Nikon to Acquire US Cinema Camera Manufacturer RED

[ShunCheung]

I am merely reusing Nikon company news' title. It is not quite a done deal yet, but it seems close and a very interesting development:

https://www.nikon.com/company/news/2024/0307_01.html

[Rob Davies]

That's probably the most important deal in decades.
Combine that with the recent coverage of the NASA collaboration and you suddenly appreciate how far Nikon has pulled it all back together in the last 5 years. 

[joseph_smith3]

Here is another link to info about this development. Forbes and Barron's have reported it too. 

https://petapixel.com/2024/03/07/nikon-acquires-us-company-red-in-shakeup-of-cinema-camera-market/

I guess I need to learn how to use the video features on my Nikon cameras. 

I am glad to see this development. 

[mike_halliwell]

I didn't even know they were for sale 🤣

Very interesting for Nikon's future direction, and the lens mount implications for the other big players.

[ShunCheung]

Thom Hogan also has comments on this deal: https://bythom.com/newsviews/nikon-acquires-red.html

[ShunCheung]

[mike_halliwell]

Surely Nikon Yellow and RED =

 

Edited March 7 by mike_halliwell

[ShunCheung]

Red is Canon's color, though. 😀

[mike_halliwell]

There's always been that little RED bit of decor beneath the shutter button on Nikon (D)SLRs....😉

Equally, there's nothing YELLOW on Nikon bodies.. 

I wonder how long the production of RED cameras with only Canon RF mount will last?

Interesting that Thom thinks DX is the future too!

Z500 hybrid?

[Rob Davies]

Irrespective of what products they may introduce this year, this will be the most massive news we hear for sure.

Thinking back, I can't think of anything of this magnitude happening since I've used Nikon gear (just over 40 years).

Not that I'm particularly interested in video though, that may also change in the future. 

[BeBu Lamar]

Nikon will have to develop video lenses which they can do. Not a problem.  Does RED own any manufacturing facilities? And where are their factories located?

Edited March 7 by BeBu Lamar

[mike_halliwell]

2 hours ago, BeBu Lamar said:

Nikon will have to develop video lenses which they can do.

I had noticed that many (most?) of the Z lenses are focus breathing free?

.. an anyone can de-click the A ring.. if it has one.. !

[ilkka_nissila]

11 hours ago, mike_halliwell said:

I had noticed that many (most?) of the Z lenses are focus breathing free?

.. an anyone can de-click the A ring.. if it has one.. !

You could say that most Z lenses have less breathing than is typical of lenses mainly designed for still photography, but there is still some minor breathing in some of them. I guess for the most part it is diminished to the point where it is not visually distracting within clips where the focus is adjusted during the take. I recall that a few lenses still have noticeable breathing though.

 

Hmm, there are no clicks on the rings on the Z lenses (apart from the Noct which might have; I have not used it). I do think Nikon should offer more damped and definitely non-accelerated control rings. Some would like to see clicking and marked aperture rings on select lenses designed for the Zf and Zfc in mind. To me the existing control rings are too easily moved and the acceleration when using it to control aperture is maddening. 

 

But overall the first generation of Z lenses are really good. And they are more video friendly than most F-mount lenses (you can adjust the focus throw on most of the mid and higher-end cameras, also the autofocus works decently and is nearly silent). 

 

I hope Nikon retires RED's abuse of patents which has damaged the industry. Visually lossless RAW is a trivial non-invention and was being used in still cameras and I have read that it had even been used in a cinema camera before RED got it patented with a slight modification and absurd level of generalization used in the interpretation. I hope Nikon doesn't inhale that kind of culture and get infected.

 

[Dieter Schaefer]

8 hours ago, ilkka_nissila said:

I hope Nikon retires RED's abuse of patents which has damaged the industry.

Didn't Nikon get sued by RED for patent infringement - and the case got settled because Nikon argued that the patent should never have been granted in the first place?

[ilkka_nissila]

13 hours ago, Dieter Schaefer said:

Didn't Nikon get sued by RED for patent infringement - and the case got settled because Nikon argued that the patent should never have been granted in the first place?

Well Nikon's response to RED's lawsuit was along those lines, and the case was withdrawn by both parties. However, it is not public if there was some kind of an agreement between the two (apart from not continuing the lawsuit). Anyway, my hope is that this kind of very general interpretation of patents involving software and algorithms that are fairly obvious to people who are knowledgeable in the field would not be pursued in the future. RED use a particular algorithm in a camera covered by some patentand others want to use their own algorithms in their own csmeras which IMO they should be able to especially if the algorithms are quite different. I hope things turn for the better now and companies can start using raw video compression more freely, rather than having to either not use raw or use completely uncompressed raw which is very impractical for high-resolution video. There are a lot of video formats that are different from each other and a lot of software that is compatible with some file types and not with others, e.g. N-RAW is not supported by Adobe Premiere. Some standardization and opening up of the file formats would be helpful to users.