Originally Posted by
Ben Goldenberg
Anyway I went with my gut and ordered the camera nevertheless.
Camera arrives - and here are the following surprises that someone, not so well versed in CINE camera's discovered.
1) The basic production package that cost me nearly 2000 had only one handle!!!!!! yes - it's in the picture but whose really paying attention, surely every damn person spending this kind of chedder needs two handles!
2) The redrock shouldermount and follow-focus I ordered for almost 1200 dollars don't work with the red - the follow focus needs 15mm rods (rods who knew) and the shoulder mount buckles under the weight of the camera. Several hundred more in adapters to utilize the follow focus.
3) There is no AC adapter. Sort of like buying a car without a key. You pay for the car and then they say oh and don't forget we need another $200 bucks to turn it on.
4) There was no manual, sorry let me rephrase - the manual was green. “To save the environment” they put it online.... Yet my 17,500 honda came with a leatherbound manual.
5) When I placed the RED on my manfrotto 503 tripod head it seemed to work... for about a week until I stripped all the gears - yes - the camera looked really small on the website, but alas - it is damn heavy - so all
of my support gear was rendered useless - my 503 was trashed, my jib arm was useless as well as my steadicam and my car mount etc... so I spend another 1600 and upgrade to the 526 (manfrotto claims it can handle
the red) my 526 is essentially the cheapest tripod that can hold the red, which it barely does, sort of iike a mini cooper pulling a trailer full of hummers (H1's). Nevertheless $1600 I never wanted or intended on spending.
6) Focus - my sony pd150 which lasted for ten years without a hitch (and came with a monitor, battery and AC ADAPTER) had led me to believe that everything I filmed that wasn't 16mm was easy to shoot. Basically – on the red sensor anything I shot required a camera assistant or ten times more FOCUS. Made my kind of guerilla shooting much more difficult. This isn’t red’s fault – it’s just an aspect of shooting on a big sensor which has made the camera great for some shoots and terrible for others.
7) My camera arrived and recorded the worst audio I had ever heard. I was told at this point – after asking, not ordering – that the audio boards were crap and were going to be replaced. In the order that we ordered the camera – in other words I had to wait for 2339 people to get served before me. And in Other words I just paid 17,000 for a Honda and it arrived with a broken sound system and instead of fixing it for me I had to wait for 2400 other people – then I need to send my camera back across the boarder to be repaired!!! I assure you, I never would have taken the camera if I knew about this problem.
8) CF Reader was essentially required – I had intended on recording to a red drive only – apparently this was necessary – another 500 bucks.
8) Rendering has been a nightmare – my red arrived and the 4000 dollar PowerPC mac I had purchased a year and a half earlier wouldn’t work with red software – cause red requires the intel processor to work – BAM – I spend another 5000 on a desktop and 2400 on a laptop. The early redcine is disgustingly unfinished – course it is, they were busy making other camera’s – but it does something unbelievable – Right on set I can do a one-light color correction with the footage PLAYING!!! Clients are blown away and so am I. But still a day of shooting takes a day to several days to render – eating away at my energy bill and time. Then to make things better some dude releases crimson workflow – a pathetically complicated, ugly and buggy way to offline edit and then render my footage afterwards – costs 300 bucks more – screws up two jobs. So, then red did something that blew my mind – they release the redrocket and redcine – x. The redrocket was a 5000 card promising to render lightning fast and redcine – x a complete upgrade. Well here’s the lowdown – redcine – x no longer grades with the footage playing! Further more, when I tried to re-install the old red-cine which I loved so dearly despite its bugs – the computer didn’t let me – Something, or someone, was keeping me from going back. So basically to get the same performance I would have to shell out another 5000 on a card. I was about to, until and editor friend of mine told me she had one at her office and the results were not impressive (although to be fair I’ve heard from others that it is great – again – it’s like being sold a Honda and then being told afterwards – hey you know how your car takes 200 hours to get you where your old car got you in real-time – pay us 1/3rd of the cost of your vehicle and we’ll give you a little boost that will make it run the way it is supposed to.
