In good news for the perplexed, Red Digital Cinema has dramatically simplified its camera line-up.
The company, which had become known for a head-spinning array of camera systems that mixed and matched different “brains,” or camera bodies, and sensor options with exotic names, is now consolidating its offerings into a single brain called DSMC2 (it’s the second generation of Red’s Digital Still and Motion Camera design) with three different sensor options.
The new high-end Red camera is the DSMC2 with full-frame Monstro 8K sensor ($54,500); the other two options are the DSMC2 with Super 35 Helium 8K sensor ($24,500) and and the DSMC2 with Super 35 Gemini 5K dual-sensitivity mode sensor ($19,500). There are still some options. For example, the Monstro system can be had with a carbon-fiber body, and the Helium is available with a monochrome sensor.
“Our cameras became more expensive than they needed to be, and all for the wrong reasons,” wrote Red’s Jarred Land in a post announcing the new lay of the land at reduser.net. “We just fixed that. We have aligned ourselves with new partners to retool our manufacturing process and dramatically improved our supply chain. We have trimmed the excess. We have isolated our camera business completely on its own so its costs are transparent and only burdened by itself.”
Land explained that by manufacturing just one type of camera body, Red can take better advantage of volume pricing. On the other hand, he said the 8K Monstro sensor is expensive to make, and “its price will go dramatically up” after current inventory is expended.
Sales of the company’s existing Epic-W and Weapon camera systems will be phased out immediately, the company said. A variety of upgrades and trade-in options are available to bring current Red users up to date with one of three latest sensor configurations; a few systems, including the original Red One, the Epic and Scarlet Mysterium-X and the Red Raven, cannot be upgraded.
