On RED after talking with industry veteran.

[planet e]

everyone who shoots video for broadcast should already know the importance of protecting highlights, using NDs, polas, etc. or adding sky replacements. these are common video issues, rudi, and it's smart to spend a little time with your camera before you shoot to print.

you're sounding the alarms pretty loudly over stuff that is fairly commonplace. no one ever said this was a camera for beginners. but protecting the highlights in outdoors shooting is normal stuff! there's a reason that they call it Magic Hour....

instead of getting worked about what the camera can and cannot do, you should get really ready to deal with its limitations. no camera on the planet is without them. it's like a musician blaming a baritone saxophone for not hitting the high notes.

[MalcomXB]

-- afterall, people shoot gorgeous beach footage on regular HD cameras all the time, and the latitude with those cameras is probably less than a RED camera has.

i just shot a panasonic hpx3000 along side a red, the hpx3000 had more highlight and shadow detail maybe 2-3 stops. but it is almost twice the cost.

X

[Rudi Herbert]

these are common video issues, rudi, you're sounding the alarms pretty loudly over stuff that is fairly commonplace. no one ever said this was a camera for beginners. but protecting the highlights in outdoors shooting is normal stuff! there's a reason that they call it Magic Hour....
instead of getting worked about what the camera can and cannot do, you should get really ready to deal with its limitations. no camera on the planet is without them. it's like a musician blaming a baritone saxophone for not hitting the high notes.

I know the limitations of video, I've shot plenty of it, I just expected RED, and still expect, to behave better than the average video camera. The footage I saw exhibited real bad clipping, the kind that even a lesser camera could avoid, and as I said, I don't know whether it was caused by improper metering or what. But it was there. I've also said that I'm putting my faith on RED and have put down reservations for 3 cameras. Now, as I'll be renting the camera for a couple of quick projects first, I can't afford to spend time getting to know it, so I just hope the camera can deliver the image that is capable of without time consuming tweaking, that's all...Magic hour is the last hour before sunset last time I checked, what I saw was not filmed at that time.

[Rudi Herbert]

i just shot a panasonic hpx3000 along side a red, the hpx3000 had more highlight and shadow detail maybe 2-3 stops. but it is almost twice the cost. X

And if that's true, that's concerning to say the least. Regardless what the Panasonic costs, it's still a 2/3'' sensor against a 4K Mysterium, and there's no way RED should be inferior to such a camera. That's all, I don't expect RED to handle like film, but at the very least to match the performance of existing 1080i camcorders out there. Is it doing that on a regular basis or only when handled by somebody who knows the camera in and out because they own it?