In a surprising announcement, Nikon announced that it has bought the widely popular U.S.-based cinema camera company RED.
The latter company is now a subsidiary of the Japanese camera and accessory giant, and this might mean some changes for owners of RED camera systems.
RED Digital Cinema is a specialist creator of professional, high-quality but often compact cinema cameras, and has gained lots of popularity in the last two decades.
The company was started by Jim Jannard in 2005 and is most famous for numerous very popular cinematic camera models such as the premium RED Digital Cinema V-RAPTOR XL 8K and their Epic Dragon line of 6K cameras.
The company also created a notable, proprietary RAW compression technology of its own and is well-known for releasing certain camera models at very moderate prices for their level of quality.
Now that Nikon owns RED, we’ll have to see how certain aspects of its production and quality change. More likely than not, many changes will be for the better given Nikon’s long experience at delivering high-quality cameras for many kinds of users.
Interestingly, just under a year ago, Nikon and RED were actually in the middle of a legal battle with each other.
This happened when RED accused the Japanese company of infringing against RED’s video compression patents through firmware that Nikon had released for its Z9 flagship camera.
This case was dismissed in April of 2023 but makes it all the more surprising that now, suddenly, Nikon outright owns RED.
For the larger Japanese company, the deal means a major move into the video camera market.
This is an area that Nikon had largely left alone to date in favor of still cameras despite rival Sony being heavily involved in video production technology.
Moreover, by buying RED, Nikon is not only entering the video camera market as it applies to casual users and semi-pro YouTubers. Instead, it’s entering the pro cinema camera arena of devices that have been used in numerous major movie and TV productions.
Films and series filmed with RED cameras have included Mindhunter, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Queen’s Gambit, Peaky Blinders and many more.
In a press release by RED, which is headquartered in California, the company president Jarred Land announced on Facebook,
“In a landmark move, RED Digital Cinema (RED.com, LLC), is excited to announce being acquired by Nikon Corporation (Nikon). The agreement with Nikon, reached with RED’s founder Jim Jannard and President Jarred Land, signifies a new era of innovation and excellence in the professional filmmaking sector,”
Land’s press statement adds,
“This acquisition marks a significant milestone for Nikon, melding its rich heritage in professional and consumer imaging with RED’s innovative prowess. Together, Nikon and RED are poised to redefine the professional digital cinema camera market, promising an exciting future of product development that will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in film and video production.”
Land also posted briefly about the merger on RED’s Instagram page, prompting plenty of comments. Amusingly, at least one of these even specified that the real killer acquisition would have been RED getting bought by Sony instead of Nikon.
Nikon for its part released its own press release in which the larger company states,
“This agreement was reached as a result of the mutual desires of Nikon and RED to meet the customers’ needs and offer exceptional user experiences that exceed expectations, merging the strengths of both companies. Nikon’s expertise in product development, exceptional reliability, and know-how in image processing, as well as optical technology and user interface along with RED’s knowledge in cinema cameras, including unique image compression technology and color science, will enable the development of distinctive products in the professional digital cinema camera market”
Nikon added that it will be leveraging its acquisition to expand the market for pro digital cinema cameras with the expertise both it and RED have in their respective camera technology sectors.
The company promised heavy future cinema camera development and its press statement in general makes it clear that Nikon plans on firmly expanding into cinema camera production with this purchase of RED Digital.
If Nikon is serious about these plans, there are plenty of strong reasons to expect interesting new pro cinema cameras from the brand, with help from the expertise already built by RED.
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