If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A week ago Thursday I took a drive to the airport to pick up our camera directly from the friendly FedEx crew. Back home two hours later, I genuinely enjoyed putting together all the bits and pieces. No mentionable problems there. Love the fact that RED uses paper, not plastics for wrapping. Very green & cool.

Am again surprised at the high built quality of everything. Solid feel, not too heavy (maybe going to the gym in preparation for delivery has helped, too).

Because of the sudden rise of the dollar, we had to slim down our package, one of the things that went out was the ET Arri base plate. Having read about the wobbliness of the shoulder dovetail, I was very happily surprised at just how steady it did connect the camera to our Sachtler Video 20 III head. As a light-weight setup, I would see no problems using this on paid work.

The 7″ Pro LCD (the only thing I have splashed out on — besides the camera) is gorgeous, lightweight – and I love the ability to be able to control camera functions from it. Would love the function to re-assign the two brightness buttons to something more usable. Some banding, but I can live with that.

Mounting

Since Birger turned out not deliver on his promise, I am glad to have ordered the Nikon mount. This came not installed, but thanks to Douglas´ youTube video, installation was a breeze (one of the many benefits of having kids is ready availability of balloons; and yes, I did use a red one). The only change is that now you have to unplug the i-cable connector.

Besides my lovely set of Contax Zeiss primes, that I cannot yet use, I have a cheap, old, dusty, crappy, plasticy Nikon zoom with stuck aperture blades. But heck, I could throw it on. Did a few pans around the room, and could already enjoy just how better the camera handled the highlights and contrasts than any camera I could afford before. Would love the option to have the histogram displayed while changing the shutter angle.

By now it was Time For Some Sleep.

Day 2

Next day in the office I updated to Build 17. Turns out you need a magazine to do that. Luckily an hour later the friendly postman dropped by with 4 8gig cards from Lexar. On the first attempt at updating I got the rocketio error. Remembering that this might be connected to the CF module (all the hours on reduser were not wasted), I took out the CF card and re-inserted it. Now it worked. Bootup is 10 seconds faster than on build 16. LOVE the 1:1 zoom function. Occasionally, when switching modes, the screen turns black.

When I tried the black shading, the camera just eternally displayed the Matrix screen (nice touch, btw) until the battery died half an hour later. Through trial-and-error I found out that you have to format the magazine at first. Suggestion for build 17 release: before black-shading, check that the magazine is formatted. Even better: when an unformatted magazine is inserted, give automatically the option to format it right away – heck, I would love the option of automatically formatting whenever the magazine is empty. (I know I will get scolded for this suggestion…) Another suggestion: in the maintenance menu, display the date/time of the currently used black shading functions.

The same postman also brought an adapter cable that allowed me to hook up the camera to one of our 24″ dell editing screens. Not perfect colours, but great for the director.

Finally I could do some recordings. Even with my crap lens, the picture quality is just light-years ahead of what similarly priced cameras can deliver. I am soooo thankful that we could skip the HDV crap.

When we went from a small miniDV camera to a fullsize DVcam camera, that step was evolutionary. Two years back I thought the next evolutionary step would be an HD camera. Then I heard about RED. First it sounded too good to be true. Glad it wasn´t. Very, very, very glad.

This camera loves power. The electrical one. It sucks a battery that would´ve lasted half a shooting day on the DSR570 empty within an hour. So I ordered some more batteries.

Also ordered a 2.8ghz MacBook Pro, but that will take 2 weeks. Anecdotal evidence proved that a MacBook air is not suitable for field-use :o)

Well, that wraps up my first and second impressions of this ***-kicking camera. Thanks for reading.

Some thanks

Jim – for making his vision a reality. It really shows that this camera was not made by a company whose goal is to make a profit, and does so by making good cameras. RED is about making awesome cameras and then (and only then) turning it into a profitable business. And having fun along the way.

Redheads – everyone at RED for building this revolutionary (pronounced “badass” in Jarredian) camera. I don´t know you, but I command you! Thank thee! Keep it up.

Jarred – for Reduser. Without it I would not only be flabbergasted, but wouldn´t have met all the people I already have. Thanks to everyone participating on this forum.

