[HN Gopher] Nikon to acquire RED
___________________________________________________________________
Nikon to acquire RED
Author : gaoryrt
Score : 541 points
Date : 2024-03-07 07:01 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nikon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nikon.com)
| esafak wrote:
| Red was a revolution when it came out in 2007, offering 4K for
| under $20K! When I heard the announcement of its development I
| wondered how a guy who made sunglasses was going to pull it off.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Yeah I thought it was a scam. To be fair some of the most
| ridiculous things they announced when they put up the website,
| like the IMAX camera with a sensor that would basically take a
| wafer end to end to cut, didn't come out.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| I wonder if they will relax scrutiny of use of CinemaDNG, or
| honestly if Nikon produced CDNG that would be cool.
| chaosprint wrote:
| first reaction is that in we will see raw inside nikon internal
| recording soon
| hnenjoyer_93 wrote:
| Z8 and Z9 already record 8K60 12 bit RAW internally, but of
| course more cameras joining the list is welcome
| andy_ppp wrote:
| This could actually be pretty interesting, don't RED have a
| patent on compressed raw video? I'm amazed that this patent is
| allowed but I guess we'll see Nikon cameras with more advanced
| video features and probably increased difficulty offering ProRes
| compressed raw for other manufacturers. I hate software patents
| so much.
| dagmx wrote:
| Yeah I think this will be huge for in-body RAW.
|
| I think Nikon is more likely to play patent licensing than REzd
| and we'll see more ProRes RAW offerings going forward.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Yeah, RED tried to sue Nikon over it:
|
| https://petapixel.com/2023/04/27/reds-lawsuit-against-nikon-...
| royjacobs wrote:
| I believe so. Although RED was always being super mysterious
| and hype-y about it their RedCODE codec is ultimately just
| JPEG2000 so hopefully Nikon can relax this situation somewhat,
| which would be a benefit to all manufacturers.
| dharma1 wrote:
| Doubtful Nikon will relax it, just use it as a cash cow to
| get licensing revenue (like Red has) or as a competitive moat
| if they stop licensing it
| unwind wrote:
| So uh compressed raw would be just like a regular (loss-less)
| compressed image format, then? I thought the distinction
| between raw and non-raw was the use of lossy compression
| formats like JPEG.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| RAW is in linear light. Think spring-fresh, straight from the
| ADC.
|
| JPEG is in perceptual (~log) light. Out of the tap, terrible.
|
| It's also compressed.
|
| There are lossless and lossy compressed RAW formats.
| andybak wrote:
| Wow. The tap water isn't so good, where you are then?
| dagmx wrote:
| RAW doesn't denote compression, contrary to the name.
|
| In Still cameras, it usually means pre-debayering.
|
| On film cameras, it is a little more muddled but usually just
| means linear colourspace and higher bit depth.
| ryandamm wrote:
| In the case of red's patents, the relevant issue for RAW
| compression is that the sensor values are compressed before
| de-bayering. It's still lossy.
| hnenjoyer_93 wrote:
| Interesting that some time ago Red filed a lawsuit against Nikon
| for using a RAW video compression algorithm that Red claimed
| infringed its patents, but later dismissed it:
|
| https://dpreview.com/news/5338402238/red-is-suing-nikon-for-...
|
| https://dpreview.com/news/9301564383/nikon-denies-red-s-laws...
|
| https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/04/28/red-patent-lawsuit-ag...
| 7moritz7 wrote:
| Am I reading this right in that Red has somehow managed to
| patent the idea of compressing 4K RAW footage on device which
| holds up the whole industry?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| the patent is this one:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US7830967B1/en
|
| Which looks like it's patenting debayering. However I'm not a
| patent lawyer so I don't know.
|
| I suspect that Nikon were using something like jpeg2000 to
| store raw frames, and thats why RED were getting all pissy.
| hnenjoyer_93 wrote:
| Maybe, Redcode is based on JPEG2000
|
| https://youtu.be/IJ_uo-x7Dc0
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Maybe, Redcode is based on JPEG2000
|
| Oh it is JPEG2000, I _think_ it used to be stored in a
| tar-like wrapper, but I could be misremembering. however
| It is 100% JPEG2000.
| ryandamm wrote:
| It's patenting compressing the raw photo site values before
| debayering, which saves space and in theory allows for
| better, non-realtime debayering algorithms (more relevant
| when the patent was filed).
| redeeman wrote:
| if its not an actual algorithm, but merely the thought of
| compressing the raw data (im not saying it is/isnt, I
| dont know), then its obviously totally ridiculous, and
| frankly, anyone that would even presume to think one
| should apply for such a patent should just be taken out
| back and disposed of. And then of course the patent
| office aswell
| kamranjon wrote:
| It must be a specific implementation because Black Magic has
| had their own brand of this for years and don't seem to have
| been targeted by RED, though I may be out of the loop on
| something?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Blackmagic raw is actually debayered in the camera, which
| would avoid RED's "compress raw video by color plane"
| patent.
|
| > A drawback of Blackmagic RAW over other RAW formats is
| that it does a partial de-bayer within the camera. This
| means that you are not actually working with fully raw data
| from the camera sensor. According to the Blackmagic website
| the "noise management, sensor profiling and new edge
| reconstruction algorithms" are part of the partial de-
| mosaic.
| bravo22 wrote:
| Not quite. The claims, in the only one I've seen regarding
| RAW compression, are for a specific pre-emphasis curve being
| applied to the raw data, then the raw data being compressed
| and only cover this being done in a video camera.
|
| When looking at a patent check the "Claims" section. An
| infringing device would have to perform those steps in the
| order provided for the patent holder to have a claim.
|
| Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I've had a lot of dealing
| with patents.
| dharma1 wrote:
| They settled out of court, Nikon started paying licensing fees.
| Was confirmed by Jarred on a podcast last year.
|
| Maybe that's what's partially responsible for the acquisition -
| also Red struggling to get market share from Arri Alexa on
| bigger budget productions, and facing pretty stiff competition
| from lower priced cameras by Blackmagic, Sony etc
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Right, its like RED was in the middle market, which is a bad
| place to be in any product/industry. Too expensive for
| consumers, but still not able to command premium pricing from
| top end pros?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Makes sense from a Nikon perspective: I have to pay anyway,
| over period X that amounts to sum Y, put that next the
| acquisition price and the estimatebof how long you want to
| use the tech you are paying for and there is your business
| case.
|
| Plus, you get new business and a new product range you don't
| have yet. That alone justifies an acquisition.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Previous discussion about their legal relationship:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532285
| bayindirh wrote:
| It's good for Nikon, IMO. Canon and Sony both have cine
| equipment. This will level the field.
|
| While I moved to Sony, I don't want to see dominance, but
| competition.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This will level the field? If you think Canon's cine options
| are equal to Red maybe it levels it. However, I think this
| tilts the field away from Canon to Nikon's favor while leaning
| more toward Sony as well than Canon. Maybe Canon can tilt it
| back in their favor if they were to buy Alexa.
| dagmx wrote:
| Canon don't really care about the same cine market. Their
| bread and butter is more documentary, indie and news style
| shoots instead.
|
| They've never shown an interest in competing outside of that.
