Philip Bloom

I feel this is a really important blog post as I am reading in so many places some worryingly ill informed comments from people. It’s less worrying when it’s about a GH2 or T2i that cost less than $1k but when we are talking about AT LEAST 10 times that I think it’s important that I put down my thoughts about this exciting new camera that is perfect for some but not for all…The Scarlet is now out in the big wide world so it’s about time I wrote this!

First off, and this is the biggie. Buying a Scarlet is NOT going to make you a better filmmaker. It is NOT going to make your camerawork any better. It WILL cost you more than many of you think financially. So I just want to put down the facts on paper so you can make a better informed choice and also my opinions…less important than facts but may be worth listening to! These facts are gathered from my own experience as a RED Epic owner for the past 5 months…

First off I love my Epic. The images out of it are so beautiful. I also swear at my Epic more than I have ever cursed another camera…why? Because it goes wrong. The reliability is not the same as any other camera I have owned. Nothing close. But, this is expected (and effin annoying!). The Epic is effectively a BETA camera. When you buy this you need to know this. It’s constantly getting better and improving. In the latest Beta firmware we finally have HDMI working (but not at the same time as the SDI, one or the other. This will change) An alpha release yesterday gave us something essential…playback. BUT it is alpha so no way am using this on a shoot. But from my little bit of fiddling with it I am impressed. Looks great and you can trim and delete clips now. This makes the camera so much better!

So, what is the Scarlet? Well it is not what we were expecting. 2/3? is gone, now we have an Epic without most of the bells and whistles. read more...