Red Cinema Camera's for Underwater?

[Bodie]

With Red announcing their new lines, Gates developing a (ridiculously) expensive housing for the RED ONE, and hearing of several home brewed housings for it, my question is this:

Is shooting 2k, 4k on a fully digital cinema platform worth it?

I'm also curious the feature set of swappable broadcast quality level lenses, global shutter, & direct encoding, but wonder if they justify the size and cost of running a setup like this over say a compact Sony or Cannon in a small, easy traveling housing.

As a further topic of discussion:
When the Gates housing is released it will be rentable with a camera. If you didn't have to have the startup costs would that then justify running a setup like this?

[Jonathan Bird]

The RED is really a camera for someone interested in feature film work. To shoot it underwater is much more like shooting an old Arriflex film camera than a modern video camera. The biggest hurdle for most video shooters would be that you get no auto-iris (exposure) so if you tilt the camera towards the surface and the exposure changes 4 stops, you need to manually stop down the lens as you tilt. Not easy....requires practice...and you will likely miss a lot of shots. Autofocus for you hyper lazy shooters? No way. Then there is the massive media management issue dumping and backing up hard drives full of RAW files. Huge computational requirements for rendering the RAW files...

What Pierre and I concluded after careful analysis of the RED system for underwater work was that while it is most certainly the state of the art in terms of image quality (4k!!!) you need a larger crew to support the camera in a production environment and the 4K files are only really necessary in a feature film environment. Anywhere else it's overkill.

Sure, it would be nice in theory to shoot everything for my TV show in 4K so I could also sell the stock footage in a format that Hollywood could use in features, but the effort is well beyond the likely return on the investment in equipment, personnel, and time that it would add to my production bottom line.

It is way cool though!

Jonathan

[Jonathan Bird]

The housing is out:

http://www.backscatter.com/HostedStore.LassoApp?-ResponseLassoApp=detail.lasso&ID=a466b60aab839020&s2op=cn&s2=Video&s3op=cn&s3=Housings&s6op=cn&s6=Shop&sop=AND&sf=Price&so=Descending&

[sorvju-f]

The housing is out:

http://www.backscatter.com/HostedStore.LassoApp?-ResponseLassoApp=detail.lasso&ID=a466b60aab839020&s2op=cn&s2=Video&s3op=cn&s3=Housings&s6op=cn&s6=Shop&sop=AND&sf=Price&so=Descending&

Ultra high definition...wow and only USD 23900 and after that you have to buy camera also...and lights...and...

Is there some program to do editing for 4K RAW 12 bit?

I am still considering...:D

Jukka

[Jonathan Bird]

Yeah, you need a RED camera, which will cost you $20K with no lens, viewfinder, hard drive or batteries. You are looking at ~$75K+ for this system ready to dive.

You can edit with Final Cut but you will need some serious hard drives and the fastest Mac that money can buy.

Unfortunately, you can only deliver the finished film as a digital file! There are no tape formats supporting the 4K signal that I know of. Primary users of this camera will be producing stuff to be projected theatrically either electronically or after conversion to film. The RED camera is becoming pretty popular in Hollywood for film-less production of movies. It's an amazing camera, but fully manual.

Jonathan

[sorvju-f]

Yeah, you need a RED camera, which will cost you $20K with no lens, viewfinder, hard drive or batteries. You are looking at ~$75K+ for this system ready to dive.
Jonathan

I have tho consider even more:D

Jukka

[tkelly]

Red is planning a modular system, with a more affordable low end that does 3k (~$2500) and can be configured as an SLR. The camera can swap out the chip. Red is planning a range of chips from 3k up to 28k. You can find some additional information here:
http://i.gizmodo.com/5085242/red-unloads-modular-cameras-a-dslr-3d-and-28k
The modular system, I think is a great idea. But when you have to place a camera in a housing it defeats the flexibility.
I would not get all excited by the pixel count of the Red camera, there is a lot more to a good image than how many pixels it has. However, there is no denying that the camera is a great value for the money.
There is a good technical review of the camera and it’s place in the high end of film here: http://rcjohnso.com/REDFACTS.html
The final delivery for most RED users seems to be either going out to HDCAM-SR or to a film scanner. Adobe and Avid, and most editors that supports QuickTime can be used for editing.
Personally I am more excited about the introduction of HD video capture from an SLR and the introduction of 3D camera systems and housings such as http://www.bskinetics.com/fr/fr_news.html
The major studios are rapidly adopting 3d. There are a few reasons for this. Foremost is the studio hope to get people back into the theatre for an experience that they cannot get with their home theater. The second reason is to combat piracy. With 3d, a person with a video camera can't simply record and bit torrent your film.
So if you want to really be cutting edge, you would strap two RED cameras together in a custom housing. Then you will be moving a quality amount of data.

