Issue 2: No Viewfinder
Secondly, the camera still does not have a viewfinder (a huge hassle for DPs). And unfortunately, only one viewing output can be enabled at a time, if you are using the onboard monitor (or viewfinder, when it becomes available) there can be no output for Director or DP monitor. You pick one or the other – you can’t have both.
Technical Nerd Stuff
I lied about not getting technical, here is some tech info. The camera captures RAW images at about 27mb/s at 24fps, 4k res. This is important for a DP to know because unlike a lot of HD cameras, the images you see on any on-set monitor are not the true image you will see processed. The raw image from red has a lot more latitude and flexibility and gives the filmmaker a huge palette to work from. Given my limited knowledge I played around with the Red software to see what can be done. The flexibility the Red-cine color timing provided was amazing. While this software is no substitute for a Da-Vinci color correction suite in a post-house, its far cheaper and very powerful. With the right DP and lenses you can get images that are almost indistinguishable to 35mm.
Jumping from DV/HD/Film to the Red
The on-set experience was pretty daunting given that I was the one that pushed a Beta version of an HD camera over any other format. We had an excellent DP with 25 years of experience who only accepted the job as a favor to the director. Understandably, he only wanted to work with the best lenses and lights because he wanted to get an image of highest possible quality. So obviously we went a little over budget to meet all his requirements.
I must also mention that this is not a camera for the film/HD neophyte; as it requires a bit of knowledge with cinematography to be used to its full potential. The RED is definitely a camera you would want to place in the hands of a DP who has solid experience. It has no auto focus or auto exposure and, at the time, the latest firmware still did not support sound, which has to be recorded separately. (All the problems I talk about have been fixed as of our publication date.) Like I said, the camera does have a learning curve for people who have shot mostly HD or DV and a smaller learning curve for people used to film with knowledge of HD.
Lenses
At the time, the camera had only one lens: an 18-55mm, with an f-stop of 3. But it has a regular PL mount (which can accommodate any film lens) and you can also purchase a Nikon adapter. Our DP bought a custom made 600mm lens and a 150-300mm century PL mount lenses -- which were not compatible (doh!). While we started out with Ziess super-speed lenses, they did not meet the DP’s standards, so we traded up to Arri Ultra Primes. Yes, the Ultra Primes were an improvement over the super-speed, but in my producer’s opinion, they were not worth the extra money since we were shooting a romantic comedy and most of the film took place indoors.
Focus
The version of the camera we had, had a lens mount with an older design and had the Red shims installed which led to a flange/focus problem. The AC had to focus the entire film by eye, but luckily, he was amazing. Since we were not near any Red facility we could not bring it in for repair. At one point we decided to send the owner to LA to get the camera fixed and try to fix the codec error problem we had. The camera also shut down twice when the temperature outside reached close to zero. The camera also has a long shut down and start up time (hmmm…just like any Windows PC), so it’s not really useful for a run and gun production.
