Nikon acquires RED Digital Cinema

[coasterghost]

Summary

 Japanese camera company Nikon announces that they are purchasing  RED Digital Cinema and that it will become a wholly owned subsidiary.

 

Quotes
 

Quote

Nikon Corporation (Nikon) hereby announces its entry into an agreement to acquire 100% of the outstanding membership interests of RED.com, LLC (RED) whereby RED will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nikon, pursuant to a Membership Interest Purchase Agreement with Mr. James Jannard, its founder, and Mr. Jarred Land, its current President, subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions thereunder.

 

 

My thoughts

 I did not have this on my 2024 Bingo card by any longshot. That being said, I hope that Nikon does allow for others to use for instance ProRes Raw internally, and to make it easier for other companies to introduce their own raw formats as they see fit. We all know that RED was very lawsuit happy, so let's also hope that Nikon doesn't follow Reds footsteps and tries to sue anyone who even thinks about wanting to do a raw format. 

 

 

Sources

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

News Shooter: https://www.newsshooter.com/2024/03/06/nikon-acquires-red/

The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/7/24093109/nikon-acquiring-red-cameras-film-motion-picture-tv

[RejZoR]

Well this one came entirely unexpected. LMG uses a lot of RED's, I wonder what will be their take on the acquisition.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Seems a match made in heaven.  NIKON have always been a premium brand for cameras.

 

As I understand it they were the first in the industry to entirely ditch film to focus on producing DSLR of an equal or better quality and it still shows today.  I look at a lot of photos and NIKON is almost always superior to everyone else, their weakness I think was video so makes a lot of sense to acquire a company focused on this.

 

I'd love to finally see a DSLR that also has top-tier video quality, even if I probably wont be able to afford it.

 

It always makes me laugh when people talk about smartphones being a "DSLR killer", I've not seen a single phone that comes close to a top-end DSLR, even ones from a decade ago will beat a phone in good lighting.

[porina]

34 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I look at a lot of photos and NIKON is almost always superior to everyone else

I miss the days when I used to frequent photography forums. Pixel peeping missing the bigger picture, bad pun intended.

 

I'm more surprised Nikon are still going along in a meaningful way. I've not kept up to date but they were looking in bad shape at the tail end of DSLR era - early mirrorless era. In peak DSLR and earlier it was always Canon vs Nikon but that switched to Canon vs Sony.

 

Still, getting a better presence in the video side certainly doesn't hurt. I don't personally look at pro video products so this is largely off radar to me in the context of the wider market.

 

39 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

It always makes me laugh when people talk about smartphones being a "DSLR killer", I've not seen a single phone that comes close to a top-end DSLR, even ones from a decade ago will beat a phone in good lighting.

Photography is like computing in a way. You want the best if things are never good enough, but once you do reach good enough, the question then is, how cheap can you get it? Laws of physics mean phones will struggle to match bigger sensor/optics but in many cases it has passed people's "good enough" threshold.

[Alex Atkin UK]

28 minutes ago, porina said:

Photography is like computing in a way. You want the best if things are never good enough, but once you do reach good enough, the question then is, how cheap can you get it? Laws of physics mean phones will struggle to match bigger sensor/optics but in many cases it has passed people's "good enough" threshold.

Good enough is subjective though.  The problem is most people only ever look at photos on their phone, where everything looks great.  View them on a bigger screen or order a print and they look garbage.

 

I spend hours just browsing Flickr these days, seeing galleries go from insanely high quality DSLR, even a decent points and shoot, to iPhone quality is really depressing.  Although by far the biggest issue is when Instagram took off, they not only went smartphone but also tiny square images.

 

I feel a lot of people will regret in the future that they chose what is the latest cool app at that time, rather than trying to actually preserve their history in the best possible quality.   I look back at some of my early digital camera shots and really wish I could have had a better camera back then, because its like looking at poor quality postage stamps.

 

Of course another aspect for me personally is social anxiety, so I often get more joy from looking back at events and places I've been AFTER in a calmer environment, rather than at the time.  As such, I tend to shoot as much video as possible, rather than photos anyway.  Even more relevant given some events I used to attend haven't happened since the pandemic.

