#redmote

RED Dragon Sensor: A Few Points of Interest

I heard a thing or two about the RED Dragon sensor while at RED Studios last week, that you might find of interest.

I’ve done my best not to misquote anything—but please remember you’re hearing this information third hand. Feel free to view this blog post as pure speculation. If you’re looking for “official” information regarding the sensor: contact RED, or keep an eye on their forum for announcements. 

In his talk with us, Jim Jannard referenced the sensor upgrade as less an upgrade than a brand new camera, as the image from the sensor is radically improved. Dragon will not only provide a boost in resolution, but more dynamic range and less noise overall. It’s exciting times for RED, and knowing there’s a new sensor around the corner, a great time to be a RED owner.

Dragon Sensor Details: What I Heard

Dragon will be an upgrade for the EPIC body

The Dragon upgrade will cost more than RED originally suggested but they haven’t decided on a price yet

It doesn’t sound like Scarlet will be upgraded to Dragon internally. There will be an upgrade program, similar to previous upgrade paths, offered for people wanting to upgrade from Scarlet to a Dragon enabled EPIC

Dragon will be 6K with a raster of over 6000 horizontal x 3000 vertical lines of resolution

The 6K sensor won’t be astronomically different than the 5K EPIC sensor with regard to depth of field

The processing of the Dragon sensor should be faster than the current EPIC sensor with regard to scanning, so there should be even less skew when doing whip pans etc.

Files sizes will be bigger but not astronomically different than shooting 5K. (My personal opinion: if you’re shooting 5K already, is this really an issue??? That’s the cool thing with these cameras, they afford you resolution/compression choices. If file size is an issue, shoot 4K.)

You should be able to shoot at a higher compression rate without penalty on the Dragon sensor, than is currently afforded on the EPIC

A “conservative” rating of the Dragon’s dynamic range is said to be 3-4 stops better than the current EPIC sensor

They are working towards getting the Dragon sensor as clean as possible. Any noise in the image of the current EPIC sensor, will likely be cut in half in the Dragon.

If they can get the Dragon sensor anywhere as clean as the Monochrome sensor, it will be an unbeatable camera (I’m saying that). If you’ve seen footage from the Monochrome EPIC in 4K like I have, you know it is AMAZINGLY clean. I almost peed my pants when I saw the Monochrome image on the big screen. I’ve never in my life seen an image so clean (absolutely zero noise), except for the image I can create with my own eyes. 

Final Thoughts on RED Products

I want to mention a couple more things before I jump off the RED bandwagon.

Regarding components, if you’re looking for a great way to operate the camera—especially in a shoulder mount scenario—try mounting the REDMOTE to an arm of your shoulder rig: it works brilliantly. The REDMOTE is my favourite RED accessory by far, it happens to also be the least expensive when it comes to camera controls. I find navigating the menus through it and being able to mount it anywhere a huge plus in practice. 

In my opinion, the 9” touchscreen RED makes is TOTALLY worth the cost compared to the 5” screen. The screen’s resolution is fantastic, and the bigger screen size makes focus confirmation and navigating the menu a breeze. It’s a perfect, all-in-one sized monitor.

The version 4 firmware beta build has some really cool features and the menu system has been nicely overhauled as far as interface design goes, so look forward to using it.

If you’re in the LA area, check out the retail outlet at RED Studios. They have EPIC and Scarlet cameras for demoing and a post-production workstation setup to acquaint people with the post workflow.