When a $30,000 RED camera meets a red bowling ball who wins?
Nov 23, 2016
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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If one were to pay attention to Internet commentators, the big winner here is MXR Productions. They seem to have gotten quite a bit of traffic to their Facebook page since posting this video. While shooting a commercial for a bowling alley, they decided to get a shot of a ball approaching the camera. Unfortunately, the operator didn’t quite pull up early enough, and the ball clipped the bottom of the camera.
Shortly after the bump, we see the lens fall off the RED Epic camera, and a couple of chips from the bowling ball go flying into the air. Some have doubted its authenticity, but MXR Productions insist that the incident genuine, and not faked. Many Internet sceptics, however, disagree. Take a look for yourself.
It really does, at first, appear that the lens is simply being held on, with the camera carefully positioned to only clip the ball. However, you’d be holding the lens in exactly the same manner if you were, for example, focus pulling on a moving subject heading towards the camera.
Which is exactly what the camera operator says he was doing at the moment of impact.
They say that the hit from the bowling ball broke the lens adapter that was being used to mount a Nikon lens onto EF mount RED camera. They did point out later in the comments that this was not an official RED lens adapter, but a “cheap third party” one.
Adding a little more fuel to the fake fire is the fact that the incident has been recorded form a second camera, specifically focused on the “action”. Why would anybody do that unless they knew something was going to happen? right?
Personally, I’d say it’s fairly common practise to shoot behind the scenes footage on shoots for your own showreels, promos, etc. I do it all the time. Sometimes it’s an assistant holding a camera, sometimes it’s locked off on a tripod, and sometimes it’s an automated slider bouncing back and forth. Occasionally, it catches the odd mistake here and there.
I’m inclined to believe it was a genuine incident. I’ve bought a bunch of those cheap eBay lens adapters myself, and I know just how flimsy they can be, and how easily lenses can slide out of them if you’re not careful.
But what do you think? Genuine accident? Or a hoax? Does it even matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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8 responses to “When a $30,000 RED camera meets a red bowling ball who wins?”
i would say its fake-.-
Real or fake, I empathize with the moment–isn’t that why the vid was posted. Something similar happened to me. I was shooting a graduation and had my DSLR on a cross body strap. Little did I realize that the strap/camera connection had come loose that evening. As I moved through a crowd, I bumped shoulders with a guest. The jolt was enough to undo the last bit of thread on the connection and the camera+lens fell. In slow motion, I watched the lens go right, the body go left, and felt the pit of my stomach dropping. Scratch one lens–the lens mount stayed with the camera, but the ribbon cables and circuit boards stayed with the lens barrel.
Faaaake. The lens is just held on with the hand.
As a cinematographer, there are many situations where you would hold the lens up to the camera without mounting it. We also do lots of Instagram and FB self-promotion where we film ourselves filming in moments of action. This seems legit to me.
looks like insurance fraud
I doubt anyone would smack a bowling ball into a RED Epic at some speed and gamnle that it will be OK afterwards just for some cheap publicity. Then again, I’ve seen people on YouTube do the “fire challenge”, and get 3rd degree burns for 2 minutes of fame, so who knows :D
What’s more interesting than it being real/fake is the fact that a camera was recording a camera, staged much?
It’s extremely common for working photographers and video production companies to shoot behind the scenes footage for YouTube, showreels, etc. :)