[LAwLz]

On 3/7/2024 at 2:06 PM, Alex Atkin UK said:

It always makes me laugh when people talk about smartphones being a "DSLR killer", I've not seen a single phone that comes close to a top-end DSLR, even ones from a decade ago will beat a phone in good lighting.

I don't think the people who say "DSLR killer" mean that smartphones are better than DSLRs. I think they are saying smartphones have gotten good enough that the use cases for a DSLR, for most people, is gone. 

 

I have a DSLR that I used to use a lot. Then when I got my galaxy S10 and found myself using the DSLR less and less. The phone was good enough, and far more convenient. 

 

I used my S10 exclusively on my trip to Japan. Could my DSLR have taken better pictures? Absolutely, but carrying it around would have made the trip worse because it would have been more of a hassle. The benefit didn't outweigh the drawback in my use case. 

 

You have to judge things in their entirety. When two competing products have strengths and weaknesses you can't stare yourself blind on a single factor. 

For the average person, is it worth spending the money to buy a DSLR, then carry that around instead of just using their phone's camera? 

Sales of digital cameras dropping by about 90% since 2010 indicates to me that people are satisfied enough with their smartphones. 

 

Also, something causing sales of X drop 90% is in my opinion a pretty good definition of an "X killer". 

If Samsung released a phone tomorrow that caused iPhone sales to drop 90% then I'd call that an "iPhone killer" too. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

All very good points, but I'd still argue that people who are "satisfied enough" may not be quite so satisfied years in the future looking back at their potato quality photos.

 

Personally I'm extremely disappointed that point-and-shoot smartphones never took off.  I despise how thin phones are now, much more awkward to hold, so having them thicker so they can fit bigger lenses and sensors seems to no brainer to me.  Instead were relying on AI trickery which is further degrading the quality in many cases.

 

I actually use AI upscaling a lot and its amazing what it can do, if the source is good.  But smartphone photos have already been processed to death to make them passable to begin with.

 

Its a similar issue to streaming movies, the displays we look at them on get better and better, but the quality were able to actually obtain the material in is getting worse and worse.  Except in the case of smartphones its worse as the "master" is bad to begin with.

 

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE having a camera in my pocket all the time.  When I went to conventions before the pandemic I would shoot mixed between a high-end point-and-shoot and my Galaxy S10.  Relying just on my phone would have been hugely disappointing, not least the benefit of a half-decent telephoto lens where size is hugely relevant to getting a good result.  Only wish I'd had a DSLR for even better results.

[porina]

Use the right tool for the job. While I agree that a SLR class camera, with someone who knows how to use it properly, and optionally post process, can get better results than a phone, that's missing the point. Most people, most of the time, are happy enough with the phone output.

 

To me dedicated cameras only make sense in certain use cases, and remain for those purposes. For my personal use cases, it's mostly due to reach. I tend to use longer focal lengths for most of my past photography. 300mm+ on APS-C sensor. No phone that I'd want to buy can do that. Sony tried add-on modules which were just an ergonomic mess. Even compact superzooms can beat phones in that space. Other use cases where higher end photography is used can include formal portraits, weddings, data gathering for example.

 

I do still take my DSLR out for fun, but a lot less than I used to. There's only so many variations of duck portraiture before it gets samey. I'm trying to transition to gulls now.

 

As for processing, we have clearly entered the computational photography era. Revisiting my old shots with current tools do enable things not possible then. I do feel there is a lot of untapped potential still in the realm of computational photography and using camera arrays will be the next step for higher end imaging on phones without requiring a fat lens.

[thechinchinsong]

On 3/7/2024 at 6:16 AM, coasterghost said:

 We all know that RED was very lawsuit happy, so let's also hope that Nikon doesn't follow Reds footsteps and tries to sue anyone who even thinks about wanting to do a raw format.

I wouldn't get your hopes up on that.