| bayindirh wrote:
| RED, Canon and Sony's cine equipment fills different niches,
| Sony having the broadest spectrum in the bunch. They're an
| audiovisual company for decades, which can
| handle/design/build the whole pipeline from acquisition to
| production to reproduction.
|
| However, from what I see, Canon is filling a very specific
| niche and they're good at it. RED is the same.
|
| So, it will not level the big three "capability" wise, but
| Nikon will have a hand (and feet) in cine market, which will
| provide them great feedback, development avenues and some
| cash hopefully.
|
| So, they'll be able to compete in one way or another.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Canon absolutely _owns_ the video market, in many ways.
| Different context from RED, but you see Canon DSLR video
| cameras _everywhere_ , especially consumer-level stuff, like
| streamcasters. Most videos you see, by semipro influencers,
| and whatnot, are recorded on Canon kit.
|
| Also, the TV and movie industry makes heavy use of Canon DSLR
| kit for their work.
|
| It's an interesting acquisition, and I wish them luck. The
| rub will be cultural clash. I don't know anything about RED's
| culture, but I know a bit about Nikon's. They are ... _less-
| than-flexible_. Culture clash has been the fly in the
| ointment, for most of Nikon's partnerships.
| prawn wrote:
| I don't work with anyone who's streaming specifically, but
| when shooting tourism content for social media and web
| everyone I've noticed has been Sony - either the Alpha
| bodies, or FX6/FS7 for more career video guys.
|
| What Canon bodies are you thinking of? Something like R5 or
| C70?
| Washuu wrote:
| I am a streamer/content creator: Most of what I encounter
| in order is Sony, Canon, and sometimes time Lumix.
|
| Sony has held the crown for the best auto-focusing system
| for a long time now which for content creators can be
| very important. Canon is also pretty good, but Sony
| really has gone all in making sure their system works
| really well for many scenarios.(People, animals, face and
| eye tracking.) Lumix's auto-focus system is passable and
| only if the lens itself works well with it.
|
| Personally I use a mixture of Sony and Canon lenses on a
| Sony A7S III along with a Sony A7R IV. I used to have a
| Lumix S1H that I loved the image rendering, but buying
| lenses for L-Mount was difficult since it is such a new
| mount. I would love to use Canon exclusively since their
| button layouts are far superior to Sony's absolute mess.
| prawn wrote:
| Yes, that is my understanding also regarding the
| autofocus preferences for content creators. Even
| accounting for people picking their body and then
| graduating to shooting manual focus afterwards.
|
| FWIW, my wife shoots Sony after moving from Canon, and I
| have a Lumix S5ii and GH5.
| timc3 wrote:
| Canon has a good share of the market but not to the extent
| that you are suggesting. Sony is massive particularly for
| semipro influencers, Panasonic some share, Nikon very
| little.
|
| Source: Managing 150PB+ of customers video content.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Cool. Thanks for the data. Sounds like my experience is
| dated. I know that Sony has taken the crown for
| mirrorless.
| 10729287 wrote:
| Yep. It's no more the era of 5DmkII
| dylan604 wrote:
| The 5D definitely grabbed the industry by the lapels, and
| gave it a good shake. Black Magic followed a few years
| later, and did their own version of it. For the price of
| that 5D, you now have the BMD cine cameras. We're pretty
| much to the point that the lens mount and the physical
| size of the sensor is the limit to how small a camera can
| get. It is fun times indeed.
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| I'm a colorist with over a decade experience in the
| industry. I work on about one hundred projects a year
| (film/tv/commercial/music video) and about 1-2% are canon
| (dslrs or otherwise). 70% are Arri, 20% Sony (either Venice
| or FX line), and the remainder are red.
|
| Canon has almost no presence in the professional market.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good to know.
|
| I realize that my information is dated. Also, the company
| that I worked for, directly competed with Canon, and it's
| likely that Canon's influence may have been overstated.
| rangewookie wrote:
| this is accurate ^
|
| Sony is big and gaining more traction by the day. RED is
| very popular, Personally I know an equal number of
| filmmakers with RED and Sony. Arri is the premium brand.
| Canon is almost exclusively used in documentary these
| days, they had their moment with the 5DMK2 years about
| but squandered it. Sad really.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Canon's 5Dmk2 "moment" brought large sensor/shallow depth
| of field, interchangeable lenses, and very affordable
| pricing to a market that was dominated 2/3"-1" sensors,
| wide depth of field (ENG look), and high price tags.
|
| It also brought the high contrast and saturated look
| baked in as a very unfriendly in post MP4 format. It also
| tried to sell a photo camera to a video world where the
| body form factor and external device connectivity was a
| joke. Professionals _HATE_ all of that. Canon instead
| released the 100 - 700 series "cine" style bodies that
| were all primarily still shooting some form of MP4. It
| was all again a slap in the face with the added bonus of
| much higher price tags.
|
| Canon has consistently told the market it doesn't
| understand it, and will just do what it wants
| dylan604 wrote:
| While I would never call myself a colorist, I would say
| colorist adjacent while I spent a few years in a
| professional color post house. This would reflect my
| experience as well. I spent a lot of time with the Sony
| F55 when it came out, and even with its abilities it was
| still considered less than Alexa and Red.
|
| The only people that shot Canon in our market were a few
| that shoot time lapse.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Canon absolutely owns the video market,
|
| Even after reading other people's comments, this statement
| is absolutely mind boggling to not respond to it.
|
| > Also, the TV and movie industry makes heavy use of Canon
| DSLR kit for their work.
|
| I'm going to need citations for this claim. Nobody in the
| TV/movie industry likes the DSLR workflows. The record
| format is shite. The form factor of the camera is shite.
| The photo lenses with a maximum rotation of 90deg for
| pulling focus from one end to the other is absolute shite.
| The DSLR movement was a godsend for prosumers and the
| wedding photographer being taxed with also capturing video.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Hey, thanks for the sack dance. I already stated _twice_
| , that I was wrong, and thanked the posters for the
| corrections. This was all long before you wrote this.
| dylan604 wrote:
| And now you've said it a third time. It doesn't matter.
| You made a bold comment that was inaccurate, and people
| will call you on it to set the record straight. Nobody
| called you names, nor are they picking on you. It may
| feel that way, but I don't have any emotions toward you
| at all. The emotions are on your end.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Actually, I don't really care. I always promptly admit
| when I'm wrong. Just the way I live.
|
| I just felt like being a bit of a pedant, by pointing out
| your unnecessary, unkind, and inflammatory comment. I
| took it exactly the way that you intended. You admit that
| you read the comments, but made the decision to post
| this, anyway (sack dance).
|
| There's a better than even chance that we would actually
| find a lot in common, but I guess that's not to be. I
| also happen to have a fairly unique perspective, here.
| Not everything that I wrote was wrong.
|
| Have a great day!
| Keyframe wrote:
| Arri, Sony, Red. Canon is not in high end or TV, there's some
| overlap in prosumer and low budget though. The latter is also
| where Blackmagic is.
| bayindirh wrote:
| As I said below, every brand has their own niche. OTOH, Canon
| & Sony has their own sensor fabs, while Nikon doesn't have
| that, either.
| Zetobal wrote:
| Right years after RED lost it's competitive edge sounds exactly
| like the thing Nikon would do. The weapon was the last camera
| with an advantage and it's now 8 years old?
| pixelesque wrote:
| Yeah... as someone in VFX who deals with plate footage from
| major films, in the past five years RED doesn't seem to be used
| that much these days: it's mostly ARRI/Sony...
|
| I think I've even seen more footage from Panavision (which
| often do have RED sensors) than RED cameras...
