Red Rock Micro Mattebox

B

BPatterson

Member
hey guys, what can you tell me about the new Red Rock Mattebox. from the spec's and everything it has to offer it looks like a great buy, plus the price of it is great. So i'm just looking for some feedback on it.

thanks
Brad
 
It is ridiculously good for the price. There is nothing anywhere near its price on the market. If ever there was a no-brainer "must buy", it's this.

Now, that all depends on if you need a swing-away full-size mattebox. If you're planning on mounting it on an HVX or EX1 or larger, yes it makes sense. It would be preposterous to put this massive mattebox on an HV20.

But if you need a real, professional, swing-away mattebox, nothing comes within five miles of the Redrock, at its price. There are better matteboxes on the market, but they cost 5x to 10x as much. The RR is a screaming deal.
 
Barry_Green said:
It is ridiculously good for the price. There is nothing anywhere near its price on the market. If ever there was a no-brainer "must buy", it's this.

Now, that all depends on if you need a swing-away full-size mattebox. If you're planning on mounting it on an HVX or EX1 or larger, yes it makes sense. It would be preposterous to put this massive mattebox on an HV20.

But if you need a real, professional, swing-away mattebox, nothing comes within five miles of the Redrock, at its price. There are better matteboxes on the market, but they cost 5x to 10x as much. The RR is a screaming deal.
Click to expand...

Wow, ok so now I know what I'm getting.
 
I say this after having worked with the RR for a week or so. I went through mattebox hell, buying a $500 CAVision (junk), selling that and then sinking in $1500 for a pimped-out Chrosziel (vastly overrated), then selling that and finally settling in on a $1300 Vocas. I like the Vocas fine, but it's limited to 4x4 and it was useless on my Red, etc.

And, frankly, with the Vocas, that was before I was using the Letus. Using a lens adapter changes the mattebox dynamics significantly.

The Redrock incorporates the #1 most awesome feature for 35mm adapter users: it's swing-away. I can't begin to tell you guys how mandatory that feature is. That's how the big boys do it, and that's what we need when changing lenses. Swing-away makes lens changing a matter of a few seconds, instead of a tedious breakdown/rebuild of the mattebox mounting just to swap a lens.

The RR supports 15mm lightweight and 19mm studio rods, it takes about ten seconds to swap between them so you can move the mattebox from the HVX to the Red in a matter of seconds. It supports 4x5.65 filters, instead of just 4x4's. All stages rotate. It's got massive sidewings and a huge french flag. It just basically does everything you'd want a mattebox to do.

But it costs HALF what my little Vocas 4x4 does! That's insane.

It costs about 1/2 what the Chrosziel 4x4 does.

It costs barely any more than the cheapo bottom-of-the-barrel CAVision.

It's really crazy that they sell this as cheap as they do. The fully-configured Red One arrangement has a retail price of $795. It should probably have a "1" in front of that price (i.e., $1,795) and they'd still sell all they could make. That's still less than half the cost of the comparable Arri.

Now, that's not to say the RR is as good as the Arri, of course it isn't. But the Arri's $4,000. The RR is $595 to $795.

RED themselves just announced that they were cancelling their own mattebox project. I can't help but think that the RR mattebox is a large reason as to why; RR's gonna take the market by storm with this thing.

It's not perfect, don't get me wrong, but then again the one I'm using is a preproduction model and Brian's already said there will be several refinements for the shipping units. But even as-is, there's nothing that can touch this preproduction model at the price.

Arri's supposed to be coming out with a new mattebox designed for the EX1/HVX level cameras, it'll be interesting to see how that compares.

But seriously, if you need a mattebox, "get the RR" is going to be as common a phrase in 2008 as "get a DVX" was back when the DVX first hit. It's just the obvious, de facto, right choice.

Again though, this is a HUGE mattebox. It would look comically preposterous hanging off the front of anything smaller than an HPX170 or so. It absolutely dominates the front of the DVX100, perhaps too much. It would be laughable to see an HV20 sticking out the back of this mattebox. The mattebox itself weighs almost four pounds (when fully configured). It looks right at home when mounted on a Red One. It's serious.

I wouldn't put this RR mattebox in inventory at a rental house; this is the kind of thing you'd buy for your own productions rather than renting.

Also, I've had some issues with mounting various accessories, that I'm discussing with Brian about to see what can be done. It might be user error on my part, or it may already be taken care of in the revisions they're already planning on implementing or maybe they've already implemented. I've got to send him some follow-up info on that.

So, initial impression is: this is the screaming deal of the decade. It's not perfect, but it's so inexpensive that it makes any other mattebox purchase seem just silly. Unless, of course, you need an Arri MB-20 and can afford it...
 
