I'd love to have an Epic. It should be the camera for us all, the end all be all camera for indie filmmakers, the cutting edge, the artistic tool that would truly make filmmaking what it should've been since the beginning, about the art, the artist and its talent. But its not. Irony of ironies, it ends up being a Sony camera the one that gives Indie filmmakers a chance to fight the big boys... I still remember RED's beginnings and "Raison d'etre"- to democratize Filmmaking, to create a true cinema camera for the independent filmmaker. Heck, I still remember when Red would speak in this forum enthusiastically. With the creation of Reduser, less and less Red people post here ("official" people, not dvxusers that migrated there. The majority of those still post here) . It seems like a good metaphor to what Red as become: it has "abandoned" the DVXUSER's and embraced the high end, the Big Studios, the ones that had it in the first place. its true that RED created a revolution in the high end market, it made the old establishment change their approach (and pricing), but we over here at the lower budgets, the true independents, not the rental houses, the medium sized companies, but the independent filmmakers, the young artists, the new creative force of the digital era that needed the revolution to bring fresh ideas and content to the industry- we were just left behind. The true changing moment for us indies was when we got "lucky" when a Big manufacturer "mistakenly" opened the Pandora's box- CANON- with the video capabilities of the 5D Mark II. It was indeed this camera that changed the landscape for us: not putting down the previous 35mm adapter movement which was a revolution on itself, but the 5D and VDSLR's really opened true cinematography capabilities for the "have nots", or the independent creative, filmmaker.
Maybe Red are trying to make their money back from their initial investment. Maybe they have in the medium or long term a plan to create a camera for us that would "level" the field. It makes sense. However, in my view, of course, RED is now somehow a bit of a "slave" of their marketing: They don't want to piss off their current base of costumers with introducing a cheaper camera that can produce similar results to their expensive equipment. They cannot introduce a S35 Scarlet at an AF100 price range not because of manufacturing price or profit margins, but because it can (this is my opinion) bring down the rental market and perceived value of the Epic. In the end, it happened to RED what we all have been criticizing the Old Big Players- Protection to their Higher end gear.
Back to the F3, then. This one I can afford. I'm not thinking on recouping my money with this purchase, or renting it, but owning it to produce short films and content that I know technically can be accepted for all possible distribution paths. The F3 is really DVXuser's RED Camera, in my opinion. I never really liked Sony cameras, even though my first prosumer camera was a TRV 900 3CCD camera that produced excellent images ( I remember using slow shutter to "emulate 25p). But I'm here, in DVXUSER, for a reason. First, I would like to know when is Panasonic introducing a HPX 400, an AF100 with P2, AVC-Intra, better sensor to compete with the F3 with a Log option? Answering my own rethorical question
Anyway, looking at how things are going, I'll be getting a Sony F3 by the end of October (Unless Canon or Panasonic brings a surprise in the coming months- not much hope for Panasonic since I need a camera by the end October and usually takes them from announcement to launch more than 3 months...)