, 3k, and 4k on the same card. But if you change the timebase to say 25p or 30p the camera will not let you do that on the same card. It still, in my opinion a non issue. T

Don't know why you're asking this. This is film production 101. I'll answer you but this would go for any camera not just the RED. First off I do not own a Red. And like my shoot the previous weekend, which did not have the money to keep a second backup on, I made a list of REd cameras very close to where I am that were available in case of a problem. This list consisted of legitimate rental houses as well as private owners. The list totaled three in my immediate area and I am not in LA. I made sure of getting cell numbers for weekend contact. Not foolproof but thats life on a micro budget shoot. If you've got money rent a backup body just like any other shoot. If I did own a camera and rented it out to you I would also get a list of other cameras contacts together for your protection. If there aren't any I'd make this known to you and then you decide what you want to do. If you get a Red from a legitimate rental house that only has one RED they will have contacts to other rental houses with an available RED. If you're doing a long shoot a backup body has to be put in your budget just like any other long shoot. Whats the point of this anyway. Theres no mystery here. the RED didn't change the rules regarding this issue If you are going to shoot something. You have to have backup plans no matter what. If there are no other REDs yet in your area and its critical you have no down time you should consider using another camera or budgeting for a backup body and having both on the truck. The same rule would apply for any other camera. Its pretty simple. No ones putting a gun to anyones head saying they have to shoot with a RED camera. And if things keep going the way they are there will be more REDS around than ARRRI 35mm or Panavison 35mm combined.

I mean do I have to write and baby guys like you with "yet you'll have to wait a day for it to arrive though, which might not be an option if its costing you 20K a day to shoot". Jeez.

Oh Gary please stop misreading and misrepresenting. I wasn't offering it as a solution, just stating the reality and that if you are not a big money company you should have a standby plan so you don't waist a day. And, as of now, with 4000+ and growing REDS soon all over the world, you shouldn't have a problem setting up a backup plan.

Not sure what that means. Sounds important but I can't see where you're going. Are you talking about an SDK for the RED. This has been stated as coming. They just want to lock in the code so no 3rd parties coming screaming with issues. Fair. If this is not a correct assumption then I can't see any problems with (access to workflow infrastructures?). Red software is free to anyone. Can be edited an pc and macs. Proxies let you edit footage immediately. Redcine lets you one light color correct/gamma tweak/sharpen/choose lin or log and take your raw footage and convert to any deliverable format you want, from dpx for film deliverable to HDCAm to dv. Create edl go to post house, pretty simple if you got money. Don't have money its simple too: One light raw-convert to format of your need- wait a long while for conversion-edit -color correct-output. With the understanding of the limitations or non limitations of your computer power and editing software. And regarding a camera going down. Projects with money always have a spare body around. Projects without money will take their chances. But RED has given loaners out when cameras have gone down outside of Orange county, yet you'll have to wait a day for it to arrive though. And ultimately with so many REds out there, the possibilities of having a RED nearby just in case, is growing. So save yourself $30,000, the real minimum price of the camera without a lens, and rent a RED to your hearts content.

Shot last weekend with it. I have never had flakey post performance. I took _h proxies converted to prores and edited in FCP with no problems. Fast, easy and proxies converted with compressor were quick to convert and looked great. All on a laptop. This is a wonderful way to work. Th camera is somewhat complicated regarding making sure all your user settings are the ones you want. You gotta keep on top of it. And please don't say I need a DIT everytime i work with the cam. Thats not gonna happen. Film was film stock, shutter and exposure settings, 24 fps, pretty simple. The RED is a super computer and like most gadgets today there are many shooting options for recording. Depending on your personality you can either take it as a plus or a minus. Release build 14 seemed rock solid. No bugs cropped up for me. Regarding dynamic range. I will wait for build 16 to make a comment on it as it is a supposedly image enhancing build. I will say that I am very happy with the images. Regarding output. This is a difficult thing to get down electronically I think. The lcd is a non standard image size. The code needed to output 1080, 720, and the lcd non standard size all at once is a tough nut for RED or anybody to crack. I will give them this as I think they know and are working on it. Red Alert has no issues for me. REDCINe I haven't used much and again I will wait for future builds of this as it is still a beta program. Lets see what happens at NAB. I also hope REd would get serious about getting a professional site up to deal with these very basic questions and rumors. Most rumors I believe are not based on fact and more to do with user/ software settings.. No one actually working regularly is gonna wade through the jungle on REDuser to get any answers. This is not a DVXuser camera. A big mistake that they are still going this way. Now that cams are out a new approach is necessary. But you can call them up 24/7 for questions and if they keep that going all will be well if you can get answers quickly.

