Nikon to buy 100% of RED

Doug Jensen said:
That was 5 years ago. I'm sure they aren't using Varicam anymore. I don't know what they are using this season but it ain't no Varicam. I will eat my hat if you can prove me wrong.
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Doug, break out the hot sauce, you are dining on chapeau tonight. This past season was same as previous three: Varicam with Fujinon Cabrios. One of my regular AC's has worked on Curb last four seasons so this is straight from the source.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Doug, break out the hot sauce, you are dining on chapeau tonight. This past season was same as previous three: Varicam with Fujinon Cabrios. One of my regular AC's has worked on Curb last four seasons so this is straight from the source.
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This kind of very quick reply of fact - is why I still check in with this site. Bravo, Charles. Enjoy the hat, Doug..
 
CharlesPapert said:
Doug, break out the hot sauce, you are dining on chapeau tonight. This past season was same as previous three: Varicam with Fujinon Cabrios. One of my regular AC's has worked on Curb last four seasons so this is straight from the source.
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Mmmmmm, the hat was delicious with a little Korean BBQ sauce on the brim. Thanks, Charles. Heck if the Varicam looks that good, why isn't everyone shooting with it? They must be doing something different in post, though, because this season has a distinctly different look than any previous season. Very bright, crisp, colorful without being oversaturated. See if your friend agrees that the look is quite different this season, and why that might be, despite the same camera and lenses.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Mmmmmm, the hat was delicious with a little Korean BBQ sauce on the brim. Thanks, Charles. Heck if the Varicam looks that good, why isn't everyone shooting with it?
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Obviously Panasonic folding up that division didn't help, plus the dual-ISO trick found its way into other cameras. I too am somewhat amazed at how quickly the Varicam has faded into the background. I bought one in '21 and thankfully paid it off quickly, but at this point I don't really know if it is worth selling it for the absurdly low return considering how good a camera it is (around $5-6K for a well-equipped LT package). I enjoyed shooting with it for the most part, overlooking some of the peculiarities of the menu system, and while I felt the picture was particularly good especially for the price I did always wrestle with the skin tone rendition vs the Alexas--not that it was bad, just tended to lean magenta. Nothing a good colorist couldn't fix.

I don't think my AC friends are privy to the post side so I can't ask them about the grade, I've floated a DM to the DP.

Here's a shot of the build used on Curb this past season. Click image for larger version Name: curb.jpg Views: 0 Size: 87.9 KB ID: 5710936
 
Doug Jensen said:
On a different topic, I don't know what camera or lenses they are using to shoot the new season of Curb, but I love the whole look of it. The show itself mostly sucks, but the look is beautiful. Anyone have any details?
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This season is way better than last season. Nearly back to form.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Obviously Panasonic folding up that division didn't help, plus the dual-ISO trick found its way into other cameras. I too am somewhat amazed at how quickly the Varicam has faded into the background. I bought one in '21 and thankfully paid it off quickly, but at this point I don't really know if it is worth selling it for the absurdly low return considering how good a camera it is (around $5-6K for a well-equipped LT package). I enjoyed shooting with it for the most part, overlooking some of the peculiarities of the menu system, and while I felt the picture was particularly good especially for the price I did always wrestle with the skin tone rendition vs the Alexas--not that it was bad, just tended to lean magenta. Nothing a good colorist couldn't fix.

I don't think my AC friends are privy to the post side so I can't ask them about the grade, I've floated a DM to the DP.

Here's a shot of the build used on Curb this past season.
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Curb needs a ZeeGee!
 
It's been long speculated that Canon is for CR and CRL but no one here or in most places would know much about that besides the people closely involved.

Kinefinity and Z CAM (or is supposed to soon, IDK) both ended up removing internal RAW after some back-and-forth with RED/lawsuits.
 
Doug Bee said:
Who is Abe?

Like exactly who is paying RED a licence fee? The only one I know of is Atomos.


https://nofilmschool.com/red-raw-tech-atomos
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Somewhere in this endless interview, Jarred said that basically all the major camera companies you could think of have already licensed compressed RAW patent from RED even if they haven't released their own codec yet

Emanuel said:
From minute 32:31 / second 1951 on, Jarred's input on topic.
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Edit: it's at 38:37. "Every camera company that matters, we've already licensed to... all those people that are mad that their company doesn't have compressed RAW, they actually do. They just haven't showed it yet or developed it yet."
 
