THEORY OF OPERATION
The RED EPIC Digital Cinema camera provides high performance digital imaging over a wide range of
frame rates and optical formats including Super 35mm, 35mm and Super 16mm. The camera is supplied
as standard with a PL mount, and may be configured with mounts and 19 mm rods to accommodate
most cinematography lenses, matte boxes and follow focus systems. Adaptors for 15mm offset studio
and 15mm lightweight rods are also available.
In addition to compatibility with existing PL mount cinematography lenses; a select range of S35mm
(APS-H) PL mount prime and zoom lenses are available from RED.
Other lens mounts, including Canon FD, and Nikon F are available, permitting the use of Canon and
Nikkor photographic lenses. Lens mounts can report lens iris, focus and zoom data when mated to an
appropriate lens. In addition, the iris and focus settings for select Canon and Nikkor lenses may be driven
from the camera when operating in Auto Exposure (AE) and Auto Focus (AF) modes.
Lens mounts may be exchanged in the field, however it is highly recommended that this be performed in a
dust-free environment, as the optical path will be exposed to the elements during this process.
A B4 mount to PL mount adaptor is also available to permit use of 2/3” HD lenses on the RED EPIC
camera. The optical coverage it provides is approximately equivalent to 16mm hence the maximum
recording resolution with a B4 lens is 2K RAW (2048 x 1152 pixel) progressive scan.
MYSTERIUM X® SENSOR
The MYSTERIUM X sensor has been specifically designed for use with RED EPIC cameras, and provides
variable frame rate imaging over 1 to 240 fps at up to 2K resolution, 1 to 160 fps at up to 3K resolution,
and 1 to 120 fps at up to 4K or 5K resolution.
Native color balance for the MYSTERIUM X sensor is 5,000 degrees Kelvin, but it may be electronically
compensated for any color temperature in the range 1,700 to 10,000 degrees Kelvin. White balance
preset values include Tungsten (3200K) and Daylight (5600K) light sources; the camera may also calculate
a color neutralizing White Balance value on demand by imaging on a standard white or 18% grey card.
The MYSTERIUM X sensor includes high precision analog to digital conversion, capable of delivering up
to 13.5 stops of dynamic range with daylight light sources over a camera sensitivity range of 320-800 ISO.
IMAGE PROCESSING
The digital image received from the sensor is formatted as a pixel defect corrected (but in all other
aspects unprocessed) 12-bit, 14-bit or 16-bit per pixel RAW data frame. When operating in STILLS mode,
each image received from the sensor is treated as a unique FRAME; however when operating in MOVIE
mode, successive images received from the sensor are collected together into a CLIP. In all other regards,
a frame of information gathered in STILLS mode or MOVIE mode is identical.
Each RAW frame or sequence of RAW frames in a clip is compressed using proprietary wavelet based
REDCODE RAW compression, then stored to digital media such as a REDMAG 1.8” SSD.
The RAW data recorded is independent of any RGB domain signal processing choices such as ISO, White
Balance or other RGB color space adjustments made by the camera operator. These parameters are
saved with the RAW data as reference METADATA, they are not burned into the recorded RAW data.
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©2011 RED.COM INC.
APRIL 19, 2011