[Avocado Diaboli]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

All very good points, but I'd still argue that people who are "satisfied enough" may not be quite so satisfied years in the future looking back at their potato quality photos.

Quite a conjecture. When I look back at my photo albums full of pictures I took as a child on a cheap point-and-shoot camera, I don't think "gee, I wish I'd taken these with the DSLR I bought 10 years later". I just look at the scenes in those pictures and the people within them and reminisce fondly. You seem to overestimate how much people value the fidelity of pictures over what memories they depict.

[Alex Atkin UK]

7 hours ago, porina said:

As for processing, we have clearly entered the computational photography era. Revisiting my old shots with current tools do enable things not possible then. I do feel there is a lot of untapped potential still in the realm of computational photography and using camera arrays will be the next step for higher end imaging on phones without requiring a fat lens.

AFAIK that's already what the high-end are doing.  It helps, but I don't think it can ever get close to big fat sensors purely because the small sensors have a huge problem resolving colours correctly and finer details.

 

6 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You seem to overestimate how much people value the fidelity of pictures over what memories they depict.

I guess I do, because personally that's how I feel.  Its no doubt because I'm a pixel peeper in nature, even when watching movies I'm one of those people who will look for the details in the background.   That's only possible with higher quality and resolution.

 

When I'm looking at a shot of someone, I hate when freckles have been blurred out and the subtly of skin tones are completely lost, never mind the colour being completely wrong and the tiny details in peoples eyes.  Its rather like in games, those shots are uncanny valley to me and every little detail such as subtle hair makes a photo look more realistic.  Its rare for a smartphone shot to pickup those sorts of things and I play a lot with Topaz Photo AI which can be amazing for hair, but tends to kill facial detail when using face recovery.  The tile size of the training data is going to have to get orders of magnitude bigger before those things can be covered properly with AI.

 

Then there's things like red hair or streaky blonde, its often completely lost except on a good camera.  Red in general is a hard colour in to pickup well for camera sensors.

[porina]

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

AFAIK that's already what the high-end are doing.  It helps, but I don't think it can ever get close to big fat sensors purely because the small sensors have a huge problem resolving colours correctly and finer details.

In my idealised vision of computational photography I'm thinking of trypophobia inducing arrays of sensors on the back of a phone to enable aperture synthesis, perhaps with an end goal of optical interferometry. We're probably still decade+ out from that due to the complexity involved.

 

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Red in general is a hard colour in to pickup well for camera sensors.

A common problem due to the bayer filter typically used in sensors. Only 1/4 of the detectors are nominally red sensitive so if you have a primarily red detailed source lacking in other channels, the linear resolution is half. I wish they made sensors with way higher pixel counts to offset that. A common argument against that in the past was due to per-pixel noise, but you can noise shape and higher frequency noise is easier to deal with. Big picture noise should be similar to lower pixel counts but you have better processing options to control it.

[Zodiark1593]

10 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Quite a conjecture. When I look back at my photo albums full of pictures I took as a child on a cheap point-and-shoot camera, I don't think "gee, I wish I'd taken these with the DSLR I bought 10 years later". I just look at the scenes in those pictures and the people within them and reminisce fondly. You seem to overestimate how much people value the fidelity of pictures over what memories they depict.

My hopes and dreams involve a room of rich people, bidding obscene sums of money over my “fine art” photos, for the purposes of tax evasion and laundering, long after I’m deceased. 
 

Probably a tad ambitious.

[Alex Atkin UK]

19 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

My hopes and dreams involve a room of rich people, bidding obscene sums of money over my “fine art” photos, for the purposes of tax evasion and laundering, long after I’m deceased. 
 

Probably a tad ambitious.

You can already do that now with a crappy phone camera, just make a postage stamp NFT.

[BrandonTech.05]

Big excite

I love nikon cameras and red has always been a difficult company

[Agall]

DLSR cameras? Don't you guys have phones?

[optimuss]

On 3/7/2024 at 3:48 PM, porina said:

I'm more surprised Nikon are still going along in a meaningful way. I've not kept up to date but they were looking in bad shape at the tail end of DSLR era - early mirrorless era. In peak DSLR and earlier it was always Canon vs Nikon but that switched to Canon vs Sony.

