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red - tape hook?


Matias Nicolas

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there is a tape hook on the camera body? for focus pulling?

 

You have to purchase it seperately, but it is made out of plastic. I recommend the Monstercine tape hook.

 

Make sure you get their modified piece if you plan on using the Element Technica EVF bracket. This piece will allow you to attach both to the front universal mount.

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You have to purchase it seperately, but it is made out of plastic. I recommend the Monstercine tape hook.

 

Do you have an early camera or something? My focus hook is all metal--screw and focus hook. If you are looking at pictures it might look like plastic (and if they are old pictures it might have actually been plastic.)

 

And to double confirm this I just went and clicked it with my teeth....and it is metal.

 

Matthew

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And to double confirm this I just went and clicked it with my teeth....and it is metal. Matthew

 

And I thought they just did that with gold... :lol:

 

Matt a little off subject.. can't think of they're name... but what do you think of the grip and lighting truck out of Knoxville... still might use DR&A... but they don't want to seem to deal... or theyh think they're dealing with the other producer who is no longer apart of the shoot... who said things were cheaper than they were... doing a reshoot next week in Nashville again...

Edited by Gary McClurg
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Do you have an early camera or something? My focus hook is all metal--screw and focus hook. If you are looking at pictures it might look like plastic (and if they are old pictures it might have actually been plastic.)

 

And to double confirm this I just went and clicked it with my teeth....and it is metal.

 

Matthew

 

Camera 172. Pretty sure it was plastic, out on a rental now.

 

They may have changed them to metal, maybe when they decided that a witness mark would be a helpful thing to have.

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What is the deal with the lack of a focal plane witness mark? That baffles me.

 

I'm currently ACing for a Red short film, the camera we have has the tape hook, but it's in an awful spot. If you try to run tape the mattebox gets in the way, and even with it swung out, the follow focus still gets in the way. I've been sort of feeding it through a gap in between the follow focus and lens. Why couldn't the hook be on the top of the camera?

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What is the deal with the lack of a focal plane witness mark? That baffles me.

 

I'm currently ACing for a Red short film, the camera we have has the tape hook, but it's in an awful spot. If you try to run tape the mattebox gets in the way, and even with it swung out, the follow focus still gets in the way. I've been sort of feeding it through a gap in between the follow focus and lens. Why couldn't the hook be on the top of the camera?

 

I was thinking about that in the past, seems like a bad spot. Your post convinces me that the Monstercine focus hook is the only way to go. Made out of metal, mounts on top, works with the ET EVF bracket, swings down out of the way.

 

I am getting one for my camera so it will be ready for the next job.

 

As an AC, what else don't you like? (that can be reasonably fixed)

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I was thinking about that in the past, seems like a bad spot. Your post convinces me that the Monstercine focus hook is the only way to go. Made out of metal, mounts on top, works with the ET EVF bracket, swings down out of the way.

 

I am getting one for my camera so it will be ready for the next job.

 

As an AC, what else don't you like? (that can be reasonably fixed)

 

From a camera assistant's perspective, the camera is pretty well designed. There were a few things that really bothered me (in no particular order):

 

1. Tape hook placement

I guess this was some 3rd party accessory? It needs to be on the top, not on the side.

 

2. Boot up time

Argh! I hear they're fixing this in the next update? 1:30 is a long time when everyone is waiting on you. Also the camera would often freeze up during boot up. This was really annoying.

 

3. Battery Life

I kept having to bother the 1st AD to let me know if we wouldn't be needing the camera for more than 5 minutes so I could power down to save on batteries. I also had to ask for '2 minute warnings' so I could have the camera back up for the DP. Also, the ac power cable did not work. I wasn't at checkout so we didn't know until we needed it, but it just refused to work. We ended up powering the camera off of the steadicam rig.

 

4. Red arm

This works great for the monitor, but doesn't work very well for the evf. The operator kept grabbing it to adjust it like a conventional viewfinder and it would loosen and flop down. Also, screwing it on and off seemed really dangerous. Also, no eyepiece leveler?? That's got to be annoying for the operator!

 

5. Footage remaining counter

OK, I know this is something I was doing wrong because the picture in the manual showed the time remaining in minutes, but on my camera it was in percent. Seriously, percent. So when someone asked how much footage was left, wtf was I supposed to say.. "uhhh 15%". That was insanely irritating when we were using the 8gb CF cards. I read and re-read the manual, went through every menu I could find, and I could not figure out how to change this!

