The Red Epic and why being tiny is cool

I’m a big fan of big cameras. A large camera has a certain look when handheld. The picture looks like a picture from a big camera. The same is true for Steadicam. I used to do a lot of Steadicam operating and there was definitely a sweet spot for weight. Too light and the camera and steadicam get thrown around by even a light breeze. Too heavy and your back will be aching all weekend.

The modularity of the Epic allows the camera to be stripped down to almost nothing. For my HDRx test at S&O Media last week I took off almost every accessory apart from the camera’s side handle. This allowed the camera to be used as an in-car minicam; amazing for a camera you can legitimately shoot a feature film on! All it took was a simple suction pad and magic arm and the camera was secure enough to shoot a little test on. 

 The 5K EPIC, so small you can stick it on a dashboard

 The other week I shot a little commercial job on the Epic where I had the excellent Jonathan Iles operating for me. Jonathan has a top of the line GPI Pro 2 Steadicam and got some lovely shots for us. He said of the Epic: “The camera is the ideal weight. Not too big, not too small.” Jonathan and his assistant Jason Iqbal broke down the camera slightly by removing the 19mm baseplate. They then added the focus and iris motors needed for Steadicam as well as a Wevi video transmitter, all attached to the camera’s top mounts. Jonathan barely broke a sweat and was in his vest almost all day. This same setup but with the original Red One would have been a back breaker, believe me!

The original 'full fat' RED

One important thing to note about the Epic on the Steadicam is its HDSDI output currently only supports 24p. Do make sure your monitor and transmitter kits are capable of the pure progressive p signal rather than psf. This, Red assures, will be added in future camera updates.

The Red Epic Has Landed

The past few years have seen some big shifts in broadcast camera equipment. Even as recently as five or six years ago a facilities company would have had a handful of Digibetas, a couple of DVCam cameras and that really was about all they needed. You could expect a Digibeta body to set you back £50,000 and it would have stayed 'state of the art' for five years. Sony PD150s with their 4x3 sensor grew on trees!

And as for shallow focus, high speed shooting, PL mount lenses; you’d have to shoot on 35mm my friend and that would cost you dearly. Then came along high end cameras with Super35 sensors, such as the Panavision Genesis and D20; hire-only cameras which were the domain of high end commercials and films.

These days a facilities company, such as S+O Media has to have a huge inventory of cameras. HDCam to DSLRs, lenses from broadcast zooms to Canon stills lenses and cine primes.

Canon and Red are, in my opinion the two companies who have changed the way we shoot the most. I don’t think they are necessarily the best of what is out there but they were the catalysts for change. Obviously the broadcast end has changed as well, with the internet transforming production and delivery. But whether you like or loathe the Red Ones and 5Ds, you have to agree we’d all be renting Arri D20s and Sony F35s if Red and Canon hadn’t given Sony and Arri the kick they needed.

The Red One, the first offering from Red, was an amazingly exciting camera. However, along with its resolution, variable frame rates, Super35 sensor and affordable media, came the crashes, awkward build and complicated post. It felt like someone had crowbarred a stills camera sensor and a computer into a metal box and forced it to shoot 25fps…and this was only four years ago. However, for those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to have access to a Panavision Genesis, it was an exciting camera and one we could actually get our hands on.

The Epic is Red’s second camera and a very different animal. Keeping with Red's RAW-only workflow, it is a refined, compacted, tweaked and improved little Red One in every sense. A hand manufactured Epic-M arrived here at the S+O Media offices last week and I’ve just begun to shoot with it; exciting times!

 For those of you who don’t yet know, the most important aspects of the Red Epic are:

•  Its 5K capabilities: The camera shoots at an amazing 5,120 x 2,700 pixel resolution - 30% more pixels than the Red One. Not only does it give an incredibly sharp and clear picture, but it future proofs the footage and gives great options for cropping and reframing in post. For example HD TV is 1920x1080; 5K is over six times that resolution.
• Size and weight: The bare-bones Epic is very small. Sure you can dress it up like a grown-up camera, but without anything attached it’s smaller than an F3, albeit a little heavier.
• Highspeed shooting: The Epic is capable of shooting at 120 frames per second using the full sensor and 300fps at reduced resolutions. Having these sort of frame-rates on hand is an amazingly powerful creative tool for a DP or director. It’s not quite bullet-through-an-apple speed, but it is far beyond the capabilities of all but the most specialist cameras currently.
• HDRx: High Dynamic Range shooting. For every frame it captures the camera will also take a second, but with a higher shutter speed. The second frame (or X frame) can be used to protect highlights up to six stops over the original frame. It’s a pretty amazing idea and the uses are only just being realised. With the full six stops HDRx, the camera has an extraordinary 18 stops of latitude.
• Stability: the camera is far more stable and well developed than the original Red One, it boots up in seven seconds and everything from the PL mount to the SSD media feels solid and well designed.
• And one of the most exciting things about Epic is the same as the Red One. Red constantly tweaks the camera’s firmware and release newer versions all the time with more and more features. Cameras used to get worse with age; now they get better every week.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be taking the Epic out on various shoots and tests, I’ll be putting it through its paces and comparing it to other cameras out there. Stay tuned!

About Ben Spence
Benedict Spence has been working as a lighting cameraman for nine years and a director of photography for the past three. His experience covers a range of factual & entertainment series including the BBC’s John Bishop’s Britain and E4’s The Only way is Essex. In that time he’s also notched up some promotional and commercial work for high flying brands including Beth Ditto and Armani. Having tried and tested any camera worth knowing about over the past nine years, Ben will be dishing the dirt on his experiences with Red’s new Epic–M, on behalf of broadcast and crewing facilities company S+O Media. As one of the first hire companies to get their mitts on what’s rumoured to be the camera of all cameras, S+O know what they’re talking about when it comes to shooting and the technology involved, so watch this space for some hard-hitting home truths!