DSLRs are practically dead from sales perspective, mirrorless cameras have taken over for quite some time now.

Nikon has switched their strategy from low profit margin cameras (think D3100 cameras and like) to mid/high tier (and also stopped spending on R&D for DSLRs). Z8 and Z9 are killing it right now and overall Nikon financials are healthy with good profits. There are some issues like Nikon needs to refresh "lower" end cameras like Z6 with more up to date tech and it is actually expected soon (within 2 months or so). Nikon mirrorless Z lenses are top notch already. I was kind of on the sidelines during this DSRL to mirrorless transition phase but right now (2024) I'd buy into Nikon system again.

[porina]

51 minutes ago, optimuss said:

DSLRs are practically dead from sales perspective, mirrorless cameras have taken over for quite some time now.

Nikon has switched their strategy from low profit margin cameras (think D3100 cameras and like) to mid/high tier (and also stopped spending on R&D for DSLRs). Z8 and Z9 are killing it right now and overall Nikon financials are healthy with good profits.

Agree that DSLRs are EOL, but me talking about them is a side effect that I was most productive in the mid to late DSLR era, into mirrorless transition. I haven't kept up to date with camera offerings so from what you describe, if Nikon are now playing successfully in the high end mirrorless space, that's great. They certainly didn't look great at the end of the DSLR era.

 

For the amount I use stills cameras I might as well keep using my existing DSLRs until they fail. The cost to move to mirrorless that's at least as good is going to be extremely expensive. For my video needs I find small sensor to be adequate so that helps keep the cost down.

 

I just looked up the Japan sales rankings since I recall they were often published. I know, partial data from one county does not represent the world but it is a starting point. For 2024 mirrorless cameras, they put Sony in top spot with Canon a close 2nd. 3rd is OM. Who? Oh, Olympus re-organised themselves. That leaves 25.2% unaccounted for, but Nikon must be below the 12.5% of 3rd place OM. I think this is done by unit volume, so if Nikon is only focused on the highest end, this may not show the whole picture. https://www.bcnaward.jp/award/section/detail/contents_type=254

[Mihle]

9 hours ago, porina said:

Agree that DSLRs are EOL, but me talking about them is a side effect that I was most productive in the mid to late DSLR era, into mirrorless transition. I haven't kept up to date with camera offerings so from what you describe, if Nikon are now playing successfully in the high end mirrorless space, that's great. They certainly didn't look great at the end of the DSLR era.

 

For the amount I use stills cameras I might as well keep using my existing DSLRs until they fail. The cost to move to mirrorless that's at least as good is going to be extremely expensive. For my video needs I find small sensor to be adequate so that helps keep the cost down.

 

I just looked up the Japan sales rankings since I recall they were often published. I know, partial data from one county does not represent the world but it is a starting point. For 2024 mirrorless cameras, they put Sony in top spot with Canon a close 2nd. 3rd is OM. Who? Oh, Olympus re-organised themselves. That leaves 25.2% unaccounted for, but Nikon must be below the 12.5% of 3rd place OM. I think this is done by unit volume, so if Nikon is only focused on the highest end, this may not show the whole picture. https://www.bcnaward.jp/award/section/detail/contents_type=254

If I remember right from previous years, Olympus have usually done quite a lot better in Japan, than it has other places worldwide.

[Kisai]

On 3/11/2024 at 6:54 AM, Agall said:

DLSR cameras? Don't you guys have phones?

People often don't realize how low quality phone cameras are.

 

Your smartphone camera is a tiny sensor, where as a P&S is usually on the scale of 10x larger, and a DSLR, 100x larger.

 

But also your P&S and Smartphone are rolling shutter sensors, so they produce the WORST video.

