Peter Jackson Purchases 30 RED 3D Cameras for ‘The Hobbit’

I remember my first video camera. It was kinda big and the quality wasn’t really that great but still, it was all mine. I used it to create what I thought were some pretty cool little movies using my friends and kids from the neighborhood. I’ll bet Peter Jackson must be feeling a bit like I did today considering he’s got some new video cameras as well.

That’s right tech and film buffs, Mr. Jackson has gone ahead and purchased 30 new Red Epic 3D cameras so he can use them to film The Hobbit. Of course, these 5K resolution cameras are a bit nicer than the one I used all those years ago. Each camera package sports a host of cutting edge features including the EPIC-M camera body itself, titanium mount, 5-inch touchscreen LCD, REDmote, four batteries, a four-pack of 128-GB SSD cards to capture video onto and a charger. Total cost per package? $58,000.

The folks at Red expect to being making the cameras by hand starting next month and have them to Jackson in time for him to start filming The Hobbit next February. If any of the rest of you want to get your hands on one of these babies, I guess you’ll just have to wait in line.

Of course, the other bit of news we can deduce from this purchase is that The Hobbit will be shot in 3D. Do we like that? Hard to say. I guess, as always, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.