You got early on the RED ONE waiting list? I heard they are sold out for 2007.
What will RED ONE do for you that other HD options won't and how? How much did it really cost you for that camera including a set of lenses? Less than $20K?
I'm not real early on the RED list, but I still think I should have the camera this year. As of right now, there is no hard data on how many cameras will be produced and shipped this year. They will be taking more reservations at NAB (presumably), but other than that it's pretty much closed off until the camera ships in quantity. I'm working with a few other RED reservation holders in my area on some things right now.
So far, we know the camera body is $17.5K, RED DRIVE or the hard-drive based storage magazines for it are $1K (or less) for 320GB (think about 200 minutes of 4K RAW @ 24p). It's an s35mm sensor as this is a digital cinema camera. Uses standard PL mount lenses and will also have lens mounts (not just adapters, but full mounts to replace the PL mount) available for Nikon and B4 when the camera ships. There is a FLASH module for recording too, but details aren't available yet - we're supposed to get all the final accessory details and pricing in March. The 18-85mm RED zoom lens is $9995. Yes, seems expensive, but this is the lens that woudl be used with such a camera 99% of the time for most any type of work. Comparable lenses from Zeiss or Cooke run upwards of $60K so this lens, like the camera, is a bargain. The only two other cameras out there shooting video close in spec to RED is the Panavision Genesis and the ARRI D20. The D20 isn't even full 4K res... RED will shoot 2K up to 120fps, the others don't. Both of those digital cinema cameras are over 10X the price of RED -- as in the body alone is over $175K.
We have been using the HVX200 cameras here and renting larger cameras (Varicam, F900 / CineAlta) when needed. The HVX200s pretty much sit on the shelf these days as they don't have the lens options or the picture quality needed for true HD delivery. So we need to buy new cameras... Varicam uses B4 HD broadcast lenses or s16 lenses with an adapter and only shoots 720p to encode at 960x720 4:2:2 DVCPROHD and used bodies with an 8x Fujinon HD lens run about $37K. CineAlta F950U is about $120K for the body alone, used F900 bodies can be had for about $60K if you look hard enough.
Anyway, like I said, we need new cameras and our budget puts us in the used Varicam/CineAlta range. But RED offers so much more and fits in the low end of that price bracked... More in line with Sony F350 XDCAM units, which just shoot XDCAM MPEG2 <cough, higher bitrage HDV> to XD media. RED offers shooting up to uncompressed 4:4:4 4K s35mm from 1 to 60fps rampable or up to 2K/s16 4:4:4 from 1 to 120fps. Shooting 4K RAW still 4:4:4 is very close to uncompressed in quality, no macroblocking of any type. The resolution is essentially equal to that of 35mm film or quad-HD 4K on RED is 4096x2304.. In uncompressed s35mm mode you get full 2540p up to 60fps!
I've been expanding my company and offerings over the past year or so and we're branching more into film and fx work, so the camera is a perfect fit. And never again will I have to apologize for the quality of my video on a commercial shoot.
Our RED budget is still a floating target, but we're looking at about $47K. Which includes the RED body, 18-85mm zoom lens, 300mm prime lens, Nikon mount (for our Nikkor lens collection), 2 x RED DRIVEs, two new 8-core Mac Pro systems, batteries, cables, etc.. We will also have to beef up the SAN and add more RAID nodes and backup infrastructure. Current DVCPROHD / HDCAM workflows don't demand as much drive space as 2K/4K RAW. And we don't know pricing yet on other accessories like EVF, RED RAIL, RED CAGE, or the FLASH memory specifics. But at this point, it's a reservation # and refundable deposit, not an actual camera purchase.
One of the local RED reservation holders I'm working with is stepping up from a JVC HD10 with Letus35a adapter and a bunch of Nikon lenses. He's buying the RED One, the Nikon mount and a RED DRIVE for starters and that fits just about $21K after tax. IMO, if you need a cinema style camera that will run circles around anything else in just about any price range, this is it. ...It's not a camera for home movies, soccer-dads, or those doing ENG run-n-gun type work. It's a digital cinema camera.
