Tonaci Tran just picked up the very first Scarlet-X from RED headquarters! More Scarlet-Xs with PL mounts (instead of the aluminum Canon mount) shipped out yesterday so we may see more Scarlet unboxing later in the day.
RED News
Scarlet is finally ready to ship. Some will actually be ready to ship on Nov. 17th if you don’t need the aluminum Canon mount but the regular packages will start shipping on Dec. 1st.
- Scarlet is now a 4k S35mm camera that ships with the electronic Canon mount for $9,975. It can also shoot 5k stills at up to 12fps.
- You can read a lot of the details about Scarlet here: http://www.scarletuser.com/showpost.php?p=90187&postcount=4
We have made quite a few posts about when Epic was supposed to ship but now it looks like the actual moment has come. Jim Jannard just posted on reduser that Epic-X will finally start shipping next week with large quantities going out by the 2nd week of Sep.
“Always late but worth the wait”… at some point “late” turns into “now”. “Now” is next week.
Jim
The RED Epic camera brain now weighs under 4 lbs. RED just announced they made some changes to the heat sink and were able to shave half a pound off the weight of the Epic brain.
We haven’t posted any updates on Scarlet recently because there really wasn’t much to report. The current situation for both Epic and Scarlet is that RED is just waiting for parts to replace the ones made by factories that got swept away in the Japan tsunami.
Some good news is trickling in, however. Jarred Land just posted an image of an army of fixed lens Scarlets that they are testing internally.
Jim Jannard announced that James Cameron just bought 50 Epic-M cameras. That is a $3 million dollar vote of confidence from a guy who can buy any camera in the world. Cameron joins the trend of high end directors buying hordes of their own cameras: Peter Jackson recently bought 30 Epic cameras for his 3 year Hobbit shoot.
The first Epic-M camera just shipped out to Mark L. Pederson of Offhollywood! more…
This means our Epic-Ms will be available any day now. We will have 3 of the first 10 shipping from RED. Contact us to get on the rental reservation list.
RED and Element Technica are building a 3D rig specifically for the Epic camera called the Atom. It is designed to work with the minimalistic style of the Epic brain and will have an AJA Hi5 multiplexor and Gen10 units built in negating the need for on rig cables.
RED EPIC ATOM 3D RIG – FIRST LOOK – ELEMENT TECHNICA NEUTRON SCARLET 3D RIG from Tonaci Tran on Vimeo.
Tonaci Tran and I got to play with the 8x fixed lens Scarlet at RED Studios Hollywood today. Jarred confirmed that Tonaci was the first non-RED employee to hold a working Scarlet.
Check out the video below.
The fixed Scarlet had a CF module, side handle and 5″ touch screen LCD attached. Everything was functional, Tonaci was zooming in and out using the rocker on the side handle and focusing with the ring on the lens.
The brain has an HDMI output but no HDSDI unlike the Epic.
The Scarlet definitely felt lighter than the Epic we got to play with (with a Canon 85mm) even with the fixed zoom.
Red Scarlet Fixed Lens Camera – First video of a working Scarlet ! from Tonaci Tran on Vimeo.
Jim Jannard has just confirmed that Spider-Man started shooting in stereo 3D on 4 x Epic-M cameras today. They will shoot for 3 months using 3ality’s TS-5 rig, Epic-Ms and Zeiss Ultra Primes. Cinematographer John Schwartzman ASC has been posting on reduser about his experience using the Epic-Ms on the 3ality stereo rig. Re-calibration with 3ality and Epic apparently only takes 5-10 minutes and allows them to get about 22 3d setups per day. The lightweight combination also works great on Steadicam. They are shooting 2.40 at 5k. Here is what Schwartzman had to say about the image quality:
The images we made today were stunning, rich beautiful color and the resolution of a vistavision camera all in a package the size of a Hasselblad 501.
