Received #414 - baseplate/dovetail still an issue

[Michael Morlan]

Hi all,

So RED #414 arrived today. My RED advocate, Chad Willette, called to check up on the shipment even as I walked in the door and discovered the boxes sitting in my front hall. Thank you Chad!

Some notes in no particular order:

A beautiful fit and finish for the most part. The top mounts and handles all fit fine without any issues as once noted in a past thread. The bottom plate and shoulder dovetail, however, are incredibly wobbly, both side to side and fore and aft. I read about this issue in a past thread and understood RED is working on a fix. I'm going to have to devise some sort of shim setup in the interim.

The big red logo on the front of the camera had slipped from its mooring when I opened the box and I stuck it back in place. What glue might I consider to assure it doesn't slip again?

I would especially like to be able to do quick swing-aways of the RED Cradle with a pull-release-ratchet-hinge-thingy or at least a handle-bolt.

The RED Handles seem a bit more solid on the Handle Mount than I've read about upon my first inspection. I'll put them through a bit more rigor tomorrow. I recall someone tapping out the bolt threads to a 1/4-20" to give them a bit more bite. Something else I might consider is roughing up the shafts of the Handle Mount and the insides of the handles to create more grip.

I bought a B4B dual battery hot-swap adapter that goes between the RED battery plate and bricks. Load a new battery up before removing the old. I'll try that out once I actually receive my chargers. Interestingly, each of my two RED Power Pack boxes had exactly two bricks and a box of Israeli arms instead of a charger! :blink: (Chad is on the case.)

The RED LCD is hot, erm cool, erm neat! Extremely lightweight and informative. I look forward to peering into the EVF when it hits my door. Don't expect to use the frame for exposure/color assessment. Get out your meters, use the HUD meters/graphs provided by the camera, and train your eye.

I'm pining for the Nikon mount upon which to cinch my primes and zooms. Looks like I'm renting some PL primes for a couple days so I can shoot something besides the back of the port cap. :biggrin:

We could use even longer 19mm rods for those real long lenses (or consider hanging the RED Cradle from top-mounted rods extending back while the bottom-mounted rods are thrust all the way forward. I've seen that configuration although it would get in the way of viewing the back LCD.

Use a side handle on the back-right of camera to tie off all your cables and dress them towards the back.


Michael

[Steve Sherrick]

Thanks for the assessment Michael. Too bad about some of the accessories. I'm looking forward to your Nikon tests when you get a mount.

Steve

[Mark Pugh]

are you have the shoulder dovetail properly connected?
Swing the lock on it and see how it works. The locking bit that comes up the top needs to fit into a hole on the baseplate. You cannot lock it in just any position fore and aft. There are only a certain number of spots it will go. Try sliding it fore and aft whilst gently applying the lock as you go. You will feel it when the dovetail finds a hole in the baseplate to lock into.
(At least this is how i do it.)
It is only then that you can fully apply the lock onto the baseplate, and it should lock nice and tight.

[Brent@RED]

The most secure mating of the DOVETAIL and BOTTOMPLATE will be when the front of the DOVETAIL is flush with the front of the BOTTOMPLATE.

As far as the logo coming off on the front of the camera, I would suggest something like Krazy Glue.

Have fun with #414!

BC

[zak forrest]

When using the Red shoulder pad to mount the cam to a tripod, I come to the end of a pan and the camera wobbles.

[Dj Joofa]

Hi all,

So RED #414 arrived today.


Michael

Michael, as a fellow Austinite, Congratulations. Have fun with it.

[Chris Reynolds]

Our Shoulder dovetail is so loose in any position that it is unusable. Went straight to the cheeseplate. Apart from that the camera absolutely Rocks!

Cheers, Chris

[zak forrest]

Yes will that be resolved? Someday I would love a new shoulder dovetail that did what it was supposed to do at no charge

[Harry Clark]

Honestly, I wouldn't use the shoulder pad except if there was a lot of back-and-forth, run and gun style ENG shooting. I'd take a few minutes to set up for handheld, and for tripod shooting, I'd use the ET bridgepate.
Besides being loose, the lever on the front has no secondary safety, and there are not "buttons' like on a dovetail, so in theory you could accidentally loosen the shoulder mount, do an extreme tilt, and the camera could slide right off.
Not likely, but possible.
Cheers,
Harry

[Champe Barton]

For those of you experiencing a wobbly dovetail and/or bottom plate try this: pull out the clear piece of rubbery plastic surrounding the locking pin on the top of the shoulder dovetail. Cut a thin piece of cardboard the same shape and put it on the bottom of the plastic piece and reinsert it. Mine went from very wobbly and almost unusable to perfectly secure.

