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Nikon to acquire RED

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Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#201

Post by saltminer »

kranke155 wrote: post #130
justforasingle wrote: post #24

Pretty interesting. If you look on netflix approved camera list[0] there are none from Nikon. Personally I think RED cameras are overhyped and are a major reason most netflix shows all look and feel the same. I don't think its the colour grading or lenses - its something about the camera itself that just feels shit and doesn't give me the same access to a scene the same way something like sony's HDVS from 30 years ag…

The RED cameras are perfectly capable of delivering great picture quality and good color science. The "Netflix look" doesn't come from cameras, but from the fact that everything in their cheaper productions is rushed, including the color grading. Portrait of a Lady on Fire for instance, was shot on RED cameras at 8K. And it's one of the most beautiful digital films ever made, IMO.

I loved that movie! It truly is gorgeous, right up there with Blade Runner IMO. I just wish they'd release it in 4k, I'd re-buy it in a heartbeat.

Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#202

Post by Auracle »

skhr0680 wrote: post #189
Auracle wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broncolor is expensive just because they're old and entrenched, and some people are always in the mindset that more expensive must equal better. If reliability is a concern, you can easily buy multiple Godox units of approximately the same specifications (or better) for the same price as one Broncolor.

> If reliability is a concern, you can easily buy multiple Godox units of approximately the same specifications (or better) for the same price as one Broncolor. I got burned enough, once even literally, by cheap Chinese speedlights that I am now a firm subscriber to the philosophy of "buy once, cry once".

I mean, a Godox V1 is $200. The Profoto A1 is $1,100. They're very comparable apart from price. I have 6 Godox speedlights of different tiers and only one broke, apart from some screws that just needed to have some Loctite put on them (which they fixed with later models).

Obviously don't go for the $30 plastic wonders.

Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#203

Post by kkukshtel »

treflop wrote: post #150
kkukshtel wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you know the RED story you know that at the time there were effectively 0 consumer-tier high end digital cameras. We're talking basically the advent of the DSLR revolution, where either you shot on a Canon 5D MK II or... an Alexa? Alexas retail around $50,000 (and weren't out until 2010), so RED offering actual 4K video digital camera with an easy conversion to EF mount glass (Canon) and a body that is lit…

Yo there were way more video cameras back then than just the Canon 5D and ARRI. News organizations, smaller productions and documentary makers were not just whipping around expensive ARRI’s. Sony and Panasonic made a ton of other professional video-focused cameras. I have an old Panasonic HVX200 right next to me. But the Red One was definitely still extraordinary because they managed to make a relative-cheap producti…

ENG cameras had sensors a fraction of the size of Red/5D [1] so the resultant crop factor and CCD sensors paired with not-great glass choices (mostly zoom lenses, fixed focal length rare, etc.) made nice DoF/Bokeh hard to come by, making the output of them not really look like what a lay person would say "cinema" looks like. If you want to talk real Cinema-DV options from around that time (and ignoring punk cinema stuff like Dogme 95/Harmony Korine), you're mostly talking about the Viper, which again is a six-figure camera.

> The impact was muted because people didn’t really care about 4K as much in 2007.

This is just not true. Look at the Wikipedia post here [2] and then also just look for movies shot on the One/MX/Epic. The camera was immediately adapted into hollywood feature productions.

[1] https://therobbcollections.blogspot.com/2019/09/digital-came... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema#Red_One

Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#204

Post by kkukshtel »

cfr2023 wrote: post #146
kkukshtel wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you know the RED story you know that at the time there were effectively 0 consumer-tier high end digital cameras. We're talking basically the advent of the DSLR revolution, where either you shot on a Canon 5D MK II or... an Alexa? Alexas retail around $50,000 (and weren't out until 2010), so RED offering actual 4K video digital camera with an easy conversion to EF mount glass (Canon) and a body that is lit…

An insightful post indeed. I was acutely aware of it, shooting projects on horrible looking mini DV and expensive film stock. No question they spurred progress, I'd just envisioned that they would continue to carry the torch with all of their piss and vinegar. Now Black Magic Design produces ~$2000 cameras that produce consistently better images than RED to this day.

The thing you'll hear from any camera pro though is that the actual shooting experience of Blackmagic isn't great. Making Blackmagic's behave for film is its own cottage industry and there's a reasons most people use stalwarts like Arri/Panavision/Sony/Red. If you're an entry level videographer, I'd much more recommend going the C300 route than being enticed by the BM price tag, as there are a lot of other hidden costs to just make things Work Well.

Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#205

Post by m463 »

justforasingle wrote: post #24

Pretty interesting. If you look on netflix approved camera list[0] there are none from Nikon. Personally I think RED cameras are overhyped and are a major reason most netflix shows all look and feel the same. I don't think its the colour grading or lenses - its something about the camera itself that just feels shit and doesn't give me the same access to a scene the same way something like sony's HDVS from 30 years ag…

I remember first watching 4k HDR films (I remember gemini man in particular) and it looked different from previous films and I had to adapt.

maybe too high res? Or maybe HDR eliminated artifacts like bloom or something that seemed to make it too perfect.

Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#206

Post by pkwy »

rpmisms wrote: post #186
mikeyouse wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a handful on my local FB marketplace lately (nowhere near Hollywood or anywhere that you'd expect to see them) but ~$5k for a Epic-X Dragon with a lens.

The killer would be a Komodo. Global shutter and autofocus is amazing in something that price.

I got a Komodo a few months ago in LA area for $3500 used with multiple cards and gold mount batteries, outrigger handle, pl mount adapter, etc. They’re out there, a lot of people upgrading to the X.

Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#207

Post by kaczordon »

sebben wrote: post #179
ensignavenger wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When folks talk about reliability of these cameras, what are we talking about? Like, the camera longevity, or ruggedness? Or like they reliably produce a consistent output, versus producing different results under the same conditions where one would expect consistency?

I work as a director of photography and own an Alexa Mini. Reliability in this context means that the camera will record and the footage will not be corrupted on the media. Film sets are very rough on equipment and things break all the time. Sometimes one films in very harsh conditions that anre either very cold or very dusty and hot. Often you don’t have the luxury of being able to repeat a moment or you have travel…

The Alexa does not have 11 stops of info above middle grey. More like 6-7 at most.

Re: Nikon to acquire RED

#208

Post by mafuyu »

strogonoff wrote: post #199
mafuyu wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow fp enjoyer, I will point out that I believe the fp's CDNG support avoids patent issues by only supporting output to USB drive. RAW video to internal media is where Nikon ran into trouble. It's also a bit of a bummer how terrible the fp's h264 encoder is, but the CDNG makes up for it, I suppose.

Not true. I record to SD card these days, the only downside is no 4K (presumably due to speed limitations), but for 1080p 60 fps it works just fine. You must get a top spec 64GB (larger capacities are too slow, smaller capacities have not enough space to record anything). Sigma publishes a list of known compatible SD cards. If you suffer from the shadow flicker issue, let me know. I couldn’t truly enjoy fp until I wo…

Oh wow, you’re absolutely right! I guess I should read my manuals more carefully. :) I’ll have to give that a shot next time.
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