Crosspost from LiveCinemaResearchBlog
Long has it been that indy filmmakers have craved for professional shots just to get DV compression and even more HDV compression over the years while Hobby photographers were outshooting the pros with under 1.000 Euro cameras. Last year panasonic announced the AG-HVX200 to the masses and set out to take over the indy filmmaker market that isnīt falling for the HDV compression hoax Sony and its followers wants to to hype the world with. While competitively priced to the Sony and JVC HDV offerings it sported 4 times the datarate at 4:2:2 (like DigiBetacam the profession broadcast standard) instead of the lousy 4:2:0 of the HDV that shows compression artifacts from ten kilometers away and that virtually kills all post production color correction and keying. On top of declaring war on compression Panasonic also declared war on the tape by including two P2 card slots and an uncompressed firewire out stream - for easy recording to a special firestore (not a normal firewire drive!) harddrive or a computer. It included a MiniDV drive too for recording stand resolution DV video.
Now all this seemed great - expcept for the horribly small and expensive P2 cards and the nondetachable lens (easily circumvented with special filmlens adapters) - the camera has been a huge success throughout the last year.
Now this years NAB was setting out to get boring with no real announcements at all. Yet there comes this company around and trumps a camera that is short of absolutely astonishing - yet a bit more pricey. The RED from the RED Digitial Cinema Camera Company is still in prototype phase but has already a price attached so a market product will follow very soon. First of all it has a CMOS sensor with full 35mm size - think of film depth of field. The sensor is apparently self produced and has no other casing then this camera. Secondly the sensor sports a resolution of 4520X2540. Thats OVER 4K resolution more then traditional 35 mm chemical film can hold. Thirdly it records in RAW format - yes not only is it uncompressed but also sport a higher bit depth for that color correction without limits. It can record up to 120fps in 2k with specific storage option on 60 fps in 4k! On top the camera is completely modular with individual parts to be upgraded individually - like switching out the CMOS censor when a better one comes available. Giving it a new casing that fits your need more (should mount, tripod, underwater skateboard unbreakable) it specifically encourages the community to make mods. Oh and of course it has no tape and sport a HD Raid
Needless to say that THIS is the camera of the future - nothing else can be desired. The price $17.500 for just the body (about a $25k package for a ready to shoot solution). Available for pre-order - no delivery date given yet.
More info at red.com.
