6K aerial footage shows us what the Red Dragon can do (VIDEO)
posted Wednesday, November 27, 2013 at 2:52 PM EDT
The Red Epic Dragon is the current king of Red's lineup of impressive cinema devices. Capable of delivering 6K video, it's already wowed us with its impressive dynamic range. But to really put it through its paces (and try out a high-end gimbal), Luke Neumann, Doug Holgate, and Nathan Garofalos stuck the Red Dragon on a helicopter to deliver some astonishing aerial footage.
A GSS C520 Gimbal was mounted on a helicopter, a large, five-axis stabilization system that's powerful enough to steady the Red Dragon and the Canon 30-300mm and Fujinon 18-85mm lenses that were used for the shot. The results speak for themselves, both of the videos below show off just how high quality the video from the Red Dragon can be.
On the RedUser forum, Garofalos commented on the shoot, saying:
First off, the camera has more dynamic range than I can comprehend... Its hard to clip your highlights, and a pretty amazingly low noise level... For the first time, I am seeing more detail, clearer sharper images, than I am with my own eyes...
GSS worked with me and my company, Horizon Cinema to integrate my carbon fiber Red Epic Dragon delivered on November 12, 2013. The moment I received the cam, the GSS engineering team integrated the Dragon within hours and had it ready to fly in less than two days. Angel City Air provided use of their Fujinon Premier 18-85 and Canon 30-300 for the aerials. Helicopter Resources provided use of their Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm lens as well. We flew one day in Grass Valley November 18th with Doug Holgate and Neumann Films. I saw a storm was coming through Lake Tahoe, my back yard, its very rare I get to work where I live, and thought it'd be fun to go fly around for a couple hours after the fresh snow later that week, and this is a teaser of what I came up with...
The shoot went amazingly well... I really tried to push the camera to the limits, shooting in very low light, into the sun, high contrast, etc... As you can see, it looks great!!
If you guys want, I can get a 4k version of everything up here with Jarred's help ;-)
Ask away on any questions you have about the cam and gimbal, Ill put some r3d's up here at some point as well for everyone to check out...
You can see the footage in the clips below — but both are well worth clicking through to see at higher resolution.
There's a lot to be said for how the spread of cheap action cameras, stabilizers, and low-cost drones has allowed just about anyone to experiment with aerial photography. But it's work like this that shows why there will always be a place for high end rigs, with excellent image quality and huge dynamic range.
(via NoFilmSchool)