Shock news! Nikon buys cine camera specialist RED

In a move that no one could have predicted, Nikon has just bought American cinema specialist RED. 

The move will immediately propel Nikon into the growing cine camera world, putting it up against Canon, which has seen great success with its Cinema EOS line.

RED will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nikon Corporation. The California-based company was founded in 2005 by entrepreneur James Jannard who had previously made his fortune with the Oakley sunglasses brand.

In a press statement, Nikon says: "Nikon will leverage this acquisition to expand the fast-growing professional digital cinema camera market, building on both companies' business foundations and networks, promising an exciting future of product development that will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in film and video production".

"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."

Current RED President and co-owner Jarred Land, simply announced the news on Instagram with an image of the two company logos and the comment "Heh heh heh…"

The merger of the two companies comes as a particular surprise because RED sued Nikon in 2022 for alleged copyright infringements of its RAW video compression, following the launch of the v2.0 firmware for the Nikon Z9. The two companies filed a joint-motion to dismiss the lawsuit before it reached trial - and perhaps it was at this point that conversations on the merger began.

RED recently launched its first 8K cameras with a global shutters, the V-Raptor X and V-Raptor XL, which use the company's proprietary REDCODE RAW compression.

This is not the first time that Nikon has made an interesting acquisition in this way. Nikon bought the robotic arm manufacturer MRMC in 2016 – following the two companies work together at the London Olympics. And last year Nikon launched a joint venture with French company Unistellar for the development of smart telescopes.