RED DRAGON sensor has 20 stops – no more Scarlet upgrade

by Sebastian WöberJanuary 6^th, 2013

US Camera Manufacturer RED has been talking about their new camera sensor named “dragon” for quite a while. In a recent announcement at reduser.net Jarred Land posted this early grab from footage taken with the new sensor.

20 stops of dynamic range, this is a very powerful number given that the dynamic range wonder-camera, the Arri Alexa is a little over 14 stops. If these are true 20 stops remains to be seen, but it looks just like the 6K RED dragon sensor will not be a weak step.

Jarred also announced that the power of the dragon sensor will affect the upgrade pricing and will close the door for upgrades on Scarlet-X camera. This comes as a surprise to many Scarlet-X owners who had been hearing the dragon sensor would go into the Scarlet as well.

(…)This much range coming off of a sensor has never been done before.. (…) so we had to beef up the entire infrastructure of EPIC.
This is likely to affect the price of the upgrade a bit.. and its going to close the door on any chance of a Scarlet to be able to upgrade to Dragon.