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Hahahaha
|
| This means Nikon acquires a license to Canon's mounts due to the
| prior RED patent trolling.
| peterhull90 wrote:
| A role reversal from the 1930's - the first Canon cameras used
| Nikkor lenses!
|
| https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/htmls/...
| dboreham wrote:
| Depends on the terms of the license. It could be written to
| exclude this kind of successor rights acquisition, or to apply
| narrowly only to RED-like products.
| justforasingle wrote:
| Pretty interesting. If you look on netflix approved camera
| list[0] there are none from Nikon. Personally I think RED cameras
| are overhyped and are a major reason most netflix shows all look
| and feel the same. I don't think its the colour grading or lenses
| - its something about the camera itself that just feels shit and
| doesn't give me the same access to a scene the same way something
| like sony's HDVS from 30 years ago does.[1]
|
| [0] https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360...
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63flkf3S1bE and
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW26YMe8iUQ
| pixelesque wrote:
| That's because Nikon don't have a cinema line of cameras, and
| the cameras they do have have only very recently added support
| for higher-end video features like log and ProRes RAW support.
| atoav wrote:
| Red cameras are overhyped, but picture quality is not the
| issue. It is very likely that what you describe is more due
| stylistic differences in lighting, color grading and editing
| than due to the camera itself -- coming from someone who
| professionally had to match colors on films shot on multiple
| different cameras on more than one occasion.
|
| Reliability is the main reason why Red cameras are overhyped,
| but you get good pictures and specs for the price, just like
| with black magic cameras but a notch higher. Most DOPs I know
| would go fo ARRI if given free choice.
| hef19898 wrote:
| As a photographer I know next to nothing about film, let
| alone cinema. Hence the question, is ARRI gear really as good
| as people say, and as expensive?
| atoav wrote:
| The thing about ARRI is, yeah their gear is expensive, but
| it is just an incredible combination of good design and
| stellar engineering. Their cameras are surprisingly
| straightforward to use, definitely easier than a RED or
| Sony (with their "every-surface-needs-to-be-covered-in-
| buttons-but-few-are-where-you-would-expect-
| them"-mentality).
|
| Their light gear is just stellar. I have seen ARRI HMI
| lamps that took 40 years of beatings and still worked
| flawlessly.
|
| The thing is, sure ARRI is expensive, but depending on your
| production losing a day might be more expensive than buying
| a whole new camera.
|
| Generally my experience is that a lot of the price of high
| end gear goes towards reliability, this is true for most
| other fields of tech as well.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Thanks! Totally get the point of price being relative.
| After all, if you use gear professionally, as in earning
| money with it, the calculation of cost is different.
|
| Edit: Nikon is generally doing a decent job on those
| "pro" aspects if cameras, ergonomics, buttons,
| reliability and so on. Should be interesting to see how
| this acquisition plays out.
| jorvi wrote:
| > The thing is, sure ARRI is expensive, but depending on
| your production losing a day might be more expensive than
| buying a whole new camera.
|
| This is generally true when purchasing equipment for
| personnel. If you have to purchase three new EUR2500
| family MacBooks because of a burst pipe, that's mighty
| expensive. Even for a small IT company, that's just half
| a month's wage per developer.
|
| I know that with expensive camera gear we're talking
| about EUR250 000 per camera or whatever, but you rent
| those.
| geodel wrote:
| > Generally my experience is that a lot of the price of
| high end gear goes towards reliability, this is true for
| most other fields of tech as well.
|
| Great point. I have this in non-professional settings the
| first question people ask is why this stuff is so
| expensive. Because if things work with little bit of
| fidgeting that's good enough.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| When folks talk about reliability of these cameras, what
| are we talking about? Like, the camera longevity, or
| ruggedness? Or like they reliably produce a consistent
| output, versus producing different results under the same
| conditions where one would expect consistency?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Speaking for lighting: _all_ of it. ARRI stuff is
| expensive AF but worth every penny if you have the need
| for it.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Is this different in some way from the still photo world
| where you have like Broncolor that's unreasonably
| expensive and no one can explain why?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| In the end it's reproducibility for both - you know that
| when you have a specific setup, it will look exactly the
| same.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Broncolor is expensive just because they're old and
| entrenched, and some people are always in the mindset
| that more expensive must equal better.
|
| If reliability is a concern, you can easily buy multiple
| Godox units of approximately the same specifications (or
| better) for the same price as one Broncolor.
| sebben wrote:
| I work as a director of photography and own an Alexa
| Mini.
|
| Reliability in this context means that the camera will
| record and the footage will not be corrupted on the
| media.
|
| Film sets are very rough on equipment and things break
| all the time. Sometimes one films in very harsh
| conditions that anre either very cold or very dusty and
| hot. Often you don't have the luxury of being able to
| repeat a moment or you have travelled to very remote
| locations so having gear that will continue to work is
| worth paying a huge premium for.
|
| The Arri sensors and imaging pipeline also offer the best
| overall image quality. This means it can handle very high
| dynamic range scenes better than all other cameras. For
| example the new Alexa35 sensor can record 11f stops of
| information above middle grey. Most prosumer video
| cameras can record above and below middle grey around 12
| stops total with most of the information in the shadows.
|
| It also means consistent image quality in different
| shooting environments. Arri has very sophisticated
| cooling to keep the camera sensor within a specified
| temperature for consistent noise performance.
|
| Because Arri make more than just cameras it also means
| that the camera fits into the whole professional eco
| system and synergises with other pieces of filmmaking
| equipment like the Arri wireless focus systems, camera
| remote heads etc etc. Meaning you can focus on the hard
| bit which is creating amazing stories.
| lanthade wrote:
| I 100% agree on the correlation of price and reliability
| in the professional video world. My experience is in live
| event production and while Blackmagic has revolutionized
| the accessibility of high-quality production it does come
| with a non-dollar price. I've never had a Ross router,
| switcher, or other auxiliary gear go down during a show.
| I have experienced multiple show stopping failures of
| Blackmagic devices. I once was on a show where the BM
| router locked up fight before showtime. Doors were open
| and power cycling was not an option. All existing routes
| were passing signal just fine, it was just control that
| was gone. We just had to make do for the event,
| fortunately there were no critical audience facing
| changes that we needed.
|
| For some clients the savings are worth the risk. For
| others they absolutely are not. With live you get no
| chance to shoot it on another day or go back and fix it
| in post. If there's thousands of people outside the room
| watching you better make sure that signal chain is rock
| solid.
| hef19898 wrote:
| After spending my career in supply chain and logistics, I
| am now at the interface of design and support for complex
| systems. So, reliability, or rather the full Reliability-
| Availability-Maintainability-Testability-Supportability,
| RAMT(S), is really important for my work.
