RED Ranger For Sale / No Longer Just A Rental Item

I was at that NAB when the Cion was introduced(the big screen URSA, too) and everyone was all abuzz about it. And then nothing...

I remember laughing at the BMD, too.
 
NorBro said:
No turrets really broke my heart back then...loved the idea.
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Yeah it wasn’t good.

They tried to make up for it with the upgrade deals, and I thought it was pretty generous but if you “bought into” their thinking then that was a hard concept to let go of.

JB
 
Tamerlin said:
That's also the real reason that so many low-grade wannabe indie filmmakers are clamoring for larger sensors -- the only thing that they know how to do to reduce how bad everything else they do looks is to have less of it in focus.

Not that they'll admit it of course. :)
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I watched a commercial recently that was jarring due to its extreme shallow DOF, and not in a good way. Very unnatural looking for the perspective of the shot, which was pretty wide.
 
John Brawley said:
At the time when they launched, there was a lot of VERY POSITIVE talk about how AJA had done this camera “right” with the camera bros loving it’s ergonomic design and talking up how much better the build quality would be compared to BMD.

I tried one for a while. It was massively front heavy and anything BUT ergonomic. They didn’t make an EVF, then also never finished half the announced “features” it was meant to have.

At the time BMD had the OG Ursa, and the Production 4K followed shortly by the Ursa Mini 4K which all shared the same sensor.

Ursa was also a total flop, but not nearly as much as Cion was I believe. In the end they slashed the price and still couldn’t move them.

I think this is where we say, lot of armchair quarterbacks but in the end, the sales of that camera reflected what people thought of it.

I know you love a global shutter above all else. But no way was that a good camera, especially for the price.
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AJA Cion goes for only a grand and half on eBay now! Probably a fair reflection of its true worth now.

As once the URSA Mini was launched that truly killed any chance left of the AJA Cion being a success.



John Brawley said:
(I STILL see URSA’s as practice cameras on Steadicams and at trade shows. I was at BSC a few months ago and there were at least 3 URSA’s still being used as demo cameras on various grip equipment.)
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Much much better to drop an URSA than an ARRI!

 
Independently of one another, Geoff Boyle and I took the RAW files out of the CION and adjusted some parameters and then sent the info to AJA. We each told them that the camera would be wildly more accepted if they offered the LOG video mode that we were each showing them. AJA didn't do it. Years later Geoff & I discovered what we'd both done and compared files. Nearly identical. We were two of the few people who had access to the RAW data stream from the camera and we both said the exact same thing.

I won't go into a diatribe about the Cion. I reached out to AJA (partly here at DVXuser!) to arrange for Convergent Design to accept the RAW signal from the camera. The image was indeed fixable but there were other reasons we decided not to move forward with the project.

Making a camera is really, really hard. Even if you know what it should do it can be a hell of a ride getting there. When I first arrived at CD there was talk of developing a camera. As enticing an idea as that can be, there's damn good reasons why it would have been a horrible mistake and I'm really glad we didn't move forward on it.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Independently of one another, Geoff Boyle and I took the RAW files out of the CION and adjusted some parameters and then sent the info to AJA. We each told them that the camera would be wildly more accepted if they offered the LOG video mode that we were each showing them. AJA didn't do it. Years later Geoff & I discovered what we'd both done and compared files. Nearly identical. We were two of the few people who had access to the RAW data stream from the camera and we both said the exact same thing.

I won't go into a diatribe about the Cion. I reached out to AJA (partly here at DVXuser!) to arrange for Convergent Design to accept the RAW signal from the camera. The image was indeed fixable but there were other reasons we decided not to move forward with the project.

Making a camera is really, really hard. Even if you know what it should do it can be a hell of a ride getting there. When I first arrived at CD there was talk of developing a camera. As enticing an idea as that can be, there's damn good reasons why it would have been a horrible mistake and I'm really glad we didn't move forward on it.
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There needs to be an auto text detect system on here that displays this post every time someone pops up and says that you can just get this, this and that and make a camera that's better than what the major camera manufacturers are making.

I mean when 'the man' from Panasonic's cine camera/equipment division say it's hard to make a camera, WITF would an individual think they can just take some parts off the shelf and slap them together in a box?
 
I'm sure it's hard - but having the success is harder.

Many cannot compete with Blackmagic's universe. Very simple economics they teach you in elementary school.

Other than that, if you have the experience and the right people on your team, we've seen Ikonoskop, Digital Bolex, AJA, Kinefinity and Z CAM build some. They all had nice images, but some made mistakes as pointed out and/or didn't have endless financing or other products to sustain their business.

Kinefinity and ZCAM are still standing, but for how long. (Seems like Z CAM is just getting started.)
 
I think we accept that designing a camera is hard. It's the bonehead decisions (from a user's perspective) that could have been solved by making a different choice for little or no design/manufacture cost that leave us scratching our heads.
 
