Still hard to beat for the money

Interesting that a couple threads I started both ended up as discussions about RED. There's good reason for this. Everyone wants RED for the price of an AF100. If it happens, it won't come from RED. It's probably not possible, but a company as small as RED probably isn't going to have the manufacturing or world resources to really make a "Scarlet" happen at that price point (any time soon). So, Jan, how's about you and the folks at Panasonic over in Japan scrape together a few dozen million $, buy RED, and then watch tings go wild. I would put my order in now, because I know if Panasonic were manufacturing RED technology, there would actually be a camera to buy. (btw - I already ordered my AF100, so don't flame :-)
 
I would wait about the price re Epic Light all will be made clear in the next few weeks for that and a scarlet release date as all will be laid bare by Christmas, they are tooling up for Epic and the rest will fall into place real quite, you have to remember Jim holds the purse strings he's not a corporate and can react very quickly to market trends, where as Pani and Sony are large lumbering corporates that cannot be over stated.
No matter what the pani is a great ideal and a fab price point, but it ant no scarlet or epic light! its all down to your budget and what you need it for. But at the end of the day nothing is for nothing and you get what you pay for. But I really can't see the point of putting prime lenses on a pani Why would you!! if you can afford the glass you can afford Red.

Having said that on the 7th Dec there's an AF101 open day at a dealer here in the UK so will go with interest and an open mind. As always Barry's words of wisdom re codecs and an honest account of what the pani can do very important.

The launch of the AF100 has been ragged to say the least. Sonys F3 very slick and RED is RED so lm sitting on the fence for a little while longer to full weigh up all the costs and work flows etc.
 
Thomas Church said:
Honestly, this is one of the biggest disappointments I've ever seen.

This new "Epic Light" will most likely cost what a RED One used to cost.

I can understand bumping the price a little, but having a camera go from 8K to 15K-17K overnight is insane.

Only RED can get away with this stuff.
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I don't have a dog in the fight for or against RED. I think I'm more annoyed by the management more than anything. Things being subject to change is one thing, but they seem downright confused about who they want to be over there. I guess we know who they want to be this week. Who will they want to be next week? They just seem directionless coming up with a different vision on a monthly basis. Something doesn't seem fundamentally right when you string people along for 2+ years on one premise and then blow them out of the water with a product that eliminates them as customers altogether. This just seems like bad market research when you can't even design a product and know what it's going to cost to bring it to market.
 
It strikes me that this conversation that always tends to drift toward that great "Scarlet" that's floating around out there in the ether, is something of a proxy for a debate about the existence of a deity. A great ideal, that reigns above all, that, while there is no scientific or empirical evidence of its existence, nor any reason at this point to believe it will be among us, is still fervently clung to by its devoted followers, refusing to accept any evidence to the contrary.
 
You guys are amazing, practice patience know one knows what the price of the Epic Lite will be. If you are priced out fine, buy the Pana or the Scarlet but at the very least wait for the hard facts. Then flame away! I swear we are like children on here sometimes or maybe I am too relaxed about this stuff...
 
Andrew S said:
I would wait about the price re Epic Light all will be made clear in the next few weeks for that and a scarlet release date as all will be laid bare by Christmas, .
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Seriously, you seriously believe that. Because at this point, I think it's totally plausible that by Christmas, they announce their new Andromeda camera that's just going to blow Epic out of the water. I'm so excited about Red Andromeda, I just can't wait.
 
bhdfield said:
It strikes me that this conversation that always tends to drift toward that great "Scarlet" that's floating around out there in the ether, is something of a proxy for a debate about the existence of a deity. A great ideal, that reigns above all, that, while there is no scientific or empirical evidence of its existence, nor any reason at this point to believe it will be among us, is still fervently clung to by its devoted followers, refusing to accept any evidence to the contrary.
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Okay, that was funny.
 
If Red have a product that suited my needs on the day I buy a camera, at a price I can afford, I will certainly consider it. Right now, they don't. I could maybe, just maybe, stretch to a Red One but I'm not convinced it is the best place to invest the cash to get the best return- I think I'd do better spending more of it on locations, talent and grip like my new glidetrack HD (mmmmm. Buttery smooth!)