Justin J. – for keeping up with my “occasionally” changing order. Thanks for all your help.

Douglas Underdahl – for (still) being the only one that actually delivers an alternative, non-warranty-voiding mount. Douglas went further out of his way and sent me a GDX (sp?) mount without before I sent him mine, thus avoiding my camera sitting around for 2 weeks. His mount arrived today, installation was a breeze and the original mount is sent off today.

Brandon – for jumping to my rescue and sending me his better Nikon lens. Arrived yesterday and our RED rocks even more. I can only imagine what it will be like with the Contax lenses.

Gunleik – for letting me play with his RED and thus sealing my fate. We reserved our camera a few days later. Enthusiasm does rub off.

Are – for tipping me off about the contact at FedEx that not only sped up the import (all paperwork was done and all fees paid while the camera was still in transit) but allowed me to pick up the camera from the airport, thus giving me a whole weekend to play with the camera.

Hunter – for making this light-weight solution for the battery. I finally can put it to use :o)

Red has just released their newest firmware for the camera, featuring not only many new features (such a loop recording for 10/30 seconds – this is great if you are waiting for something to happen. You just leave the camera in loop, and then when you push record, you get the last 10 or 30 seconds as well) but a greatly improved noise floor. Here´s a quick test done by Alesniak that shows the difference in the blue channels, comparing the current with the previous build.

Here´s a full list of all the major improvements:

* New .R3D file format – requires the use of new versions of QuickTime Component, RED ALERT and REDCINE (not currently available)
* Digital Signal Processing optimization.
* Image Compression Optimization.
* Support for 4K 16:9 recordings in REDALERT and QuickTime based applications.
* Fixed high detail scene codec errors in 4K 16:9 recordings.
* Fixed polarity of audio recording relative to MIC and / or LINE inputs.
* Improved audio sample to video frame synchronization (lip sync accuracy).
* Reduced RED-LCD display tearing on last few lines in 4K record / playback.
* Addition of REDspace and RAW viewing modes.
* Updated file name structure to eliminate duplicate file names.
* Addition of Pre-Record (10 sec or 30 sec loop) mode.
* In-camera 1080p playback of REDCODE RAW .R3D files.
* Improved display precision and color response of RED-EVF and RED-LCD.
* Seperation of Sensitivity (ASA) and Exposure (Compensation) parameters.
* Extended exposure times of up to 1/2 sec enabled in TIMELAPSE menu.
* Added RED-EVF control over Audio, Shutter, ISO and Varispeed parameters.
* User programmable Tonal Response Curves menu.
* Look Around available on HD PREVIEW outputs when LCD and EVF are active.
* Improved video Genlock (Tri-Level Sync) lock for 23.98, 24.00, 25.00, 29.97.
* Added 1.85 and 2.40 Safe Action and Safe Title Protection Guides.
* Improved indiction of image magnify mode with new “X” cursor
* User programmability of A, B, C keys and USER 1, 2, 3, 4 keys
* Allow return to last menu position before exiting menus, when SHIFT-SYSTEM is pressed
* Disabled auto-reset of reel counter on change of project time base.
* Decreased boot time. Roughly 68 seconds.
* Also need new FCP Log & Transfer plugin (will be available soon)
* Red Alert will not loose audio tracks when re-generating QuickTime reference files
* QuickTime codec now supports full resolution reference files and full render quality output

Most other camera makers would make you buy a new cameras for all those new features. At Red it is not only downloadable, but the download is for free.

It’s probably been in the cards for a while, but we have ordered our Red One camera. Sometime before the end of the year (fingers crossed), we’ll be able to churn out pictures at such high resolution that they can be used for digital cinema. We’ll be able to use variable frame rates. I’ll be able to chose from many different lenses. We’ll be able to tell our stories better.

Just to give you an idea of the firepower of this camera, look at this picture, showing proportionally the full size of the Red picture, and in comparison that of Standard Television 4:3. It is about 6 times the resolution of even High Definition Television. And it meets or succeeds the specs for digital cinema (Norway is aiming to become the first country in the world to be completely digitized in cinemas.)
But it is not stopping here. Red One is also a very low-noise camera. Here is a 1:1 crop from an image exposed at ISO 2000. Click on the image to see it in full. (Read more about this here.)

