It's happened - Red has shipped some cameras

When I returned from NAB, I wrote about the "Red One" camera and the SI-2K digital camera. Exactly 494 days from their original announcement of the "Red One" and "Mysterium" sensor, the folks at Red have shipped their first cameras to a few customers. The very first cameras shipped on August 31st, 2007. fxguide has some coverage of the haps with pictures. It is nothing short of astounding at how quickly Oakley's founder was able to engineer and produce a camera so remarkable in such a short period of time.

When any product is hyped as much as the Red camera, you never really know if it has any chance of living up to expectations. In order to meet their delivery date expectations, Red shipped the first cameras with only a portion of their final set of features enabled. Through free firmware updates over the coming months, they'll be able to bring the full list of features up to the specs they originally promised. The great thing about the company so far is that from outward appearances, they've been very transparent and forthcoming in dealing with their customers - even going so far as to ask for feedback about what features to keep in the camera.

So what are people saying about how the cameras perform? So far, a lot of people are practically falling over themselves to gush about how great the images are, and how fantastic the camera is. Score some points for the Red team. The only negatives I've seen relate to non-active features (such as no current functioning electronic viewfinder) and questions relating to overall dynamic range compared to Panavision's Genesis (which costs many times more - and is only available to RENT). Most of the good discussions are taking place on the Cinematographers Mailing List in the cml-2k-444 list (you need to be subscribed to read them).

It's probably a good time to point out that the workflow for a pure digital camera such as the Red One can be a pretty substantial departure from that of a video camera. The captured footage bears more of resemblance to the "RAW" mode stills of many digital SLR still cameras than the videotape of high-definition. Images have more color information and bits than can be displayed on any electronic display and so they have to be "adjusted" or managed using a Look-Up-Table (LUT) to be viewed properly. This is true both for what is seen on-set on monitors during production as well as before the footage can be used in post. It's very much like the telecine step for traditional film except it doesn't require a super-expensive suite of equipment to be transformed into something usable.

When a LUT is applied to footage, you are only seeing a representation of a selected set of the available information contained in the RAW image source. Much more akin to shooting on film, with RAW image acquisition, you have to be comfortable trusting in the expertise of the skilled technicians on set rather than the absolute certainty of knowing you're looking at what you're really getting. It can be freeing, but it also can be scary - depending on who's involved.

When digital cinematography started emerging with the first digital movie cameras, a new position was called for - the data wrangler / IT guy. Lots of productions are getting by without someone filling this role when shooting on a high-definition format such as HDCam. A Red One will be very difficult to operate without someone working on set to assist with the data/LUT management and display setup. The whole shoot could be severely compromised if the technician working to calibrate the displays and manage the data and LUTs doesn't have adequate experience.

With 50 cameras shipped from Red and in professional hands, they are still working through the bugs and enabling features as fast as they can. It's a good time here to talk about the lesser known SI-2K. Silicon Imaging's camera has been shipping since July '07. They continue to refine the workflow and interface for their camera and really have a great system.

Adding to their existing capabilities, SI announced at IBC that two of their SI-2k cameras can now be paired together to record stereo 3-D images. It's not clear what specific 3-D capabilities SI has instilled in their actual hardware or software. I can infer from their press release that their software will allow synchronized recording among multiple cameras, but do they have a mounting platform to physically put two SI-2k's with all the lenses and focus hardware in parallel - which would be required for 3-D?

The SI-2K and Red One continue to improve as they are bringing incredible capabilities into the hands of cash-strapped professionals. It's ironic that while these are superb tools at a price never imagine a decade ago, the complexity of working with them is increasing to that of tools costings many times more. To really push this new technology it's going to take a new breed of cinematographer who is willing to dig deeper into color management and digital issues than anything before.

The final question I've been wondering as a producer is what is a Red One or SI-2K going to cost in the near to medium timeframe? I've seen prices listed for a Red One for around $1k/day without lens. That would put a full usable camera package around $1,700 - $2,000/day. I'm expecting and hoping that as more cameras hit the market, the rental price drops to about half that. I have yet to see anyone renting an SI-2K - unfortunately. Does anyone reading this have access to one they'd want to rent? Comment or e-mail me...