The Golden Question - Tripods?

So for a while now I've been reading on RedUser.net the ongoing battle to find an appropriate entry level tripod that will be able to be used with the Red One. Now I don't mean entry level as in "my first tripod", but rather entry level to the tripods that can manage the weight of the Red One. The camp for this discussion is split into two very distinct groups, those without money and those with. The groups with money typically are the ones who are professional cinematographers and who understand the value of a tripod that you buy once and use forever. The group without money is your indie set who are coming from the HVX world and trying to get their hands on the Red One for as little as they possibly can.

The ranges for usable tripods for the Red One range from a $1700 setup from Manfrotto to a $12,000 O'Connor setup and more. On the boards people suggest using the Manfrotto 526, the Miller Arrow 55, the O'Connor 1030 (all of which get more expensive as they are listed). The 526 supports 35lbs., the Miller 55 supports 50 lbs and the 1030 can support upwards to 40lbs. Now with the extra support in the weight capacity of the tripod, one gets better (smoother) panning and tilting.

Manfrotto 526

For myself, I'm in the resource constrained indie filmmaker set, and I use the Manfrotto 526, which I got used with a bag and a pair of legs for less than the cost of the head would be new. I have yet been able to use it in conjunction with a Red One, but for just a "stand up" tripod, I don't see why it would give me any issues. With the ability to handle 35lbs, I am constrained on what I can use on the rig, but with the ability to possibly offload a couple elements like batteries and drives, the 526 should be able to handle the load of a lightweight Red One rig.

When I do get around to testing it, I'll probably be using the Red One, production pack, battery, RAID drive, Nikon lenses, Red Rock Follow Focus and Mattebox. One thing that I will avoid doing is tilting and panning, and I wouldn't leave the rig unattended.

Red Rock Micro Mattebox

Got mine today, review and un-boxing video coming soon!

Zacuto Jeep

So in my efforts to bridge the gap between the 19mm and the 15mm world, I needed something so I can use my 15mm gear that I have for use with my Red Rock M2 gear with the Red One gear I also use. The two pieces of gear that I wanted to go between these two worlds are my Red Rock Follow Focus and my Red Rock Mattebox. So what options are out there for this sort of adaptation? Well not many, but Zacuto recently released the Jeep ($265) , which does exactly what I needed.



So how does the Jeep perform? Well it had its ups and downs for me. The build of the Jeep is solid and metal, but the tension adjustments for the rods seemed like they could be problematic. Also, if you don't know which way you need to tighten, it can take you a while to get the equipment read for use (thats just me though). Over all it did the job it was supposed to do, which is allow me to mount my 15mm Red Rock Follow Focus onto the standard 19mm rods that come with the Red Standard package. I used it in correlation with the Element Technica 15mm 6" rods, which I don't know if it was the Jeep or the rods, but sliding the Follow Focus from the front of the rods to the back, closest to the Jeep was next to impossible. So getting the gear under the lens was a challenge, but I don't know if that was due to the new rods or how the Jeep was holding the rods.
One last gripe about the Jeep was after using it for a matter of an hour or so, the black finish was already showing lots of scratches and dings, which might be just cosmetic, or if its losing its finish in the rod ports, might pose some issues. Only long term use will tell.
Over all for the money and the speed of availability, the Zacuto Jeep does what its advertised to do, and is easy to use. Next test will be to mount the Red Rock Mattebox and see if the jeep can handle the weight.

Zacuto, Element Technica and Red Rock Micro

Well this week we should be taking shipments of the Jeep from Zacuto, light weight 15mm rods from Element Technica and the Red Rock Micro Mattebox, which I'm dying to get my hands on. I'll be doing a video review of all of these items hopefully in the next few days after I get all of them in house. So far we've received the Micro Filters, the Zacuto Jeep, which I'll be using to bridge the 19mm Red One setup to my 15mm Mattebox, and we'll receive the rods tomorrow.

Look out for that video review coming in the next few days!

Red One...Audio?