9) Proprietary Cords: Worst part of the red. Cords are made by red – cords are crappy and break all the time, as are the battery mounts – you cannot go to the store and buy new cords you must order them from RED and more often than not they are back-ordered. Does this sound conducive to the rigorous world of being on a set? I was forced to replace several cords, bars and handles – just to make the camera run – this cost me another, let’s say $4000 – including a “break-out-box” from element technica – which is basically a 700 plus duty and shipping accessory that allows you to plug in a monitor. So essentially, my Honda came with European plugs and then I had to purchase an adapted (after literally breaking 9 35 dollar monitor adapter cords that had to be purchased through red)
10) The iso was crap on the camera – virtually useless without lights – my sony pd150 could shoot in darker rooms.
Finally, Red offers an upgrade program – cause they are fulfilling their promise to keep obsolesce obsolete. I can basically pay 10,500 dollars more (plus duty and shipping and tax etc…) to get the epic. I think, great – I have to spend another 11,000 that I don’t have. I have to cause half of my rentals are being lost to mx-sensors and freaking Mark 2’s. So I figure screw it, I’m already hooked, I’ll do the upgrade. Then, my red drive starts acting wonky. I go online to see if there is any info on the problem I’m having – low and behold the reddrive has been discontinued. Conveniently replaced by ssd’s that require a new port on the camera and a reader for the computer – I priced the readers and two cards to cost about 6 grand…
So. If I upgrade to Epic I spend the following: 11,000 plus duty and shipping for the upgrade. 5-7 grand for the ssd’s and then, I should hazard a guess – another 4-10 grand for basic accessories and adapters just to make the camera work: Cheeseplates, cords, monitors, handles, rods, rod adapters etc.. so that would be in
A best case scenario another 20,000 and a worst case – 28,000 +
Let’s not forget my original loan for 35,000 ended up being about 60 with all the new tripod’s and computers and breakout boxes. (plus interest) So with another 20-28 (we’ll say 24) I’ve now spent 84,000. Let’s go back three years:
I’m unemployed. I’m a starving artists. A magical paintbrush is dangled in front of me – for the low price of 84,000 I can have it… This is my point. What started as a Honda has become a Porsche. In fact I saw an Astin Martin, slightly used last week for 50 g’s. So check this out.
Ben + Epic = 84,000 debt and basically the best camera in the world so all of my art is pretty.
Ben sells Red and buys Astin Martin = Ben is knee deep in tail until the car dies – In debt yes, but the tail makes it worthwhile.
Ben sells red buys Astin Martin for 50 and a sony super35mm camera for 5 grand. The camera works on his tripod – has a viewfinder AND a monitor built on – no proprietary parts. Accessories available locally – takes all his Nikon lenses with a cheap adapter. NO RENDERING. NO BS. Ben rents his package for 300-500 a day (same as he got for the red). Ben does not have the best camera in the world – but a damn awesome one – yet still gets the tail cause he purchased the Astin(This is metaphorical tail – just incase my wonderful girlfriend reads this lol).
Summary.
If you are very rich and money doesn’t matter but 2 epics and shoot a movie in 3d. If you are like most indie guys – The Epic is by far the best – but let me ask you something, considering that 99.98 percent of what we shoot ends up online or on dvd and not in the theatre? Do we really need 4k? and furthermore – if for the price of the stupid RED ROCKET I can purchase an entire camera package from sony that has a bigger sensor than Battlestar Gallactica had and the same resolution as Jar Jar Binks than why wouldn’t I sell my camera?
Red had me with the upgrade – they lost me with the SSD’s – The SSD’s reminded me that there is always a catch ordering something that I can’t play with or purchase locally… My indieslider claimed it could hold a ton – it flexes under my red $700 down the toilet. I think I’ll sell my red – get out of debt – purchase a sony for fun and then 5 years from now when the scarlet comes out – I’ll buy the cheapest one. Or, if the recent trends (sony, Panasonic 4/3’s, canon mark 2 etc) keep getting better, I’ll just stick with them… Oh and finally, let’s not forget that red must be doing something with all the Red One’s that are being upgraded – Can anyone say BATTLE TESTED – they’re gonna sell red ones for 5-9 grand on the website – Maybe if it’s not too outdated by then I’ll buy one.
Well, I hope that answered your question, it took me nearly 2 hours to write lol.
Cheers.
Let me know what you think?
11-06-2011, 01:47 AM
