Why, you ask would you need such a remote? The REDmote can trigger the camera remotely, ASWELL as change settings. Firstly, wireless can be problematic, range and interference all factor into reliability. Secondly, not everyone seems able to get hold of redmotes at the moment what with the Scarlet ordering onslaught!

Anyway, just before Xmas, a lovely little FedEx box landed on my doorstep. Typically whilst I was away shooting in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi, as always seems to be the case. Lo and behold, my Scarlet-X had arrived in Dubai!

She’s kind of being overshadowed by her big brothers at the moment, (we received our third EPIC last week) so as of yet ive only managed to shoot some videos of my cats, which of course is what all cameras are really for these days anyway, but hopefully Ill have a chance to shoot something this week and post it up. Really must make more of an effort with this blogging lark!

I was very Kindly offered a demo Zunow PL mount adapter for use with EOS cameras this week, and I snapped up the opportunity to test it out. Ive still not had a chance to play with the current offerings from companies like DENZ or HoTRod Cameras, so this was my first chance to pop some Cinema Glass on my little 5DMKII. This is a preliminary report on the unit, I will try and shoot some video and post examples if my schedule allows. (which isnt looking to likely at the moment!)

The Unit itself is a relatively low key affair, no flashy primary colours like many of the HDSLR AKS you see dominating the market, and unless you knew what you were looking at, it would probably go unnoticed. I like this, Im not a big fan of bright colours all over the camera, keep it all black, and i’m a happy bunny.

The Zunow comes in 2 pieces, the adapter itself, and a lens support/baseplate with a quick release wedge mounted to it for ENG style tripods. This is easily removed, (see below) and can be refitted with an OConnor Wedgeplate. (I had to do this to fit our 2060 Head.) The baseplate has a screw which when attached threads through into a lens support fitted on the underside of the adapter itself. For heavier lenses, like the Optimo, a second lens support would be required, but for all the lenses I tested it seemed rock solid as is.

In house we have RED Pro Primes, and zooms, all of which fitted perfectly with the adapter, with the only exception being the 18mm.

The list of lenses I have tested so far that fit:

RED Pro Primes 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm

RED Old style 300mm

RED Zoom 18-50mm, 50-150mm

(I had an optimo 24-290 and a set of Arri Tilt Shifts with me all week this week, and whilst I had no chance to get them on the adapter, comparing the rear elements leads me to believe  99% they both would work )

I popped a few Ultra Primes on the mount, but had no luck as the rear element was too large. The one weird result I encountered was when trying the Duclos 11-16mm PL conversion. By all accounts it should have worked, the rear element was no larger than the RED lenses, but for whatever reason, I could not get it to fit the adapter. I suppose this isnt the end of the world, the Lens would vignette on the 5D Sensor anyway, and a much cheaper version can be found in its original form from Tokina, but it would be nice to have all Cine style lenses on hand fit.

The lenses themselves do behave slightly differently when used on the adapter, firstly the adapter is a piece of glass, and as such it causes a light loss of around 2 stops. Secondly, there appears to be a cropping effect in comparison to the same shot when using FF SLR lenses.

The main strongpoint of this adapter? There is Zero modification required to either the Camera or lens. Other offerings will need the camera body to be heavily reworked, and can cost over 2 or 3 times the cost of the original camera. The Adapter retails for around EUR2350 and can be ordered from Adorama, or directly from the distributer ALPHATRON.

If there is interest Ill try and up some comparison Shots from the Adapter, but Im crazy busy at the moment!

Everything was the same between the two cameras, other than the sensor. The reason we kept the lens at F2.8 was because we shot the same test on a Canon 5DMK2 aswell, and F2.8 was the common stop between the Red Pro Primes and the Zeiss ZFs we used on the Canon. Ill upload that test later.

Works like a dream all the way to 11mm on the MX R1 (and standard R1 for that matter) and DOES NOT VIGNETTE even on our standard 4 X5.6′ matteboxes.

Love it.

(looks better if you click the Vimeo link and load it in a new window)

So there you go. Be wary of watching it more than once or that ruddy song will be stuck in your head for days.

Anyway, tech stuff. All of the filming was done on one of Alchemy’s RED1s, with RPPs and a 10mm Arriflex thrown in for good measure. The majority of the video was RC36 shot in 4K 16:9 , at a combination of 25 and 30fps. Most of the slomo is 3K at 50fps, and the last shot of Alex in the red dress was 2K at 100fps on a 10mm Zeiss. The shutter was faster than usual, but uniform throughout, kept in relative mode at 1/100th.

In terms of pulling stills, we did a rough grade in REDcineX to take advantage of the RAW nature of the R3D, and then exported a TIFF. Im not a stills retoucher, so there’s very little grading, but I think they look good as is.

Here are a few examples:

Lesson Learnt from this shoot: Do not drink one of everything on a cocktail menu the night before. Using an Easyrig a few hours later makes you want to be sick!

Motos from the job will follow in the next few days.

Ended up rear projecting the image onto a piece of trace, then filming that in 4K on the R1.

Is 4K res 8mm Overkill?? Surely not…..

The shoot was all over Dubai, but this video was just at a location where I wasn’t busy DIT’ing/drinking coffee.

I used a 5D MKII incase you’re interested.

So after months of talking, Alchemy finally bit the bullet and setup a day to shoot some proper fashion and Beauty tests with the Reds. Long time collaborator Crispin Dominic graciously lent us his Studio over at A1 Action Filmz as well as having Mr Sharif, Bharat (micro) Dholi, and Naeem all on hand to make sure we had what we needed in terms of lighting. Fashion Photographer extraordinaire Martin Beck, who has been eager to play with the RED from the first time we showed him the stills we’ve been pulling from it, gave up his weekend (and a few hours of beer time, so Im told) to come down and get involved.

We had two models for the day, the first one being the lovely Alexandra from Bareface

And our second model was the equally lovely Amber

Local Makeup Superstar Denie Pasion came up with the theme for the shoot and stylist Guillaume Nallet provided a look for each of Alex’s 3 changes.

Martin directed the models and arranged the lighting as if he was shooting stills, whilst Crispin and I took charge of the camera side of things.

I haven’t had time to really work with any of the footage we shot yet. Thats the joy of back to back jobs I guess, but as soon as I do Ill post links them here, and on Twitter.