Champe

[Manuel Wenger]

Hi Champe, thanks for this tip, however this is something which has to be fixed by RED. If you mount the base plate to the camera, it´s easy to bend the surrounding area of the holes where the screws get in. This widens the dovetail and makes the whole thing wobbly. I´m also a bit concerned about the plastic pin in the sholder plate, i think this will be worn out quite soon, I´d replace it with a steel pin.
The ET Baseplate Rocks ! Just as the Camera does.

Manuel

[red1225]

Michael,

Congrats on getting your camera. I was on a RED shoot where we had the same problem with "play" between the cradle and the shoulder pad. A good temp fix is a 2" piece of gaffers between the two.

As far as purchasing longer rods for bigger zooms etc. Most rental houses supply longer rods and support bracket with the rental of the lens. Save yourself the $$...unless it's not an issue.

Make sure you have your allen set with you for those handles too. They not only loosen at the mount point but also at the pivot point. They required constant tightening on our shoot until we got rid of them all together and went with holding onto the matte box/rods, which in my opinion is better anyway.

Now...get out there and shoot.

[Michael Morlan]

...The locking bit that comes up the top needs to fit into a hole on the baseplate. You cannot lock it in just any position fore and aft...

Yep, of course. Pin engages a hole when the lever at front is full camera left. That's a really awkward arrangement, BTW. I find myself losing precious seconds trying to find a hole. 1st A.C.'s hate that.


The most secure mating of the DOVETAIL and BOTTOMPLATE will be when the front of the DOVETAIL is flush with the front of the BOTTOMPLATE...

That sort of defeats the benefit of having a sliding dovetail, doesn't it? :sarcasm: This needs to be addressed by RED. I shouldn't have to spend another $900 to get it done right by Element Technica.


If you mount the base plate to the camera, it´s easy to bend the surrounding area of the holes where the screws get in. This widens the dovetail and makes the whole thing wobbly.

That's what I seem to be seeing as well although I didn't check it with a straight edge. I may add some form of spacer at the camera's mounting holes to see if that makes a difference. But the gap between base plate and dovetail seems a bit too large to be caused by only that.

Michael

[Elizabeth Lowrey]

Has Jim or anyone from RED commented recently on these very common complaints about the support hardware? I'm a little concerned that this many cameras are shipping with the hardware problems unaddressed, even though some in the first batch of 100 were reporting the same issues.

[Michael Morlan]

Some really good points about cast versus machined metal parts in post #20 of this thread:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8756

Essentially, accurate tolerance between metal parts means "expensive."

RED has done so much in so little time that I wouldn't be too hard on them about a couple of physical engineering issues. (re: handles & baseplate) Really, who could have imagined having a s35mm digital camera in their own kit two years ago? Still, I need a professional solution on professional sets and the RED baseplate/dovetail isn't it. Chad Willette assures me RED is working on it.

RED's teaming with Element Technica appears to be their answer to our concerns about the baseplate: Get the RED solution for practically free or pony up the dough for the ET version.

I can live with that. Now about those handles...

Michael

[Mike Prevette]

I've said it over and over, ditch the red handles and get a set of Tango blue handles.

[zak forrest]

I wouldn't want to perform an operation on a piece of Red equipment and insert a piece of cardboard into anything. I'd rather Red fix this problem so that it works like it should. Also that "extreme tilt/camera sliding out" thing happened to me a few days ago. A double locking safety for the dovetail as well as the battery release is sorely needed. If you press the camera against your body a certain way while operating or panning the battery flies off. It's happened to me a lot and I am very aware and careful when I'm operating and it still happens sometimes.

[Gian Joon]

For those of you experiencing a wobbly dovetail and/or bottom plate try this: pull out the clear piece of rubbery plastic surrounding the locking pin on the top of the shoulder dovetail. Cut a thin piece of cardboard the same shape and put it on the bottom of the plastic piece and reinsert it. Mine went from very wobbly and almost unusable to perfectly secure.

Champe

Hi Champe,

It seems from your experience that problem is in the plastic piece. Can replacing this piece with a better pin be a solution.

[Finner]

I wouldn't want to perform an operation on a piece of Red equipment and insert a piece of cardboard into anything. I'd rather Red fix this problem so that it works like it should. Also that "extreme tilt/camera sliding out" thing happened to me a few days ago. A double locking safety for the dovetail as well as the battery release is sorely needed. If you press the camera against your body a certain way while operating or panning the battery flies off. It's happened to me a lot and I am very aware and careful when I'm operating and it still happens sometimes.

There is a real easy fix for this problem. Buy element technica gear.

[Bing Bailey]

There is a real easy fix for this problem. Buy element technica gear.

