Fixed lens or interchangeable lenses?

[Emanuel A.]

Which one do you envision coming into play in the near future?

[Nathan Garofalos]

It will probably be interchangeable, thats what I hope for. But I bet it will come with a lens when you purchase the camera.

[Stefan Scherperel]

I think that really depends on what the Cmos or CCD size is. If it's a small 1/3" CMOS (I hope to god not) then it is feasable to have a fixed lens (lets hope it doesn't go here). If it's a S16mm or S35mm sized Cmos then having a fixed lens would be limiting at best unless Red has somehow developed an amazing 18-300mm 2.8 constant lens that fits in the palm of your hand.

[brandon herman]

it would be awesome if they go with C-mount...

it could come with a 18-70mm zoom

then red can sell sets of five or six RED C-MOUNT PRIMES that go in a little case to fit in your other pocket.

Keep the camera inexpensive and make the money in the accessories.....

I also read something about there being easy adapters for getting a 35mm lenses onto a c-mount...just screw one in to the other...no flipping, ground glass, etc....anyone know about this?

[leojS]

I think it will definitely have interchangeable lenses, as you couldn't really call it a professional camera if it didn't - having a fixed lens is really limiting...

[brandon herman]

What about getting the best of both worlds?

Meaning, that in a literal sense, it would have a fixed lens...

BUT...

packaged with the camera as an included accessory is a RED brand "35mm adapter."

The intent being that, in certain situations you could just use the included lenses, but really it's meant to accommodate pro lenses.

That way you can mass produce one camera, but have different adapters to choose from: Canon, Nikon, C-mount, or PL-mount. (Buy more than one adapter if you'd like.)

something kind of like this set-up:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jTyt7_1dCaA

Camera in one pocket, lens (and adapter) in the other.

Another added benefit of doing this is that the indie/student filmmaker wouldn't have to worry about getting dust on the sensor when changing lenses; the fixed lens would protect it. And the fixed lens can easily be cleaned.

If the fixed lens is made out of good, fast glass, and the adapter doesn't lose you more than half a stop of light, then I think we're good to go. (A 1/2 inch chip would give 16mm-ish DOF even without the adapter, and provide a nice 2k image.)

The fixed lens could get away with having a small zoom range (5x-ish), since you're really expected to use pro lenses.

[Fence sitter]

I would say that since the patent office has a scarlet 2k trademark then the camera is probably 2k. Now as for chip size, I doubt that red would look at anything less than the 2k window size of the red one...S16 aparently (but I am unsure if the dimensions are exactly S16). Why, you ask, because to make it any smaller would mean trying to squeaze more photosites into a smaller chip...the payback for this would be a serious drop in senitivity and more noise. S16 2K would leverage architecture, although smaller and less power hungry from the RED one.

The HVX200 is an example of trying to shoe horn too many photo sites into a smaller chip.....I am pretty sure RED wouldn't want to make a camera that slow.

The other thing is when you have a built in lens is that to cut costs you make it slower and this amplifies the speed issue. It would be far simpler to allow the purchaser to add a superspeed and you already are ahead of the game by at least 2.5 stops.

Fence