Five years ago the first high-definition cameras sent celebrities running for (pore) cover. Now the camera of choice is Red, which shoots film at even higher definition: to be specific, at 4,000-line resolution as opposed to the 2,000 currently used by the film industry.

“It gives four times the sharpness of an HD camera,” says Alan Piper, operations director for Red Europe. So far, Red has been used for feature films including The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as by online fashion magazines such as Japan’s The Reality Show and the UK’s Never Underdressed. Its high-resolution images allow high-quality prints to be pulled from a split second of film. The implications for make-up seem enormous.

Yet, according to Joanna McGarry, beauty director at Never Underdressed, Red’s impact will be more evolutionary than the wholesale change that came with HD, which spawned an entirely new type of cosmetics. “I think brands will pick up on this as a trend, but Red Cam hasn’t crossed over into the consumer market like HD did,” she says.