I just don't get the strength of partisan feeling either for or against Red. Their cameras are just tools same as any other and the only thing worth taking seriously are the cameras you can actually buy at the price you can afford on the day you need to buy it.

Sure, a reliable roadmap is very nice if you are trying to plan your spend and budgets, and they don't seem to be very good at that. But that's fine. Are you really holding off shooting the stuff you need to shoot until a future camera appears at an unspecified date? I'm planning my shoots for next year and hoping I'll have an AF100 with which to do it, but if not I'm going to shoot with 5D2/7D/HVX200s or hire something if for some reason I really need higher spec footage and can't afford to buy the camera to do it for that project.

Putting off shooting until the right camera appears is no way to make a living doing it ;-)

Cheers, Hywel.
 
bhdfield said:
how's about you and the folks at Panasonic over in Japan scrape together a few dozen million $, buy RED, and then watch tings go wild.
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RED is not a small company, they made over $200,000,000 yes $200 MILLION dollars on their RED One camera line alone, not including all the other millions made on accessories and lenses.

They have the resources, they just dont care. They see that if they cater to the smaller market, they will be opening a can of worms that they'd rather not. They are staying in the pro market as Jim stated. They do not want to go outside of the pro market for their cameras anymore. I think thats the right move. You dont see Arri putting out a consumer or prosumer camera do you? It's what makes a quality company... well quality.
 
Giuseppe Pugliese said:
RED is not a small company, they made over $200,000,000 yes $200 MILLION dollars on their RED One camera line alone, not including all the other millions made on accessories and lenses.

They have the resources, they just dont care. They see that if they cater to the smaller market, they will be opening a can of worms that they'd rather not. They are staying in the pro market as Jim stated. They do not want to go outside of the pro market for their cameras anymore. I think thats the right move. You dont see Arri putting out a consumer or prosumer camera do you? It's what makes a quality company... well quality.
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Yes, that seems very reasonable and logical and no one can argue with that business philosophy. The problem is, why didn't management know that two years ago before dragging people down the affordable cinema camera red brick road for the last two years and then saying ...nah, I don't think so. Man up. Red is for pros at pro prices. When they said everything is subject to change, I think people thought they meant it the way a normal company would mean it. Meaning changes in minor specs etc, not the elimination of corporate philosophy and a whole product line. I don't know, I've never seen this before from any company with any other product.
 
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f64manray said:
Meaning changes in minor specs etc, not the elimination of corporate philosophy and a whole product line. I don't know, I've never seen this before from any company with any other product.
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While EPIC will probably take the prize as the most revolutionary digital camera ever made, RED as a company is probably also going to take the prize as most unreliable company ever.

They dangled the carrot in front of the whole industry and then threw it far away and said "get over it".
 
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Thomas Church said:
While EPIC will probably take the prize as the most revolutionary digital camera ever made, RED as a company is probably also going to take the prize as most unreliable company ever.

They dangled the carrot in front of the whole industry and then threw it far away and said "get over it".
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I think "trust" is at the core of the issue here. This is kind of a given, but when I buy a product, the unspoken question (which is what branding is all about) is: Do I trust the company? Do I trust Canon? Of Course. Do I trust Nikon? I've never owned Nikon or used them, but the answer is still a Unequivical, yes, of course I trust Nikon. Do I trust RED? Well, I'm looking out of the corner of my eye at them. No I really can't say I trust them. I want to, but I can't. I don't believe that they really care about me or are loyal to me as a customer. I don't feel I can trust what they tell me is going to happen is actually going to happen, therefore I don't feel I can trust them in the future to support my significant investment. I feel like they could easily hang me out to dry. There's more to it than just producing a camera. A relationship has to be built. They have failed to build this relationship with me. A relationship of "trust". As I've followed them, there has been a few times where my neck has snapped back, and I've gone: "Wow, that was surprising". "ahhh..I didn't see that coming". "ummm...that seemed kind of nasty". I'm just not feeling the love or the trust I guess.
 
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Thomas Church said:
Honestly, this is one of the biggest disappointments I've ever seen.

This new "Epic Light" will most likely cost what a RED One used to cost.

I can understand bumping the price a little, but having a camera go from 8K to 15K-17K overnight is insane.

