By technical editor Matt Allard:
Some new information has been released regarding RED’s mysterious #4K4ALL announcement. According to Jarred Land over at RED USER, Raven will be RED’s new entry level digital cinema camera. It will cost $5950 US for just the camera Brain, and the release date is unknown at this stage. The price includes a fixed SSD Media Bay as well as the fixed Canon EF Mount. Whether other mounts will be available has not been announced yet. The official announcement for the Raven will be on the 25th of September.
RED Raven features a 4K Dragon sensor which is 20.48mm wide, a bit shy of Academy 35mm and APS-C. According to RED all your APS-C / S35 lenses should cover. The Raven will apparently be capable of up to 120fps 4K recording. It is part of the “DSMC²” family style of camera body along with Weapon, which likely means Raven will be compatible with the same accessories. RED RAVEN will be the lightest weight camera body in the DSMC² family.
According to Jarred Land, “The Raven doesn’t replace Scarlet, It’s a new category in our line up. Raven is a younger, hungrier, more “spirited” member of the RED family with a bit of a chip on his shoulder ready to take on the entire sub-$10k market with images that you will be incredibly proud of.”
A shooting package that will allow you to get up and running with 120GB MINI-MAGs, the new 4.7″ LCD Touch, and battery solution should be available for under $10k. RED has obviously seen the market for sub $10k and under cameras grow dramatically in recent times and it looks like they are trying to get people to buy into the RED ecosystem, with the eventual plan that users will want to upgrade to some of the companies more expensive cameras. It is probably not by accident that the #4K4ALL hashtag was being put out by RED right around the time the Sony FS5 was being launched.