This weekend I meet up with the owner of BD Pictures to help test out some issues that he is having with his Red Ones, most of which are audio problems. I was aware of some issues with the audio on the Red One, but I had figured that with the newer versions of the firmware that those issues had been resolved. Turns out that they haven't and that the audio issues with the Red One are one of the major issues. I had meet up with Ajay in Alameda with his two Red Ones and we set them up and swapped mics, enabled and disabled audio channels, and tried out phantom power all to find out that the Reds that he has do not do audio. There would be times where the audio level meters would come alive, but they would not sustain a signal. I guess with the Red you should always record your audio to an external DAT recorder in addition to the in camera audio recording just to make sure that you've got your audio. Yet another needed accessory to the Red One!

Another thing that we are going to try out is checking if the line level input on the XLRs works and that there might be issue with the Mic input and the pre-amps of the XLRs. Any ideas?

Red Rock Micro = Frustration

I got an email yesterday stating that the Red Rock Micro Mattebox was almost ready to ship and my heart started to dance, till I read the rest of the email. According to Red Rock Micro, the Mattebox is delayed again for another couple of weeks. There is a lot of talk online about the practice of vendors taking %100 payment on pre-order items which may or may not ship when they are said they will ship. This is another slip in a continuing trend with the Red Rock Micro Mattebox. Now I have to say that Red Rock has always been good at getting product out to me and responding to support and sales inquires.

So now we are all left to question, is the manufacturing and shipping delay what makes up the thousands of dollars in comparable product price difference and is it worth it? After spending $700 or so dollars on this product and not having it for two or so months after I paid for it is aggravating to say the least and the only thing Red Rock offered to offset the expense of time for their customers is an additional set of blue knobs.

The real question is will this cause customers to abandon the small companies like Red Rock that are trying to revolutionize the digital cinema market place? There are also delays with companies like Birger and View Factor that are also experiencing similar manufacturing issues. Seems like cheap parts and manufacturing comes at the expense of customers and time.

RED One Purchasing

So I have an associate that it getting ready to film a feature length film and it trying to decide which camera to shoot the feature with. I obviously out of personal desire suggested that, if he was going to invest in his own equipment, to invest in a Red One package. One thing that people don't understand is that its not as easy as a $17,500 purchase because its not like buying a HVX200 or another pro-sumer camera. The Red One is a serious piece of professional equipment that is aimed at the profession cinema and commercial markets.

Yes the Red One is comparably cheap compared to other digital cinema cameras, but what people don't understand is it takes a lot of money to get a Red One working well. Some things people don't think of when they consider a Red One purchase are:

+ Rails
+ Follow Focus
+ Matte Box
+ Support
+ Post Production needs
+ Storage
+ Backup and Redundancy.

So over the last few months I've been trying to come up with a cost effective, yet production worthy Red One Package for my own use, and it come in two flavors, budget indie favorable, and regular indie favorable. Bottom line is it'll cost a filmmaker $50,000+ to get a good Red One setup. So here's my suggestion on a Budget Indie Red One Rig:

+ Red One Body - $17,500
+ Compact Flash Module - $500 (*A must for purchase)
+ Base Production Pack - $1,250
+ 5" LCD - $1,700
+ (2) Power Packs with 2 Chargers, 4 Batteries - $2,900
+ (2) Red Drive - $1,800
+ Nikon Mount - $500
+ Pelican 1620 - $190
+ Nikon Lens Set From RPLens.com (link) - $3500
+ Miller Arrow 55 Tripod and Head - $5,450 (* Weight of the camera needs a good head)
+ Lexar Compact Flash Card Reader - $75
+ Red Rock Micro Matte Box Red Bundle - $795
+ Tiffen DV Essentials Filter Kit - $440
+ Red Rock Micro Follow Focus - $795
+ Apple Mac Pro - $4,200 (*For editing and rendering)
+ Apple Mac Book Pro - $3,000 (* For Field off loads and backups)
+ Silverado Systems Field Master (Link) - $12,499.00
- G-Speed ES 4TB Raid (* For Data Storage)
- Sonnet Tempo eSata Card (* For Field Off Loads)
- Quantum LTO-3A Tape Drive (* For Data Archival)
+ Sonnet 640GB Fusion F2 - $800 (* For Field Off Loads)

So total price of this rig, which will be one stop shopping for production and editorial would be $57,854. Now you don't NEED all of this, but if its your intention to have everything you need to get started with a rig, this is a baseline of what I'd consider a full rig. Now its on the budget side since you don't have top end supports, matte boxes and follow focuses which can easily tack on thousands more per item.

