Today RED announced their revised roadmap for their 5K+ digital video camera systems. Those of you who are a little on the techy-geeky side of things know RED for their amazing first-generation ultraHD video camera, the RED One.

The RED One is the camera of choice for our company, and we use it on almost every job. It provides a stunning image, and our clients love what it does for them. Well-exposed, the RED One basically gives you digital Super35mm film.

But the camera is huge, heavy, and runs very hot. Doing handheld work or putting it on a crane is almost exactly like working with an oldschool film camera- it’s tough!

We bought our RED One system knowing that this camera was a “phase one” for RED- we knew from the start that it’d be replaced with a light, modular, even more capable system that isn’t basically a supercomputer with a video chip. Enter Epic.

Epic is RED’s latest camera, and today RED announced that the first production model Epics will probably start rolling off the assembly line early next year. This is exciting news. I’m especially excited about the Epic being so much smaller and lighter than the RED One, and running a lot cooler, too. Another huge improvement on the Epics is they are modular- meaning, if we’re off to cover the Boston Marathon or something we can build a camera with modules that fits our needs exactly- no more bringing stuff you don’t need.

The sad news is, a lot of people were hoping these cameras would be available starting immediately. I understand that. There’s a huge need for this camera right now. But the economy has dampened RED’s original plans, and that’s OK.

For us, the RED One is a great camera system to use today. Next year, of course we’ll upgrade. But in the meantime, getting a stunning picture that looks like you paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for, and only spending $40-50,000 to get it? That’s pretty awesome.