 

Video cameras have historically used large, global shutter sensors, due in part to historically been CCD's not CMOS.

https://andor.oxinst.com/learning/view/article/rolling-and-global-shutter

https://www.red.com/red-101/global-rolling-shutter

 

DSLR's are often used for filming theatrical and television features presently, because that was really the only option for while. Sony and RED have Global Shutters.

https://8kassociation.com/industry-info/8k-news/red-brings-global-shutter-to-v-raptor-x-and-v-raptor-x-xl-8k-cameras/

 

This makes the cameras very valuable. You ain't squeezing the quality of a DSLR or RED cameras into a smartphone.

 

Apple makes a big deal about being able to record theatrical films on the iphone, but this is a lot of smoke and mirrors, because you can only do this in some limited scope that the sensor is good for. Outdoors, stills, time lapses. 

 

[Agall]

6 minutes ago, Kisai said:

People often don't realize how low quality phone cameras are.

 

Your smartphone camera is a tiny sensor, where as a P&S is usually on the scale of 10x larger, and a DSLR, 100x larger.

 

But also your P&S and Smartphone are rolling shutter sensors, so they produce the WORST video.

 

Video cameras have historically used large, global shutter sensors, due in part to historically been CCD's not CMOS.

https://andor.oxinst.com/learning/view/article/rolling-and-global-shutter

https://www.red.com/red-101/global-rolling-shutter

 

DSLR's are often used for filming theatrical and television features presently, because that was really the only option for while. Sony and RED have Global Shutters.

https://8kassociation.com/industry-info/8k-news/red-brings-global-shutter-to-v-raptor-x-and-v-raptor-x-xl-8k-cameras/

 

This makes the cameras very valuable. You ain't squeezing the quality of a DSLR or RED cameras into a smartphone.

 

Apple makes a big deal about being able to record theatrical films on the iphone, but this is a lot of smoke and mirrors, because you can only do this in some limited scope that the sensor is good for. Outdoors, stills, time lapses. 

 

On 3/11/2024 at 7:54 AM, Agall said:

DLSR cameras? Don't you guys have phones?

 

[saintlouisbagels]

On 3/18/2024 at 4:10 PM, Kisai said:

Your smartphone camera is a tiny sensor, where as a P&S is usually on the scale of 10x larger, and a DSLR, 100x larger.

But also your P&S and Smartphone are rolling shutter sensors, so they produce the WORST video.

Smartphones aren't so bad nowadays - they're about 62% the size of a 1-inch sensor now.

iPhone 14/15 Pro use a 1/1.28-inch sensor = 10.0mm x 7.5mm = 75mm²

1-inch = 12.7mm x  9.5mm = 120.65mm²

 

It's a lot better compared to how things were back in 2012 when Sony first released the RX100 and the iPhone 5 was

5.6mm x 4.2mm = 23.52mm² = 19.4% of a 1-inch sensor.

[mariushm]

I don't know where I read it or heard it, but rumor is Nikon only bought it for the patents, and eventually the Red cameras will be EOL'ed...

 

Nikon was sued by Red for violating their patents and recently they stopped the lawsuit and Nikon then announced they will buy Red : https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/04/28/red-patent-lawsuit-against-nikon-dismissed/

 

 

[ToboRobot]

Just now, mariushm said:

I don't know where I read it or heard it, but rumor is Nikon only bought it for the patents, and eventually the Red cameras will be EOL'ed...

 

Nikon was sued by Red for violating their patents and recently they stopped the lawsuit and Nikon then announced they will buy Red : https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/04/28/red-patent-lawsuit-against-nikon-dismissed/

 

 

They might sunset the brand, but I think Nikon will adopt the brand and product line, because it's still rather valuable with it's own niche in the market, and compliments Nikon's existing products, as they don't really have any pro cine camera business.

[LAwLz]

12 hours ago, mariushm said:

I don't know where I read it or heard it, but rumor is Nikon only bought it for the patents, and eventually the Red cameras will be EOL'ed...

 

Nikon was sued by Red for violating their patents and recently they stopped the lawsuit and Nikon then announced they will buy Red : https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/04/28/red-patent-lawsuit-against-nikon-dismissed/

That sounds like something someone would say without any evidence. Like "I bet they just bought them for the patents". I wouldn't put too much faith in that rumor.