Yet another exciting week over at the RED HQ.

Already next week will see the first RED One cameras getting a sensoral facelift. The new sensor has better dynamic range, higher sensibilty (800 ISO as standard, usable even at 3200 ASA) and the new color science, named FLUT. The swap will also get your camera a new sensor board and a new (optical) low pass filter. A bit over USD 5.750 for the conversion ($1.250 will be refunded when you buy an Epic). Throw in an extra 3k, and you will get a RED Rocket for a bargain price.

Anamorphic, baby

Today RED announced that they will produce anamorphic lenses. Last year they rocked the glass world with their set of primes, where a set of lenses costs as much as you would previously have to pay for a single focal length. Now you have until the end of this year to save towards the 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 100mm lenses; all at T2.4. A 25mm is probably also in the pipeline.

Here comes a slightly updated overview of how much weigth your shoulder, your tripod or your rig is supposed to handle. Always keep in mind extra weight for mattebox, filters, cables, transmitters etc.

Thanks to Adrian T. for permission to reproduce his table.

Been a bit quiet on this blog, mainly because of work-load. Plus, I’ve been promoted to admin over at reduser, so I tend to spend computer time there.

It’s been a week now since the latest announcement by RED, and mostly people are very happy with the new information. Currently though there is some discussion about the naming of their new electronic viewfinder, the BOMB EVF. Some people tend to worry that the naming might cause problems at security checks. Matt Gottshalk promptly suggested an alternative name, the Warm Squishy Love Monster EVF, which inspired me to do a quick photoshop mock-up:

Since that wasn’t peaceful enough, Andrew Clemson also asked for a furry version. I just had to oblige:

At times the menu of the R1 can be a bit counter-intuitive, for example that phantom power is under System>Sound, while the recording level is placed at Video>Audio. Helpfully, Octamas from Switzerland has been publishing a visual guide of the Red 1 menu system, and they’ve just released their guide for still-warm Build 20.

Bits, pieces and links

And for inspiration, hop over to As the Dust settles, a documentary in progress about the amazing Burning Man Festival – all shot on RED. They have a lovely photo gallery.

If you ever need a manual for an old camera, check out IscanManuals. They charge a small fee.

Trying to hide in the open with your camera? LensCoats makes, well, lens coatings, for pretty much any make, including the Canon 1200mm beast:

A quick fix around the gamma problem in QT and OSX.

Since I did not get my Andy Lesniak (aka. Wicked Circuits) dumb Canon mount to work properly (see previous lens mount test), and Birger Engineering is offering their Canon mount in a dumb version, I have now ordered one of those. Shipped today, and should be with me next week. Am very much looking forward to testing out thier mount. Watch this space for more info.

With the convergence of stills- and videocameras comes the convergence of the job of photographer and cameraman. And both will start exploring the “other” medium in new, creative ways. For example making movie posters, that suddenly come to life.

Professional stills photographer Alexx Henry has put together a nice clip showing how this is done, also thanks to RED.

(via)

Changing from DV to Red RAW has many advantages. One of them is that of a vastly improved possiblity to change things in post production. White balance is not baked in, and certain changes to exposure can be done without much penalty.

And thus an idea for a movie poster was born…

I am one of the alpha testers for the new RED build, that promises improved performance under low lights and tungsten. What better place to test than a low-lit death metal concert. All tungsten lights.

Am very impressed. ISO 640 @ f1.4 on Contax Zeiss 50mm and 85mm.

Interesting short interview with director/DP Steven Sonderberg on his approach to lighting on his newest film, Girlfriend Experience. He added light on only 2 shots, the rest is done with available/natural light. Shot on RED one.

I finally got around testing the various adapters I bought to adapt my Carl Zeiss Contax Yashica primes to our RED. The RED has the Wicked Circuit dumb mount. All adapters work fine up to about 20 meters, but after that there is a definite difference.

All tests were done on the Zeiss 50/1.4 lens, with the aperture set to 4 and 16. No filters were used, instead faster shutter speeds were employed.

Here is the frame I took in 4k, scaled down to 25% (Click on picture for full size), further down the test you will see 100% cropped images of just the chimney (compressed to jpg in Photoshop with high quality setting) .

El Cheapo

First in line is the £5 adapter off eBay from seller big_is. Very quick and efficient delivery from Hong Kong. Fits nicely. Fairly soft on infinity.

Holds fairly well at f16.

Bad at 4.

Conclusion: if you are on a budget, and either only shoot closer subjects or have plenty of light, this is an acceptable adapter.

DVD Technik

Next in line is the adapter from DVD Technik in the Ukraine at about $35. Has a very nice quality feel to it, and sist very tight on the lens. Best to be fitted once onto the lens, and left in place. Also quite tight once connected to the camera; downside is that it takes a bit longer to change lenses, but they do sit more tightly.

Disappointing at f16.

Appaling at f4.

Conclusion: Not really an option.

Confirm Adapter

Fianally the most expensive option at $85 from Happypage in Hongkong, an adapter with built-in autofocus confirm chip. Happypage offers the option of getting that chip programmed to your specific lens, which is a nice option when you want to use your lenses on a Canon EOS stills camera. Since the RED is thankfully a fully manual camera, I could not test this extra functionality.

At first the adapter would not fit. After an e-mail to happypage they immedeatly sent off a second adapter without any cost to me. The adapter arrived, but would not fit either. This suggests that the Wicked Circuit adapter might be slightly off, since happypage has only happy curstomers. Anyway, using my Dremel drill, I managed to get the adapter to fit into the RED – again, very tight, but not as tight as the DVD Technik one, and run the tests.

Happypage advertizes the fact that their adapters are a fraction of a millimitre thinner than their competitors, and claims that this helps with the focus on infinity. Let’s see how this holds up to reality.

Me likes at f16.

A Bit disappointing at f4.

Conclusion: Clearly the winner.

Conclusion

As so often, if you want quality, you have to pay for it. Interesting though that the by far cheapest option was not the by far worst one.

Also it seems that I still have problems with the back-focus on the Wicked Circuit adapter. My guess is that if that should ever get sorted out (or I might – gasp – order again a Birger Canon mount) the results will improve.