Well it keeps getting funnier. Heres the forum rules posted by Jarred Land on Reduser: 1. We will delete posts sometimes for any number of reasons. 2. We will not delete criticism or opinion. 3. We will delete posts that would get you punched in the nose if you were to say the same thing in the "real" world. 4. We will delete untrue posts that are slanderous, to a company or an individual. 5. Posts that are not on topic or that drift off topic, will be moved to the proper location. 6. Remember.. you are visiting our house, so above all.. please be respectful. He's lost. Number one had me on the floor laughing . Kind of conflicts with number two. And now in number 6 its "OUR" house. And I guess JaRED can't use his usual 'I'm gonna unleash a can of whoopass on you' quote he uses so often because now being respectful is listed. Oh JarRED you make me laugh. You keep shooting yourself. I mean whats really changed here?

I thought that was hysterical and no one on REduser even mentioned it.. Jannard comes in the fray and says that no one deletes posts and then, because he's totally clueless, JaRED comes in and drop kicks his sugar daddy with one of the most hysterical posts on reduser. Its beautiful to see hypocrisy exposed so openly, maybe thats what they mean by an open policy. All revolutions are the same, dissenting voices have to be dealt with. Claudio Miranda anyone.

In my opinion and testing the REd camera is good and getting better. Jannard is a businessman first, camera maker second. JarRed Land is extremely obnoxious and whose opinion on anything technical or accessory purchasing I disregard completely. The mounting accessories are not good and should be avoided no matter what he says. Go with the element technica stuff which means you might have to wait for them to roll them out. But avoid the production pack accessories especially the red base plate, dovetail and handles.Trust me you will return them and with a 30% restock fee you will just be wasting money You might have to get the red cage though if you're getting the redrive as there doesn't seem to be any alternative for mounting it.

I agree that this quote goes a bit too far but there is some truth to this. Jannard has posted that cameras were out of Beta but just scanning the reduser site which is a beast to deal with when it comes to being updated on camera issues i have found alot of things that would bother me if I were an owner. A long tiring read on the site recently I have read about upgrades to cameras early adopters will not get, early audio cables that will not work with phantom power, IR issues that need filter fixes, newer cameras with sensor plane markings early adopters missed out on and a bunch of other things. How many other things have I missed? Thats a organizational problem. And most of this issues are brought up offhandedly by some RED worker. Its not posted or emailed out. Its mentioned three pages in on some thread. I have a friend who has the cam and he's not been give email updates on these issues. so what happens when one of those issues pops up?. It seems that the only way to find out is to search reduser on a daily basis and that site is too poorly thought out to be helpful quickly. You've got to work to find relevant info. And since no one at red is keeping you abreast of these issues if you're a camera owner, you have to live on that site to find solutions. The red.com site store is also confusing. No in depth descriptions and theres a 30% restocking fee if you make a mistake ordering something that won't work for you. 30%. Damn. My gut feeling is they are swamped with work and bringing up an audio cable replacement will make more work for them so they whisper it instead of stating it loudly. It will add up if theresa dozen issues floating around and you have to send cameras or cables back and forth to get the upgrades. Thats an organizational problem. Although I'm sure that simply calling RED will get you serviced, its not knowing the problem even exists even though RED knows it does and isn't stating it emphatically. The mistake Jannard is making is thinking that dvxuser was the s**t. I suggest Jannard rethink the reduser site designed like the dvxuser fanboy paradigm. The site feels like a marketing forum designed to sell more cameras to the less knowledgeable but it isn't helpful to the guy working on a pro shoot. Its a different ballgame. This is not a dvx camera with dvx issues. Its in the pro leagues now and if it wants respect it better act accordingly and rethink how it deals with these issues to camera owners. Its great to have a forum for the fanboys to post but pros will shun it unless its organized to deal with issues before they hit someone on the set.

I'll tell you Phil. Because if someone posts that a newly released pro camera is not better than a cell phone camera, the person that built that cam, billionaire or not, has a responsibility and a duty to post back and protect his position. If it was anyone of us in the same situation we would post a rebuttal too. Lets be honest, you knew posting that cell phone quote had to be answered and you also knew that even if the camera isn't up to YOUR level of satisfaction, that quote was far beyond any honest assessment of the cam. You're getting off stirring the pot. Its a no win for Jannard with you. He posts: you bash wondering why he's paying attention to you. He doesn't post: he's admitting by silence that you are correct or ducking the truth. I truly wonder what riches we would have if people like you, who seem to have a great deal of knowledge, offered it to progress forward instead of moving further into the darkness to satiate their confusing vendetta.

You know Thomas you are a tool. what i wrote is just as valid as your so called 'TEST". Wow you really want me to grab a unknown file from who knows where and to a Down conversion and then up it. Wow Tom you really are the brilliant one. Reread my post Tom I did my own tests you haven't. My test is more valid than your test, to me. I'm not here to convince anyone but you are. And why did you leave out what I wrote about people doing their own tests for truth. Maybe because you want some backslapping like you got from Phil. Wake up Tom what you did was not a test. It was a joke because you weren't there when the pic got taken. You weren't there. Clear enough?