RED 1 with Humiditiy - tropics and snow.

Greg Voevodsky

Greg Voevodsky

Active member
Having just had my windows fog today... I've had my cameras and lenses fog in the topics despite trying to keep them warm, slowly warming them from the hotel in back of a car's trunk for 1 hour before shooting. One hour later ride on a boat to an empty beach, I remove the lense cap only to see moisture. I cross my fingers and turn on the camera and - though unhappy - glad the camera's humidly warning turned on and wouldn't let me shoot for 1 hour.

I know red is in a hurry, but I hope they include a humidity feature for both shooting in snow and in the tropics. Despite trying ones best to let the camera warm or cool slowly, it can still catch you. Is RED including this? I assume?
 
Condensation can be a killer in a video tape drive because if water is present, the high-speed rotary head drum can get stuck to the tape and tear it apart.

Red may not have quite the same issues since there is no tape drive. Water inside electronic gear is never a good thing but as far as environmental sensitivity, I'd imagine Red would be more like a laptop computer, than a tape-drive-based camera.
 
Condensation can appear anywhere ... despite my best efforts, when I took the lens cap off the lense had water on it ... despite an hour or 2 out of the AC of my hotel in the car/boat to warm for the shoot. I do not want water condensing on the chip ... which I think happened to my Nikon ... since the lense was clear. But I had dots on my shots... Again I thought an hour or 2 was OK to warm the equipment, with open camera bags to the air, etc.... but it still caught me.
 
No matter what your gear is in extreme climates keep it in Pelican / Storm cases with LOTS of silica gell. The condensation cannot occur if the air inside the unit is dry.
Given that RED has no need for openings for tape it could be hermatically sealed and filled with dry nitrogen or better still argon (leaks out slower than helium).
Failing that some mil spec gear I worked on decades ago had a screw in desicant canister, smaller than a 35mm film canister and very effective, probably not enough spare room for this in RED though.
 
Hi Guys,
Seeing as I work underwater this will be an ongoing battle with keeping the Blue out of the Red, after all I'd hate to get marooned......haha, couldn't avoid that one!!

To date I keep my cameras locked down permanently in their underwater housings. I have the movements down to a T and take a matter of seconds to change out the tapes etc in the Z1. When I first started out I was using a VX1E Hi8 camcorder and that thing was a tank. I kept it locked down with silica gel packs liberally distributed around the inside of the housing. Using the same technique I kept a Sony VX1000 as a main shooting cam for 8 years!!! Well past the regular shelf life.

Just bought and installed a Hydrosorber pack in the Gates Z1 housing. See the following image. Thus far, fingers crossed, touch wood and all that Jazz there have been no incidents as yet. I prep everything for the day in my AC'd office before getting on the boat and taking off for a 1 hour trip to the main filming areas here in Palau. Seems to work fine.

Cheers,
Mark.

1164006082.jpg
 
Maybe Jim can make the body vacuum sealed... that way there would be no condensation... it would really make thermal a problem though :)
 
I'm also in discussions with the underwater housing manufacturer for RED so I may even suggest a positive pressure valve which could be connected to the SCUBA tank to avoid any potential flooding. The small stream of bubbles rising from the housing would of course send shivers running down one's spine but at least with a positive pressure feed and over pressurization release valve it would allow for sufficient time to get out of the wet stuff.

Mark.
 
I used to work with DDC disks (8MByte beasts that cost $45K) and they used exactly the same idea of positive pressure. Helium at around 0.5psi, worked a treat too. Helium was used because it caused the lowest drag on the disks and hence the least heat. I suggested argon, as the helium leaked through the seals and I think the steel container.

But I'd also suggested the postive pressure idea to a diver and he poo pooed the idea. I'd have thought some form of regulator to keep positive pressure wouldn't be that much of an engineering marvel.
 
Thanks Camdiver! I will get some Silica Gel. Lets hope Red pressurizes it.

I wonder though, if that is good or bad for cooling? And how that effects changing lenses.
 
If Red employs an internal fan, not sure how that would work with a sealed housing. I think all high-performance laptops have internal fans, and it seems the CPU power in Red is going to be comparable to a very high-end laptop (at least!)

If the sensor is easily accessible for cleaning, like in a DSLR camera, then a wet cleaning ought to remove any sensor spots from condensation. http://cleaningdigitalcameras.com/methods.html

I have never had a problem with condensation on my video cameras, the trick is to put the camera in the (closed) bag before entering a warmer environment and let it acclimate slowly. If the camera body/lens/sensor is colder than the environment, moisture will condense on it. If the camera is always warmer than the surroundings, no condensation will occur.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top