- Cinematographer: John Schwartzman
- Director: Marc Webb
- DIT: Brook Willard
- Post Production: Michael Cioni and Light Iron Digital
RED has decided to move the S35 Scarlet into the Epic lineup. The features of the S35 Scarlet were too close to the Epic so RED decided the lineup would make more sense if Scarlet referred to the 2/3″ cameras and Epic to S35 and up. The features and price will change and RED will announce exactly how in a couple weeks. Jim has said it will ship in 2011.
The Epic lineup now consists of the Epic-S, Epic-X and Epic-M. Epic-S (for standard, or S35 Scarlet) will be the Epic with basic features. Epic-X is now the high end Epic anyone can buy (it used to be a special package deal for RED One owners). Epic-M has the exact same features as Epic-X but is being hand machined while RED builds up it’s production capabilities. It comes with hand machined modules and will be the first Epic to ship.
This does not effect the 2/3″ fixed Scarlet or interchangeable. Jim has said they are both right on the heels of Epic.
Jim Jannard has just announced that Peter Jackson will be shooting “The Hobbit” in 3D on 30 RED Epic cameras and 3ality TSl-5 3D rigs. Principle photography starts early 2011. read more…
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Cinematographer: Andrew Lesnie
Here is a pic of Jackson testing out the Epic camera:
Jim Jannard has just announced that Epic is officially ready for production. RED will now begin ordering the 18,000 parts per camera and start putting Epics together. 95% of the announced features are solid and ready to go when they ship.
EPIC was officially declared ready for production today. We have prototypes that pass all the requirements we set out the past few months. That means we will finish the Tattoo program and put Tattoos on special jobs and begin ordering all the parts and pieces (over 18,000) to begin production. It will take a bit of time to set up the line and gather all we need, but the end is in sight.
Just to be clear, not every feature is currently enabled, but the most important ones are and the build seems very stable as a foundation. We expect 95% of the features to be ready by the time production EPICs are released.
This is a pretty big day.
Jim
Jannard just announced that RED has decided to add HDRx and Magic Motion to the Scarlet lineup. They will are adding extra boards to the Scarlet brains to process this extra data and this will raise the cost by $1,000 for all versions. Apparently this will only add a very small delay to the shipping date.
Jannard says that after testing HDRx and Magic Motion in the field they realized that it was revolutionary and didn’t want to leave it out of the Scarlet lineup.
RED has released the first HDRx motion footage (right click and save as to download) and it looks amazing. RED has measured HDRx to at least 18 stops on the chart. HDRx is recorded as two streams (twice the data rate) of footage that are then combined in post using Redcine-X. HDRx manipulation will also be in the SDK so we should see it in pretty much every NLE. There is another version called EasyHDR which is done in camera with no hit to the data rate.
RED also has a new motion mode called “Magic Motion“. The effect of Magic Motion is to basically get rid of the stutter in fast pans that is inherent to all digital cameras. Objects that have motion blur also appear more “present”. You really get a sense of this in the “blonde twirling rod” video. A “More Normal Motion Blur” (MNMB) will also be available with HDRx and easyHDR. MNMB is being developed in co-operation with “The Foundry” (the guys who make “Nuke”).
HDRx motion clips. Right click and “save as” to download:
Adam Wilt got a personal demonstration of HDRx from Jannard and has done a fantastic write up here: www.provideocoalition.com/red_visit_21_september_hdrx
Here are some of the details of the HDR motion mode:
- HDRx max framerate: 48fps
- HDRx can record to RED drives up to a certain REDcode
- When shooting HDRx you can chose to use only one of the two streams if you decide you don’t want HDR
- HDRx is not blending disconnected images
- No data rate hit for EasyHRD
- Extra boards are being added to the Scarlet line so that they can do HDRx as well. Each brain will now be $1,000 more.
Here are some stills pulled from HDRx footage. Click images for higher resolution:
Here are some more examples of HDRx RED has posted. The first image in each sequence is the normal exposure, the second is the X track, and the third is the two combined into an HDR image.