[Jonathan Bird]

Excellent post Todd!

So true about 3D. A lot of people are making a big move to make more 3D movies to get people into theatres. Problem is that 3D is draining on your eyes. I often come from a 3D Imax movie with a headache. I wonder if the public really wants 2 hour dramas in 3D.

However, you heard it here first. I'm predicting that Howard Hall's next 3D Imax film with be shot with a pair of Reds. I have no inside knowledge, it just seems to be the way its going to go. I think 4K is plenty of pixels for Imax, but the aspect ratio of the Red is 16:9 and the aspect of Imax is 4:3, so something will have to be done either with cropping, scaling or anamorphic lenses.

Jonathan

[sorvju-f]

Excellent post Todd!

So true about 3D. A lot of people are making a big move to make more 3D movies to get people into theatres. Problem is that 3D is draining on your eyes. I often come from a 3D Imax movie with a headache. I wonder if the public really wants 2 hour dramas in 3D.

However, you heard it here first. I'm predicting that Howard Hall's next 3D Imax film with be shot with a pair of Reds. I have no inside knowledge, it just seems to be the way its going to go. I think 4K is plenty of pixels for Imax, but the aspect ratio of the Red is 16:9 and the aspect of Imax is 4:3, so something will have to be done either with cropping, scaling or anamorphic lenses.

Jonathan

To me it looks like that this RED is breaking the rules...to normal UW-user they are still absolutely too expensive...but it tells something about development.

I haven't seen anything in 3D so I can not say anything about that.

Jukka

[tkelly]

Excellent post Todd!

So true about 3D. A lot of people are making a big move to make more 3D movies to get people into theaters. Problem is that 3D is draining on your eyes. I often come from a 3D Imax movie with a headache. I wonder if the public really wants 2 hour dramas in 3D.

However, you heard it here first. I'm predicting that Howard Hall's next 3D Imax film with be shot with a pair of Reds. I have no inside knowledge, it just seems to be the way its going to go. I think 4K is plenty of pixels for Imax, but the aspect ratio of the Red is 16:9 and the aspect of Imax is 4:3, so something will have to be done either with cropping, scaling or anamorphic lenses.

Jonathan



The newest systems, which are not in many theaters have a refresh rate of a 120Hz, this allows 60Hz for each eye. I believe what most theaters are still projecting for 3D is at just 60Hz. It makes big difference in visual perception. But this is changing. The 120+Hz systems look rather amazing, but because of the polarized shutter glasses, it does feel like you are watching a movie with sunglasses on. If the contrast ratio of the newer projectors can be cranked up, the sunglass effect will be reduced. There are big changes coming. The major studio are expecting to release over 10 3d films this year.
There is a race going on for who has the better projection technology. That accounts for much of the difference in experience.

This article will give you some high level details:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9821709-39.html

-Todd

[Neptune7]

It not for the quality, it's to make a new product to bring back people to the cinema theater...
Pierre

[Jonathan Bird]

Absolutely. Home theatre is SO good these days!

[scubagirl]

FYI: I saw this posted on another forum:

"World's First RED ONE™ Underwater Video Boot Camp"

http://www.prodiveusa.com/red_one_boot_camp.html

[Pre BC]

There is a Red One Underwater Bootcamp featuring Gates housings coming up on May 4-10 at Pro Dive in Fort Lauderdale. For less than the price of a 2 day Red One rental (without housing)you can spend a week learning and shooting the Red One underwater. The instructors are coming from around the world and are all award winning underwater directors and cinematographers. The link I found for it is:

http://www.prodiveusa.com/red_one_boot_camp.html

I am new to the forum, is there a thread dedicated to educational programs, seminars, bootcamps etc.? If not, we should start one!

P

[sorvju-f]

There is a Red One Underwater Bootcamp featuring Gates housings coming up on May 4-10 at Pro Dive in Fort Lauderdale. For less than the price of a 2 day Red One rental (without housing)you can spend a week learning and shooting the Red One underwater. The instructors are coming from around the world and are all award winning underwater directors and cinematographers. The link I found for it is:

http://www.prodiveusa.com/red_one_boot_camp.html

I am new to the forum, is there a thread dedicated to educational programs, seminars, bootcamps etc.? If not, we should start one!

P

Wellcome Pre BC!

I feel that this chat is constructed by members and you now as a member can start the thread you feel important for examble under discussions " Micellaneous " just by clicking "New thread"-button top of the page.

Jukka