1. Economies of scale
40 million Canon SLR format cameras have been sold since 1987 and half of those after 2003. In 2010 digital photography is a huge market, much larger than niche Red found in the comparatively small indie filmmaking and professional production markets.
This means…
2. R&D
A huge amount of expenditure can be driven into manufacturing plants, sensor design and countless other innovations. Red simply cannot compete, and even if they have the ingenuity they lack the manpower to make it happen quick enough, in comparison to the photographic giants.
Which leads us to…
3. Purchase and rental price
Economies of scale means that HDSLRs are cheap. An Arriflex Alexa, Red Scarlet or even the Panasonic AF100 are more expensive than HDSLRs and will remain so.
4. Lenses
Lenses are more affordable for HDSLRs than any other competing platform. Cinematic glass can be used, like the Zeiss Compact primes but for shooting HD video a set of Canon L primes or a pick of the best of vintage Zeiss / Nikon glass is perfectly serviceable… scrub that… more like absolutely beautiful.
HDSLR lenses are also more cost effective than Red’s proposed set of primes for the Scarlet and can be used on more professional cameras like the Panasonic AF100 which has a Micro 4/3rds mount (or the rumoured Canon EF mount video camera), so they’re good investments too.
5. Rick McCallum, Gale Tattersall & Rob McLachlan
Whenever someone is misinformed, they now have a direct cinematic reference point to learn from. Whenever the misinformed person says that an HDSLR ‘isn’t good enough for production’, or whenever a network TV tech department doesn’t have the imagination to see beyond the test charts, you mention Red Tails, House or Human Target and the illustrious names who actually take these cameras onto the most prestigious cinematographic projects in the world. This tends to silence forum trolls.
6. Small size
The stills camera stealth factor and diminutive proportions are inconspicuously absent from the AF100 and chunky Scarlet. Size is not the primary reason for most filmmakers to own an HDSLR but depending on your needs it can be essential. Yet another base is covered.
7. Global market infiltration
More people are familiar with the DSLR form factor than people who work in the entire film industry put together. Should dedicated video cameras like the Panasonic AF100 and Red Scarlet even gain significant market-share with indie filmmakers, they will always be one step behind the photographic market in terms of unit numbers. HDSLRs cater for two markets at once. Whenever there is a need for an inexpensive crash cam on set, an experimental B-camera, or an unexpected situation – there will always be a HDSLRs on hand waiting to be used.
If Red had grand ambitions to serve more than just a niche market, sadly that dream is now at an end.
Now obviously some people will be hurt by the HDSLR bandwagon, so I can understand the emotional and fanatical viewpoints regarding mere cameras, but the fact remains that all cameras are just tools and you must select the best one for the job. HDSLRs are ‘good enough’ and most importantly ‘look great’, and fit within a massive number of people’s budgets. The HDSLR revolution is now about looking beyond shallow depth of field or 24p and seeing the larger picture, and the way the industry is headed.
Now I’ll let someone else have the final word, as he put this so eloquently. Over to you Tim Le.
In 2009 alone (a recession year too), about 10 million DSLRs were shipped, at a value of almost $5 billion. 16 million interchangable lenses were shipped, at a value of $3.3 billion dollars. Holy crap!! There is obviously a huge amount of money at stake! I don’t know what the video camera market is like, but it must be a tiny fraction of these numbers.
Clearly, the digital still camera market is an enormous juggernaut to be reckoned with. And the hottest trend right now in that market is HD video. Can you imagine all of the resources that could be brought to bear on this? The biggest advantage is their economy of scale. It’s impossible to compete with them on volume. They can make huge amounts of DIGIC chips and large sensors for a reasonable cost because they’re being used in millions of still cameras. The landscape has totally changed since the day RED was conceived.
I honestly believe we are witnessing history in the making. Years from now we see the HDSLR craze as a true turning point in camera design history. The 5D MkII is just the first generation and it already has taken on a life of its own far beyond what any of us expected in our wildest dreams. No matter how you feel about HDSLRs, you have to admit they have taken on a wild ride since late 2008 that’s almost fitting for a Hollywood movie!
The ironic thing about all this (and not many people realize) is that even if RED never existed, the 5D MkII and the rest of the HDSLR “craze” would have happened anyway. DSLRs were already trending towards live view and a natural progression from that was HD video. There were rumors of video in DSLR prototypes around 4-5 years ago, but at the time I even thought the feature was just a gimmick to sell to more consumers. For some reason the DOF and low light advantages didn’t even register!
