Sony f55 vs red epic

L1N3ARX said:
Just curious, has anyone here taken a loan out on a camera like the epic or the f55 in the past? Just curious, as I would never dare buy a camera I didn't have the cash for 100%. Just wondering if all these people that buy epics at full price when they were like 40k + just plopped down cash for them or what? I would love to have that kind of money, it just surprises me that so many DPs can afford to do it, even if it is how they make their livelihood.
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I think often you'll write up a nice thought through business plan where you line up the numbers and see how things go. If down the line it all looks green I can't imagine why a bank wouldn't lend you the money to get started.

Thanks for the monitor tip Mitch, its funny how something like that is so obvious once someone mentions it.
 
Talking about taking out a loan to buy cameras, I wonder how do you guys pay your gears that are over 10G?
Mostly order online and pay with credit card? Do you guys pay everything at one time?
 
J Davis said:
Mitch - you speak the truth but there is one thing you didn't touch on and that is the pipe dream of the early adopter and the road to success because the owner is among the first. It has happened to a few but there story has been lauded and praised and the red forums capitalize on this a lot. Unfortunately many get burned in the aimless and senseless follow the leader.
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That's just marketing.
 
L1N3ARX said:
Just curious, has anyone here taken a loan out on a camera like the epic or the f55 in the past? Just curious, as I would never dare buy a camera I didn't have the cash for 100%. Just wondering if all these people that buy epics at full price when they were like 40k + just plopped down cash for them or what? I would love to have that kind of money, it just surprises me that so many DPs can afford to do it, even if it is how they make their livelihood.
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AbelCine Finance helps clients purchase gear all the time. The way RED works their payment system makes it a bit harder, but we certainly work with plenty of clients to finance their Sony, Panasonic, Vision Research and other manufacturers' products. We do this with individual clients as well as companies and institutions.
 
Mitch: SHHHH on the monitors! Dammit, you let the cat out of the bag. Since I sold my Steadicam I've been all about the support gear that has a high return rate, which included a 24" Flanders and two 17" Marshalls for video village that go on all of my shows (and are close to paid off). They join my Prestons (long since paid off, and still a healthy rental plus great resale value) and the Alura zooms (getting there slowly, but a good longterm investment), and the Boxx Meridian (high-ticket specialized rental, paid off quickly).

It's probably important to note that "days" are misleading--a twenty day job is not the equivalent of twenty days worth of rental. Depending on the client and the budget and the length of the show, rental houses are slashing their day/week ratio and I'm finding the 2 day/week standard for jobs less than two weeks, and 1 day/week for longer jobs is pretty standard for the winning bid. I have no choice but to rent my gear at the same rate as the rental house, so there that is. Not like the good old days.

The only thing I will say about monitors is we are apparently getting close to the end of the 1080 format with 4K being shoved down everyone's throats (seriously, so few productions NEED 4K--isn't it obvious that it's all just a ploy to sell a slew of new gear??), so I figure we've got a bit of time for the 1080 output to be "good enough" on 4K shows before 4K monitors will become de rigeur. I'd be hesitant to drop $5K on a 1080 reference monitor right now unless I knew it would pay off in less than a year.
 
I gotta say, "higher-than-1080p is just a marketing ploy" is plain wrong. Have you never looked back at a photo you took with a 6MP DSLR in 2002 and said, "God, I wish I'd had my 36MP D800 -- or my old film SLR -- when I visited that amazing location" ? I have. A lot.

The fact is, 1080p was NEVER enough. It was a step back from S35 film, just like my 6MP DSLR was a step back from "FF35" film. It was growing pains. The REAL marketing ploy is the "1080p is still enough" insistence from Sony/Canon/etc -- right up until the moment they announced THEIR 4K cameras.
 
Is it the resolution or the improved sensor that makes the difference in that still? What size are you viewing it on? These are all extremely relevant questions. Everything is relative. Stills sit there. The eye works to discern details. Motion pictures move. The effect is very different.

There are a number of television series that started on 35mm and have since switched to HD (mostly Alexa). While one may be able to detect a different quality within the image if viewing episodes in both media, I would doubt that hardly anyone would feel that the resolution was substantially different.

Even viewing in a theater, I don't feel like digital features shot with current cameras are radically lacking in resolution, at least where I sit. Sure, you can march up to the front of the screen and pixel peep, but that's not where I want to watch a film from.

The sensors, the processing, these are the most important advances we've seen in digital cinema cameras in recent years. It would be really nice to be able to allow these cameras to mature and just get to work without having to revise workflows every couple of years, but the manufacturers have other plans. 4K is a useful tool but it will bring many questions along with it (most 1080p home delivery is already stretched thin with current compression--now we are going to more than double the image size??!)
 