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This is interesting. There are a bunch of rumors on the following page that look like BS but the last point is that Adobe has paused adding support for N-RAW to their software. Now, maybe they're doing that just because they don't know what Nikon will do next. But it's plausible that Nikon gave Adobe a head's up that they'll be switching to REDCODE RAW on their mirrorless cameras.

That would make a lot of sense to me because it's a highly regarded and popular codec as well as broadly supported. Then maybe you make the case that Nikon mirrorless cameras are satellite bodies for your RED A camera (like a Komodo). And hybrid photographers will be more comfortable shooting video with a codec they can process similarly to how they process stills.

https://nikonrumors.com/2024/03/13/...xpect-from-the-nikon-acquisition-of-red.aspx/
 
ahalpert said:
Edit: it's at 38:37. "Every camera company that matters, we've already licensed to...
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Yeah I'm not buying that non-answer. Atomos is the only one that has actually said in their public documents they pay RED.

I think it's more likely they have done IP swaps with Sony and Canon. Arri don't have compressed RAW. Panasonic don't have RAW, Panavision just use RED, Blackmagic got around it by having a fuzzy raw like not raw and N-Raw? DJI have seemed to get around it by having the camera and recorder as seperate entities.
 
ahalpert said:
But it's plausible that Nikon gave Adobe a head's up that they'll be switching to REDCODE RAW on their mirrorless cameras.
]
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No it's not plausible. Doing REDCODE isn't just a firmware update in a camera that hasn't been designed to of it.
 
ahalpert said:
I'd love to have a 35 1.2. Heck why not a 35 f/1. Not sure i need an 85 1.2, but it'd be nice to have. The longer telephoto you go, the less i need a wide aperture. F/2.8 is often too shallow for me at 150mm+. I find that my ideal DOF for a situation doesn't change much from lens to lens.
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I’ve got a nice 35 T1.5. But it’s Canon and manual focus. Also literally stumbled across a gorgeous 180mm T1.9 Ultra Prime about a month or so ago. It can melt a background like hot butter.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Obviously Panasonic folding up that division didn't help, plus the dual-ISO trick found its way into other cameras. I too am somewhat amazed at how quickly the Varicam has faded into the background. I bought one in '21 and thankfully paid it off quickly, but at this point I don't really know if it is worth selling it for the absurdly low return considering how good a camera it is (around $5-6K for a well-equipped LT package). I enjoyed shooting with it for the most part, overlooking some of the peculiarities of the menu system, and while I felt the picture was particularly good especially for the price I did always wrestle with the skin tone rendition vs the Alexas--not that it was bad, just tended to lean magenta. Nothing a good colorist couldn't fix.

I don't think my AC friends are privy to the post side so I can't ask them about the grade, I've floated a DM to the DP.

Here's a shot of the build used on Curb this past season.
Click to expand...

Not exactly apples-to-apples, but I bought two more 2nd gen P2 Vari’s last year(I own 4, now) and one of my best friends picked up another one, too. We’ve had such a resurgence with them for our broadcast/network work and they are so cheap on the used market…. We are regularly doing 2-6/7 camera shows for a network client with them. And even though they came out ~16 years ago in 2008(!), they still produce images that are beautiful even in the context of today.
 
ahalpert said:
Not that they could do it on extant cameras, but they could implement it on their cameras going forward?
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The Japanese camera model planning takes about three years.

If they decide to implement R3D TODAY then maybe three years from now you would see it.

Adobe haven’t supported NRAW since it was introduced. Others have easily.
 
Doug Bee said:
The Japanese camera model planning takes about three years.

If they decide to implement R3D TODAY then maybe three years from now you would see it.

Adobe havenât supported NRAW since it was introduced. Others have easily.
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You may know best about this, I don't, but I think 3 years is pushing it.

We are in great modern times and surely they could release something in less than 3 years if they really saw the value?

I don't think it's easy, but I also think it's just a camera/computer and 3 years is a very long time for technology.
 
RED do it in two years and release half baked have the customers beta it for us cameras and hope the hardware does not need a rev cough timecode board cough OLPF cough
 
Everyone has to wait a bit before releasing new stuff (for the consumer's sake) - but I think everyone could release products very quickly these days.

Absolutely half-baked though more often than not. And they'll figure it out as they go along, ha.

Not sure how it is now, but REDCODE in the first Komodo not working properly in FCP aggravated me a lot (issues were acknowledged by RED support).

Could have been their fault, could have been Apple's, but that's a big deal.

Like, if ProRes didn't import or something, whatever. But REDCODE is reason #1 or #2 why I bought the camera (back then).
 
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