|
| It is quite fascinating, that besides the overall
| performance and capabilities of a system, pros care about
| RAMT a lot. Regardless of the field. Nice to see that
| confirmed, in yet another field I knew next to nothing
| about.
| julik wrote:
| FWIW "every surface needs to be covered in buttons" is
| exactly how a Canon person(tm) once explained to me why
| they are not a Nikon person. So that checks out wrt this
| acquisition, at least.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The only thing more hilarious than the pointless Canon
| vs. Nikon quabble are when you throw in Leica shooters
| into the mix.
| ein0p wrote:
| Are there any? I think 99.9% of them are Leica "owners"
| rather than "shooters". You can't even properly manually
| focus on a 60mp sensor with a rangefinder.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I think we shouldn't go there! ;-)
| emilecantin wrote:
| I'm a Nikon person(tm) because my Canon printer once
| refused to scan because it was out of yellow... When it
| came time to buy a DSLR I chose Nikon and honestly I
| haven't been disappointed.
| xattt wrote:
| Probably reproducibility and consistency.
| Joeboy wrote:
| In terms of the image, I think a big advantage Arri cameras
| have is a patent on simultaneous dual gain sensors. Perhaps
| somebody will tell me I've misunderstood that though.
|
| Aside from that, I think a lot of what you pay for is
| reliability, support and general non-sketchiness, which are
| not areas where RED have a particularly good reputation.
| mtvkqn wrote:
| ARRI cameras have much better IR filters in front of the
| sensor. RED IR filters were horrible quality when we
| measured them, leading to worse image quality.
| erichocean wrote:
| Yup, precisely why comparing "stops" doesn't tell the
| whole story.
|
| The Bayer color array also makes an enormous difference
| (and is unique to each manufacturer). Good ones are NOT
| cheap to make.
| royjacobs wrote:
| I worked with ARRI for a few years when they were working
| on the predecessor to the ARRI Alexa, called the D-20. That
| was already an awesome camera but they didn't really take
| it into production because they wanted to make it simpler,
| easier to use and basically "better". They could've
| shipped, but they waited multiple years because they wanted
| their flagship digital camera to live up to their
| reputation. It's extremely well-deserved.
| onebot wrote:
| ARRI has a specific look and almost perfect directly out of
| the camera. Compare it to Red or Sony Venice and you see
| that it is the most appealing. You can make other cameras
| look like it, but ARRI is just industry standard and
| produces amazing colors. Their sensor is just fantastic.
| klodolph wrote:
| Is it the sensor? I though it was the processing.
| MaxPengwing wrote:
| Yes. But No.
|
| Red V-Raptor S35 XL has 16.5 stops of dynamic range with
| 250-12,800 ISO. ARRI Alexa 35 has 17 stops of range with
| 160-6400 ISO. Both use rolling shutters, both have native
| ISO of 800. Alexa has better low light noise reduction at
| higher ISO, but Alexa is sharper and has better dynamic
| range in low light since it uses 8K to 4K down sampling.
|
| The real difference is in the colour straight out of the
| chip and how the workflow is for DIT on set.
|
| THe major difference I think is that Arri is already easy
| to use and slots in to the Hollywood human knowledge base
| and workflows while RED was mostly used by indie
| filmmakers, documentarians, Youtubers, and Silicon valley
| people (if you work at Apple in the US you can buy RED
| cameras cheaply through company benefits). This pretty
| much created a different culture of what images should
| look like around the two cameras. an Alexa camera sets
| you back close to 80K and a fully equiped RED sets you
| back about 44K. So its easier to buy it and use it while
| hollywood rents it on the day for the shoots.
|
| You can get a RED to look like it was shot on Alexa and
| vice versa in post processing today, but the people who
| work with the different cameras have different cultures
| of what is "cinematic" image.
|
| btw this is a good comparison https://wolfcrow.com/red-v-
| raptor-s35-xl-vs-arri-alexa-35-wh...
| sebben wrote:
| You can't compare the spec sheets. You need to look at
| the over and under tests. There is no camera close to the
| Alexa35 in dynamic range
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yes, and it's worth every penny.
| weebull wrote:
| Red were kinda the Tesla of the film camera world. New name,
| new tech, new price point, fashionable branding Vs existing
| long established players.
|
| Thing is ARRI pivoted and covered the new tech pretty well,
| and had the existing business links into the rental market
| allowed them to continue unflustered. Red got the layman hype
| because they seemed to make high quality available to more
| people at an achievable (but still high) price point. The
| industry didn't really care though. They rent cameras, not
| buy them and they were already affording the old stuff.
| rpmisms wrote:
| RED does have a nice image pipeline, and some neat stuff
| like the Komodo. Wish I still had the spare change to get
| one.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| I've seen a handful on my local FB marketplace lately
| (nowhere near Hollywood or anywhere that you'd expect to
| see them) but ~$5k for a Epic-X Dragon with a lens.
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| 5k for an EPIC-X? Wild. Good thing that that's not local
| to me, or my bank account would be complaining.
| rpmisms wrote:
| The killer would be a Komodo. Global shutter and
| autofocus is amazing in something that price.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| ARRI also has their own "picture style", at least the ARRI
| Alexa. I remember seeing video on YT where the guy bought a
| really old ARRI Alexa that was used in Hollywood back in 05
| or 06. When they showed some of the footage they took with
| it, it looked exactly like an mid-2000's big screen movie, I
| honestly didn't realize those movies even had a "look" until
| I saw his video.
| praisewhitey wrote:
| Do you mean the D20? The Alexa wasn't released until 2010
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Most movies in 2005 were film. So the style in 2005 was
| the _film_ look. Collateral (2004) was the first major
| movie shot on video and it 's got a _very_ different look
| and the tech was so new, Tom Cruise had to wear a certain
| shade of gray suite so as to not blow the highlights in
| some of the scenes.
| IndySun wrote:
| https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/thomson-grass-valleys-
| vipe...
| tivert wrote:
| > I remember seeing video on YT where the guy bought a
| really old ARRI Alexa that was used in Hollywood back in 05
| or 06. When they showed some of the footage they took with
| it, it looked exactly like an mid-2000's big screen movie,
| I honestly didn't realize those movies even had a "look"
| until I saw his video.
|
| Is this the video?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hahBgDUESjE
| _fat_santa wrote:
| that's the one!
| caycep wrote:
| I suppose this is another illustration of "defaults are
| powerful"
| julik wrote:
| This. RED cameras are overhyped for a few reasons:
|
| - They were once the "hot startup" promising acceptable
| resolution (filmic 4K when nobody needed it, everything was
| 2K at most). But they oversold resolution at the cost of
| bizarrely slow-to-decompress proprietary RAW format and some
| loss to image quality, and stayed true to that. Arri came to
| market later and they did the right thing - picked
| convenience and stability over super-duper-extra-super-high-
| res. - Their cameras would routinely overheat - Cameras would
| have severe reliability issues with software updates - Some
| haptics/controls felt wanky at times - They wanted hard to
| sell you "just the body", for "cheap cheap cheap", but it
| meant that to have something usable you would need the whole
| loadout - which would ship in pieces, with periods of delay
| for availability, and the quality of some components would be
| meh. Want an EVF? Wait 2 years for one to ship. Want
| functioning grip? Separate. Want etc. etc.? Separate. I.e.
