The RED camera, from Jim Jannard (founder and CEO of Oakley), is now available for purchase. If you can afford it, the 12,065,000 pixel-capable camera can be yours for $17,500, and that’s for the camera body only. For an additional $1,250 you can compliment your camera with a mount, handle, shoulder pad and cradle. Oh, and don’t forget a lens. They come individually, ranging from $4,950 to $8,500.
But seriously, price aside, this has to be one of the most important innovations in digital cinema to date. Just take a look at some of the video samples posts on the RED site. They are breathtaking. You’ve never seen such high detail and contrast from a camera before. The images are truly life-like. I can’t wait for this camera to become the standard for digital cinema.
The RED camera’s modular design.
And, if like most digital cameras, will come bundled with a 16 mb memory card. 🙂
Please don’t get carried away by all Jannard’s B.S.and the Cult of the RED God:-)
Apart from some very restricted testing with heavily selected release of images, nobody has had the chance to independently test a RED.
Not a single RED has come off the production Line as yet, all there are is a very small number of hand-built protototypes.
I know the internet is awash with people talking as though they have used a RED or seen real-world pictures from one; none of them has.
The closest thing to a real-world demonstration was a short film shot by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) in New Zealand and only shown at the NAB trade show earlier this year.
Nobody outside of RED has ever seen RED images transferred to film or digitally projected in a normal sized cinema.
The production schedule keeps getting pushed back, and to date Jul 29 2007, nobody has any idea when the first order will be actually delivered, how well it will actually work, and how reliable it will be.
The RED is far from a done deal.
Also it is far from unique, other manufacturers have produced similar cameras, none has been commercially successful.
APART from all that,the RED is not really a “4K” camera. The Bayer filtered 12 megapixel sensor produces an output closer to 2K. (Horizontally it only has about 2,000 green, 1,000 red and 1,000 blue filtered sensors).
By comparison, a “4K” scan from film has 4,000 EACH of red, green and blue. Calling a Bayer filter sensor with only 4,000 raw pixels total output “4K” is willfully misleading.
Supposedly the REDCODE signal processing magically replaces the pixel shortfall by some unknown “algorithm” but we have heard that story so many times it ceased to be funny some time ago:-)
The RED is nothing more than an ordinary HDTV camera that they are trying to pretend is a replacement for 35mm film. It isn’t. I has nowhere near the resolution or dynamic range of film.
(When I say “isn’t” I have to assume it isn’t, since it doesn’t yet exist in anything but prototype form!)