You might be asking, "why do I need all this stuff?" Well here's an attempt at justifying things:

- Camera body is a must, everyone knows that.
- Compact Flash module is a must since Red won't sell a camera without one (it needed for firmware updates).
- Base Production Pack is a quick way to get handles, mounts, battery plates and rods for the Red One. Other options include items from Element Technica and other 3rd Party vendors.
- 5" LCD is lightweight and bright, but other options are Carrion LCDs but the difference in weight it a big deal when your skimping on a fluid head.
- Power packs, you need power, and you need redundancy. You don't NEED two charging units, but at minimum its advised to have at least 4 batteries for a day's worth of work and a unit to charge with.
- Red Drives, granted the Compact Flash option is great, but limits you to a few minutes of 4K footage per take. So a Red Drive gives you a lot more continuous minutes of footage for long takes. The reason for 2, redundancy on set.
- Nikon Mount is a must if you are looking to limit your budget with lenses. Granted you already have the PL mount and can rent cine lenses for a shoot, but you can own a set of lenses for half the cost of one PL lens from Red.
- Pelican 1620, a must. You're not going to store your $18,000 camera in a bag are you?
- Nikon lenses from PRLens.com is a good way to get a color matched, iris adjusted and focus pitched lenses in a set for half the price of one PL lens from Red. Will it be as good as Cine glass? No, but will it still be stunning, YES.
- Miller Arrow 55 tripod and head is one of the cheapest ways to go for a support system for the Red One. A Red One rig can get upwards to 35+ lbs. and you need a head and legs to support that weight without making camera moves look jerky and horrible. Other heads go for thousands more and do a better job, but this is the entry level!
- Lexar Compact Flash Card Reader - Good fast reader a must for CF recording.
- Red Rock Micro Matte Box is a good thing to have but its not a must. Since the camera is a cinema camera, you don't have build in ND filters so you need a filter holder. The Red Rock is the cheapest way to go for 19mm matte box that has plenty of filter holders. You can rent an Arri MB-20 for cheap at a daily rate also.
- Tiffen DV Essentials Filter Kit is a good cheap 4x4 intro set, but probably not up to the standards of DPs and Cinematographers who are professional based. Red Rock is also going to release a set of filters at a competitive price. This has a polarizer, ND and a UV.
- Red Rock Micro Follow Focus, again is another thing you can rent, but having a cheap Follow Focus on hand is always a good idea, and a follow focus is a MUST for a cinema camera. The Red doesn't have auto focus like an HVX.
- Apple Mac Pro with 8 cores is a must. If you plan on editing your 4K footage or 2K renders, you need a heft machine with tons of memory. Your old Mac isn't going to cut it, so invest in the latest and get it going. You'll also need Final Cut Pro and to ease things you might want to add a $3000 AJA Kona card to speed rendering.
- Apple Mac Book Pro is also a must for looking at footage on set, checking exposure and verifying the data coming off the drives. It also runs the backup drives and allows backing up on set to LTO and RAID.
- Silverado Systems Field Master is everything you need to store and backup Red 4K files on set with eSATA connections. It also includes LTO for archiving to 400GB tape drives and a 4TB RAID drive for keeping files. All of this in a Pelican case for easy and secure travel to and from set. A solution that is needed for any production. 4K files take up space and since it is digital, you don't want to lose your project to a hard drive failure.
- Sonnet 640GB Fusion F2 is another smaller drive for fast offloading on set. They can be RAIDed for redundancy and data security on set. Not totally needed, but good for having on set without taking along your master 4TB drives and risking your project.