Ought to listen to Barry. I told you guys from Day One when the Production Model hit that I couldn't fathom WHY this thing cost so little.

The MB-20 is the closest to it, and it's much more expensive.

RR knocked it out of the park with this Mattebox, there's nothing else that can touch it when considering the price.
 
thanks for the info Barry, i was already set on buying it but decided why not get a second opinion. I have one more question about it. the filter trays good? i'm guessing they are since from Barry's statement, the RR sounds pretty much perfect. Thanks again.

Brad
 
BPatterson said:
I have one more question about it. the filter trays good? i'm guessing they are since from Barry's statement, the RR sounds pretty much perfect.
Click to expand...
Nothing about it is perfect, of course. It's a low-cost product, so don't think I'm saying it's better than it is.

What I am saying is: it does everything, for 1/5 the cost. It may not do everything 100% as well, but -- nothing else even tries, you know what I mean? This thing supports 4x4, and 4x5.65, and even 5.65x6" filters. It's swing-away. It's 19mm and 15mm mountable. It's got a full french flag and adjustable/extendable side wings. And it costs about the same as a junky CAVision cheapo-box! Even if it was only mediocre, I'd still give it a five-star review because it at least does the essential core functions that it does. The fact that it's not mediocre, and in fact is pretty darn good, gets it even more stars. It's not perfect. An Arri is better. This mattebox may only last, say, three years, vs. 10 years for an Arri. Okay, so, fine -- buy another. Buy five of 'em, you'll still spend less than you would on the Arri, and you can have four replacements sitting in your closet ready to go if you ever need 'em, right?

Okay, back to the filter trays: I've got a couple of preproduction 4x5.65 filter trays. I haven't seen the production versions. These ones are so-so, in that they're glossy (glossy = bad, you always want matte in a mattebox). Also, they're fine for 4x5.65 filters, they're solid metal with a good spring retainer, but they're a bit clumsy for trying to mount 4x4 filters -- you have to sort of balance the filter in the center, with a little flexible mask that blocks out the overhang, and slide it "just so" so that it's in position, etc. That's not the best solution. It's a cheap solution, and for no-budgeters who want to use both 4x4's and 4x5.65's, you could press it into service, but I'd much rather just have some proper 4x4 trays. Or, a better insert -- some sort of hard plastic or metal insert, instead of a flexible/floppy mask.

Of course, here's where it gets silly -- Redrock's mattebox uses Arri-compatible filter trays, so you could always just rent a few Arri trays for five bucks if that's what you need. Very cool of RR to make their trays completely interchangeable with the industry standard.
 
Does it vignette on the wide end of wide angles?

I've got an Angenieux 2/3" 10x5.3 for my HPX I'd like to try it on, but I'm afraid it will vignette on the wide end.
 
Barry are you saying you won't put them in a rental house because they will get damaged quickly by all the different users and continious use?

thanks,
Derrick
 
This is a great deal and I'm waiting for mine to arrive! The waiting time is 40 ~ 60 days, so it'll be a bit of time before it arrives.
 
I use it with my HPX170 and Letus Ultimate. I have substituted the adjustment rods for longer, carbon fiber versions for more flexibility with different lens sizes.

There are a lot of things that bug me about the matte box, the sidewings don't stay on real well without a whole lot of torque on the one and only knob holding each one. The track for one already fell off, but RR sent a new version. The matte box will not slide over the rails, it's big and heavy, connecting the mattebox to the hinge post is a bit of a pain. the lens donuts are a pain for some lenses as far as fit and I don't like the filter trays--not a positive enough spring lock for the filters, the papery/plastic insert to block light around 4"X4"s is silly and will get damaged/lost immediately. Overall, however, it does the job with a 35mm adapter/multiple lenses.

If using the camera's lens, I'd stick with the Chrosziel's--well a used one anyway, price wise. Barry's right, I have some reservations about the RR microMatteBox in a rental environment, but we'll see.
 
just curious if in the last couple of years has this matte box system been improve and has anyone used with like a hpx 300 I saw on their site they have a red bundle but did find one for hpx 300 or 500
 
Barry_Green said:
Again though, this is a HUGE mattebox. It would look comically preposterous hanging off the front of anything smaller than an HPX170 or so. It absolutely dominates the front of the DVX100, perhaps too much. It would be laughable to see an HV20 sticking out the back of this mattebox.
Click to expand...

So I assume it would look hilarious on the front of my 5D MK II then?
 
No Adam, we use a full size arri matte box on the 5D when shooting music videos, and it actually works out great.

- Derrick
 
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