| they were very inviting to "now you, as a DOP, can finally
| own a camera", but owning "the camera and the kit required
| for it - sans lenses" would be a painful proposition.
|
| This was certainly the case in 2006-2010s, dunno if it has
| gotten much better lately. It does seem that RED kept to the
| theme of severely overselling their users extreme picture
| resolutions, at the cost of having the files super-painful to
| process, proprietary codecs, and lackings in other areas such
| as dynamic range.
| audunw wrote:
| Maybe that's nostalgia.. I personally think the clips you
| shared look awful compared to any modern camera.
|
| I seriously doubt the average person notices any difference
| between RED cameras and any other modern camera with roughly
| the same properties.
| jajko wrote:
| Not maybe, movies are simply shot in different ways, people
| expect different things. Nothing in this world is static.
|
| Now its perfectly fine to dislike 'modern' approach, but in
| digital era that has absolutely nothing to do with some
| lens/sensor combo and everything how director decides given
| scene or whole movie should 'feel'.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Yeah Netflix definitely has a directing "style" across lots
| of its shows. Two things I've noticed are lots of shaky-cam
| shot as though someone's spying on the scene, when it's
| just the camera; and often a top down view from high up
| with loads of detail to showcase some visually impressive
| event, in mild slow-mo.
| foobarian wrote:
| When the hammer is invented, of course you will be eager
| to solve problems that look like nails. I feel like this
| happened after quadcopters got good.
| lightedman wrote:
| You can tell the difference between RED and other camera
| makers just by checking the black levels (because RED has
| horrid IR filtering and so you get a bit of picture greying.)
|
| It's really noticeable when you fire off a DPSS LASER at
| 532nm. You can see both the IR beam and the converted visible
| light beam, making the LASER appear a weird green-purple
| color.
| com2kid wrote:
| For the 1990s, that Sony demo video looks amazing. The colors
| pop, skin pores are visible, brush strokes are visible! The
| colors and styles are very 90s, but it was the 90s so things
| are expected to look that way.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Any RAW image that comes out of a modern digital sensor can be
| made to look like anything else, as Steve Yedlin thoroughly
| demonstrated. They look the same because they are lit, edited
| and color graded the same
| archerx wrote:
| > as Steve Yedlin thoroughly demonstrated
|
| I'm interested in this, do you have a link?
| kworks wrote:
| Some Yedlin links. I found his process to be methodical,
| precise, thorough and definitive. The question as to
| whether there is any perceptible visual difference between
| film and video that has been post-produced by an expert was
| definitively answered for me.
|
| Resolution Demos: https://www.yedlin.net/ResDemo/index.html
|
| On Color Science for Filmmakers:
| https://www.yedlin.net/OnColorScience/index.html
| foldr wrote:
| Pet peeve, by why do people persist in using wide
| aperture closeups to test resolution? If almost
| everything in the frame is out of focus, then duh, you're
| not going to notice much difference between 'high
| resolution' and 'very high resolution'.
| ruined wrote:
| past f8 on full frame (and wider on smaller frames) you
| run into diffraction, so you actually do get more detail
| with a slightly wider aperture. i only glanced at the
| links but it seems about right.
|
| also, everyone knows what a face looks like
| foldr wrote:
| Sure, but why not shoot a subject at infinity? (I said
| "wide aperture _closeups_ ".) It's hard to even know
| which tiny part of the face is actually in perfect focus.
| And at the resolutions tested, you will need perfect
| focus to see any difference.
| nazka wrote:
| Yep. This is the correct answer to OP.
| kthartic wrote:
| I don't know how old you are, but as a younger millennial these
| look pretty awful to me (no disrespect). I'm sure nostalgia
| plays a part. I feel the same way about videos/sci-fi shows
| from the 2000s - none of the modern stuff quite feels the same.
|
| But as another commenter said, I don't think it's the camera
| itself - it's the stylistic changes in lighting, camera angles,
| direction, etc. Each decade has a distinct 'feel' - films/shows
| in the 80s don't feel like the 90s, or the 2000s like the
| 2010s, etc.
| seanw444 wrote:
| It seems to be too much now to me. Overproduced maybe is the
| word? Too vibrant of coloration, too much lighting, too much
| movement. The best way I can put it is that new shows and
| movies feel "plastic" compared to older stuff.
| prox wrote:
| I think it's called the Netflix look. If you look it up you
| get several discussions on color grading and other matters.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Watching all that Sony stuff.
|
| Part of what's giving you that effect is not the resolution, or
| color accuracy etc: it's that you're looking at what is really
| a very primitive system. It's the analog vs. digital all over
| again, but with video. More than that, it's compressed video,
| versus a more immediate but more primitive analog system. What
| I'm seeing of RED suggests it's all about sensor resolutions,
| but compression is always a point of contention and color space
| is an issue.
|
| If you're digitally compressing data like this and running into
| an area where there are challenges, you're running into areas
| where the algorithms get twitchy: they're designed to optimize
| for certain things and you can throw pathological image
| sequences, pathological colors, at them.
|
| Some of the challenges inherent in getting really high sensor
| resolution out of a RED are irrelevant to old Sony analog HD
| camera technology, apples and oranges.
| oven9342 wrote:
| When the camera pans. I find it unnerving. I don't enjoy
| watching that pixelated panning. I blame it on the digital
| recordings.
|
| It might probably look better if they recorded it on film but
| no producer seems to be addressing my whimsical preferences
| herdcall wrote:
| I think what you're seeing is due to bandwidth limitations:
| when the picture pans the info changes rapidly and places a
| bigger demand on the bandwidth, so streamed shows will suffer
| in quality and show pixelation. If this is what you're
| seeing, it has nothing to do with the content itself, it will
| be fine if you watch it directly from disk.
| eschneider wrote:
| This. Digital video sends a key frame every N frame and
| deltas in between (well, slightly more complicated...) Lose
| a frame or two due to bandwidth and you see motion tearing.
| kbf wrote:
| The Olympics are a live event, delaying the broadcast by days
| to cater to your niche nitpick about image quality would
| indeed be whimsical
| replwoacause wrote:
| Has anyone done an analysis into what gives Netflix shows that
| strange look? It is uncanny valley like for me, so I avoid them
| altogether. I assumed it must be a blend of camera choice,
| lighting, and post-processing, and its just awful.
| dfedbeef wrote:
| Netflix is the minor leagues. People who do well there don't
| tend to stay there.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Nikon doesn't do video.
|
| Referencing the Netflix approved vendor list is misleading,
| because they aren't in the cinematic video business.
| stephen_g wrote:
| No, why "everything looks the same" is 100% down to lens,
| lighting and grading choices.
|
| Part of it is that modern lenses are incredibly accurate and
| much better technically than they used to be - a lot of the
| movies that people praise the photography of are now using
| vintage lenses that are 30-50 years old modified to modern lens
| mounts, since they have "visual character" instead of being so
| clean.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > a lot of the movies that people praise the photography of
| are now using vintage lenses that are 30-50 years old
| modified to modern lens mounts
|
| Isn't this confounded by _who_ chooses to buck the trend?
