Ripley and Connor Blog

Red EVF in inventory now!

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:41:07 -0800

Sweet! Both Ripley and Connor now have their very own EVF. With no compromise in construction or image, the Red EVF, or electronic viewfinder was worth waiting for. A perfect complement to the superior image the camera produces.

Specs on the unit: The highest resolution viewfinder available on the market, the RED-EVF provides a 1280 x 720 pixel progressive scan version of the RAW sensor image complete with SurroundView™ look around plus frame guide overlays. Overall resolution is 1280 x 848 with the extra pixels, above and below the video image, used for camera status indication. These include focus assist, waveform, histogram, false color and zebra exposure, audio level, frame rate, battery status and media remaining. The RED-EVF also displays the camera menus when activated. A wide range diopter can be adjusted to accommodate variations in user's eyesight. The RED-EVF also provides three user programmable function keys and a rotary encoder for additional camera control options.

The EVF completes our camera package - each one also break out box, A/C supply, and complete rail system. For storage you can select from Red drives or Red Compact Flash. In addition we have custom shipping cases, PL lenses including a PL Lensbaby, HD field and stage monitors, tripods and heads, matte boxes, filters, follow focus rigs, HNMI and tungsten lighting and grip, jibs, and audio support are all available. Basic packages and premium packages available please visit Shoot With Red or call Marc at VRi, 800-261-7266.

PS: Basic packages and premium packages available please visit Shoot With Red or call Marc at VRi, 800-261-7266.

Red Drives arrive at Video Resources

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:38:54 -0800

We finally got the call telling us the Red Drives were available and we didn’t hesitate to snatch some up. Six to be exact. Our initial testing is positive and we will blog on field tests and usage soon. The drive is powered by through the camera and can record over 2 hours of video footage at 4K with audio per drive. Transfer speeds when copying from the drive to the computer, via Firewire 400, is about 1:1 - translating to one hour of footage taking one hour to copy. FIrewire 800 should be twice as fast but we haven’t tested yet. For comparison purposes, remember that the compact flash cards, still ideal for many situations, records just over 4 minutes on an 8GB CF card. Stay tuned for more info, in the meantime, here are the specs from Red.

“The RED DRIVE™ will most likely be the workhorse of RED ONE™ digital media. It is both the lowest priced and highest capacity media available at this time. It is an outboard media format that can be mounted in the RED RAIL CRADLE on the camera body or RAIL system. It interfaces with the camera via the Drive Connector LEMO. The 320GB RED DRIVE is made up of two 2.5" 160GB laptop hard drives arranged in a hardware-based RAID 0. The drives are in a RAID for data transfer speeds – it cannot be reconfigured to record in a RAID 1 mirrored formatting. The RED DRIVE™ is capable of recording between two and three hours of 4K REDCODE™ RAW footage. To the user, what goes on inside of the RED DRIVE™ can be most easily explained as "magic pixies." No matter how you look at it, storing two to three hours of 4K REDCODE™ RAW footage on a drive smaller than an ASC manual is downright unbelievable.”

The power of raw image format

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:15:35 -0700

The Red camera technology and REDCODE are putting the power of traditional cinematography in our hands. As you have seen, the depth of field control and image quality is as good as anything we have worked with. The images below demonstrate the flexibility of the raw image format that the Red One camera creates.

Let me explain. A high resolution frame from a sequence shot last week has been made available to the Red user community. Various users downloaded the image and subsequently posted various efforts at color correction and image looks. I downloaded them from various sites and have collected them here for comparative and educational purposes.

This is a JPEG version of the original image. Check the our web gallery the photo gallery here to view various version. We encourage you to try your hand at color correction and manipulation of the image and share the result in our webwww.apple.com gallery. To download the Full resolution still image in TIFF (41 MB) format go here.

PS: I credited the posters of the images shared here by including their reduser names as a title for each image. If anyone wants their image removed please send a request my way.

Ripley is on the left, Samantha on the right

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:35:08 -0700

Ripley plucked to shoot music video, “Solo El Principio” in Los Angeles. RIght at home with hot girls and cars, our camera doesn’t take long to record some beautiful pictures. Evin is DP, Brook is AC and I pitch in as AD. Sample RED One camera images from this shoot are posted at bottom of this page. BH

Wares-bob-house?

Fri, 7 Sep 2007 17:54:47 -0700

So Connor and I have been in the warehouse for a few days now. An aptly named place seeing as how a steady stream of people walk in and yell “Bob, Where are the Spider Pods? Bob? Where is the lipstick camera? Bob? Where is the HDSDI to DVI converter? Bob? Where’s Bob?” Jesus, where’s Waldo, or should I say Elmo? The last time so many people needed help finding stuff Rosemary Woods was running the warehouse. Truth be told though there is a lot of cool stuff in here and it’s a pretty comfy place. There’s music playing all the time too. Bob has a pretty eclectic taste range, but not much rocks my world. Can you spell N.P.R.?

Today old B-Raddy invited some of the other kids from the block over to show off me and Connor. We were set up like Christmas turkeys and I felt pretty foolish but Connor was preening like a hog taking the blue ribbon at the fair. What a dork. You should have seen it --- jumping when they cranked the focus wheel. I laughed my ass off until I saw the clarity of the picture on the monitor. Raddy’s buddies appeared similarly impressed based on the collective breath intake in the room. After jaws were lifted from the floor, Raddy took his pals into the office to show them the ease with which the media can be lifted from the flash cards and viewed. These guys all seem to think this is rocket science or something.

I didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on the simplicity of the workflow but I had plenty to spend on this wannabe Hell’s Angel who suddenly flitted into the wares-bob-house. Black leather jacket and helmet, this was obviously the owner of the purple Vespa parked out front. Everybody else having left, it was me and Evel Knievel’s wanna be twin playing Extreme Makeover, Configuration Edition. Next thing I knew my handles had been rotated into a 180 degree straight line config and Harley Charlie was preparing to jump me over ware’s Bob’s desk. His visor was down but it only magnified his dementia. Luckily for me, Paul walked in mumbling about his Blackberry being on the fritz, took in the situation and shouted, “Wait! Wait! Wait! Hold it!”
I was saved, or so I thought.
“Let me get a camera! This will be so cool”
God givith, God taketh.