New information is available regarding the Gates Deep Red Underwater Video housing for the Red One Cinema Camera.
Greetings to all customers awaiting DEEP RED, First and foremost, please accept my gratitude for your patience awaiting launch of DEEP RED.  I assure you DEEP RED will be worth the wait and the finest housing Gates has produced in our 40 year history.

A substantial amount of progress has been made on DEEP RED, and development continues on track for a debut at DEMA and production this year.  Before sharing some of the details please note:

·       DEEP RED is designed in collaboration with Howard Halltosuit his needs and decades of professional experience.  This has led to some unconventional but remarkably functional considerations. 


·       I am purposely not sharing certain details and photos of DEEP RED simply because they must remain confidential until roll out. 

With that in mind, some interesting stuff.

·       A unique feature ofDEEP RED is placement of the battery and drive on top of the camera (see photo).  At first glance this may seem strange, but the reasons are straightforward:

o       Doing so helps dissipate heat from hard drive as air circulates in the housing.  In our tests the aluminum shell removes an enormous amount of energy –even out of the water.  So we do not expect any heat issues with DEEP RED. 

o       It also allows access to the rear control panel.  Our design team has worked out details to access all salient rear buttons and joystick –the latter being a clever and challenging oneindeed. 

o       Finally, it provides easy change of battery and drive.  This is difficult to describe, but it will be obvious when more details of the housing design are available. 


·       The first lens we will support is the RED 18-50 simply because nearly every RED user has one.  After that we have been requested to support:

o       Birger mount with Canon 10-22
o       Birger mount with Nikon 14-24 and 12-24 DX
o       Arri 8R
o       Cooke 15-40
o       Angenieux 15-40
o       Cooke S4 Primes
o       Arri Primes T1.3

If you have any other suggestions for lens support I encourage you to make them so we can finalize our plans for which lenses to support on a production basis.  At this juncture the RED 18-50 and Birger/Canon/Nikon are the only ones for sure. 

·       We have also located a potentially fantastic glass dome.  Samples are being manufactured for Gates as I write.  If it meets our expectation (and I have confidence) it will be a thoroughbred –8” diameter, depth rated to 450 feet / 137 mts (same as all Gates housings), AR coated, field replaceable –and will do justice to the demanding 4K format.  Inother words -- No Compromises.   You are limited only by the camera and your own technique. 


·       DEEP RED will have an external monitor that is a shell case for the RED LCD.  It will have some very unique features, too, for accessing the LCD controls.  More to come on that topic. 


·       Lastly the design incorporates other established features like adjustable handle grips, removable and adjustable trim weights, and of course mechanical control of all functions (except zoom which will be an electro-mechanical servo zoom at Howard’s request).

As always your comments and feedback are welcome and encouraged.  DEEP RED will be a world class product for the 4K professional.  More information will be forthcoming and the Gates team is ever confident that DEEP RED will be worth the wait. 

Sincerely,

John