Only RED can get away with this stuff.
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Scarlet S35 was NEVER a $7k-$8k camera. You have to understand that that price was just for the brain. Scarlet S35 was always going to be $15k by the time you got all of the modules and necessary items to get it running. It will now likely be $20k-$30k I'm guessing. Now Scarlet 2/3" is a different story. But then again nobody knows what Red is going to announce in the coming weeks so let's just wait to see what happens before we jump all over them.
 
I would hazard a guess that Scarlet 2/3rds will not make it out of the Red nursery alive, especially in view of recent developments with the AF 100, F3 and who knows what else will be announced.

The sun hasn't set on 2/3rds, because there will always be a niche in the broadcast world for that format, but for most other things its definitely the twilight hours for 2/3rds.
 
Andrew S said:
you have to remember Jim holds the purse strings he's not a corporate and can react very quickly to market trends, where as Pani and Sony are large lumbering corporates that cannot be over stated.
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Really? Reality seems to disagree with you. Red discussed the concept of the Scarlet two and a half years ago. Since then, the entire "DSLR Revolution" has come and, with the introduction of the AF100, may actually go. And Red has introduced *nothing*. Red has responded *not at all.* All they've done is rearrange numbers on a webpage. Panasonic designed, engineered, built, and released the GH1, and the GH2, and the AF100, all since Red announced the Scarlet. And still no Scarlet.

Sony started working on the F3 presumably long after Red announced the Epic. Guess what, the F3 will likely beat the Epic to the market. Sony has caved a block of wood and made a CGI rendering of their "NXCAM". It will almost certainly be released before the "Epic Light".

Seems to me the "large lumbering corporates" are the ones who are actually getting things done and getting products out there.

No matter what the pani is a great ideal and a fab price point, but it ant no scarlet or epic light!
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Agreed. One is a real product you can buy, and one is an ever-changing PDF file. One is something people can make a living with, and the other is something people argue about on the Internet. I agree, a real, shipping, workable professional camcorder ain't no Scarlet or Epic Light. :evil:

But I really can't see the point of putting prime lenses on a pani Why would you!!
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Because the footage looks damned good. I made my decision to get a set of Compact Primes after using the preproduction AF100. And those lenses will go forward with any PL-mount camcorder I ever get, but yeah, why *wouldn't* I use 'em on an AF100?

Lots of people have been making a living, even a very good living (with most pros I know clearing well into six figures) for years and years and years, off of camcorders that can't even hold a candle to the quality the AF100 puts out.

if you can afford the glass you can afford Red.
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This is true. So where do I send them the cash for my Scarlet? Or my Epic Light? Or even my Epic? You do see the point, right? There's absolutely no point -- ZERO point -- in discussing any forthcoming product from Red. It's a total waste of time and bandwidth, because you cannot possibly know anything. People have spent two and a half years arguing about 3K for 3K and Scarlet S35 and Scarlet Full Frame, and not one of those products exist, or will ever exist. There is no way to describe those two and a half years as anything other than "wasted."

Sure you can hear all about the magical, amazing, mystical "HDRx" or the stupefying, unbelievable, otherworldly "Magic Motion" or whatever, but -- what can you do with it? NOTHING. It doesn't exist. So what's the point? Why have folks wasted two and a half years clamoring for, arguing about, defending and attacking, "The Scarlet"? Has it made you one penny of revenue? Has it brought you one single job? Has it taught you how to shoot better or refined your skills? Who here has advanced their career, because of the Scarlet or the Epic Light? Anyone? Who here, right now, can say they're better off because of the Scarlet?

I know several Scarlet aficionados liked to point their fingers at the HVX200 and mock and scorn its "pixel shift"... but Panasonic sold a hundred and twenty thousand of those around the world. There are people out there making a living off of it. They're being used in commercials and news and weddings and films every single day. The 120,000 HVX's out there have made billions of dollars of revenue and careers for the 120,000 people who bought them. What has the Scarlet done for anyone?

Look, I would love to buy something that lived up to all the hype of the Red products. But I cannot. Nobody can. So call me when I can. Until then, people are free to keep discussing these things all they want, but I'd ask a similar question as Andrew asked -- "why would you?"
 
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