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Filed under: Cameras •NAB 09 •

NAB 2009 - Wednesday RedUser Party

RED’s Ted Schilowitz introduces the demo reels.

Wednesday evening, following a two-hour Scratch demo (about which I’ll have more to say in an NAB wrap-up article), I journeyed out to the Rio Hotel for the RedUser NAB party, organized by Steve Sherrick of Obscure Knowledge. I wasn’t sure what to expect; I worried that I might be surrounded by fervent fanboys, who would rip me limb from limb when they discerned who I was (while I have sipped at the Kool-Aid™, I am not fully “of The Body”, grin).

I needn’t have feared: there were True Believers and Just Plain Folks in equal number, and nobody tore any limbs off of anybody.

The event actually started at 3pm, and ran to 11pm or so, with presentations every half hour. The party occupied two large ballrooms at the Rio Conference Center; one was set up as a theater with 4K projection for presentations and screenings, while the other had food islands and a bar in the middle and vendors set up along the walls, demoing various RED-related products.

The presentation theater.

In keeping with Mr. Jannard’s carnivorous reputation, the buffet tables groaned under three different kinds of mini-cheeseburgers, potato skins stuffed with cheese and bacon, and a do-it-yourself hot dog station (your correspondent, being a timorous vegetarian, assembled a pickle relish, spring onion, and mustard sandwich on a hot dog roll).

RED, of course, had its own sizable display; the Red Tent may have been missing from the show floor, but the RED Team was there in force, with mercurial Mr. Jannard, ever-ebullient “RED Ted” Schilowitz, quiet Canadian brainbox Graeme Nattress, and many others circulating through the crowds and manning the displays. A black-clad theater at the back reportedly showed off the new prime lenses on a projector, though I didn’t wait on line to see the presentation myself.

RED held court along one wall. Front & center, RED Ted chats up an attendee.

As in the Red Tents, there were several showcases holding conceptual models of upcoming products, plus one with several of the final pre-production RED Prime lenses (during NAB, RED announced the availability of the primes on the RED Store).

These primes were said to be in near-final form, and only betrayed their pre-production status by a lack of final lubrication on the iris and focus mechanisms (though the two samples I handled felt smooth and perfectly usable), and engravings near the aperture scale saying, “Tested T1.8”. While the primes in the set (25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, and 100mm) were originally said to be T1.9, and the large embossings on the prototypes reflect that, the website now indicates the shipping lenses will be T1.8 (except for the T2.9 300mm, sold separately from the prime set).

Pre-production Pro Primes.

Prime lens boxes. The road cases aren’t products (yet), just “some ideas we’ve been kicking around for lens cases.”

The other showcases held machine-shop mockups of concept cameras, as a physical rebuke to those who say that all those whacky designs only exist as 3D computer models…

Scarlets (I think) with battery modules (I think) behind them.

Front view of an aggressive Epic.

Side view of an Epic with camera head, I/O module, and battery module. Dig those articulating arms for the grips and shoulder pad.

Lightweight configuration for a shoulder-cam.

Next: cool 3rd-party tools, and what transpired in the presentation room…

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Unless I’m mistaken those are drive modules, not batteries, behind the Scarlet.

Posted by Mark Christiansen  on  04/24  at  12:39 AM

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I got the impression that the nearest one, at least, was a dual battery carrier; the other ones appear to be a CF card module, an I/O module, and two slabs of indeterminate function… but you may be right.

And of course it could all change radically before anything ships!

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  04/24  at  12:51 AM

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On a side note, that’s my ‘camera cozy’ (our custom made RED camera cover) in the pictures of GearNex new geared head!

Posted by mikeburton  on  04/27  at  11:16 PM

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Thanks for the note, Mike; I was wondering about that cover. Is that a one-off you made for yourself, or are you selling the things?

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  04/27  at  11:21 PM

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Hey Adam!

Erik Espera of Silverado Studios and myself have been collaborating the last 3 months now on this Custom cover we call “Camera Cozy”. 

We are going to be packaging the camera cover, LCD cover w/velcro hoodman and EVF Cover together hopefully shipping by June. Final prototypes are being finished and we have a few demo units in the field as we speak on a feature film in Aspen CO, Utah and soon in Toronto.  We have been getting great feedback so far as we did at the reduser event as well.  When we are ready to ship you will have the option to order the 2mm Black Neoprene version at first followed up shortly by the thinner gauge, summer version which doesn’t trap the heat (which we are working on now).  Pricing info is yet to be determined but in true RED fashion will be quite reasonable.

Here is our thread on reduser to keep up with the latest info on the cover.  http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27333

If you have any other questions feel free to contact me
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Posted by mikeburton  on  04/28  at  12:11 AM

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Oh, and we will be designing for Epic and Scarlet as well

Posted by mikeburton  on  04/28  at  12:12 AM

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