On Dec31th the camera got out of customs, so I had two day to play with the new baby. Yes, it‘s a great camera! No doubt, it‘s well worth the money, and yes, I will be very happy to start working with it. First pictures are looking great and the whole concept is awesome.
And, of course it is amazing you guys at Red pulled this off...
but....
... I have encountered some strange issues, which I really wasn‘t expecting on such a high end professional tool. Am I the only one here? Any info from other „new“ camera owners of the December delivery is highly apprechiated.
1) PL-Mount:
The shipped PL mount is not a stainless steel mount as shown in the picture Jarred took. It is still anodized aluminium, with a strong tendency to stick and block. It makes strange sounds when turned and feels very (!) different to what is common on a Arricam, 435, Aaton or whatsoever. I had a chance to check out #44 a few months ago, which had the same issue and therefor I finally was very happy, the new mount wasn‘t using anodized aluminium rubbing against anodized aluminium anymore. But it still is, at least on #112.
There is a long dissusion about the i/ and LDS contacts going on. If Red has decided to discontinue to ship cameras with those contacts a note in the manual about this would have been helpful. To me it looked like the contacts have been simply „forgotten“ in the assembly.
2) Loose Battery mounting plate on Cradle
The battery plate was not fixed on the Cradle (not on the Red Quickplate). You could pull it off about 2mm from the aluminium plate. If anyone encounters something similar: don‘t try to turn in the screws. They are about 2mm too long!!! I punched a hole in the back side of the plate by turning it in and ruined a second screw on which the head broke off. The only thing is: take the screws out and shorten them about 2mm or get shorter ones.
Here is a clip: http://www.ready2roll.de/Player/Studio/Redbattery.html
3) Battery Lock on Quickplate
The lock on the battery plate is not preventing the battery from falling out of the mount. A fairly small pressure is enough to push the red brick out off it‘s locked position in the V-mount.
We‘re talking about professional cine gear here! I don‘t like to see the battery falling off in a middle of a hand held shot... (For some reason it is only happening on the Quickplate and not on the Red Cradle).
In general all batteries feel pretty loose in the V-mounts on every Red Mounting plate (but this has been dissused already in various threads).
4) Side-Handles
I got one top handle and 2 side handles. One side handle shipped with no end ring. It didn‘t came of, it was just not there.
5) Not enough grip of the Side Handles on the Red Handle Mount
No matter how hard the bolts are tighten these is still a slip of the side handles on the 19mm shaft of the Red handle mount. It is definitly not tight enough for handheld operation. I brought this up at IBC in September when I had the camera on the shoulder, and was told that this is known and worked on. Handles for the Arricam allways have latch washers on all (!) angles that can be adjusted. It can be really dangerous if the handle can‘t be fixed in wilder handheld situations.
6) Manual:
I received a manual for the battery and the charger but none for the camera itself. If it wasn‘t finished by the time the shipping went out, a simple note would have helped.
I tripple checked all boxes before I finally downloaded the current version from red.com.
7) LCD luminance banding:
My LCD shows a strong banding in luminance, with clearly visible steps on grades. This is nothing I have encountered on other LCD like Transvideo etc. Unfortunatelly I couldn‘t get a picture of this, because contrast and a moiree made it hard to take a photo here. I might put it later.
One side note concerning the lenses:
I asked Kelly to please keep all lenses on hold until there is are metric versions for the scales available. It is somehow frustrating not beeing informed from Red if and when there will be metric scales avaiable. To have metric available can‘t be such a big problem at all.
I know for sure ACs won‘t accept feet-scales here and I will not go to put a marked tape on a brand new lens. It may not me a big deal for Red if they sell a few lenses to me, but it upsets me, that the high demand in metric scales is simply ignored.
Saying all of this, I still would like to point out one thing:
No, I don‘t want my money back... (I might think of returning the batteries and the handle mount with the handles. But still I want to say it‘s a great camera).
But shipping cameras with such obivious odd things makes me somehow nervous, thinking of the really sophisticated parts inside. My feeling is, if Red wants to push up the amount of cameras shipped every month, a serious improvement in quality control is required.
Maybe this is all just pure conincidence, some sort of a „early monday morning assembly“. I really hope so. Let me know what your experience is.
Thanks,
Sebastian
Originally Posted by chuck colburn
