new digital camera better than 35mm film?!

[anitasanger]

Red Digital Cinema Camera

hey guys, sorry if this has already been posted, but i searched and couldn't find anything here. the creator of oaklay sunglasses has designed a new type of large format digital cinema camera that is getting hyped all over the place. they are ready for order now and will ship early in 2007. it is capable of recording video at a resolution of 4520 x 2540! there are a couple of oakley lenses made for it, but it is also made to accept any 16 or 35 mm lens with a PL mount. the sensor is a 12mp oakley creation called the mysterium. anyway, everyone from the digital camp is hyping this thing like no other and saying that it creates better images than 35mm film. they are saying "finally, the successor to the 35mm standard!" oh, one good thing about it is that it sells for only $7000 minus the lens. it looks very industrial and almost futuristic, like an alien creation. i just wanted to alert you guys and gals to what the dark side is up to. i'm assuming that this is just going to be another hyped up product that will fail to succeed 35mm. obviously, since it is not celluloid, it simply won't look like or move like film. that is the one thing that film will always have going for it. it is an artform and medium in it's own right and no matter what may come and go with higher resolutions, it just isn't film. so what do you guys think? is there a chance that this thing may phase out 35mm hollywood movies? of course, film will always be around (hopefully.) but it is very possible for this format to be accepted as the hollywood movie standard. for example, i think digital photographs suck and i try to avoid them at all costs. i use my dad's 1977 pentax slr and develop my own tri-x in my darkroom. HOWEVER.... not many people are shooting film these days. even though digital is inferior to 35mm still photography, (not to mention medium format and ansel adamsesque large formats,) digital has become the standard. it's not better, but the uninformed masses believe that it is. will this happen to film? if they made a 2-3k consumer based version of this camera, would i want one? maybe. but i don't care if best buy or the trendy latest and greatest film makers tell me that film is anachronistic, it is my love. included are some links about the camera and some pictures. i would really like to know some of your thoughts on the future of film.

luke black.









red cinema's home page (click on gallery for some gigantic resolution screen shots of footage captured by camera)

http://www.red.com

and wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digita ... ra_Company[/url]

[Nigel]

As far as I know Red only has proof of concept...They don't have an actual camera.

Good Luck

[Evan Kubota]

sigh... why not do a little more accurate 'research' before posting this stuff?

oh, one good thing about it is that it sells for only $7000 minus the lens.

It's around $17,000 without lens...

And as far as I know (also) there has not been a displayed working camera. And the sensor is outsourced, it's far from an 'original creation.' (did you expect it to be?)

[anitasanger]

i read somewhere that a couple weeks ago they had an open showing of the camera and footage. i think a prototype also got stolen or something. who knows, i think they are taking orders though. and yes, i'm sorry 17,000 is correct! typo. still reasonably prices IF it does what they say it does, which i doubt.

[Angus]

Its obvioulsy not being hyped everywhere.......

And I never believe hype.

I remember back in 2001 when a certain respectable photography magazine claimed the Fuji MX2900 2.3MP still digital camera was as good as 35mm photographs.....

[Daniel]

I imagine that Super 16mm with Ultra 16 lenses or new Cookes for super 16... with vision2 50 Daylight stock or similar... ....well exposed and ECN-2 processed, then scanned at 2K RGB 10 bit log on a Arri Scan is performing right now a really high quality of film image...

The new camera 416 from Arriflex for example. or latest Aaton's, are a really good news.

Regards,
Daniel

[reflex]

video at 4520 x 2540 resolution

OK. Stop right there. That's massive bandwidth, which means the camera will require a state of the digital recording system.

So you're looking at an estimated $17,000 for the camera, another $30,000 for a few primes that do it justice, plus another $40,000 or so for a recording array, plus timecode accessories, video taps, etc.

I'm guessing it'll be about 50x more expensive than my entire investment in Super 8 and 16mm equipment. I doubt we'll all be rushing out to buy one tomorrow.

The biggest warning for potential customers is that there are a few companies who've invested many millions and years of R&D into producing affordable HD imaging devices (Panasonic, Sony, JVC, Canon, and even our old friend Kodak). Whatever RED can do, they can probably do cheaper, faster, and in larger quantity.

[VideoFred]

I have plans to buy one of these for my telecine units:
http://www.vector-international.be/C-Cam/Cindex.html

The lowest model is around 1000 Euro's.
The high res model will never cost 17000 USD.

If I can get one for testing, I do it.

Fred.