| IMO, it 's the very skilled DPs who are not only skilled,
| have earned enough social capital to experiment and have
| excellent reasons for using old soviet lenses, or lenses
| designed for use on the moon or some other exotic origin
| story. This self-selecting bunch are likely to produce
| outstanding work regardless of the equipment.
| kranke155 wrote:
| The RED cameras are perfectly capable of delivering great
| picture quality and good color science. The "Netflix look"
| doesn't come from cameras, but from the fact that everything in
| their cheaper productions is rushed, including the color
| grading.
|
| Portrait of a Lady on Fire for instance, was shot on RED
| cameras at 8K. And it's one of the most beautiful digital films
| ever made, IMO.
| tomcam wrote:
| It appears to me they accept many RED cameras?
|
| https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360...
| tivert wrote:
| > Pretty interesting. If you look on netflix approved camera
| list[0] there are none from Nikon.
|
| I looked at that list and did some Googling, and it looks like
| Nikon _just doesn 't make video cameras_ like the other
| vendors. All they make are DSLRs that do a little bit of video.
|
| This Quora answer (https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-main-
| differences-between-...) bluntly states; "Nikon has never sold
| a dedicated camcorder of any format."
| sib wrote:
| Nikon also makes mirrorless cameras that do video a lot
| better than their DLSRs did (especially, for example, the
| Z9).
|
| But, yes, they don't make dedicated camcorders...
| gorkish wrote:
| I think you are mistaking stylistic choices for something
| technical.
|
| Netflix shows look and feel the same because they are
| shovelware, produced to look and feel the same. This is part of
| why they have style guides and approved equipment lists, but as
| far as the sensors are concerned -- any modern sensor is up to
| the task.
|
| There are no Nikon video cameras on the list because Nikon does
| not make video cameras, although I guess now they do.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| Color grading always changes the colors in post anyway. Film
| movies often looks better than digital to my eyes but i think
| that is at least partly because color grading did not exist
| like it does now and there was no push to make every object
| "pop" by being oversaturated. To me, Film is more likely to
| give you a single scene in each frame while color graded
| digital movies often seem to be made of several disparate
| scenes cobbled together. Movies from the past used less
| greenscreening in favor of matte paintings which were often
| included in the scene they were used itself rather than edited
| in or they were the only shot in the scene. You can make
| digital film look however you want, even to look like film, but
| most Netflix shows apparently do not opt for that.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Agreed, I hate the way a lot of their stuff looks. It's OK for
| TV but a lot of their film stuff looks sterile to me. I think
| that's part of why the Arri digital camera has a lot of fans.
|
| I got my first Nikon camera a few years ago after all previous
| ones being Canon. At first I was a little taken aback by how
| things looked slightly smeared when you zoomed into the
| individual pixels...but I rapidly came to love it. Perhaps
| their sensors/glass are less 'perfect' but I love more of the
| pictures I take with it.
| ryandamm wrote:
| Previously: RED Sues Nikon for patent infringement.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532285
| classified wrote:
| Great news, that should help them stay relevant. We will always
| want to make more movies.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| I wonder if they will stop selling overpriced SSDs now...
| stephen_g wrote:
| They use regular CFexpress cards now (CFast on Komodo)
| lvl102 wrote:
| RED is a shitty company that relied on patent trolling the entire
| industry. It's sad Nikon was basically forced to pay the ransom.
| RED is a classic example of what's wrong with our outdated patent
| system.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Makes sense. Blackmagic Design is a serious competitor to RED and
| got around their raw patent through partial debayering. Also
| lower price. Canon has been wiping the floor with Nikon this
| century.
|
| Now you have a legendary cinema brand with some solid fundamental
| technology to combine with Nikon lenses for a mid to upper market
| product play.
| Joeboy wrote:
| Unfortunately my enthusiasm for BMD is muted by the extreme
| non-freeness of BRAW.
| mmaunder wrote:
| What? It's free. Perhaps you should read the history around
| Red as a patent troll, how they price gouge their media, etc.
| Joeboy wrote:
| It's free as in beer (for regular consumers anyway), but
| (unless you know different?) only available via obfuscated
| binaries, with no documentation of the actual file format.
| Correspondingly, it's the only video format I know of that
| I can't use industry standard open source tools like ffmpeg
| with.
|
| I'm very aware of the manifold ways in which RED suck.
|
| Edit: There's a certain irony about it. RED took a bunch of
| free stuff and pretended it was proprietary. BM created a
| proprietary format and pretended it was free.
| kuschku wrote:
| Then I'll give you another one: ProRes RAW. Just the same
| as Braw, but even worse documentation.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Blackmagic sold their cameras with support for CinemaDNG
| advertised, and removed that support after the fact,
| leaving only BRAW that more or less locked you into
| Resolve.
|
| This is a deal breaker for anyone using OSS processing
| pipeline, since 1) BRAW isn't lossless, AFAIK and 2) it was
| impossible and to this day is problematic to convert BRAW
| to something raw development tools understand (DNG).
|
| Luckily, I noticed that just before I bought a unit (!).
| Now I'm a happy owner of a Sigma fp, which not only is sold
| with CinemDNG support--shows that BM did have some choice,
| after all--but is also technically superior.
|
| If I ever do something where their gear is required and
| someone leases it, sure, but I don't see why I would give
| my personal money to BM after how they handled this.
| mafuyu wrote:
| As a fellow fp enjoyer, I will point out that I believe
| the fp's CDNG support avoids patent issues by only
| supporting output to USB drive. RAW video to internal
| media is where Nikon ran into trouble. It's also a bit of
| a bummer how terrible the fp's h264 encoder is, but the
| CDNG makes up for it, I suppose.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Smart for Nikon as they've been losing relevance somewhat to
| Sony/Canon, and not had a great video offering. So this
| immediately makes them a competitor in the space.
|
| Given how the stills & cine markets have contracted and
| converged, its unlikely Nikon & RED would survive in a healthy
| fashion as standalone for say the next decade.
| neom wrote:
| Jim Jannard, truly a brilliant and under discussed entrepreneur,
| probably because the guy won't let anyone interview him. From
| what I have managed gathered over the years, the guy is a
| seriously cool dude who and also a genius.
|
| "The one thing I will say about Jim is, he's always been one to
| have a vision," Takumi concludes. "When you think about people
| like that, you think about Steve Jobs, Elon Musk -- guys like
| that. I mean obviously, you're talking about sunglasses and
| cameras -- [Jannard founded Red Digital Cinema in 2005] -- but
| when you have that, really probably the only way to bring it to
| life is if you have your own hands on it."
|
| https://www.gearpatrol.com/outdoors/a740060/jim-jannard-oakl...
|
| https://www.oakleyforum.com/guides/oakley-founder-jim-jannar...
| cfr2023 wrote:
| I started following the RED story before those folks ever
| released a camera, and I liked their spirit and mission.
|
| Some time passed and ultimately it was Black Magic Design that
| accomplished what RED said they wanted to do.
|
| If you say you want to make high end cinema technology, or even
| just high quality imagery, accessible to the average person, a
| $17,500 price tag for just the camera body shows that you might
| have strange ideas about what constitutes an average person.
