Ryan Patrick O'Hara
Veteran
I just finished DPing my first Red Epic film and I have to say that it surprised me. The build and design leaves much to be desired, but the image is just fantastic! I'm playing around in the newest RedCineX (v.501) and the images I captured are just wonderful. I immediately noticed that I seem to have much more latitude, and the camera seems to really dampen ranges. I find that the camera set at default is less saturated and less contrasty, almost as if shooting something between normal and log. It's not log, but I found the camera at native settings was much more muted in saturation & contrast capture.
All I have to say is that fooling around in Cine-X, I have seen this footage jump off the screen. I can't post any pictures of the footage until the director gives me the ok, but my roommates who are all in the industry are always stopping and saying wow at the footage.
Red has a winner with this camera... now if only we had playback and LCD/EVF simultaneously. Also, what is up with RedVolts? We had four on set, but never used them since they last so little.
Here is a pic from set: You've seen it if you have read my anamorphic lens thread.
Things Epic got right:
Framerates... wow, there are so many and with little to no resolution compromise!
2.40:1 Red has always gotten it. Even if Panasonic hasn't. 2.35 is dead. Dead.
Startup time. Changing batteries is no big deal. At all. I can shut down and restart the camera soooo fast. Wonderful
SSD... YES. Amazing. The Epic can shoot many compressions and the SSD cards are huge and very easy to use. Worlds better than those Red Drives. Formats fast too.
User buttons. There are many user buttons and they are all programmable. I loved it.
Menu system seemed pretty straight forward.
Things Epic got wrong:
Form... the side handle is great to use to navigate, but I'd rather it just be flush on the side of the camera. I thought holding the camera like a big DSLR was cumbersome and for handheld shots, it was much too heavy. I always threw it on a shoulder pad and shot it like a real camera. Maybe if it were lighter I would consider shooting like a photo camera.
Baseplate... Red's proprietary universal mounting plate is annoying... in the fact that Red sold us a camera and a universal base plate without the mounting plate... caused some issues, but they were resolved.
No playback. I was OPing... the director and I had an old school moment of trust for this shoot.
No LCD and EVF at the same time. Sharing an eye-piece with the director to frame a shot is not fast nor easy. The 1st AC wanted a monitor for the dolly moves that went from 10' to 10''... Nobody can do that without marks, and we were running out of time, so I just grabbed the wheel. I'm sure she would have nailed it without a monitor had we given her time for marks.
The fans... they are not protected, from what I could tell. We shot in the desert and it seemed the Epic cooling fans and vents were just open death star thermal exhaust port for dust and dirt. We kept her clean, but felt it seemed very vulnerable.
Gave up looking for the tint adjustment function. Used to be with CT, but now that is a main menu menu.
Glitched out everytime you pressed two user keys in quick succession. The image would divide and rearrange by fourths.
If you unplugged the EVF or LCD and replugged it back in, 50% of the time the screen would come back black and the camera would need to be restarted.
At really high ISO's, there was some sort of 'dead' pixel line through the right side of the image. Did not show itself in daylight work.
There were occasional crazy frames in a shot. The Epic would record as it was supposed to and suddenly two mini images would be superimposed. I may post that later because it was really weird and was recorded that way.
Overall, it's not the best designed, but I had no complaints about the image.
All I have to say is that fooling around in Cine-X, I have seen this footage jump off the screen. I can't post any pictures of the footage until the director gives me the ok, but my roommates who are all in the industry are always stopping and saying wow at the footage.
Red has a winner with this camera... now if only we had playback and LCD/EVF simultaneously. Also, what is up with RedVolts? We had four on set, but never used them since they last so little.
Here is a pic from set: You've seen it if you have read my anamorphic lens thread.
Things Epic got right:
Framerates... wow, there are so many and with little to no resolution compromise!
2.40:1 Red has always gotten it. Even if Panasonic hasn't. 2.35 is dead. Dead.
Startup time. Changing batteries is no big deal. At all. I can shut down and restart the camera soooo fast. Wonderful
SSD... YES. Amazing. The Epic can shoot many compressions and the SSD cards are huge and very easy to use. Worlds better than those Red Drives. Formats fast too.
User buttons. There are many user buttons and they are all programmable. I loved it.
Menu system seemed pretty straight forward.
Things Epic got wrong:
Form... the side handle is great to use to navigate, but I'd rather it just be flush on the side of the camera. I thought holding the camera like a big DSLR was cumbersome and for handheld shots, it was much too heavy. I always threw it on a shoulder pad and shot it like a real camera. Maybe if it were lighter I would consider shooting like a photo camera.
Baseplate... Red's proprietary universal mounting plate is annoying... in the fact that Red sold us a camera and a universal base plate without the mounting plate... caused some issues, but they were resolved.
No playback. I was OPing... the director and I had an old school moment of trust for this shoot.
No LCD and EVF at the same time. Sharing an eye-piece with the director to frame a shot is not fast nor easy. The 1st AC wanted a monitor for the dolly moves that went from 10' to 10''... Nobody can do that without marks, and we were running out of time, so I just grabbed the wheel. I'm sure she would have nailed it without a monitor had we given her time for marks.
The fans... they are not protected, from what I could tell. We shot in the desert and it seemed the Epic cooling fans and vents were just open death star thermal exhaust port for dust and dirt. We kept her clean, but felt it seemed very vulnerable.
Gave up looking for the tint adjustment function. Used to be with CT, but now that is a main menu menu.
Glitched out everytime you pressed two user keys in quick succession. The image would divide and rearrange by fourths.
If you unplugged the EVF or LCD and replugged it back in, 50% of the time the screen would come back black and the camera would need to be restarted.
At really high ISO's, there was some sort of 'dead' pixel line through the right side of the image. Did not show itself in daylight work.
There were occasional crazy frames in a shot. The Epic would record as it was supposed to and suddenly two mini images would be superimposed. I may post that later because it was really weird and was recorded that way.
Overall, it's not the best designed, but I had no complaints about the image.
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And yes, Alexa did ship without playback if I remember correctly. I never used it before it had playback. As of now Epic is the only one without playback... they said it's coming and I believe them. 
rogar-Shock(DBG):