David W. Jones said:
Neither! I no longer consider buying a camera an investment, as quickly as technology is changing. When I was shooting on film you kept a camera between 7 and 15 years. Then when we started shooting digital your average camera lifespan went from 7 years down to 5 years. In the last 2 years technology has progressed so quickly that you are lucky if your camera has a 3 year lifespan, and the quality level that was $60K 5 years ago can now be had for under $10K now. We have now reached the point where camera technology and lifespan is changing every 18 months. Sorry camera manufactures, but I am no longer going to play your camera upgrade games every year. I will keep a coupe of lower cost cameras in house which can be payed off quickly, and then rent specific cameras when needed. In my business model in just does not make sense to "invest" in a higher end camera platform like the Red Epic for example, and then be locked in to shooting with this camera for X amount of time to pay it off while technology passes it by, when I can rent any camera ever made and have it shipped in a day.

All the Best!

Dave
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When the 7-15 year "investment" was $100K-$200K, you were amortizing $14K per year. When the "investment" dropped to $80K and lifespan down to 5-7 years, you were amortizing at $11K-$13K per year. When the costs dropped to $25K over a 3-year lifespan, you were amortizing at a rate of $8K per year. How, exactly, are you losing as technology gets exponentially better, faster, at lower cost?
 
6mp stills cams were fine for papers and magazines (in the main).. until you took a crop or had to work on the file

same with 1080 IMO - no space to move but proper 1080 (2.5k source) looks great

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Lots of interesting stuff here nice thread.

Stills wise I took some loans from photolease

I bought three nikon D1s cost £500PCM but I imediatley stopped spending £1000PCM on film and processing

So buy taking the loan I saved £500 a month

Id say a loan is worth considering when it instantly presents a cost/benefit to your business

But todays climate is more variable than when I was on the loan thing in the late 1990s

S
 
MichaelTiemann said:
When the 7-15 year "investment" was $100K-$200K, you were amortizing $14K per year. When the "investment" dropped to $80K and lifespan down to 5-7 years, you were amortizing at $11K-$13K per year. When the costs dropped to $25K over a 3-year lifespan, you were amortizing at a rate of $8K per year. How, exactly, are you losing as technology gets exponentially better, faster, at lower cost?
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Spoken like a man who actually understands the numbers.
 
Street pricing will be out for the F5/F55 in short order, in the meantime here is a brief comparison excluding costs of media or power options since most of the time you buy what you can afford at the time plus there are usually many 3rd party options.

RED EPIC brand new package will cost you $24,100 for Brain, Side SSD, 5" LCD Touch, PL Lens Mount.

The F55 has no street price yet, but take 15-20% off the MSRP and it will be around $36,000 for the F55, AXR raw recorder, 3.5" LCD VF.

If you're JUST after 4k RAW and feel you can live without global shutter and 4k 10-bit 444 internal recording and want to save around $15,000 then $23,600 will get you a nice F5 with recorder, and 3.5" LCD VF.


Here are some differences comparing F5, F55 and RED:

Some of the biggest differences between the F5 and F55 are:

• Global shutter on the F55
• The F55 can record 4k internally with high bit-rate codec (you may not need RAW for your application)
• The F5 can record 2k internally with high bit-rate codec.
• Both will obviously record 4k RAW with add-on AXS 4k Recorder
• The F5 uses a Color Filter Array designed for REC709 color gamut
• The F55 uses a Color Filter Array similar to the F65 which extends its color gamut even further than film
• F55 ISO 1250. F5 ISO 2000
• Price.


As for RED EPIC/Scarlet VS. F5/F55:

• RED shoots 2k in windowed mode - not rescaled and super-sampled like the F5/F55.
• The latest RED sensor are said to resolve 3.2k lines of resolution in 4k mode. We need to see the F5/F55 on the charts before we can properly compare but Sony is known for its image sharpness and reports so far have been that the 4k from Sony is very very detailed on 4k screen monitors, more so than RED. Subjective? Yes it is, but time will tell.
• RED is rated by its users as ISO 800, 1600 max usable and most RED DP's will not go over 800 for a clean image, some not even 500 for clean blacks. Subjective? Yes, of course it is. No major tests results are available yet for the F5/F55 but I think we will see very clean images at very high ISO's similar to the F3, F65, C300 and C500.
• For $13,000 you can add a Meizler module sometime next spring and record simultaneous ProRes and RAW on the REDs
 
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