Heath McKnight posted a review and analysis of the new RED EPIC-X digital movie camera at the
Digital Facility blog. The people at RED were the first to really break into the high-end movie production field with the RED ONE, a digital camera that rivaled the resolution of the industry standard Panavision 35mm film camera, and accepted the same lenses as the Panavision (which enabled cinematographers to capture more of the traditional film effects they wanted), at what was estimated as a cost 1/50th of that of a single Panavision film camera, without lenses (Panavisions weren't available for sale, only rental).
The specs on RED's latest camera, the EPIC-X, simply blow away both the RED ONE and Panavision. The EPIC-X captures images at a 5K resolution (higher than the current industry standard for digitizing older 70 mm films), can capture up to 120 frames per second at full resolution (film standard is 24), and has one of the best dynamic ranges of any camera, film or digital. It's also half the weight of the RED ONE, and records images on SSD drives that can be popped out of the camera and into an editing station. These features also suggest that the EPIC-X offers filmmakers a new degree of flexibility in how the capture scenes. With the associated RED STATION, you can make non-destructive tweaks down to individual frames, and output files in virtually every format and standard. Basically, the new RED equipment seems to exceed just about every industry standard for film production, at a mere fraction of the cost.
All this leads to McKnight's summation - "The RED EPIC-X is truly a celluloid killer, and it's being used on everything from mega-blockbusters like the upcoming Hobbit and Spider-Man films, to independent filmmakers and video producers."
Between advances in digital film equipment and the rising cost of traditional film stock, I expect more and more of the movie production industry to go fully digital. As that happens, look for more and more movie distributors and theaters to shift to digital formats as well.
Source -
RED EPIC-XL Jeremy Wiles and Creative Lab,
Digital Facility
4. Another amazing thing about this new camera is its mobility. While these cameras are extremely expensive, companies do rent these out to the average filmmaker. Now, the quality of work that a novice filmmaker produces can have the same resolution has a film that I made by the best in the industry. Low budget projects are not pigeonholed to great work now that a camera that produces such amazing quality is easily handled by one camera man. There can be a crew of three for an independent film, and yet it can look as if there was a lot of money and man power behind the work. Such a great step for filmmaker striving to get noticed by the big production companies!
ReplyDeleteSome more information can be found at this blog. A great, informative video: http://www.alexandrosmaragos.com/2010/11/red-epic-camera.html
This camera really is great. We used one of these down in Athletics Broadcasting to shoot the UT Baseball spots and they look great. Mobility is definitely a plus. At one point Trevor threw the camera up on his shoulder to get the shots he wanted. It wasn't comfortable since the shoulder mount wasn't available but it's a plus that this camera can be placed or manipulated without much effort.
DeleteThe one issue is that recording and video coding technologies are lagging behind a bit. The sheer amount of information the camera creates per image is huge and an average project can result in terabytes of data.
One plus of the UHDTV resolutions is that they downconvert nicely to 1080p but still keep a crisp look. This is convenient since we couldn't edit with it in Avid if it was above 1080p.
Good stuff.
Camera is great and wonderful technology. You share such nice description about new digital camera. Photography is one of my favourite hobby. so its very useful post to me.
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Red cameras are making a big statement in todays movie industry. With the pretty price tag and easy portability while still producing stunning quality a producer cant resist. These cameras are used everywhere. A friend of mine based in Nashville helps produce music videos and random videography, and the RED cameras are easily his favorite to work on. They are easy to work with while producing spectacular images. Im looking forward to the next few years and watching the movie and film industry change to cameras more like these.
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