 

Other than that, it was well designed. The menus were easy to navigate, the focus assist feature was AWESOME and it was fast and easy to build. I didn't really deal with media management, but there weren't any major hiccups. It's still not as robust and dependable as it should be though. I would never take this camera into some remote location with limited power and no tech support, that would be asking for trouble!

 

Very promising camera though, I'm sure the first film cameras had their issues too. Can't wait to see the next generation.

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Very promising camera though, I'm sure the first film cameras had their issues too. Can't wait to see the next generation.

 

Hi,

 

Mitchell had perfected their high speed movement by the early 1920's, many early cameras are still in use today & can shoot at 120fps at full resoloution. The camera was driven by a handle, no needed for batteries or problems with overheating electronics. We have come a long way in the last 88 years :lol:

 

FWIW I shot with one from 1944 this month for a whole week, not 1 problem or codec error even at 100 FPS with trees & rippling water.

 

Stephen

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Hi,

 

Mitchell had perfected their high speed movement by the early 1920's

 

I said the FIRST cameras, ie the Cinématographe from the 1890s, 30 years before Mitchell perfected their high speed movement. They probably had some issues. And I wasn't talking about the IMAGE, I was talking about the physicality of the camera, from an AC's perspective. I haven't really seen any footage from it so I can't really comment.

 

The Red is clearly trying to replicate a film camera in it's physical design and it comes very close. I'm just comparing it to the design of the best film cameras from an AC standpoint. In the film world the camera just has to move the film through the gate, in the digital world the camera also plays the role of the film in a way.

 

Besides, there are lots of film cameras that are poorly designed. Even new ones like the 416...

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2. Boot up time

3. Battery Life

There are two approaches for these:

 

1. Hot swap adapter. They mount like a battery on the back "V" lock and are "T" shaped, so you can put a battery on each side. Change one battery at a time, and you never lose power.

 

2. Big honking battery. There are 30 Ah and coming soon 60 Ah blocks that can live on the dolly. As long as you live on the dolly all day, you boot up at the beginning of the day, and only have to swap once at lunch.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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From a camera assistant's perspective, the camera is pretty well designed. There were a few things that really bothered me (in no particular order):

 

Very promising camera though, I'm sure the first film cameras had their issues too. Can't wait to see the next generation.

 

Thanks for the info. Yeah, the ET EVF mount is a necessity. They are working on an extension piece as well as a leveller.

 

The above poster is right, the dual battery situation is the way to go. It solves the long re-boot times as well as complaints of the Red batteries pins bending and not working correctly.

 

I am always looking at ways to improve my Red package that I rent out.

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There are two approaches for these:

 

1. Hot swap adapter. They mount like a battery on the back "V" lock and are "T" shaped, so you can put a battery on each side. Change one battery at a time, and you never lose power.

 

2. Big honking battery. There are 30 Ah and coming soon 60 Ah blocks that can live on the dolly. As long as you live on the dolly all day, you boot up at the beginning of the day, and only have to swap once at lunch.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

Yeah we had a hot swap adapter in the kit, but when we put it on, the camera stopped telling us battery remaining percent. We also only had two batteries, and they take 200 minutes to charge and only last 90 minutes (by the book- seemed like less), so it wouldn't have worked anyway.

 

 

But yeah, if I use it again I will make sure there are at least 4 batteries and a hot swap adapter, especially if I'm on a location without constant power supply.

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2. Boot up time

Argh! I hear they're fixing this in the next update? 1:30 is a long time when everyone is waiting on you. Also the camera would often freeze up during boot up. This was really annoying.

 

Build 16 makes booting a bit faster. (Though not exactly fast.) It also puts an image on the screen about 20 seconds into the boot process, so you can at least frame things up while waiting for the rest of the camera to come fully online. (Currently this image has a big logo and some text smack in the middle of it, but I think a Red rep mentioned over on RedUser that they're going to make the indicator less intrusive.)

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I said the FIRST cameras, ie the Cinématographe from the 1890s, 30 years before Mitchell perfected their high speed movement. They probably had some issues. And I wasn't talking about the IMAGE, I was talking about the physicality of the camera, from an AC's perspective. I haven't really seen any footage from it so I can't really comment.

