Red: the digital camera you cannot believe
RED has a modular camera, which is pure science fiction. It is a rich person’s vision.
Jim Jannard, founder of the sunglasses and clothes company Oakley (very, very cool shades) made a billion dollars or so and decided to use some of it to make a camera, which suited him and anyone who does not like it can go and fly a kite.
Jim Jannard, apart from making cool shades, was and is a photographer. And he wanted a camera that suited him. He started work back in 2006 and he is still at it so the best thing is to think of the camera as a work in progress. And if you have to ask the price you cannot afford it.
RED Digital Cinema’s camera system is not the first to do it but it allows you to take still photography at a resolution beyond your imagination. And, at the same time, you can use it to make video, which is seriously good enough to be shown in the cinema. In fact, better.
You can argue that Nikon’s D-90 and Canon’s 5D Mark II DSLR still cameras, both recently introduced, are the pioneers in this area. But, in truth, you would not want to use them as professional tools. With RED — love the name — you can do just that.
Technically the camera is RED DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Camera) system but, to add slightly to the confusion, one model is also called Scarlet.
What you get for a lot of money is rather like a Meccano set — Before your time? Think mechanical Lego — which you can use to build a still camera that can shoot stills and cinema quality movies. And (almost beyond belief) if you add a super high-power device with a 186×56mm, 28K (28000×9334 pixels) sensor you can make IMAX movies which is the way movies are going.
Start with the basic bit of the camera which we can think of as Module A. That is $2,500. Keep adding bits and before you know where you the bill is $55,000 and rising. Not for an amateur. Not even a very keen amateur. Unless the name is Bill Gates.
The next bit is difficult to grasp and, although photographer Christoper Wright went through it with me three times, I am still not totally clear.
Raw as a format is not an acronym. It means the raw material of the shot. To make that easier to work with you can use all sorts of compression techniques of which the most famous is .jpg which is what is called a ‘lossy’ technique. As you start to use it the image remains crisp and clear but the more the image is compressed the coarser it gets. Use it to a small extent and it makes little difference. Use it to its full extent and what you have is finger painting.
Not RED. It uses a compression technique called Redcode Raw which appears to offer visually (that word is important) lossless images at high frame rates and resolutions. Chris tried to explain it to me by saying it compressed Raw images and then restored them precisely to their original state which, bluntly, seems technically impossible. But it is close.
So what you have is a machine — camera is too restrictive a word — that will shoot at a higher resolution than broadcast HDTV. And, of course, you can still take stills that boggle the mind with their resolution.
New versions are on the way but do not hold your breath.
This camera is not being built to built to make Jim Jannard money.
RED is trying to reach beyond man’s grasp to some ultimate that even when you read everything there is to know, is still almost impossible to understand. Yet it is seriously the first totally revolutionary camcorder and camera we have seen for longer than I care to think. All we can do is admire and wish we could afford one.
Much, much more information by clicking HERE which is the RED site.
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