RED

RED Scarlet

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A little late to post this.  I was following all the liveblogs, etc (Nov 3rd...watched the Canon C300 ones too) at the time but was too lazy to post anything.  Anyway, the RED Scarlet has finally officially been announced and delivery has started.  The bad news is that its not the 2/3" 120fps at 3k fixed/interchangeable camera everyone thought it was going to be at a $6k kit price point.  The good news is that you still get an awesome 4k (resolution not price) shooter with the same sensor and image quality as Epic that can also do 5k stills.  It's more of a baby Epic than a standalone camera thats still a great cine camera at a great price.  It will certainly be interesting to see footage when people start posting (esp the 2k 120fps mode).  I'm a little bummed cause I was hoping for a sub-$10k package that I could afford and put in my bag along with my still gear.  Ok, ok technically the base Scarlet is under $10k, but those prices will go up after Jan 2012 as RED has previously stated.  Also, a "ready to shoot" package (with EVF or LCD, REDMOTE or side handle which are needed for menu nagivation, RED SSD media, offload gear) will probably run you closer to $20k when all is said and done.    Order Scarlet here.

RED Epic-X Production

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....has begun, making a lot of filmakers out there very happy/giddy filmakers.  All I've got to say is go RED team go!  Despite the delays the EPIC project is an incredible feat and I wish more electronics manufacturers were out there pushing limits like you.  Hopefully Epic-S and Scarlet (ESPECIALLY Scarlet) won't be too far behind now that the Epic-X production lines are going.  Until then I'll be figuring out ways I can get my hands on $35k for an Epic-X......yeah....right..... Epic-X production thread here at Reduser.net

RED EPIC .r3d files

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Above: REDCINE-X EPIC .r3d screenshot

I've posted before about the RED EPIC 5K digital cinema camera.  The  "nuclear reactor in a matchbox" according to Jim Jannard of RED.  In addition to being a 5K digital cinema camera that fits in your hand, it also marks RED's first DMSC - digital motion and stills camera - meaning it takes stills too!  The EPIC cameras out in the wild currently have an alpha build of the firmware where only motion is enabled.  However, it is still possible to extract RAW stills from the .r3d motion stream without the still mode enabled.  The camera industry is currently abuzz with talks about the future of cameras being still/motion hybrids.  Only time will tell if that holds true, but I'm certainly not opposed to it.  Jarred Land of RED has been kind enough to post some RED EPIC .r3d motion and still files throughout reduser.net for us to play with.  I decided to play with a few and posted the results below.  Hard to tell how these would stack up with a still camera in the same situation, but the results are pretty neat, especially since these were extracted from a motion stream.  A lot of photographers are used to playing around with RAW stills, but playing around with RAW motion files is a whole new beast and a frankly, a whole lot of fun!  Limited run EPIC-M cameras are currently being shipped to special existing RED customers and other existing RED customers should get their EPIC-X cameras this summer.  It will be interesting to see some A/B tests with EPIC and other still cameras, esp medium format ones....

Below: my attempts at "grading" some .r3d files (photos below courtesy of Jarred Land, RED Digital Cinema. Original source here)