Why Did I Buy a RED Cinema Camera

Published on December 11, 2018

Cinematography & Filmmaking

Cinema camera, Cinematography, LG, LG monitor 5K, Professional Gear, Red Camera, Workflow

Everybody that is working in the movie business has heard of the brand RED. Even if you are a hobbyist or a youtuber, you probably came in contact with Red some how. Well that is quite normal as RED makes awesome cinema cameras which are use in several big Hollywood blockbusters.  A great examples for movies which were shot on a RED Camera are Captain Marvel, Venom, The hobbit and much more. But the hobbit really used the red camera to it’s full potential. Peter Jackson, the director of the hobbit, filmed everything in 3D at 48 frames per second. This means using 2 RED cameras, filming both at 48 frames per second. By doing this, the hobbit became the first wide feature movie to do this. Sadly I didn’t saw it with the high frame rates, which I really regret now. Because I’m a super hard Lord of the rings fan and of course a  film maker. So I missed a double win for myself.

Our RED Camera

But enough about the Hollywood movies. As you can see in the title of this article, we bought a RED Gumini 5K Camera. Well Jordy bought one. It was a life long dream of him to own a cinema camera. And it’s the same for me. I didn’t know that it was a dream of mine, until the dream came true when Jordy bought one. At first I was thinking about the money and the overkill. Well it’s worth every penny. I recently shot a music clip for the Cinebattle series. In this music clip I wanted to use super slowmotions. We have the GH5, which can go up to 180fps in 1080p. However when doing this, you lose a lot of resolution. So really you are filming in 720p. But I wanted to deliver my music video in 4k, so the GH5 wasn’t an option. Lucky Jordy got the Red camera on the day of my shoot. So technically speaking he made sure my music clip went through.

However I did make a mistake. I didn’t know exactly how to use it. Most DSLRs are ready to use straight out of the box, well RED not. You first have to calibrate your sensor to fix the noise pattern in the blacks. Apparently you have to do this before every shoot. It’s some more work then using a DSLR, but this image is so beautiful it’s worth it! Personally I wouldn’t recommend a RED to everyone, because of the price range. But If you a working full time in the movie business and have the budget, definitely consider a RED camera. I don’t say you have to buy it, there are a lot of hiring possibilities.

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