| stephen_g wrote:
| The most affordable kinds of cameras at the time that you could
| realistically use for something going to theatrical release was
| the (1080p) Sony F900 and then F950, which were in the $250K
| ballpark... Then the Arri D-21 came out, I can't even remember
| what price but same ballpark, it was a bit higher than 2K res.
| $17,500 for 4K was wild, and it was insane they actually
| managed to deliver it with the RED ONE.
| cfr2023 wrote:
| All good points, though following these acts of instigation
| for the industry, their competitors overtook them in the path
| to their goal.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >If you say you want to make high end cinema technology, or
| even just high quality imagery, accessible to the average
| person, a $17,500 price tag for just the camera body shows that
| you might have strange ideas about what constitutes an average
| person.
|
| To be fair, their competition at the time was $200,000+
| Panavision rigs that were completely prohibitive to independent
| filmmakers.
| cfr2023 wrote:
| A fair consideration indeed but a very relativistic use of
| terminology. $17,500 is not $200,000 that's for sure, but
| it's also not $5000 or $2500 or $100 (not that I expect $100
| cine cameras).
|
| My only point is that their hearts were in the right place,
| but they may have ultimately done their best work as
| instigators.
|
| As well, despite my appreciation for their company, I never
| liked the images from their cameras.
| kkukshtel wrote:
| I think if you know the RED story you know that at the time
| there were effectively 0 consumer-tier high end digital
| cameras. We're talking basically the advent of the DSLR
| revolution, where either you shot on a Canon 5D MK II or... an
| Alexa? Alexas retail around $50,000 (and weren't out until
| 2010), so RED offering actual 4K video digital camera with an
| easy conversion to EF mount glass (Canon) and a body that is
| literally half the size of an Alexa AND was consumer-
| purchasable at $17,500 (Alexa purchase process isn't "just buy
| on B&H") - it was huge.
|
| The other thing is that the camera market and the concept of
| "consumer" isn't really like normal "consumer" end stuff. High-
| end digital camera "consumer" stuff has different purchase
| cycles that traditional "consumer" things like iPhones don't
| have. Camera Operators/DPs typically buy these huge cameras and
| then rent them out or bill their cost back into their day rate.
|
| When RED says consumer, they mean that any person with money
| can buy one. Alexas, Panavision Cameras, Fony F65s, etc. all
| usually need to be bought by a cinema rental house and then are
| rented to operators. RED went around that and allowed people to
| buy cinema-tier cameras directly, which was huge. The market
| has adjusted since then and I think Blackmagic (and the Sony
| Alpha line) now more directly serve traditional definitions of
| "Consumer", but IMO none of that would have happened without
| RED paving the path.
| cfr2023 wrote:
| An insightful post indeed.
|
| I was acutely aware of it, shooting projects on horrible
| looking mini DV and expensive film stock.
|
| No question they spurred progress, I'd just envisioned that
| they would continue to carry the torch with all of their piss
| and vinegar.
|
| Now Black Magic Design produces ~$2000 cameras that produce
| consistently better images than RED to this day.
| treflop wrote:
| Yo there were way more video cameras back then than just the
| Canon 5D and ARRI. News organizations, smaller productions
| and documentary makers were not just whipping around
| expensive ARRI's. Sony and Panasonic made a ton of other
| professional video-focused cameras. I have an old Panasonic
| HVX200 right next to me.
|
| But the Red One was definitely still extraordinary because
| they managed to make a relative-cheap production 4K camera in
| 2007.
|
| That said, the impact was muted because people didn't really
| care about 4K as much in 2007. I don't think ARRI even
| released a 4K camera until years later.
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| The role of ENG video is not precisely the same thing as
| digital cinema, though there's some overlap. I remember a
| lot of indie filmmakers in that era struggling to shoot for
| cinema with ENG-focused cameras and gear, and often
| struggling to get what they wanted out of it.
| closeparen wrote:
| It's not a hobbyists's impulse buy, but it puts a week's rental
| at a couple grand - that's plausibly a group of upper middle
| class teenagers. It's also something the equipment lending
| library in a media studies department can make available to
| student projects.
|
| Big step up from shooting on iPhones or hacked DSLR bodies, for
| a relatively small (in the universe of film production)
| increment in budget.
| cfr2023 wrote:
| Very fair points. I'm just nit picking about RED's
| instigation and influence being more valuable to camera
| industry than the cameras they delivered and the price points
| they delivered them at.
| porphyra wrote:
| Z-Cam has full frame 8K cameras for $6000 and full frame 6K
| cameras for $3000 which is sort of affordable.
| tombert wrote:
| It would be kind of cool Nikon is able to bring the price of RED
| cameras down. I've wanted a truly professional-grade camera for
| awhile, but I cannot justify spending $10k-20k for something that
| would fundamentally be a glorified toy to me (since I don't do
| anything professional with camera).
|
| I was hoping that pro-grade 4k cameras would drop to the sub-$500
| mark by now, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Even the
| comparatively cheaper Blackmagic Pocket Cinema cameras are on the
| order of $2,000-$3,000. I guess the engineering for cameras that
| nice has fairly high "minimum cost" that can't easily be brought
| down by industrialization?
| atonse wrote:
| Isn't 10k already pretty budget price for a _professional_
| video camera? Like film class.
|
| At least the film ones (like ARRI Alexa) approach 100k and can
| be rented as a result.
|
| I think the panavision ones were even more back in the day, but
| not 100% sure.
| tombert wrote:
| That's fair, but using computers as an analogy: a
| professional-grade computer from the 90's (e.g. a Silicon
| Graphics machine) used in professional films would cost like
| $40,000, but now you can buy something orders of magnitude
| more powerful than a 90's era SGI workstation for peanuts;
| virtually any modern gaming rig made in the last 15 years or
| will outperform even a top of the line SGI from 1995, because
| computer hardware prices have benefited enormously from
| industrialization.
|
| I realize it's not apples to apples, but I first heard about
| the Red One 4k in 2008, about 16 years ago, but it doesn't
| feel like prices have dropped in the same way that computer
| prices have. In fact, it's hard to even get a used one from
| 2008 for less than a grand right now.
|
| I'm not even claiming that it's overpriced, not everything
| can drop to near-zero-margins like computer hardware can and
| make up for it in scale. I just really want to use a pro-
| grade camera and I don't want to spend $10+k to do it.
| atonse wrote:
| Yeah the Reds are really nice, but I (a consumer) haven't
| been able to tell the difference between what a RED can do
| and what, say, a $7k SLR type camera could do, film-wise.
|
| So honestly not sure if there is a market of people who can
| tell a difference between those AND people that are looking
| to cut costs on the camera because their film crew's time
| would be much more expensive.
|
| (Mostly thinking out loud, doesn't intuitively add up to
| me.)
| tombert wrote:
| Absolutely; if you're a movie studio buying a new pro
| camera ever five years, it doesn't really matter what the
| camera costs. You can very easily buy a new camera for
| basically any price, and it'll still be like .01% of the
| cost of the budget.
| Swizec wrote:
| > I guess the engineering for cameras that nice has fairly high
| "minimum cost" that can't easily be brought down by
| industrialization?
