What are people doing wrong?

[J. Bernard Vallon]

I hear horror stories, usually unsubstantiated, about REDs "randomly failing in the field" "Stops working" etc. What frustrates me is usually there is no way to find out what the operator did or didnt do wrong.

I keep my camera well maintained, test it before every shoot, etc, and I've never had this problem. I do my homework, explore the bugs, work with release builds only, but I'm still terrified that one day on an importent job with no backup camera within 50 miles, something will happen inside my baby and it won't boot (or something).

Am I just lucky, or do most of those "horror stories" come from user error?

[Costelloe Michael]

I hear horror stories, usually unsubstantiated, about REDs "randomly failing in the field" "Stops working" etc. What frustrates me is usually there is no way to find out what the operator did or didnt do wrong.

I keep my camera well maintained, test it before every shoot, etc, and I've never had this problem. I do my homework, explore the bugs, work with release builds only, but I'm still terrified that one day on an importent job with no backup camera within 50 miles, something will happen inside my baby and it won't boot (or something).

Am I just lucky, or do most of those "horror stories" come from user error?

John,

Do what we do, take 2 cameras to each and every job!

Mike C

[David Groundwater]

John,

Do what we do, take 2 cameras to each and every job!

Mike C

hmmm. we had two cameras that both produced "codec error" faults on a shoot last week. build 15. cameras were mounted dutch on their sides and might have been a heat issue - even though there was no temp warning. when we put fan to "hot" mode, the fault mostly disappeared - though it did happen a couple more times.

[J. Bernard Vallon]

Two cameras come to every job that can afford it :)

The other jobs are properly warned.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

It's easy. I think that when the camera goes out with the owners that are fanatic reduser readers it's ok. Simply because we know the bugs and are prepared, but the times it seems to fail is when experienced people that has no previous RED experience takes it out.

...and let's face it everyone can't spend there time on reduser. So right now RED as a camera is a great little thing but for the market is dangerous. I love it and the results it gives me is incredible, but it's not without headache.

So for DP's, directors and producers that doesn't own one and never been on reduser - well you can imagine...and for us telling them you should have gone on reduser is not really fair either. Testing a camera is generally a day of testing getting a feel for it and then off to read the manual over night.

We all know that with all the small quirks and bugs that RED carries that is not enough. So that's what I believe is happening out there.

Just my 2 cents


Fredrik Callinggard

[J. Bernard Vallon]

It's easy. I think that when the camera goes out with the owners that are fanatic reduser readers it's ok. Simply because we know the bugs and are prepared, but the times it seems to fail is when experienced people that has no previous RED experience takes it out...

Fredrik Callinggard

Thats the answer I was hoping for, and it does seem to be true.

[Craig Bowman]

There is definately some truth to this. I was out on the weekend on a shoot and finally had my first codec error in the field, (build 15). Examining cable connections didn't change anything so I looked at lighting conditions and even with ND filter figured perhaps in a couple areas when people in light coloured attire were walking in front of area on the path too much light was coming in, so stopped down and codec error went away. No more problems after that. Wouldn't have even thought light reduction could fix a codec error without Reduser.

The thing that really bothers me in this section is when someone comes on here looking for help and people jump all over them. Its not helpful, not professional, solves nothing, and just makes the community look bad. Even if they come on with a bit of a rant, they still shouldn't be given a hard time. Take the high road and show yourself as a professional and not someone with a juvenile ego.

[Dustin Cross]

Maybe I am just more mello than most, but I have experienced some problems with my camera, but nothing to make me freak out like some of these people do.

It takes a couple minutes to change a battery. So I always monitor battery and change it if is below 15% when we have some downtime. I don't know what you are shooting that you don't have a couple minutes of downtime to change a battery every couple hours.

I shoot in the Texas heat. I have only seen the heat warning once. I keep the camera shaded as much as possible.

I shoot three days of handheld in Big Bend a couple weeks ago on the Red Drive and didn't have one problem.

I have had the camera lock up while at the end of a take during the POST process a few times. I am pretty sure this was due to heat. I had to power cycle the camera. When it came back up, I checked the clip that hung and it played just fine.

A few times the camera has hung on boot. I just pull the battery, wait a few seconds and try again. A couple times I have had to do this a couple times to get the camera to boot.

I have been a dumbass and forgot to change the battery and had the low battery warning light come on during a take. I just finished that take and powered off the camera with only 1 second to spare. The take was fine, I was a dumbass for not paying attention, thanks to Red for giving me the big warning.

So far I haven't lost a shot because of a problem with Red.

I don't know why people complain so much about these little things. Maybe I am just more mello.

I have also had the wind blow over a light during a take and lost the shot. I have been using short ends and had the film tail out during a take. Had the batteries on sound die and lost the audio on a shot, had a bulb die in a light, blown a fuse, and a host of other problems that didn't make me freak out and post about the idiot that decided to only put 20amp breakers in houses........

I have heard of a couple legit problems with Reds, but not many. And I am really tired of people whining about the reboot thing. I have shot features in 8 days and taking a couple minutes to reboot the camera is not a problem.


Mahalo,
Dusty

[Pam]

I would never leave town on even a Panavision shoot without a backup body.

[David Mullen ASC]

Things break, fail, etc. Anyone who has never had a problem is just lucky, and I'm not talking about with the RED, I'm talking about technology in general. HMI ballasts fail, head feeders fail, bulbs burn out, stingers go bad, generators break down, camera film mags jam... I've even had the tires on a dolly shred off during a move. And that's not even taking the human being factor into account. Anything built by humans and operated by humans will have flaws or break down or be used incorrectly at some point.

Is the RED any worse than other camera equipment in general in this regards? From my experience so far after a month straight of shooting with three RED's every day, it's a little buggier than what I've found with a F900 or most film cameras, but barely buggier, if that's a technical term...

Last night we had a 25-year-old Arri-SR2 on set to shoot some 16mm footage to be played in a later scene on a projector, side by side with a RED camera as a back-up... and the Arri-SR stopped working on the second scene, the trigger broke. We spent a half-hour trying to get it fixed, turned a small plastic piece broke inside the switch, so we jammed the microswitch on with a pen and got it to trigger on and off with the remote cable.

So on the one hand, the one day we bring out a film camera to this digital movie shoot, it breaks down... but on the other hand, a 25-year-old camera privately owned by my camera operator worked fine most of its life and picks that day for a minor piece of plastic to fail, a mechanical problem that could be fixed on location with a screwdriver, a pen, and a remote trigger cable, which is not always possible when digital cameras fail.

But the lesson is always to be prepared for things to break down rather than assume they won't.

---

The reboot time is not a "problem", it's merely an annoyance, which is different than a problem. Just as reloading a film camera is not a "problem", it's an annoyance. So complaining about breaking the flow of a scene due to reload time is about the same as complaining about breaking the flow of the work with rebooting time -- both are annoyances when you're ready to roll and are stopped dead for a minute or so.