If the camera is 1000 bucks, it doesn't make much difference to most people if it has a nice IQ and is "good enough".

When you start asking for $3K-$6K-$9K is when people start asking about a headphone jack, ha.

It's seriously so difficult to sell a camera for more than a few thousand dollars if you're a new company or unproven. You just won't get the chance, especially when the Japanese have some great cameras for around the same price (if you don't want a BM, or ZCAM, etc).

That $1000-$2500 window can make or break your business.

That is what supposedly BM was thinking to get the ball rolling, but always had plans for more expensive cameras. I don't know how well it would go if they came out with the BMCC and asked for $6000-$8000.
 
NorBro said:
That is what supposedly BM was thinking to get the ball rolling, but always had plans for more expensive cameras. I don't know how well it would go if they came out with the BMCC and asked for $6000-$8000.
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I feel also that BMD *needed* to make the mistakes and get the feedback with the BMCC EF before they would have been even ready to try and launch a well polished professional $6K camera such as the UMP G2

They couldn't have skipped over those cheaper learning steps. And it is better to learn and fail with a $3K or $1K camera that you're launching, than trying to succeed with say a $10K camera.

The only downside to this approach is you get perceived as a "cheap brand" because you start out with cheap cameras. Which is a negative BMD can sometimes have, even when we're discussing the likes of a UMP G2
 
I appreciate your insights, John. I can only imagine the roller coaster ride of bringing a camera to market.

I meant more like when the manufacturer chooses a lens mount that doesn't mesh well with the sensor or use case.

Or look at what Mitch said about independent LUT control on Convergent Design outputs. That decision took some engineering finesse. But it sounded like the folks who did the designing and not the shooting didn't initially imagine why that would be useful.

Or what Mitch said about LOG on the AJA. Again, not a free design upgrade. But - to come so far with the camera and not take it the last mile?

Or the Sigma FP. Did it need to be so small? I like small cameras, but that camera could probably be several times the current volume without inhibiting any of the use cases of a micro camera. What features and capabilities were compromised for the sake of miniaturizing it further? Or maybe there are some who are very happy with its size.

I think a lot of these issues (like the film-loading design you mentioned) are results of mistakes made early in the design process that can't be undone. Kubrick compared filmmaking to chess and said a grandmaster might take half their remaining allotted time on one move and then make the next 5 moves in quick succession. Because that first move is locking in the course of events to follow, and a rushed mistake will have downstream consequences.

PS I welcome being called out :)
 
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ahalpert said:
Or the Sigma FP. Did it need to be so small? I like small cameras, but that camera could probably be several times the current volume without inhibiting any of the use cases of a micro camera. What features and capabilities were compromised for the sake of miniaturizing it further? Or maybe there are some who are very happy with its size.
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If they aren't happy with its size, they sure will be with this:

https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/06...raw-recording-up-to-120fps-with-the-sigma-fp/

https://www.cinema5d.com/sigma-fp-f...res-raw-and-braw-recording-dual-iso-and-more/

https://www.atomos.com/press-releases/atomos-sigmafp-proresraw
 
NorBro said:
If they aren't happy with its size, they sure will be with this:

https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/06...raw-recording-up-to-120fps-with-the-sigma-fp/

https://www.cinema5d.com/sigma-fp-f...res-raw-and-braw-recording-dual-iso-and-more/

https://www.atomos.com/press-releases/atomos-sigmafp-proresraw
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WHOLY LITERAL Fughk!!!

The good news is, even if we bought crazy expensive cameras in the last 5years, our upgrades going forward just got a lot cheaper. Definitely some awesome specs on that fp now. shifts the mindset on what specs even mean anymore. FINALLY! Good times.

Will be a little while before the dust settles and people stop associating specs with quality gaps. So for now we'll have people with their FP, S1H, and BMPCC smirking and laughing with superiority at the girl shlepping an F35 or Varicam LT.


EDIT: they fixed the flickering issue in the shadow detail!
 
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James0b57 said:
but we have never had a camer that has had enough dynamic range and enough resolution AND good enough colour to properly capture the complexity of the way we see things.
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Really? What is enough resolution? To me is what the human eye can see. Most can't even see 4K unless the nose is glued to the screen. What's enough DR? If you can't do with 14 stops then...

So I would fully disagree with you here. We have indeed had cameras which offer enough dynamic range and enough resolution AND good enough colour. They are called Alex LF and Alexa 65.
 
It always seemed to me like the Sigma FP didn't have amazing image quality. Not great dynamic range, + moire. No?
 
Good news from EOSHD, James! No need to waste your money on Komodo.

"This makes the Sigma Fp the first ever full frame camera to offer BRAW support (with the View Assist), and the first to shoot 2K 120fps in ProRes RAW.

Given the size of the Sigma Fp is barely larger than a Sony RX1 this is an extraordinary capability.

For cinema production it puts the Sigma Fp in the same league as the RED Komodo but at a significant cost and size advantage, with a larger sensor."
 
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