My first RED.

[Troy Grundstad]

Hey folks,

Today is the day i finally get to join the RED community, I have been a long time fan and supporter of these camera systems. I have been working with System cameras since i was around 15 years old (24 Years old now) And have been working with everything from Live productions to festival productions, small Indy projects, Freelance and some DoP work.

I got a good deal on a R1 Kit with low hours (556 hours) for around $2.000 and got a bunch of extra stuff, allthough not a insane amount of accessories as some of the bigger kits out there has, but the things i got with is in near mint contition!

What i got with the kit


#Red ONE body
#RED LCD
#RED DRIVE (640gb)
# 4x 16Gb CF Cards
#Nikon Mount
#PL Mount
#V Mount & Drive cage
#19mm Rail system (With all brackets)
#FOTGA mattebox
#a bunch of LIMO cables
#CF Module

But from doing a bunch of research, i have found the CF cards to limit the quality? Not beeing fast enough for the best setting and i would need to use a RED mini mag module.
From what ive understood these are getting more and more rare to come by

Cant wait to get to use this and get into the RED Eco system, If anyone has some tips and tricks im all ears!

Hers a shot of the rig (was building it in my garage)

[Sergio Perez]

Welcome to the community. The Red One is one serious camera that produces beautiful pictures. The suggestions I can give for the MX sensor are as follows :

1- Don't use ISO above 800 (ISO 1280 is the maximum noise I personally find acceptable)

2- Iso 400 produces, for me at least, the most beautiful picture on the One.

3- Be careful with the V mount batteries you use. If you can, use Red Original ones with the One. I didn't use them much myself, but I remember a lot of stories of problems with the one and they were because of using bad third party batteries.

Happy Shooting!

[Alex Lubensky]

Welcome to the community. The Red One is one serious camera that produces beautiful pictures. The suggestions I can give for the MX sensor are as follows :

1- Don't use ISO above 800 (ISO 1280 is the maximum noise I personally find acceptable)

2- Iso 400 produces, for me at least, the most beautiful picture on the One.

3- Be careful with the V mount batteries you use. If you can, use Red Original ones with the One. I didn't use them much myself, but I remember a lot of stories of problems with the one and they were because of using bad third party batteries.

Happy Shooting!

Red bricks are known to be a moderate battery. Any decent V-Mount battery is fine, don't run for the Red Bricks - at best you'll find re-packed ones, or quite old and dead batteries. There are plenty of good batteries sold online, be it SWIT, Anton Bauer, Blue Shape etc.

[Troy Grundstad]

Thanks!

I`ll keep the ISO in mind and test it out abit. I did not get any Red bricks with my camera package. Which is fine in my case as i despise the V mount, Feels flimsy and not secure enough.
Will be posting some showreels once i get the workflow going!

[Troy Grundstad]

Been a long time user of Anton Bauer. Fantastic batteries albeit expensive, but i guess that comes with the territory of these cameras.
I have a little collection of HCX batteries all well maintained and well kept. so im just waiting for the Gold mount Battery plate. Been tempted to pull the trigger on some CINE series batteries from AB. But just havent done it yet as i feel like my 8-12 year old AB HCX batteries perform like new, give or take 15 min run time.

[Mike P.]

Awesome stuff Troy! R1mx is dope. Make sure the firmware is the latest/newest and enjoy that 4.5k WS goodness.

Also worth considering upgrading to the 1.8" SSD module/REDmags as they give you huge runtime compared to the 16gb CF cards and don't drop frames like the REDdrive.

[Troy Grundstad]

Been on the lookout for a 1.8" SSD Module along with some other goodies, Ill leave a list below. But im surprised by the low usage and how prestine it looks. It only has 556 Hours of usage (Powered on) and as far as what ive come to find thats good, as if it would have been a bad make it would fail before its initial 4-500 hours of use. So this should theoretically be "proven" im in dire need of some propper PL Glass (Cooke, Zeiss, Fujinon or Arri signature Primes) but thats going to cost a kidney.

Im contemplating CNCing a new body for my Old 50mm Nikkor F1.4 lens just to fit matteboxes, have geared focus and aperature, ive allready had it apart and declicked the aperature. Its not perfect by any strech of the imagination, but i won it on an ebay auction for £30 and have restored it to its full glory! Ill leave a screenshot of how the footage looks in REDCINE-X Pro

What i still need to aquire:

#SDI Breakout box
#RED ONE 1.8" REDMAG SSD MODULE
#RED ONE TOP HANDLE
#2 x 128 GB REDMAG
#REDMAG READER USB 3.0
#Canon EF Mount (Plans to build a remote system for use with the L glass i have from my DLSR days)


Here is a Screenshot of the nikkor performance (super shit quality on this .jpg, ill see if i can render it out as a video preview)

[Nick_Brown]

Congratulations!

My recommendation would be to keep it as light and simple as possible. Your Nikon mount will go a long way towards that. Take ever piece of metal you aren't using off of the camera and watch the lbs melt away. Don't spend a lot of money on a shoulder rig (like I did). Even the slimmest of them will raise the center of gravity too high. Instead, buy the longest quick release plate you can find for your tripod so that you have an even surface, and rest it on your shoulder (wear a hoodie and pull the hood to the side for a cushion if it's too uncomfortable). Speaking of tripods, get a 100mm fluid head that can support the weight of this camera. Vinten and Libec heads can be found for cheap on eBay. Bogen 3066 will hold the weight of the camera but won't give you very smooth pans or tilts (haven't tried one myself but this is what I keep hearing).

I haven't seen an SSD module for sale since I bought my camera 8 months ago. You may have to buy a second body that has one.

Use the IPP2 pipeline and the free Red LUTs: https://support.red.com/hc/en-us/art...-LUT-Downloads

Join the Red One Facebook group. It ebbs and flows but sometimes people share interesting things on there.

[Björn Benckert]

Its a nice camera but dont put too much into it. Quickly you will spend a lot of money that could have bought you a smaller / more modern camera.

But yes, the HDD media solution works well. Roy Andersen is still using his R1 with hard drives and he still win some of the most nobel prices in film making. And yes the camera is so big so having a hard drive on it does not make much difference and you can always record on cards, the difference in compression between cards and SSD is there but not big enough to chase down a SSD module usually you need to buy a full body to get one, people are usually not letting go of the module alone, but you can be lucky to find someone with a dead redone that wants to sell.

Batteries, most Vlocks today are better than the old red bricks that did not have Dtap and was simply not the best of batteries. So try find good high surge batteries for a good price.

Regarding light. I think Fincher rated it to be a 400ISO wihtout his motion mount and 250iso with his special motion mount.

[Steve Sherrick]

Keep it lean and mean. You'll enjoy.