The RED WEAPON 8K Vista Vision camera, originally announced at NAB 2015 in Las Vegas last April, is capable of shooting 8K (8192x4320p) resolution at 60fps in full-sensor mode, or up to 75fps in a scope (2.40:1) frame format.
Michael Cioni, a filmmaker and supervisor known for his work in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), has said that arming filmmakers with 8K cameras is a great way to avoid upscaling if the final intended resolution is 4K. For example, if a filmmaker wants to reframe or video effects needs more resolution, then shooting only at 4K means finishing below 4K. The result is that the film must then be upscaled into a 4K finish.
“What I encourage everyone to consider is that 8K is not the new 4K. Instead, 8K is about to open up an entirely new era of cameras which I now call "The Super Sensors.” Super Sensors are camera systems like Alexa65 or Weapon 8K that are capturing with so much resolution that (like a DSLR) they are able to create a new level of smoothness that makes things look more like a photograph and less like a digital representation of film.”
“This is the camera exercise I did with the help of my friend, Erin Gales. Everything was shot with the Weapon 8K at 1280 ISO except for a 2nd camera angle during interviews, which was a Dragon 6K. Special thanks to Phil Newman, Megan Swanson, and Keenan Mock for their help on set.”
Vimeo - ERIN GALES shot on Weapon 8K with Panavision Primo 70mm lenses
The original 8K (8192x4320p) video is uploaded in 4K Ultra HD 3840x2160p resolution and retains quite a bit of quality from the original 4K master. The file weighs in at 1.281GB and can be downloaded here.
In January, RED also announced that Guardians of the Galaxy 2, produced by Marvel Studios, will be the first major feature film shot on their new 8K WEAPON Vista Vision full-frame 35mm camera. The movie began filming this month at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia and is scheduled to be released May 5, 2017 in the United States.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 director James Gunn has explained his decision about choosing the 8K WEAPON camera, citing the need to have more control over every pixel of the film and the easier ability to seamlessly incorporate more visual and digital effects at a higher resolution:
“Firstly, I believe when shooting on a format like the Red Weapon 8K or the Alexa 65, the amount of data is so massive - certainly more so than on a strip of film - that it gives you more freedom in production and post production to create exactly the film you want to create than actual film does. As anyone who has ever worked with me knows, I am a control freak. Such high resolution gives me the ability to control every single bit of data (to do so would take a long time, but at least the knowledge comforts me).”
Back in November 2015, RED President Jarred Land and his team at Global Dynamics United launched a rehoused, bulletproof Canon 24mm f/2.8 lens and put it on a RED EPIC DRAGON camera for video demonstration purposes. The team then shot a clip of the camera being blasted with water and fire. The video was shot in 8K (8192x4320p) at 72fps on the RED WEAPON Vista Vision camera and is dubbed “Catastrophic Environmental Test 1.”
The RED Dragon 8K Vista Vision sensor itself is a $20k upgrade over the regular 6K Weapon Dragon and was expected to begin shipping at the end of 2015. The bare camera, or 6K Weapon Woven CF “brain,” is $49,955, making the entire purchase of a RED 8K camera close to $70k.
The only other Full Ultra High Definition (FUHD) 8K videos we have seen on the Internet so far come from YouTube and Vimeo, but very few of them are able to be downloaded in their native 8K resolution format. Here is one that we discovered of an 8K timelapse of Machu Picchu, Peru, filmed by Philip Bloom.
Vimeo - 8K: Machu Picchu, Peru Timelapse
The original 8K (8192x4320p) video is uploaded to Vimeo in its native resolution. The file weighs in at 2.091GB and can be downloaded here.
