Pandora's Red Box...

Canon and Nikon recently released their new pro-level cameras, amid much fanfare and collective drooling from photographers. But a couple of days ago, two other new cameras were released which arguably, might already render both those digital housebricks obsolete.

I've mentioned the Red video camera on occasions before - the first 25 Red-cams rolled off the production line on August 31st, 2007. Their 'Mysterium' imaging chips produce ultra-Hi-Def 4K video, which is capable of producing a 48MB screengrab...a 300 dpi 13 x 7 inch print.

Screengrabs from the first cameras sold, show images produced at the cameras default 320 ISO, up to a whopping 6000 ISO.

This is more than acceptable for newspaper or magazine use (assuming both newspapers and magazines exist long enough), and of course the video footage can be re-purposed for multiple outputs across several media, from the cinema screen (the footage is superior to 35mm cinema film), through to HDTV, IPTV, the Web and down to mobile phones.

In versatility and cost effectiveness terms, the Red-cam arguably leaves 35mm stills cameras high and dry.

The current Red-cam records video to a hard drive and Compact Flash, and the next Red-cam will apparently, be a 'pocket' camera...so its an avowedly disruptive machine, one which appears to leave most conventional Hi-Def video cams for dust and can easily give most SLR's a run for their money...but also fundamentally questions the need for people to 'snatch' moments from thin air anymore.

Wait...it gets even more disruptive - the Red camera costs a heavy chunk o' change, so its implementation will be slow (ish).

But step forward Casio, who released their new stills camera on the same date as the Red. It shoots a burst of 6 megapixel Jpegs at 60 frames a second, with a pre-burst mode that even records images BEFORE you've even pressed the shutter, and a high speed video mode of 300 frames per second.

The 'decisive moment' was always simply making a virtue out of a technological necessity, but in the process became an article of faith for some photographers.

The question is now that technological 'limitation' has been 'overcome'...what happens now?

The implications for photojournalism are profound...but perhaps no more profound than when a roll of 36 images replaced the single 5x4 sheet film previously used by press photographers.

Was that a retrograde step?

Obviously not.

Comments

[Glenn]

Have you had the chance to use one? I'd like to see a frame grab of a moving subject ,are there any examples out there?

[Sion Touhig]

Use one? Nah mate, the thing costs about 9 grand, there's a long waiting list and the company is so small I don't know how they plan on satisfying the demand.

There are downloadable samples on the Red-cam website, but of course they've been taken in pretty controlled circumstances.

If you click on the link in my post which says 'first cameras sold' you can download a zip file with a screengrab in.

This was taken from one of the first cameras to come off the production line. It's a close-up of a blokes face taken on a Red using their new 300mm 2.8 lens - obviously it's just some people taking the camera out of the box and having a mess about, and the screengrab isn't tack sharp, but ironically this is probably closer to how stills photographers use their cameras - in less than ideal light.

Even this less than perfect screengrab is easily as good in technical quality terms to pass muster in any newspaper and magazine.

Photographers at some US newspapers are already regularly re-purposing HDV camera footage (from vid-cams like the Sony Z1 and Canon XH A1) to use as stills in their papers, and the AP has done the same - offering news video and screengrabs on the wire.

None of those screengrabs are that great, but the Red produces screengrabs just a little bit smaller than a still from a Canon 1Ds...so the screengrab quality barrier has been well and truly smashed.

You can dig around for lots more info on the Red-cam by checking out the reduser.net forum.