[sarmoti]

Well wether you like it or not RED is starting to look like a really competitive Digital Cinematography camera. It's Jim Jannards pet project (he's the multi billionaire founder of Oakley), he seems to be sparing no expense in his goal of "making the best camera out there".

Look at the tests conducted by David Stump, ASC at http://www.cinematography.net/red-exposure.html the current sensor test bed is showing far better resolution and dynamic range than current HD cameras such as the Viper or Cinealtas.

They have the workflow figured out thanks to well known programmer Graeme Natress who has the RED shooting in RAW mode (like a high end digital still camera) into a visually lossless Wavelet compression scheme (under a quicktime wrapper) which isn't requiring much more than 20 some MB/s for a 4K image. They've been demoing the codec (just a couple days ago in an LA screening) and it looks like it is a winner. The recording options (HD and solid state) are suggested to be in the $1000 range, the benefit of the workflow (shoot, edit and post in RAW wavelet based codec) is that you don't need massive storage for uncompressed 4K data unless you want it.

Currently the camera will take PL mount 16mm and 35mm lenses as well as B4 mount video lenses, Nikon and Canon still lenses.

Current pricing is:

Camera w/ software and monitor USD$17,000
Recording medium USD$1000 ea
Their 35mm lenses $5,000-10,000 (cheaper alternatives are Nikon still lenses in the hundreds of dollars)
They claim 4K footage can be edited in FCP or Premiere on a sub $5000 system.

They claim that you can put a complete shoot & post package together for under $25,000 if you're an indie or you can use a USD$100,000 + set of prime lenses, record to uncompressed 4K RGB to a capable RAID and post on Discreet or Quantel systems if you have the budget.

Time will tell, if they deliver on their promises. If they do deliver what they're claiming they can deliver, they're likely to revlutionize the digital cinema industry wether you like it or not.

[christoph]

sarmoti,
i completely agree with you, i've been following the red discussion from the very beginning and while i dont like the camera design, the subject matters of their samlples and deeply dislike their attitude i cant help but think that this type of camera will be of unrivaled quality in this price class if they can pull it off in time (and i dont really doubt that either, mr jannard has too much of an ego and too much money to loose his face).

all that said, i just edit some wedding footage shot in b/w and dont really want to have that red ;)
++ christoph ++

[edit: fixed sloppy spelling]

[anitasanger]

i do like it. i am glad that there are options and that cinema is evolving, however i feel like what it will boil down to is a matter of convienence. for example a 1968 camaro ss 396 vs. a 1998 camaro ss Ls1. one is metal, carbureated, raw power with timeless lines and one is fuel injected, less crude with power controls and air conditioning. the newer may provide comprible performance and visualy pleasing as well, but which is better? i fell that there will alway be purists who make sure film maintains relevance while being eternally preserved.

[sarmoti]

I welcome this new tool, I'm not saying that I'd choose it over film, that would depend on what exactly is to be shot and what the look I'm after is. I would expect any cinematgrapher to reason that way. I just saw Babel and the Super 16 morocco footage looks awesome, the right choice for the situation. All that said, I do have a reservation in for a RED one, and no I'm not selling my film cameras.

This is the Video Toaster of Digital Cinematography, if they deliver. They are currently showing test images such as these: http://red.com/gallery-still.htm which are comparable or superior to The DALSA origin and the Panavision Genesis (which outputs only 1920x1080). They far exceed HD camera images from the Varicam, Cinealta and Viper. This camera causes a revolt in the pricing structures of the Digital Cinema industry. We'll have to see how it plays out.

[flatwood]

....They claim that you can put a complete shoot & post package together for under $25,000 if you're an indie or you .....

There goes the neighborhood!!!

[VideoFred]

Time will tell, if they deliver on their promises. If they do deliver what they're claiming they can deliver, they're likely to revlutionize the digital cinema industry wether you like it or not.

And if they don't do it, someone else will.
We can not stop evolution... Why should we?

Let's use this amazing new technology to transfer our films.
Then we have the best from both worlds 8)

Fred.

[Nigel]

They have:

A Chip

A Codec

A Salesman

A Billionaire

They don't have:

A Camera

It is my understanding that at this point Red only has proof of concept. They don't have an actual camera. Therefore the whole discussion revolves around a big "What If??"

What if I had an 8000x12000 chip that had 16 bits of color on each channel??

Red doesn't have a camera.

The D20 is real.

The Genesis is real.

The Viper is real.

The ability to make 2&4k scans is real.

Good Luck