This is nothing short of amazing, and will enable us and many other documentary makers to tell stories that simply couldn’t be told before. Brace yourself for a whole new world of clarity.

For comparison, here is the same 1:1 crop at a modes 320 ASA/ISO:

And for further comparison, here’s a framegrab from our current camera, a Sony DSR-570, which is the best DVcam money can buy. Properly exposed. You’ll see noticeably noise in the background. More than the Red even pushed to the extremes.

(Framegrab from our Documentary “Words and Shadows” with the former prime minister of Norway, Mr. Odvar Nordli.)

Here’s an interesting example of what you can do with high-speed filming (though I would have used more fill- and eyelight):

Action Figure slow motion video from Stig Nordas on Vimeo.
I am looking forward to learning, and to push myself to new borders.

As a follow-up on my previous post, here is a bit more information about that truly mesmerizing Adobe research project, which proposes to build lenses that act as multiple lenses. This will enable the camera to take multiple pictures at once, shifting the job of setting focus from the Focus Puller to the post production process.

Take Several Shots at Once With multiple eyes—Adobe’s prototype has 19—the light-field camera is even more perceptive. Each of its lenses is faced with a prism set at a unique angle, so it can take 19 pictures simultaneously, with each capturing a different part of the scene in focus. Each image uses a piece of the sensor, so a 100-megapixel camera will yield 19 5.2-megapixel shots.

Fill in the Blanks But the process doesn’t stop there. Adobe software can analyze the 19 captured photos and from them generate thousands of intermediate images so that each shot seamlessly morphs into those adjacent. Then images are layered, like thin sections, producing a three-dimensional simulation of the scene in which every piece of it is in focus.

Paint in Your Focus Because a light-field photograph is dynamic—virtually three-dimensional—focus can be selectively painted in with a “focus brush,” allowing the photographer to bring details from both foreground and background into focus—something that’s currently impossible in a single photo. Or future online photo sites could let viewers manipulate a photo’s focus as they choose.

(Excerpt from PopSci.com.)

As a former Focus Puller I find this very exciting, as the technology proposes to give the director so much more freedom in post. Ultimately, it will help to tell the story, and that is what camerawork should be all about. But also from a technical side, it appears that the age-old connection between aperture and depth-of-field ceases to exist. I can only begin to imagine the plethora of new creative uses this lens throws towards us camerapeople.

HD will feel like home movies

In stills photography, resolution has quickly increased from a mere 250.000 pixel to two-digit megapixels. The video world has been much more conservative. Until a few years back, there was only SD, which has about 1/4 megapixels. HD is just now starting to catch on, which delivers roughtly between 3/4 and under 2 megapixels. But already now, some camera producers are pushing forward with 2k and even higher resolutions. But my guess is that 4k will only the beginning.After having gotten used to DVD quality, old VHS films are almost painful to watch. Looks like the same will happen to HD in the not-too-far future…

Good for the ops

For an camera operator, the biggest handicap with the modern cameras are their viewfinders, which simply do not show all of the resolution that camera records. The Red One for example, shows the operator only a fraction of the total resolution. Which means that the operator can never be sure in critical focus situations. Now that Adobe Lens would relieve us from one worry.Now, for the career Focus Puller this does pose some trouble. That title might just fade out, and revert to “1st AC”. But I would suggest to learn more about the new workflows around digital acquisition, and I am sure there will always be enough work in the camera dep´t.

As a follow up on my last post on the costs of licensing Blu-Ray, I sent a little e-mail to Larry Jordan to confirm that small production runs of Blu-Ray discs are prohibitively expensive. Larry replied that it seems indeed that Sony does not want independent producers to embrace this delivery format.

So, most likely you will not see any lower budget productions on Blu-Ray.

On another front it is not sure whether Blu-Ray will beat the simplicity of downloadable movies. They for sure have a number of advantages: virtually immedeate availability. Scratch resistance (great for kiddies films). No loose DVDs flying around the TV set.

And then looms the question of the logevity of the HD 720p / 1080i format, with professional cameras already moving up towards 2k, 3k and even 4k.