 

Hi,

 

So do you really believe there were AC's in the 1890's, it was the cameraman's job to crank the camera :lol: Footage from the 1890's can be found on Ebay & elsewhere if your interested.

 

Stephen

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So do you really believe there were AC's in the 1890's,

Probably not, though it would be interesting to know when the first AC work was done. I know I've seen focus pulls in D.W. Griffith's work. That would be a bit of film trivia, what was the first focus pull? ;-)

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Hi,

 

 

FWIW I shot with one from 1944 this month for a whole week, not 1 problem or codec error even at 100 FPS with trees & rippling water.

 

Stephen

 

I would recommend going back to the 30ties cameras.

These might fullfill your artistics need better.

 

Btw: We usually fire cameramen if they dont know how to handle sync issues on hdcam or codec errors on a red (etc).

 

Usually it is part of their employment contract to know how to operate the camera.

 

This of course might be to complicated for some feollws here on this particular "forum"

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I would recommend going back to the 30ties cameras.

These might fullfill your artistics need better.

 

Btw: We usually fire cameramen if they dont know how to handle sync issues on hdcam or codec errors on a red (etc).

 

Usually it is part of their employment contract to know how to operate the camera.

 

This of course might be to complicated for some feollws here on this particular "forum"

 

Hi,

 

The camera was designed around 1918, so I don't get your point, the model was in production for over 45 years. The oldest one I have seen is sn35 on a Milo in Germany.Creative needs aren't fulfilled by a camera IMO.

How do you handle a codec error on a shot you have already made that cant be re done? Post/3D?

Funny thing is many DOP's are hired because of their eyes & how they use them.

I have not had an employment contract this century.

 

At present there is no shutter sync on a Red, making shooting at different non sync speeds an issue with motion control, many people will not even be aware of the problem until there is an issue with the multi passes not fitting. Of course that will be blamed on the motion control not repeating the mover, rather than person who decided to use an unsuitable camera.

 

My best,

 

Stephen

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Probably not, though it would be interesting to know when the first AC work was done. I know I've seen focus pulls in D.W. Griffith's work. That would be a bit of film trivia, what was the first focus pull? ;-)

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

 

Wasn't Karl Brown the AC on a few of D.W. Griffith's films?

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Hi,

 

So do you really believe there were AC's in the 1890's, it was the cameraman's job to crank the camera :lol: Footage from the 1890's can be found on Ebay & elsewhere if your interested.

 

Stephen

 

 

I've seen the Lumiere brother's stuff and other early cinema, I mean I haven't really seen any footage from the Red, so I can't comment on the image.

 

I don't know if they had ACs, I think just cameramen (man with a movie camera style), but maybe had assistants to help them cary stuff?

 

What were we even talking about again? I was trying to say that I thought the Red was pretty well designed from a physical/practical point of view. Good industrial design, is what I'm trying to say. Have you played around with it yet?

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Good industrial design, is what I'm trying to say. Have you played around with it yet?

 

Hi,

 

I have palyed wityh one, whilst it may be good industrial design, they could learn a great deal by handholding an Aaton XTR & Arri 235.

 

Stephen

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What were we even talking about again? I was trying to say that I thought the Red was pretty well designed from a physical/practical point of view. Good industrial design, is what I'm trying to say. Have you played around with it yet?

 

I can only claim to having seen pictures of a RED, but I've used a good range of film and video cameras and you usually can spot the problem areas pretty quickly. You should check out the thread on RED User about the design of the EPIC and making it more suitable for hand held work compared to the RED One. One suggestion in the thread was to turn the RED One upside down.

 

There have been threads about good hand held features on a number of forums following the introduction of the RED ONE and the problems people are having turning it into a good hand held camera. Good industrial design isn't just about looks but function as well.

 

RED have been fortunate in having 3rd party manufacturers who have produced accessories to overcome some poor decisions on the RED one camera module (like non standard connectors). Unfortunately, hand held for example has to be designed into the camera's conceptual design, not an add on.

 

All you can hope is that they design their new cameras as a system, not a neat looking black metal casting that has to be accessorised to death by 3rd parties to make it function in an efficient way.

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