Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
You might remember that a couple of years ago, Linus Tech Tips spent a somewhat insane $138,000 on a couple of 8K RED cameras & accessories. Well, like most of us after having a camera for this amount of time, they’re starting to notice some of the annoying quirks of their camera.
In this case, the loudness of it between takes as the fan kicks into overdrive. So, they decided to try and switch it over from fans to water cooling.
RED recently simplified its camera lineup to three separate product lines. Monstro, Helium and Gemini. But how do the three new systems all stack up against each other? That’s what Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and filmmaker Vincent Laforet wanted to find out. So, he got all three cameras and took them out to compare them side-by-side and see for himself where the limits were.
You may look at this post and think “I’ll never own a RED camera, why should I care?” but Vincent’s message here is clear. It’s not that we all need RED cameras, or to show off his fancy cameras. It’s to demonstrate that we all need to test our camera’s limitations. We need to know what those limits are, where and how we can push them, and when we definitely can’t.
If you’ve always wanted to buy a RED camera and have been saving up – now may be the right time to get it. The company has announced that they’re dropping prices on all of its cameras, and you can save up to $25,000. Additionally, RED is simplifying their product lineup and it will offer only three cameras.
At Facebook’s F8 developer conference, the company has announced some exciting news: Facebook and RED are teaming up to develop a high-end, professional VR camera system. It will reportedly be able to capture hi-res imagery in so-called 6DoF (six degrees of freedom). The viewers will be able to explore the high-quality content in real time within virtual reality.
In Mathieu Stern’s videos, we’ve seen some fantastic vintage lenses paired with modern cameras. In his latest video, he pulls off another unordinary combination of camera and lens. He mounts a lens that’s older than the Eiffel Tower on a $15,000 RED Dragon camera and shoots video in daylight and in low light. The results are wonderful, and you can check them out in the video.
With disappointing iPhone X sales, and the overall reduction in iPhone sales, it seems Foxconn are branching out. And they’re brancing out into the 8K prosumer video market, if Nikkei Asian Review’s report is accurate. They say that Foxconn are teaming up with cinema camera manufacturer RED to make professional quality and affordable cameras available for the general public.
Given that RED’s current 8K Weapon systems cost somewhere in the region of $50K once you buy all the associated bits, that’s one heck of a goal. Nikkei say that Foxcon are “seeking new revenue sources to compensate for weakening smartphone demand”, and that they want to “reduce its business dependence on Apple”. Apple currently accounts for more than 50% of Foxconn’s sales.
Dropping $20K on a camera something that most high school students wouldn’t consider. Hell, dropping $20K on a camera isn’t something most adults would consider, either, for that matter. But budding young filmmaker, Thad Swift, wanted to make a solid commitment to his career. And what better way to do it than buying yourself a RED Scarlet-W cinema camera?
And, no, it wasn’t bought for him, nor did he get any no loans. He earned the money to pay for it himself, doing what he loves, over the course of about 9 months or so. Making films. It just goes to show what you can do when you set yourself a goal and dedicate yourself to it.
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.
When it comes to buying lenses, you often get what you pay for, but is there a certain point where throwing more money at them doesn’t bring you any real benefit?
In this video, Freddie Wong of RocketJump Film School compares some inexpensive Canon EF Primes ranging up to about $500 with equivalent focal length $5,000 RED Cine Lenses and Zeiss Compact Primes and some $15,000 Zeiss Ultra Primes in an attempt to answer this question.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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