Zak are you making love to the camera or shooting with it :) LOL

[Michael Morlan]

I've said it over and over, ditch the red handles and get a set of Tango blue handles.

Mike, the simple addition of some rosettes and texture on the shafts would resolve the RED handle issue. I may buy the Tango Blue however. Good stuff.

What domestic equivalents are there? Sypder? etc.?

[Finner]

Mike, the simple addition of some rosettes and texture on the shafts would resolve the RED handle issue. I may buy the Tango Blue however. Good stuff.

What domestic equivalents are there? Sypder? etc.?

Last thing you want to do is texture the inside of the handles or especially texture your rods. Texturing the inside of the handles is a very bad idea as it will scratch your rods causing binding issues when sliding on follow focus units, bridge support brackets, remote ff-zoom-iris motors, shift and tilt bellows and a number of other accessories. Ditching the handles and getting a different system is good advice. Anyone that I know that has the camera for a month or more has thrown the handles in the bottom of their AKS kit and never use them.

[Champe Barton]

Hi Champe,

It seems from your experience that problem is in the plastic piece. Can replacing this piece with a better pin be a solution.

Hi Joon,

I'm not sure the problem is with the pin. It seems to me that the clear rubbery piece of whatever that is, is just a bit too thin. The addition of the cardboard piece is, admittedly, a temporary fix but it has worked quite well for about six weeks now. Perhaps the good folks at Red will send us all a replacement piece. Until then I'll stick with my cardboard. I have to agree that the dovetail/shoulder plate isn't one of Red's best products though.

Champe

[Michael Morlan]

Last thing you want to do is texture the inside of the handles or especially texture your rods. Texturing the inside of the handles is a very bad idea as it will scratch your rods causing binding issues...

Finner, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean the rod clamps. Actually, those are on the universal mount and appear to be pretty solid. I was referring to the RED Handle Mount's pins and the two RED Handles' (L/R) clamps. If I have no plan to connect a handle directly to a rod, then texturing them might be just the thing.

[Michael Morlan]

I'm not sure the problem is with the pin. It seems to me that the clear rubbery piece of whatever that is, is just a bit too thin...

Fixing/upgrading the pin mechanism won't be sufficient to resolve the rocking problems. The challenge is to achieve the tight tolerances between base plate and dovetail. That may require machining from billets (more expensive) or some very clever adjustments of the casting molds of the present design (nigh impossible.)

Of course, I shouldn't say the word "impossible" in the presence of RED Digital Cinema.

Michael

[I Bloom]

Michael,

Congrats on getting your camera. I was on a RED shoot where we had the same problem with "play" between the cradle and the shoulder pad. A good temp fix is a 2" piece of gaffers between the two.

As far as purchasing longer rods for bigger zooms etc. Most rental houses supply longer rods and support bracket with the rental of the lens. Save yourself the $$...unless it's not an issue.

Make sure you have your allen set with you for those handles too. They not only loosen at the mount point but also at the pivot point. They required constant tightening on our shoot until we got rid of them all together and went with holding onto the matte box/rods, which in my opinion is better anyway.

Now...get out there and shoot.

Hey Danny, don't forget we put one piece of gaff tape on the top of the baseplate non-stick side facing up and one facing down on the bottom plate. Otherwise we couldn't get it on. But once we did the plate was useable. I have yet to see a cast top plate that doesn't have this issue. And I'm counting 5 now.

IBloom

[red1225]

Hey Danny, don't forget we put one piece of gaff tape on the top of the baseplate non-stick side facing up and one facing down on the bottom plate. Otherwise we couldn't get it on. But once we did the plate was useable. I have yet to see a cast top plate that doesn't have this issue. And I'm counting 5 now.

IBloom

IBloom,

Indeed you are right! I think people should seriously consider the ET Arri style 15mm or 19mm bridge plate as an alternate to the production pack. It seems like a much stronger and proven method. Although one will have to come up with an alternate for a shoulder pad. For me a folded T-shirt will do. But I have access to a "shop" where I'll fabricate a shoulder pad that will most likely just screw into my Arri dovetail.

IBloom...sent an email to your personal account (yesterday?) Give me a shout and let me know how things went.

Regards,
D

[I Bloom]

IBloom,

Indeed you are right! I think people should seriously consider the ET Arri style 15mm or 19mm bridge plate as an alternate to the production pack. It seems like a much stronger and proven method. Although one will have to come up with an alternate for a shoulder pad. For me a folded T-shirt will do. But I have access to a "shop" where I'll fabricate a shoulder pad that will most likely just screw into my Arri dovetail.

IBloom...sent an email to your personal account (yesterday?) Give me a shout and let me know how things went.

Regards,
D

Oops I'm a lazy email responder... no news is good news right now dude... there's a black and tan in my future :wink: