RED Scarlet

A little late to post this.  I was following all the liveblogs, etc (Nov 3rd...watched the Canon C300 ones too) at the time but was too lazy to post anything.  Anyway, the RED Scarlet has finally officially been announced and delivery has started.  The bad news is that its not the 2/3" 120fps at 3k fixed/interchangeable camera everyone thought it was going to be at a $6k kit price point.  The good news is that you still get an awesome 4k (resolution not price) shooter with the same sensor and image quality as Epic that can also do 5k stills.  It's more of a baby Epic than a standalone camera thats still a great cine camera at a great price.  It will certainly be interesting to see footage when people start posting (esp the 2k 120fps mode).  I'm a little bummed cause I was hoping for a sub-$10k package that I could afford and put in my bag along with my still gear.  Ok, ok technically the base Scarlet is under $10k, but those prices will go up after Jan 2012 as RED has previously stated.  Also, a "ready to shoot" package (with EVF or LCD, REDMOTE or side handle which are needed for menu nagivation, RED SSD media, offload gear) will probably run you closer to $20k when all is said and done.    Order Scarlet here.

RED Epic-X Production

....has begun, making a lot of filmakers out there very happy/giddy filmakers.  All I've got to say is go RED team go!  Despite the delays the EPIC project is an incredible feat and I wish more electronics manufacturers were out there pushing limits like you.  Hopefully Epic-S and Scarlet (ESPECIALLY Scarlet) won't be too far behind now that the Epic-X production lines are going.  Until then I'll be figuring out ways I can get my hands on $35k for an Epic-X......yeah....right..... Epic-X production thread here at Reduser.net

D7000 + Lightroom 2 = ANNOYING

Awhile back I got a Nikon D7000 as a backup camera.  I'm still getting to know it, so the jury is still out on my overall thoughts of the camera.  I have just now started to try and play around with the some of the photos from the D7000 and have run into some problems worth sharing.  For photo management, I currently use Adobe's Lightroom 2 (version 2.7 to be exact).  Lightroom 2 uses Adobe Camera Raw version 5.7 (at least my copy) as it's RAW conversion engine.  Well, it turns out .NEF files from the D7000 (.NEF files are Nikon's RAW image format) cannot be read with Lightroom 2 and ACR 5.7.  You need ACR 6.3.  Lightroom 2 can't use ACR 6.3.  This means that Lightroom 2 cannot natively import .NEF files from the D7000 and you need Lightroom v3.3 for this native functionality.  Annoying.  If you don't feel like upgrading or buying Lightroom 3 yet, thankfully there is a workaround.  The .NEF D7000 files can be converted to .DNG files using Adobe's DNG conversion tool and then imported into Lightroom 2 as .DNG files.  Just tried it out and it worked, but is incredibly annoying that it appears Adobe is no longer supporting Lightroom 2.  Maybe they made an announcement about this, maybe I'm flat wrong.  Either way Lightroom 2 with ACR 5.7 will not import D7000 .NEFs and you must add another step (.NEF -> .DNG conversion) to your workflow in order to work with D7000 RAW files in Lightroom 2.