Long term Red report

My pal Steve Wargo phoned me this morning reminding me that I promised to report on my experiences with our Red camera.

Here goes.

What the Red is not:

Red is not cheap. It's not $17,500.00. Fully tricked out with the necessary accessories and lenses, it can easily bump against six figures. If you go for the very best lenses, it can cost more than the median American home price. Yes, you can build it for less by using 35MM stills lenses; they make good images but they come with compromises - insufficient turns of focus, breathing, etc.

Red has some excellent prime lenses in the pipeline that will go far toward lowering the total package cost, but it's still not cheap.

This is no run & gun camera; there is no built-in ND filter wheel. Changing filters is time consuming, especially if they are large. I can't think of a worse camera for news shooting.

Although a Red camera can be built lighter, in it's typical configuration it's a heavy beast; my Red with Cooke 18-100 Zoom & Motor, Arri Follow Focus & Matte Box, LCD Monitor & EVF weighs in at a substantial 50 pounds.

There's a lot of disingenuous talk about difficulty in posting Red footage. Post is actually straight-forward and easy, but it does require color grading! Depending on the number and length of shots, Red can approach the speed of post of other formats, but as a general rule it takes longer.

This is not a direct replacement for shooters used to smaller chip cameras. The shallow depth of field may be an unpleasant surprise to those not experienced shooting 35MM. If your camera and/or subject are moving, you'll definitely need a good AC to pull focus.

The time required to change prime lenses can affect shooting schedules. I can definitely get more shots in a day with a VariCam.

What the Red is:

This is a 35MM motion picture film camera in every way except there is no chemical emulsion and you have all the advantages of HD monitoring and immediate play back in the field. Of course there's no wait for lab processing and the cost savings are substantial. In fact, they are very substantial.

Red image quality is breath-taking. No regular HD camera comes even close. I've blown up individual still frames to 24"x36" that rival those from my Nikon. You really have to see it to believe it. Apologies to stills shooters everywhere, but many of my clients are now dropping them from our shoots and using the Red footage for print.

Does it look like Kodak's best 35MM efforts? I would say the look is different, but very subtilely so. I don't believe viewers can tell the difference and I've frequently cut my Red footage into 35MM film footage with complete transparency.

The bottom line:

I never want to shoot with any other camera again, at least not until we trade our Red One in for the Red Epic.

Yes, it really is that good.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo