Hi folks

There has been some mention of RED on the MF board.

I know nothing about video and have only used various a cameras for one hour

(the main thing I noticed was a severe wide restriction until you stump up some big cash)

I am thinking of buying a video camera to use around the stills shoots I am doing and maybe shoot some scenic stock - fishing boats bobbing in harbours waves crashing against the coast etc

Also maybe a still life service ie pans and zooms of stil life sets

As a total video newb going in at the red level seems mad until one realises it takes nikon glass

which I have from 10.5 and FF 14 till 600

and CF cards which I have a stock of

Can any one comment on this and what bit one needs to buy

Seems like the cheapest is the camera, nikon mount an the Viewing screen

$19000 ??

Might do more for my business than a couple of new D3s etc

Questions

Is it horrible with nikon lenses (wrong focus throw?)

What other bits does one need

Is the software stupid expensive

I assume it is manual focus only

Is APS sensor or smaller

Is there a market for moving stock?

Should I be taking my business in this direction?

I am currently construction a photo studio and will be bring the rental of my Hassy and lights into my business model - this seems rentable too....

etc

SMM

I'll have an article on the RED camera up within a few days.

Check their web site and Wikipedia for more info. It's all there.

A properly equipped camera is going to cost at least $50,000.

There is a new hand-held version called Scarlet to be shown at the NAB show in a few weeks that will likely come in at about the price of a high end DSLR.

Producing video is a serious business. There is a steep learning curve and buying a camera is only a small part of the process. Final Cut Pro makes Photoshop look like a simple program.

Michael

Thanks for that.

I dont know if it that 'serious'

My interest would initially to to shoot stock clips (10s?) - waves crashing - girls walking on the beach etc

The cutting would be someone else

My property developer clients already buy library stills of images of this nature to jazz up the coastal restort complexes they are building

My moving stock could be integrated into the CGI whalkthroughs they do

Also studio still lives I would build a little dolly and move round the product etc

Also my observation of much moving footage is that zooming etc messes it up - the classic shots (sergeo leone) are pretty simple and very photographic

I see pretty much putting on a tripod and shooting 'moving landscapes - cant see that I would nt need the camera, LCD viewer and some nikkors that i already have

S

Actually Final Cut isn't that hard, as long as a teacher or book explains it at a decent level.
It's dirt cheap; a bit more than 1200 dollars. And with that you get motion, soundtrack and color.
With cf-media it gets even easier, since you don't have to load media from a tape. Just put the files from your cards in your media bin, and boom, you're in bussiness.

I do agree on Michael's "buying the cam is only the start"- remark. Sound for instance is of great importance and has it's own learning-curve.

There's a reason why movies have long credits...you can't do everyting by yourself, not like with photography.

I have been working in film and video since 1980. If you want to get your feet wet in video start with something like a Sony HDV-Z1U. It is a hi def camera that records on Mini-DV tape. Through a menu selection you can choose to record 16x9 hi def, 16x9 standard def or 4x3 standard def. You could import your footage via firewire from the camera. Most entry-level non linear editors, like final cut, will be able to control the camera just like a tape transport. If you like what you are able to acomplish and see a market for it in your business, you can always upgrade. You will want a fluid head. Gitzo makes a very nice package; carbon legs and lightweight fluid head that can last you through some camera upgrades. Beware of handling noise when recording nat sound. I edit with the Avid Media Composer and much prefer it to Final Cut, but others feel jus the other way around. In some respects video can be easier than still photography. A scene that would be of marginal value as a still can be a much higher value shot due to the interest of the action. Even so, there is a learning curve.

My initial market wouldnt rely on sound - it is of course important

Am I right in thinking that the RED has no sound on the basic package?

S

Red One records up to four channels of audio I believe

(I work for RED)

There are a number of people, early adopters of RED, who are using it for stock footage. Some of the shot's I've seen look amazing. Due to the very high resolution recordable, up to 4096x2304 onto a CF card (got to be a very, very fast one) and drive, it's suits almost any final use of the images. Also, at lower resolutions, 2048x1152, you can shoot up to 120fps for slow motion work.

The camera works great with Nikon or Canon adapters, and these would be very suitable for stock footage. The sensor is Super-35 sized, 16:9, which is close to a crop sensor DSLR frame size (stills 35mm film is oriented horizontally, and hence you get a larger image from it than from movie 35mm film).

Software for working with the RAW images comes free with the camera, and you can download it now if you want to play with some of the RAW movie files that have been posted. I'd certainly recommend a companion app like FCP to go with it though, as there's a Quicktime based workflow that's great for quickly working with your footage.

Yes manual focus. Movie cameras don't have auto-focus.

Price is $17,500 for base camera. Minimum config beyond that is CF card module, battery pack and charger, LCD and or EVF, maybe some grip handles.

For more info, reduser.net is a great user forum where all the key people who work at RED also post on, and we're all happy to offer advice. And I'm happy to answer questions here too.

And as Michael says, keep an eye on Scarlet, which is getting properly announced at NAB in just over a week's time....

Graeme

This is becoming more philosophical for me

I think I need to be convinced that shooting 'still' stock or running a stills only studio is just 'the past'

ie to shoot stills is to throw my time away

I knew that shooting stock on a 2.4mp D1 was basically throwing my time away because the results would have no long term value, the same was true with a 6mp JpgOnly D100

That is what convinced me to spend stupid money on an H1 and a 22mp three years ago

Convince me that stills are now 'commercially dead'...

I don't see RED replacing still photography, but in some situations, certainly advantageous - I can see many individual frames from Chris' antartica videography being superlative images in their own right, a system such as RED makes this possible. Imagine the possibilities for wedding / events ?

-John

No it wont replace stills - I still own a 22mp MFDB and a D3 rigs that I am not that bothered about upgrading

I see shooting much more parrallel - ie both

I just wonder if shooting still stock is a dead end Vs video stock for example

As the screen becomes THE way to view stuff and user interactivity takes off I think that the market for architectral 360 pans for example may start to be more marketable than my current service being 'completion images' ie stills

Same with stock - whiy shoot a sunset when one could do a timlapes of the sun setting (ok you could do this with a still camera no doubt)

Maybe I need to experiment splicing and speeding up with the 9FPS that my D3 offers

'stop motion' is it called ?

SMM

There is no way stills are dead. I started in film - moved to stills- and now going back to film as an addition to my still work (I have a RED on order).

It's a completely different set of skills and a different type of story telling. Most of my work lends itself to shooting in both stills and motion, but the shots are very different. Cinematography is also truly a different mind set.

It is possible that a few art directors may start to pull frames from motion picture shoots and use them in ads. Cameras like the RED, Arri 20D, Panavision Genesis etc. may produce very high quality still frames compared with their older film counterparts. But I think their usefulness will be limited in the near future.

There are exciting times... and I love change too.

I wonder what the market for still stock versus moving stock now - probably 90% stills, 10% moving

and in five years ?

(not to mention the going rate for stills stock ! )

SMM

My article in RED is now online.

Michael

Nice article and very "outside of the box". In response to it and some of the comments in this thread, here is my recent experience:

For a number of years (never mind how many) I've been shooting a few weddings on a pro basis. Actually I've had more customers for baby portraits and have leaned my business more toward that. Oh, I'm still very part time, but it keeps me in touch and having fun.

My style with baby portraits is to do them in their home; they are much more relaxed and open in their own space. I drag along some backgrounds and strobes, but it really isn't a whole lot of gear. I'm not much of a poser with babies. That's mostly because you can't get babies to pose. So I put them in situations where they are happy and act pretty normally. Then I capture enough shots of them looking cute and happy to make parents happy.

There are certain equipment issues with this setup that I've been trying to get around, but haven't found the right still photo equipment. One of them is strobe lights. Babies don't much like strobes or any bright light. A bright light they can get used to, but most never get very comfortable with strobes, some just start crying under strobes.

Another is Live View. I've shot most of my my baby portraits with a Konica Minolta A2 camera because it has a nice Live View. Sticking my face behind a camera to look into a viewfinder doesn't work with babies. When my face is hidden, they almost immediately disconnect from me and turn their attention elsewhere. When my head pops back up, we have to start the human interaction all over again. This on and off method is not fun for me or the babies. So, Live View has turned out to be very important to the way I shoot babies.

The other is reaction time of the photographer/camera. OK, the A2 doesn't have the fastest shutter reaction, but it is pretty fast with AF turn off. Mostly the problem is that babies move very quickly and suddenly. They also don't hold poses very long - at all. So, I'm always seeing poses that I'm missing. That's a bit frustrating. I could get a camera with very fast reaction time, but it isn't going to speed up the photographer any.

I've been waiting for the nice fast DSLR cameras to get a useful Live View, but that doesn't seem to be happening very fast or very well. Besides they don't really solve all the above problems. So, slowly and reluctantly I have forced myself to think outside the box and look at an HD video camera as the solution. I bought a Canon HV-20 to try it out and have been very pleased so far. Let me explain:

I HAVE to use a bright light that isn't a strobe. So I got a big florescent setup that gives a bundle of bright light, but is soft enough for babies. The florescent setup keeps the room from getting too hot. Babies get used to it pretty quickly - in their own home.

The HV-20, as do most video cameras, does "Live View" very well. It couldn't work without excellent Live View. In fact the "viewfinder" isn't very good. That's alright, I don't use anything but the screen. It's big and bright enough that I can see it from several feet around the camera. It also turns around so that I can be in front of the camera and see it. You can't find better Live View on a still camera.

Reaction time of the photographer becomes a non-issue. I turn it on and it takes 24 pictures every second. There is nothing a baby can do to beat that. Well, they have been known to crawl away on occasion. In short, I get everything they do in front of the camera. Yes, shooting at 1/24th of a second does leave a few frames that have motion blur. Interestingly, that usually helps video. For pulling out stills, it really isn't a problem either because there tends to be a frame very close that has the best pose and isn't blurry.

I know you are wondering about all those big prints from 1920x1080 pixels. That's hasn't been a problem either. For years I gave my customers a CD or DVD with all the still photos in a wide variety of file formats. I wanted them to be able to print these pictures from just about any software. Of course, I've had the ability and option to print large, pretty prints for them too. With a little surveying of my customers, I learned that not a single one of them had every printed a single picture! Nope, not a one - zero. I found out that they were looking at the JPEGs on their computers and e-mailing them to friends and family. Mostly they were looking at the smaller sized JPEGs too and not even the full sized ones.

Hey, these are busy parents of babies and small children. They don't have time to sleep. Time to print and display photos is way down on their list of priorities. So, they wanted all the pictures digitally, but they want them in a format where they can quickly and easily view and distribute them.

Therefore, the 2 MP of HD video will print nice 4x6" pictures. It will be more than big enough for e-mail distribution. It will display very nicely on even the high resolution computer monitors used today. It will give stunning pictures on the 1080i/p TVs that are the best you can buy today and for many years in the future. That means that HD video resolution is more than enough resolution for this market.

I still give them the shoot on CD / DVD. I also create a little slide show for them and a little video that shows clips of their cherub in action with the pulled still from that clip embedded in the video. (I'm using Sony Vegas Pro 8.) So, they get both still and video from the same sitting. The key thing is that this is quick and easy viewing whether they want to watch on their computer or TV.

Yes, a RED camera would be great to have, but a fully loaded one would scare some babies and toddlers. It really isn't needed for this market. Once still photographers start thinking outside their current still camera boxes, they will find a lot more uses for the RED. I hope my little story will help other still photographers think outside the box and see if video might improve their visual storytelling.

Thanks,
Clyde




------------------------------------------
My article in RED is now online.

Michael

A very interesting article Michael.

About five years ago, when I was still fairly new to digital photography, I thought how great it would be to have a camera that could shoot short clips of very high quality video from which you could take stills. I shoot a lot of weddings, and the ability to pick the best frame from a sequence of pictures would be very useful at times. I am thinking of moments like the throwing of the confetti, or when the couple are coming down the aisle. By getting in the right place and anticipating the action one can work wonders, but having pictures taken a split second apart would be great!

Of course one can use continuous shooting on a DSLR, but it is very noisy!

Clyde:

Shooting babies and small children is easy--just think of them as a kind of wildlife! Trying to pose them is generally not very effective, so I generally don't bother. And trying to interact with them to get them to smile is often a mistake, especially if you're getting into their personal space with a camera. They have no idea who you are, or what you're pointing at them, and getting in their face to try to get them to smile is probably going to have the opposite effect. And the you are focusing on trying to get them to smile, then to th Have a parent or family member try to get them to smile; it's far more likely to work if they do that while you fade into the background and be the photographer instead of the baby wrangler. Shoot them with a short telephoto (70-200 is great for this) from across the room while they are interacting with parents/siblings/other family member (which can also give you great opportunities for interaction shots), or playing with their favorite toy or watching their favorite Disney movie on TV. If you shoot with a DSLR and fast glass, you may not even need to use supplemental lighting, or you can light a whole room with a strobe aimed at the ceiling (unless the ceiling is orange or purple or some other weird color) without necessarily freaking out the subject.

Everyone seems to be flagging video as a way to stop 'missing' still images ie to grab the best moment

Seems a little backwards looking

S

Please elaborate.

If it works, why not? It's just using the right technology to solve a visual capture problem.

Of course, there is a lot more you can get out of video.

Clyde


--------------------------------------------

Everyone seems to be flagging video as a way to stop 'missing' still images ie to grab the best moment

Seems a little backwards looking

S

No it isn't, because video frame grabs are only suitable for web/screen display and very small prints. If the client wants anything bigger than a 4x6" print, the best you can offer will be distinctly inferior to what a DSLR shooter can offer, even if your camera does 1080p HD. 2MP frame grab JPEGs are not going to hold up well against 8+MP RAWS in any kind of a comparison. You're simply trying to justify the increased frame rate of a video camera (a crutch to compensate for your lack of shooting skill) as an acceptable tradeoff for a major compromise in the quality of the final image. There are tens of thousands of photographers out there who successfully photograph babies and small children with DSLRs every day. If you can't join them, you need to look in the mirror to find the cause.

I've been working on a Media Composer for the past 11-12 years. We're getting ready to upgrade to HD and had been debating between staying with Avid or moving over to Final Cut. Are you guys shooting HD and, if so, what cameras are you using?

I've been working on the Avid Media Composer since giving up pre-read editing on D-2 and D-3, probably about 1994 or so. When I went into business for myself in 2004 I needed to hit the ground running and stayed with AVID. I knew several other people who changed to Final Cut Pro and it has worked out for them. I shoot mostly in SD up to now and use a Sony DSR-130 which is the D-30 camera head docked to a DSR-1 DVCam back. I have a Sony HDV-Z1U that I use for a couple of clients and have rented both Sony 900's and Panasonic Varicams. I will buy a full size HD camera package sometime in the next year. A friend of mine has said that if Sony made a car, he'd buy it and I kind of feel the same way. I own some Panasonic gear and used a Panasonic DVC-Pro 25 camera for a few years. I actually prefer the tape handling in the DVC-Pro equipment over the DVCam. I am intrested in Red and signed up for their email alerts, but have never received one. I havn't been to NAB for a few years and hate going to Las Vegas. I suppose I should go and catch up.

If you do get to NAB, David, ask for me at the RED tent and say hello. I'd be pleased to tell you about the camera in person.

Tape is what we're all used to, but when I sit at my edit suite and look at the compact flash reader sitting there, that must have cost me all of $30, I have to laugh at the cost of a HDCAM SR deck....

Graeme

Graeme,

Thank you very much for the kind offer. I won't be able to make NAB this year. I am booked through June, but I would love to be able to get the Cliff Notes version of Red. I am always looking for a competetive advantage and Red certainly qualifies as that. Many of the projects I work on require hours and hours of master footage and that has favored tape up to now.

I seem to have more and more battery systems to keep up with as well. Can Red be powered by Anton Bauer Dionic batteries? That would be one less thing to worry about. My still photography system is Nikon, so being able to use Nikon lenses would also be an advantage.

If you are able to, please PM me anything you can share about Scarlett.

Best regards,
David

It is backward because people are going 'I will miss less shots' not going

'hey cool' think of the new stuff I could do 'pan arounds' '3D' or whatever other ways of showing ones idea there are in the screen environment which I would argue is going to be a prevalent (not exclusive) manner of viewing stuff soon

SMM

I can't speak about Scarlet until the announcement. I'm not up on which batteries work, but http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.ph...t=anton+battery had 140s working well.

Nikon lenses will work, through an adapter. There's a manual adapter from RED and I think Birger are making electronic mounts. SLR glass is great, image wise, but not often the best ergonomics for movie making.

Graeme

If you actually believe that none of your customers have ever made prints from your discs, you are deluding yourself. My experience, and the experience of most photographers, is that people commonly print JPEGS, even web-sized prominently watermarked JPEGs from online galleries. Whether they will actually admit that they do so is quite another matter. Did you just ask them over the phone, or did you actually go to their houses and look around?

You mean nikon glass will work with scarlet ?

This sounds most attactive to me

Unless I am wrong most regular video cams that have interchangable lenses seem to be about $5k and those wide lenses about $4k

At that point scarlett and my nikkors will I imagine be comparible in price considering I already own the nikors including all the old legends like 85/2 and 50 1.2

Looking forward to your announcement

Ergonomics.. you men the focus throw is too short for nice 'focus pulling' if that is the phrase - rmember I know nothing of video !

S

Michael,

Your right the learning curve from shooting stills to moving imagery, (film or video) and the time and learning investment to edit, color time and grade, is obviously there, but not near as far a leap as it was 5 and especially 10 years ago.

Prior to FCP, the latest avids and the newer SD and HD cameras, shooting anything that was interesting and professional grade could easily take an investment of a hundred thousand dollars and the project had to be an absolute dedicated video or film shoot.

Final Cut Pro really did change all of this. Now for the cost of an I-mac, a few hard drives and a thousand dollars software suite, you can cut anything and if your learned in photoshop, lightroom, etc. the learning curve is not years, even months . . . it can be weeks.


This was the first still with video project we shot a few years agok, using a standard def XL1 and the first version (or close to first) of FCP.

http://ishotit.com/first.mov

It's not Ridley Scott, but it also only impacted the cost of production by about 10% and don't think it didn't add to client satisfaction by much more than 10%.

The next step is cameras such as the Red and Scarlet. I'm amazed that your article on the LL site didn't start 500 threads about cinema vs. or including still photograpy, because convergence is here and the two genres are much more related than most photographers realize.

If the Red works and it works seamlessly into the non linear editors, the idea of having a full frame (in cinema terms) camera for under $50,000 opens up possiblities for art and commerce that really excites me and though 50 grand seems steep, compare that to the price of a new medium format back, a camera and lenses and it's very comparable in costs.

(it's not the 4k part that juices me, it's the fact that you can pull focus and give a real film look without loading film, processing, telecine and the rest of issues film brings up.

Convergence is here and has been for a long time, but it takes an open mind and the willingness to learn new ways of working.


I'm telling you nothing you don't know as LL is actually where I believe publishing is going.

This is a rough cut from a work in progress from a few weeks ago. It was primarily a still shoot with the video component and produced in studio AND on location in one day and the costs and style of production is not as different as most people would think.

What 5 years ago would have only been a still session to produce this;



has now moved to this.

http://ishotit.com/inprogress_4_04_08.mov

Personally I don't like the term video because it makes me think of the 10 pm ambulance news or some blue gelled infomercial and hopefully cameras like the red will change all of that.

Just like film to digital capture, digital video can have the look and the properties of film capture with a lot more useability at a lot lower costs.

I'm sure right now on some forum the Red has started the same scream from purists that digital will never replace film and there is nothing like looking at a film image on a 400 ft. wide movie screen. On some of this I agree, except our common carrier is not 400 ft. wide screens, it's lcd's and the content comes from the cable company, apple TV or a computer.

The Red or any digital capture device changes nothing in the way of thought and creativity but it does offer opportunity for expanded art and commerce.



JR

I was talking about RED ONE, not Scarlet. I can't say anything at all about Scarlet other than "Pocket Professional" until we officially announce at NAB.

Yea, it's tricky to follow focus on a stills lens, but the image quality is usually great.

Graeme

Graham

I thought so - I reckon hard to follow focus on any lens but the PL lenses have stoppers and bigger gearing dont they ?

Fingers crossed on Scarlett and nikkors - a big plus for existing stills guys



James

As ever you are right on it

That 'little film' (what phrase do you want?) is exactly the sort of thing I think I could almost pull off

It would seem to be a big 'USP' over a straight stills guy

I notice the sound is pretty much lashed on afterwards

Interesting to see the integration of the stills

lovely - thanks for posting

SMM

Having never held a red, my thoughts and hopes for what this camera will do are only what's being said, but if this camera lives up to 1/2 of it's potential, then I seriously would conisder my role as "film" maker over my day job as photographer and I don't say this lightly as photography has always been my calling.

I just completely believe that moving imagery is not just the future of electronic publishing, it will be the standard.

8 of our last 9 "still" projects our studio has shot and produced have had a moving imagery component and in 1/2 of those instances, the moving imagery had equal importance to the stills.

Last year we shot an ad campaign for a new lingerie line and in parallel produced a video to be used by the manufacturer to sell the product into the store chains. The video wasn't really an afterthought, but it was secondary in realtionship to the print campaign, the signage and packaging.

the interesting thing was not only did the video sell the line into the stores, it's viewership on you-tube was many times larger than the viewership of the print campaign. Whehter that was actual buyers or not I don't know, but this tells us something about the power of the internet.

Maybe i'm overstating this but every day I see more interest in the fact that we shoot moving imagery.

Right now we work with two Canon HDV cameras, one as a dedicated video camera and the second has the red rock adapter, and nikon lenses to give a "film" like look.

The Red Rock adapter works (don't confuse it with the RED), though it's cumbersom, somewhat sensitive and requires more work in post as shooting to a spinning ground glass give a softer, more pastel look to the already "cooked" hdv codec files.

http://www.redrockmicro.com/

Even still, once put through a Da Vinci and colored, these little prosumer cameras produce an amazing film like file and this from just 2k.

http://216.79.18.60/2kplus.htm

The importance of the Red, to me is not just that it's a real dedicated system that shoots a raw file, but I am sure it will open up a whole new level of competition from Canon, Sony, Pansason, JVC, etc, who for a long time have pretty much had the video market to themselves.

They either produce a smaller easy to use prosumer camera, or larger ENG cameras, but none have actually hit the film quality level . . . yet and I'll bet they're are some sweaty palms in Japan thinking about how to protect their high end market, though still compete with the Red.

JR

Brave words that I am sold on

ps the red does exist - you could hold one now - its the cheaper scarlett that doesnt

SMM

Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. I'm not attacking your DSLRs or other ways of shooting babies. I've used SLRs of one type or another for about 35 years and have captured many excellent baby portraits. Despite your summary judgment against my skills (without knowing anything about them), I'm a damn fine baby photographer. Of course, I'm always looking for a way to be a better one.

All I'm saying is that I've found a way that helps ME be a better one for MY style of baby portraits. If that helps you, fine. If not, please ignore me. Part of MY style and market for baby portraits the size limitation really isn't an issue. I've asked my customers if they've printed any of the pictures and they've told me that they haven't. They haven't even done 4x6" prints.

One of the revelations of moving from amateur to pro is that you no longer have the luxury of shooting for all possible outcomes. You absolutely have to narrow your focus to fit the market you are selling to. If you don't narrow the focus, you won't be able to compete in that market. Narrowing the focus means that you don't have the time or resources to be all things to all markets.

Therefore, I'm not selling to a market that is looking for 16x20" prints of their baby. There is no reason to saddle myself with the technology to just maybe someday needing to do 16x20" prints. It costs me money that either jacks up my price or hurts my profit.

Clyde

I've asked them and they told me that they haven't printed any. Are you saying that I shouldn't believe them? That would be an odd trust relationship with my customers. I did ask them by e-mail, phone, and in person. Yes, I have been to some of their house. Remember that I shoot baby portraits in the baby's home. I do get repeat business and have looked in there homes.

Clyde

Yes, video does open up more ways of shooting. However, it doesn't necessarily shut off the old ways of shooting. I'm sure that much more viewing is done on electronic media than paper media right now - today.

Clyde

This isn't black and white, either or, good or bad.

Video doesn't stop still photograpy, still photography doesn't have to have a video component, the web can carry video and stills side by side.

In fact I've gone through a video dialog session shot on 2k and tried to find if it would actually make decent stills. Uh, yes you can do it in technique, but not necessarily in art as the direction, the framing and the overall look are much different in a still than a moving image.

Just a 16x9 frame offers a different way to tell a story than a 4:3 ratio. (and much different set).

Regardless, we do have a form of convergence. I you understand lightroom you will understand DaVinci, if you can work photoshop you can work Final Cut Pro and i've shot about every camera ever made and to me a camera is a camera each with thier own limitations and features.

What any other photographer or film maker does is none of my business, but a good eye, good taste and talent can be applied to any medium and I think some of the walls that seperate the two are already coming down.

I was suprised the first time I shot moving imagery how the possbilities were opened up to tell a story in more than one frame. I was also suprised at the different mind set it took to allow myself not to try to grab it all in one frame.

JR

True...they can exist together, but it takes a very strong photo essay of stills to draw more interest than even the most ordinary video for most subjects.




I'm not sure about that one. For some reason, the concept of key frames seems to throw a lot of people. I've always thought it was a lot like understanding hyper focal distance. Sometimes it takes a while to grasp it, but once a person does, they say, "Oh...that wasn't so hard."

Actually, being a pro means that you get calls from clients who hired you to shoot some photos for their web site, and now want to make posters from the images. Being able to accommodate such requests with high-quality, high-resolution images will go far to set you apart from Aunt Mary and her digicam.



As a professional photographer, narrowing your focus to the point where you ignore one of the most lucrative segments of photography income (print sales) is ludicrous from a business perspective. I made about 40% of my income as a professional photographer from print sales, and additional 20% or so for the PS work and usage rights for high-resolution images that the client intended to print themselves (book covers, product packaging, etc. as well as DIY prints), and the remaining 40% or so from shooting fees. If you're not getting something in that neighborhood from prints of your baby images then you're missing out on a lot of money in lost print sales. If you go to a Wal-Mart or Picture People or similar studio, the ratio of income is even higher because their shooting fees are much lower. If you operate in a way that precludes print sales and limit your images to web/monitor display, you're cheating yourself out of a LOT of money.

And the relevence to a specialist in baby photography? Who uses video for one particular problem. Maybe he has a 10x8 for doing advertising?

I know very succesful wedding photographers who do not bother with prints other than the album. They give the couple a DVD and charge as much as if they had done lots of prints and cut down the work they need to do. Times are changing and some people will find different business models.

Michael in your article on the RED camera, you mentioned the filmic look and how RAW woulfd help achieve it. In film the 'filmic' look that is so often talked about is actually down to size of capture, small chip vs 35mm film. The gadget mentioned above transforms a DV camera into one that produces images that [with care] look like they were made on a 35mm movie camera. I first came across this when working with a BBC Director/cameraman and I saw a short he made using this device on DV and 35mm lenses. It looked fantastic. Simply due to the different optical characteristics.
Not that the RAW files produced by the RED camera aren't a wonderful thing in themselves.

There was a site, that escapes me at the moment that had footage showing glasses in a bar shot with and without the adaptor. A banal setting, but one looked professional [filmic] and one looked video[cheap], with no difference other than the effective sensor size.
This is exactly the same argument with as with MF/35MM/Crop Sensor/P+S sensor that people have debated on this forum endlesly. But with the size difference between a video camera and a 35mm camera being so big, it's blindingly obvious there is in fact a huge difference.

And why the RED camera is very, very much the wrong choice for you. It's a brilliant camera but is really aimed at film makers with a crew. Including someone whose only job is to focus the lens. A very skilled job it is too.
Wanting a camera that is like someone who has never done photography before and wanting a 10x8" monorail camera to learn on.
Buy the cheapest HDV camera with good manual features and play with that for a while. You'll also be able to edit the footage in Final Cut/Vegas/Premiere on any decent modern computer [with lots of HD space] as you learn. And there's lots to learn.


I've been following the development of the camera ever since it was announced and I was very impressed that the camera was priced so reasonably. Most manufacturers would have price pointed it at least 500% more. Sony for instance make some good kit, but they really price point cameras. They are always artificially crippled in some area, so you then have to jump from say a good £2,500 camera to a slightly better £20,000 camera and then £90,00 for the noticably better camera.
The RED camera has almost made it possible for anyone to shoot as high quality as a major studio. I've worked on films with £90,000 HDs which are pretty good, but are not a patch on this camera. The main problem is that the computer kit to handle the enormous volume of data will not be cheap.
BTW, most people rent fim making gear. Rarely does anyone actually buy anything.
And deal are always to be had when renting fim kit. I've worked on a £10,000 budget shoot with £130,000 worth of kit. And unlike stills kit hire, you don't have to leave a full deposit [which is the norm in UK].

It all depends on what you're shooting. Jim, RED camera founder, often shoots alone with RED zoom or prime lenses, producing some very nice wildlife shots and some great "funny car" stuff too. It's certainly doable. Say you are shooting stock footage, rather than narrative drama, then focusing is no worse than manual focus on your DSLR.

Graeme

True, I was thinking of follow focus shooting, as that's what is usually the tricky stuff. But even with stock, you may be shooting moving objects.
But I have to say manual focusing on DSLR autofocus lenses is not always easy. Mainly as the screens and lenses aren't designed for it anymore.

The Red Rock adapter (as well as the P+S Technique) works. Red Rock gives you an upside down image, P+S Technique a right side up image, both knock off a stop of light and both add grain, though maybe film like grain, still moving grain.

I've tried most of them, even working focus in post (a lot of post) and they are a temporary fix at best.

Add the Red Rock to a Canon or a Panasonic HDV and for 5 grand you've got yourself an almost film camera, add the P+S technique and you into another 12k or so.

On a web video they look good, even up to 12" monitor size, but large up to a wide screen 20 something inch you see the errors and loose that special something that 35mm film offers, that pretty pop of the eyelashes and that direct fall off in the background.

These band aid adapters work if your shooting Love in Paris, on a small indie budget, but they should no way be confused with 35mm film quality or RED quality.

Even though we live in a rent as you go world, the RED at the price point gives any serious or semi serious film maker a way to own, experiment, learn and shoot at a price that is just completley unheard of in the film world.


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Now Gramme, a few questions if you don't mind.

What is the effective clean iso of the Red?

Were there be dealers for demo or does one have to rent to try?

JR

This may be true or not

-In my limited experience with video I have become aware that wide is apparently seriously restricted in cameras without interchangeable lenses

-that interchangeable lens cameras and wide lenses cost almost as much as a Red body

-I would only need the body, I have a heap of compatable lenses

In terms of the computing - well I have a rig for 22mp stills


I can see that there is a purity of the Red system that IMO would make it easier to learn - like shooting RAW - you nail the colour later - things I am used to

I have had problems focussing DV cams - becuse there is too much DOF (I also cant focus my d80 manually but have a good rate with my H1)

Red solves that too I guess?

If Red could be seen as the FM2 of cameras its lack of silly features would make it the perfect learning tool IMO

In terms of the cost - well that is my decision - I think that it would do a lot more for my business than upgrading from a 22mp to a 39mp or upgrading from pair of D3's to a pair of D3x's in time which are my current other options for wasting about the same amount of money - and wasting money is always better than giving it to the taxman to waste

S

james I saw 320 listed as the base ISO somewhere

Well said.

You hit on the biggest difference in moving to video - storytelling. I always thought I was telling stories in my still photography, but honestly it now seems like I was stringing a bunch of nouns and adjectives together. The movies just doesn't work unless you have a story to tell and plan your production to tell it. You have to have the verbs to give it action and that action has to move somewhere. You are right that it takes a very different mindset.

I think that mindset can help us in our still photography too. The 16:9 format opens up possibilities and changes the vision of the world a bit. Let's be open to any improvements we can use from anywhere.

I also agree that the power of personal computers and the ease of the software pulls video and still photography much closer together. The market also pulls them together. More and more people are getting their information mostly from a screen rather than paper. It's a reality that pro photographers stuck in the model of selling prints have to wake up to. We have to find another way to make this business pay or we will be left behind and out of business. Yes, there will always be photo prints, just as there are platinum printers today. However, most of us will have to market to a majority market rather than a niche one to survive.

Clyde


PS - Why is 1920x1080 stunning, high res, and state-of-the-art on a large screen TV, but considered crap on paper?

Movement adds a greater perception to resolution than a still image does, and usually monitor viewing distances are such that they don't get the same scrutiny as paper does.

That said, HD is now today's SD....

Graeme

I don't have an 8x10, but do have other cameras. I think a lot of this comes down to how you market your services. If you market your prints, you'll get customers who want prints. If you market in a way that lets everyone know that you don't do prints, then you'll get customers who just want the pictures digitally. That's what I've found as I've moved to a strictly digital delivery.

I do wedding on occasion and have attracted brides who are more interested in the digital delivery than the printed one. I don't know if the market is there yet for a full time wedding photographer to aim at that market, but it is there and growing.

Clyde

And you're turning away all the customers who might want some prints--they aren't even going to call you, so you may not realize how much business you're losing. I give my clients the choice of prints or digital images, or any combination thereof. Most purchased some prints, even if they wanted primarily digital delivery. Print sales may go down over time as electronic display technology improves, but I doubt they are going to die any time soon.