Red today announced two new cameras built around the company's new Helium 8K Super-35 sensor. The $49,500 Weapon 8K S35 captures 8K full-frame footage at up to 60p at data rates maxing out at 300 MB/sec, and the $29,500 Epic-W 8K S35 shoots full-frame at up to 30p at data rates up to 275 MB/sec.

Red Weapon 8K S35

Red is obviously hoping that the aggressive pricing of less than $30,000 for an 8K camera system will make the Epic-W 8K S35 a people-pleaser, but it's the premium Weapon 8K S35 that offers an upgrade path to the much larger Red Dragon 8K VV sensor. (The 8K Dragon sensor is almost 41mm wide, compared to the 29.9mm-wide Super 35 Helium sensor.) Notably, the Weapon 8K S35 is the same price as the Weapon 6K with the larger Red Dragon sensor.

As usual, the company is offering special deals to its customer base, allowing discounted pricing for registered Red camera owners — including the holders of preorders for Red Raven and Scarlet-W — who see one of the new cameras as an attractive upgrade.

If you're trying to figure out whether you want a Helium sensor or you're more of a Dragon type of shooter, you might want to wait before you pull the trigger one way or the other. Red is getting ready to release firmware and software updates that enable a new image-processing pipeline with updated color science for the Helium sensor. The new post-production pipeline will be available "in the coming weeks," the company said.