Weather Sealing?

[Trevor Meier]

I've got upcoming projects being shot in pretty harsh conditions. One is out on the open ocean (cold, wet, deep salt water), another in a fairly hot & dusty part of Africa, and another in moist coastal jungles.

What kind of weather sealing does the RED have? Camera covers don't keep every drop out when things get crazy... What kind of expectations does the RED team have on how the camera will perform in these kind of environments?

[Shaun Au]

I've got upcoming projects being shot in pretty harsh conditions. One is out on the open ocean (cold, wet, deep salt water), another in a fairly hot & dusty part of Africa, and another in moist coastal jungles.

What kind of weather sealing does the RED have? Camera covers don't keep every drop out when things get crazy... What kind of expectations does the RED team have on how the camera will perform in these kind of environments?

I've also asked about this a couple weeks ago and didn't get many responses. I'd like to hear some responses from the red team. Environmental seals are important to me. :)

[Alex Fostvedt]

I'll second that. Cheers

[Stephen Williams]

I've got upcoming projects being shot in pretty harsh conditions. One is out on the open ocean (cold, wet, deep salt water),

Hi,

I would tend to rent a camera where salt water is involved.

Stephen

[Zakaree Sandberg]

can u get insurrance that covers water damage? i guess its a dumb question.. cuz if the insurrance people say no can do.. u can just accidently lose the camera and claim lost/stolen.

but i want to film surfing and will be getting a custom housing made.. but im always sketched out when filming

[Hoffmann Films]

If you put a camera in a water housing there is always the chance of flooding it. I have both film and video cameras with custom water housings on my insurance and have had no problems. Probably going to either have your insurance canceled or sky rocket up if you were to ever flood/lose a RED camera system.

[JohnF]

I know you can get insurance for that kind of thing but if the US is anything like here in the UK... where if you film at sea, depending on distance and location (ie on a boat) from the shore you might need insurance covering maritime locations
which often comes from a different insurance department/company otherwise you've got no cover. At least that was what I was told when I enquired...

Read the small print and definitely go for a decent housing!

JohnF

[Jannard]

I would expect the RED ONE to handle weather just like any other digital camera... they don't like it very much. Stephen's idea is a good one if the conditions are severe. Lenses don't like weather, drives and batteries don't like it. The RED ONE will be a miracle, but not God-like.

Jim

[Pol Turrents]

well, this drive us to another question... is KATA or PORTABRACE (or any other vendor) planning to make some rain covers and protectors for the camera?
Since the camera has a totally new design, I don't expect to use any existing protection.

[Mark B.]

I'm looking at the new pics on red.com and it seems like there are a lot of female connections on the back of the body. Is it possible for Red to engineer a protective cover that would go over the back of the camera for situations that are dusty and severe? Or, at least provide some sort of indentations in the body so that 3rd parties can make covers that snap onto the rear?

[Alex Boothby]

Kind of essential, yes.

[RobRoySyd]

Looking closely at some of those renders I see two concerns:

1) There doesn't seem to be enough room around the connectors and buttons for labels or legends. Please let's make certain these things are easy to read / work out what goes where / does what. And in low light too.

2) There seems to be vents in the bottom of the camera. If they're there for cooling a Portabrace cover mightn't be such a good idea which still leaves a concern about dust, sand, bugs etc finding their way inside the camera. This isn't a hyperthetical concern. I've still got sand from the deserts of central China in a viewfinder. Airflow around a complex object like a camera body seems very adept at forcing things through the tiniest of holes.

[Jannard]

The vents at the bottom are isolated from the electronics...

Jim

[Jarred Land]

rubber covers for the connectors are a great idea. Rubber covers and sealing the camera completely isn't... by making the camera waterproof by blocking all the holes.. you have a horrible side effect of heat being trapped in.

Portabrace or KATA rain covers seem like a good fit for a RED application, because most of them are open on the bottom, allowing for the bottom vents to circulate airflow as they were designed to do.

[Martin Drew]

The RED ONE will be a miracle, but not God-like.

Jim

Isn't that a contradiction. :)

[RobRoySyd]

The vents at the bottom are isolated from the electronics...

Jim

This is reassuring, so the odd blast of air in there should keep the air flowing.

As to the Portabrace covers, I've not had that much experience with them apart from a Z1 going into thermal shutdown because it was inside one on a hot day.
Problem is heat goes up and rain goes down, guess that's why umbrellas are commonly used to protect cameras and their operators. Sand and bugs obey no rules but so long as they can't get inside anything vital they're not going to cause any real grief

Still it seems odd to have vents on the bottom and none on the top. So no outside air circulates over the electronics. That makes cooling difficult unless the electronics is cooled by something other than air, dare I suggest the camera uses liquid cooling. That would explain some of the design attributes.