Its far from cheap buying a Red camera but some of the prices are mind blowing. Below is an article by Vincent Larforet a very successful photographer in the USA who extols the virtues of his 8K Red Weapon. I was sent a link to this video (below) which is why most people rent these cameras, be warned, don’t lose a cable !
Now to be fair the only manufacture other than Red to bring an 8K camera to market so far has been Sony.
So you want to buy an 8K Red camera, look at this video first…
The F65 – whilst being first rate – is not an 8K camera. (Yes, I know it’s claimed to be, but it’s not, for the reasons below.)
The minimum resolution requirement for a (16:9) 4K camera is a Bayer chip of 3860×2160 photosites. For 8K it’s double that for each axis, so at least 7720×4320. The figures equate to (about) 8.3 and 33.3 Megapixels.
The F65 is squarely between those two figures at (approx.) 16.6 megapixels used photosites for 16:9 – so it’s misleading to call it a “8k camera”.
I have heard it described as “8Kx2K”, but whilst that takes into account the lower pixel count (8K should be “8Kx4K” to be true 8K) it implies the vertical resolution is only half the vertical – which is not the case.
In practice the photosite rows are 45degree rotated to the horizontal, so any “K” nomenclature is really meaningless anyway. What the F65 DOES offer is true 4K luminance resolution, and much better chrominance resolution in 4K after deBayering than the more usual 8Mpixel chip.
(If anyone wants a more technical description then try https://www.provideocoalition.com/pixels_vs-_pixels/ )
How not to unbox a camera.