|
| It may be a value thing. Why would you sell a $500 toy to the
| consumer market who are un-fun customers to deal with, if you
| could sell the same thing to a professional for $5000 and they
| won't even blink because they can leverage that same tool into
| $500,000 of revenue?
|
| Plus at the $5000 price you can afford to have proper customer
| support, good service department, and all the other stuff that
| professionals value. You can make an actually better _product_
| even if the tech itself is the same.
|
| And you don't need to play silly expensive consumer marketing
| games. Focus on making great cameras and the professionals will
| market among themselves.
| tombert wrote:
| Totally fair, I guess I was hoping it would be like servers.
|
| New servers are also super expensive, and don't directly
| market to consumer, but their used value is basically
| nothing. You can buy a used server on eBay, even with
| relatively nice specs for a consumer, for less than a grand,
| often _substantially_ less than a grand (mine was $150 for
| 128gb of RAM and 24 cores).
|
| It doesn't appear that pro-grade cameras fall the same way
| though.
| Swizec wrote:
| > It doesn't appear that pro-grade cameras fall the same
| way though
|
| I wonder if cameras are just too durable and don't need to
| be upgraded as often?
|
| Even a consumer camera will last you roughly forever in my
| experience. I still use a DSLR from 2015 that works great
| and does everything I need.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's the thing. The reason that companies
| liquidate servers for so cheap is because nearly any
| large company that buys a server would always benefit
| from a server that's _any amount_ better. e.g. If you can
| push 10% more trades, that roughly correlates directly to
| profits, so the relative cost of "just buying a new
| server" is nothing.
|
| A nice 4k (and especially 8k) camera, on the otherhand,
| is likely "good enough" for a lot longer. A studio can
| probably get a lot more value out of a 10 year old Red
| One than a trading company can get from a 10 year old
| server, so there's not really the constant need to
| upgrade your camera every year or two.
|
| Also, it would be worth considering that a new camera
| would (I assume) require a bit more learning on the
| operators part, since there might be subtle differences
| between color grading and compression and the like. A
| server, on the other hand, is somewhat standardized;
| Linux is basically Linux, if you're running the same OS
| you're getting basically the same experience, so the
| process of upgrading is pretty easy.
| flipthefrog wrote:
| Nikon d850, their top model and one of the best slr's
| ever made came out in 2017. My most used digital camera
| is a Canon 5d from 2005, I prefer it over my much newer
| Fuji XT3 most of the time because of its colors. (And one
| of my most used analog cameras is a 1939 Leica)
| wmf wrote:
| A Canon R100 is under $500 and probably has similar or better
| image quality to the CineAlta used on Star Wars 25 years ago. A
| ZV-E10 is slightly better for slightly more money.
| pillusmany wrote:
| Pro cameras have a volume problem. Too few are sold.
|
| Imagine if Intel only sold 10000 CPUs a year, but the fabs
| still cost billions of dollars. Do you still think you would
| have $500 CPUs?
| ein0p wrote:
| This is great news. As a long time (decades) Nikon user, their
| video support has been lagging lately even though the cameras and
| lenses are now the best they've ever been. I hope this means an
| improved, more "professional" video mode on future cameras as
| well, perhaps even shutter angle, fingers crossed
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Something that industry hasn't seemed to have noticed is that
| Nikon has recently released a couple of camera bodies that are
| _very_ capable hybrid shooters. The Nikon Z9 and Z8 cameras can
| record up to 8.3K 60fps RAW video in-body[1], and the shutter
| speed is fast enough to be very nearly "global shutter". They
| also inherit features common to stills cameras but rare in video
| cameras such as eye-detect auto focus.
|
| Some samples I've found online:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR5BV1L7tCg
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFkgs0GsbpA
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3cAwDwvK-M
|
| Notably, these videos were made by essentially amateurs. Even if
| the shooters are industry pros, they're still taking these shots
| on their own without a film crew and a professional setup. Just
| running around with a "normal" camera you can carry in one hand.
|
| I wonder if this is going to be a dead end now that Nikon has
| acquired RED. I have a sinking feeling that the product lines
| will be split again, and that the stills bodies will not get any
| new video features, which will be relegated to dedicated video
| cameras.
|
| [1] Something I've heard is that perceived video quality is more
| strongly correlated to the data rate than pixel resolution. These
| cameras can record at about 6,000 Mbps which is in the same
| league a "large format" and IMAX style cine cameras.
| lvl102 wrote:
| Sony's "affordable" global shutter A9 III likely changed the
| competitive landscape. For photography Z9's stacked sensor is
| superb but videography is a different story.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I don't see how. That sensor is only 6K and the global
| shutter makes no practical difference compared to Nikons
| "very fast" shutter.
|
| The Sony camera can only record up to 4K in-body, and only
| with h.265 or similar formats up to 10 bit.
|
| The Nikon can record full-frame RAW with 12-bit log, which is
| far more useful for colorists to work with than anything the
| Sony can record.
|
| Even the Nikon DX crop mode has more pixels and more HDR
| range than the Sony!
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| https://vimeo.com/1340684
|
| skate - shot on red #1347 - 120 fps
|
| 15 years ago
|
| my "introduction" to who/what RED was
| KomoD wrote:
| Requires a vimeo account
| canucker2016 wrote:
| I just had to enable javascript to view the video.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| RED were the future, in 2012.
|
| However, now, not so much.
|
| They promised excellent resolution for a supposedly cheap price.
| At the time there was an explosion of "HD" cameras, a lot of them
| coming from modern DSLRs lead by the canon 5D suddenly opened up
| the world of good enough resolution and colour to the world.
|
| However at the time RED footage was a massive pain to deal with.
| redraw was JPEG2000, which from memory is wavelet based. In a
| world when GPUs were for graphics, CPUs couldn't decode rthe
| frames in anywhere near realtime.
|
| you could buy a $4k super fragile ASIC card that would allow
| decoding in real time, but it was a dick to use. It might have
| got better, but GPUs took over.
|
| However, the big problem with RED is that they over promised and
| under delivered. They had devoted fans who would foam at the
| mouth for any company or person that dared to be critical.
|
| THey didn't have a global shutter, they were quite noisy, and
| they were nowhere near as cheap to run as they made out.
|
| THey kept on making new products, but never managed to really
| execute them properly. For example they were going to make a 4k
| laser project that would blow cristie or barco out of the water.
| Turned out that it didn't work, and at IBC/NAB they were using an
| overdriven barco.
|
| The tech support people were very nice, however part of the cache
| of working there was "being in the know" so as soon as it came to
| getting techincal details you needed to make a decision (liek the
| redray) things went back to vague marketing terms.
|
| Arrl and Sony all make much better cameras, the might have less
| pixels, but much better dynamic range and optical resolution.
| moreover the workflow isn't shite and they are reliable.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Sony and Canon have well established and respected, widely used
| cinema camera product lines.
|
| Nikon, presently, does not. You will not see Nikon cameras
| (video, not still image) being used for 'serious' film, tv or
| documentary production use right now.
|
| Acquiring RED gives them this product line and capability.
|
| I would also bet that if Jannard is a majority shareholder of
| RED, he's now 74 years old and wants to enjoy his retirement, so
| selling the company for a pile of money seems like a sensible
| move.
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