FEATURE REDRAVEN
has now been discontinued in favour of the complete RED Raven kit. This comes with the brain, 4.7in monitor, outrigger handle, I/O V-lock expander to plug in one of the two included V-lock batteries, a 120GBMini-Magmemory card and G-Technology card reader plus a Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 lens, all in a custom case. This adds up to £15,000/$15,000 andmeans you can start shooting right away. Some pro dealers offer the brain and accessories so you can build up a bespoke kit, but it costs a lot more. It’s also not really the end of the expense, certainly as far as memory goes. RED only uses its ownMini- Mag SSDs, and they are pricey. Shooting at full 4.5K resolution at 120fps, the included 120GB card could be full in around 14minutes, so the reality is you’ll need a lot more memory. A single 480GB card, big enough for roughly an hour of filming, is £1850/$1890. A pack of four 480GBMini-Mags, complete with case, costs £7032/$6900. Ouch. You’ve also got to figure in the cost of storing the footage for use andmaking a backup. With two hours of footage filling a 1TB hard drive, you need to be seriously invested in hard drive storage. If you use your working drive as a Raid to give an instant mirrored backup to your footage, then you need 2TB. Plus another 1TB as an actual backup, plus potentially the same again in Library space when editing in Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premier. So realistically, you need 4TB of storage drives for a two-hour shoot.
Prices can be scary The new full-frame Monstro 8K VV camera will cost roughly £85,000/ $79,500 when it goes on sale soon. So the RED Raven, which costs a far more reasonable £9564/$8950 despite being a cropped-sensor 4.5K camera, makes the brand suddenly look muchmore affordable to the independent filmmaker. It’s the entry-level way of attracting people to the brand and the family of RED. And the idea is once you’re hooked, you’ll upgrade to the more expensive cameras like the Epic-W8K at £31,518/$29,500 for the ‘brain’ only. And there lies the rub. The ‘brain’ does not make a useable camera. It’s the box that has the sensor in it and some electronic circuits. Nothing to mount a lens to, nothing tomount a battery to, nothing to record onto, no viewfinder to control anything or see what you’re filming. Nothing. Luckily, RED offers package kits so you can build up your camera to suit your individual needs, from run- and-gun to studio, gimbal or true cinema camera. But of course that hugely affects the price, and the cost of many of the accessories reflects you’re buying into a super-premium brand. There are no cheap SD card options to record onto, for example, and you’re stuck with RED’s own kit. The RED Raven 4.5K has a non- removable Canon EF lens mount and is available with a basic package to turn it into a useable camera, but the price then ramps up. We tested the RED Raven Base I/O package, with a Base I/O V-lock expander to allow the use of V-lock batteries, but that
These working drives need to be pretty speedy, too, as does your computer to process them. You won’t be getting away with cheapo no- name hard drives bought off eBay and a creaky old laptop as they just won’t have the power and speed to handle it. So as you can see, the cost of the camera is just the start - and the reason why the majority stick to renting REDs and the accessories that come with it. Stripped downmeans no ND or XLR Another issue for users coming from other brands is that the RED does not have built-in ND filters or XLR audio inputs – often staple benefits of professional cameras. There is a built-in tiny mic for a scratch track and only a standard 3.5mmmic jack, so you could fudge it by a DSLRmic or an XLR to mic jack connector to use a single professional mic. But the ideal way is to replace the I/O V-lock expander with the Redvolt expander which has two XLR audio inputs. And it costs £4176/$3950 for the privilege. To control light via ND filters, you either need to buy a variable ND
ABOVE Twin fans on top of the housing keep the camera cool. The unique memory card slots into the side.
LEFT The tilting screen is bright and easy to use, but does not articulate. So sometimes you'll need an external monitor.
24
PRO MOVIEMAKER SPRING 2018
Powered by FlippingBook