Red’s very own Ted Schilowitz talks all things Scarlet at CES ’11.

The Hobbit will be shot in 3D using a legion of RED EPIC cameras next year by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. Start foraging in your couch cushions and under your car seats for the $58,000 it will take to get a machined EPIC-M body with a titanium PL mount, Bomb EVF, Redmote, four-pack of batteries, four-pack of 128GB SSDs and a solid state storage module. They should be rolling off the assembly line in time for NAB. Start your shopping on the RED website.

The Hobbit is a major production, and could have chosen any camera system that they wanted. The fact that they went with us is extremely gratifying.

-Jim Jannard RED

It appears as though the Scarlet is undergoing a major overhaul. Jim Jannard, RED’s founder, has decided to push the camera into the professional realm only and not to attempt a prosumer device. Jannard is quoted by EOSHD:

The concept of RED was to build a camera with as much capability as possible…for the professional market. Then we thought we could extend it down a bit to the prosumer level. Apparently, that was a mistake.

One can only assume that the mistake was to try and compete with Panasonic and Canon in this prosumer price range. Panasonic will have a micro-four-thirds sensor camera out by December that would have been in direct competition with the entry level Scarlet had RED delivered when they had originally estimated. This Summer target may have created the momentum they needed.

Canon introduced the 60D and Nikon announced the D7000, in September, that also both directly competed with the Scarlet. Its possible that all of these new video products flooding the market made the retooling inevitable.

Jan Crittenden, Product Manager at Panasonic, gives a hands-on of the new Panasonic AG-AF100 at DV Expo and talks to Dan Chung from dslrnewsshooter.com.

Today, at IBC, Panasonic announced its first video camera with a 35mm sized sensor. The Panasonic AG-AF105 will have interchangeable lenses and a Micro Four Thirds sized sensor. The compression format is Panasonic’s own AVCCAM that has already shown up in it’s still camera line. Two SDXC slots will give plenty of recording time with as much as 720 minutes in the highest quality setting using two 64GB SDXC cards.

A number of lens types will be compatible using various adapters including PL mount lenses. Expect to see all of the functionality of the HVX/HPX series with interchangeable lenses and the added capability of narrow depth of field. The AF105 is on schedule to be available in December for around $6000 for the body only.

More info at Panasonic’s AG-AF105 website.

Zeiss has just announce their Compact Primes for EF (Canon), F (Nikon) mount and PL (Red One) mount. The mount is also interchangeable among these three types. These are cine style lenses with geared focus rings that have 300 degrees of rotation for precise focusing. Interior focus eliminates breathing on all lenses in the range. (breathing is what you get on most still lenses when the background changes size as you pull focus on your subject)

All of the lenses in the line are T rated. T-Stop rating is actually a measurement of light transmission through a particular lens. F-Stop is based on a calculation of light and doesn’t take into consideration the specific characteristics of the transmission medium. Four of the Compact Primes are T2.1 and are available in 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm.

Check out a NAB booth demo at the read link. Also look for a Compact Prime test from AbelCineTech.

John Inwood, DP for “Pete & Pete” and “Scrubs” gives the Compact Primes a run through. He shot with the Red One and Panasonic Lumix GH1.

Red Day in Vegas was a chance for Red to show some of its newest camera prototypes to Red fans. Red showed Epic as a fully working prototype and was showing off some Epic 4k footage. The Scarlet was only shown non-working with several accessories. Red’s own Ted Schilowitz was all over NAB this past week showing off the Epic body and talking about Epic registration. He mentioned the Scarlet would be out a month after the Epic was ready for delivery. Epic is on track to be ready this summer.

The interview has some bad audio but is still watchable. Also check out some photos from the Red Day in Las Vegas at the Tropicana.

Some pics from the event:

Panasonic announced their first Micro 4/3″ pro camcorder. The AF100 will deliver shallow depth of field and wider field of view with a larger imager than is standard in its current camcorder line.

The AF100 will be equiped with an interchangeable lens mount that can utilize and array of low-cost, widely available still camera lenses as well as fixed focal lengths and primes. (video at link)

The camcorder records 1080/60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p (native) and 720/60p, 50p, 30p, 25p and 24p (native) in AVCHD’s highest quality PH mode (max 24Mbps).

The AF100 also has built in ND filtering and dramatically reduced anti-aliasing. Expect built in HD-SDI out, HDMI, time code, built-in stereo mic and two XLR inputs with +48V Phantom Power. Support for 48-kHz/16bit two-channel digital audio recording will be standard.

The new camera will record onto 2 SDHC or SDXC (32GB up to 2TB) cards. With two slots, the AF100 can record up to 12 hours on two 64GB SDXC cards in PH mode.

Expect to be able to purchase the AG-AF100 by the end of 2010.

Essentially this is Panasonic’s answer to all of you who wished your DSLR had more camcorder features. Imagine having all of the image quality of a DSLR with the addition of a decent viewfinder and good quality audio. Throw in some time code for good measure and voila! I would like to see how this will compare to the Scarlet and at what price point. I’m sure Canon will have an answer to the AG-AF100 in short time as well.

This footage was shot by Todd Norris, a KC cinematographer. Todd used his Panasonic GH1 still camera. This is what you should expect to get out of Panasonic’s new AG-AF100.

Adobe has announced the official launch date for the Creative Suite 5 package for graphic, video and Web design professionals. The software will be available for preorder on April 12th.

The official CS5 launch Web site has more details as well as some feature videos.

Check out the technology video of After Effects CS5 after the read link.

We have just acquired a new HPX-170 with an ARRI matte box and 15mm rail system. To round out the package we now have a shoulder mount from Zacuto. You really have to see it in person to appreciate the quality and attention to detail that both ARRI and Zacuto put into their accessories. The kit won’t be ready for check-out right away but will be available soon enough for advanced students. More pics at the read link.