As my regular readers know, I’m busy writing up a tech series on the Red One MX, Arri Alexa, and now I’m adding the Red EPIC into the mix.
I’ve had the privilege of shooting with all three cameras over the past month and a half and I’ve certainly got my favourite now.
I also want to take the opportunity to thank Media Film Service (www.mediafilmservice.com) for the Master Primes on INSIDE, and the Ultra Primes on Murder at the Manor, as well as accessories, grips and lighting, and EPIC owner and friend Jacques Mulder of Muddville Production and Post, Dubai (www.mvdubai.com).
Alexa impressed me with it’s ridiculously easy menus and setup, and it’s latitude was a noticeable few stops greater than the Red One MX, but nothing could have prepared me for the EPIC. It certainly lives up to it’s name, and has latitude to spare even without shooting HDR.
The EPIC’s small form factor also places it in a league of it’s own compared to the other two top end digital cinema cameras. Built up, it is substantially more compact and lighter than any of it’s competitors.
I love the high data rate of the 5K Redcode, I’ve never been a fan of compression, no matter how clever it is, and although compressed, the new heavier flavours of Redcode RAW are fantastic for image detail, latitude and leave nothing else to be desired as far as I am concerned.
Post is easy, just as easy as shooting Prores 4444 straight to edit with Alexa, and a million times better as you have a 5K image and tons more image data than Prores could ever hope to provide. I can import the Redcode straight into Premiere CS5.5, drop it on the timeline, adjust the “playback resolution” dropdown to a figure acceptable to the performance of the hardware and play, what could be simpler? It’s flawless.
I’ll get into HDR a bit later, but for me, a celluloid lover, the EPIC has knocked the last nail in the coffin for 35mm acquisition.
More detailed reviews are coming, please subscribe to my blog to make sure you get them, but for now below are some frame grabs from my latest project “Murder at the Manor”, shot on the Red EPIC.
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Please keep us informed
Hi James, I hope all is well at Panavision.
I will keep you informed. I’ve heard mixed reports on these first “beta” phase EPICs. I was speaking to Philip Bloom yesterday and he was saying that he’s experienced a failure over the weekend… and the hiring of a second body is expensive… if you can find one.
On the other hand, we brutally punished Jac’s EPIC for four days straight, all were at least 15hr days, two days were 19hrs on the trot and we had zero camera related problems.
How are you importing the 5k files into Premiere? When I use the standard “import” function, it comes up with an error box saying “unsupported format or damaged file.” I doubt the file is damaged and I have downloaded REDimporter. I’m just curious if it really does work as easy as you say, and if so, clearly I am having an issue…
Hi Sari, are you using CS5.5?