Arri Alexa and Mysterium-X...

[David Mullen ASC]

Hey. Do you even read the whole post before replying? I know about the metadata, and the question remains. why does David need a D.I. to tweak THE SAME options in post, when he can do it himself on the camera.. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

I was talking about using diffusion to create a flashback look, and the difference between figuring that out in post using normally-shot footage versus testing in prep so I could decide whether to use diffusion filters on the camera.

My point is that while one could make the argument that saving the decision until post kept all my options open, the truth is that we spent time & money in post only to ultimately pick an approach I probably could have done in-camera easily with a diffusion filter. Not saying that's proof of anything one way or the other, just that you may find it better to do some things in-camera after all. It just struck me after awhile in the D.I. session that I had considered using a filter and didn't, but maybe I should have.

Again, in terms of the WB issue, what matters is results, real-world results. If I have an easier time getting the green cast out of fluorescents with Red footage compared to ARRI, then I'm going to say that Red's approach is better. But if I don't have a problem either way, then I'm going to question whether it makes much of a difference in any practical sense. Until I shoot some tests, I don't have an opinion one way or the other. But I do have experience color-correcting Genesis footage, which bakes in color temp settings into PanaLog and I can't say I found working with Red RAW footage in the past "superior" in that aspect -- in fact, my past experiences color-correcting Red footage in a D.I. setting has been more frustrating than with other types of footage, not easier and more flexible. On paper, RAW sounds great, but all I care about is how well it works in practice. And in practice, recent advances with Red have truly taken advantage of what "RAW" has to offer finally and now, I think it's a great thing. But I can't responsibly pass judgement on how ARRI is doing things just based on theory or specs on paper.

Honestly, all of this posturing is just a bit silly to me without any real world examples that clearly demonstrate why ARRI's approach to RAW is more limiting when color-correcting an image. I feel that until then, a lot of people are making too much out of this white balance issue. The way it's been vilified here makes you think that you can't do anything in post with an ARRIRAW image before it completely falls apart into a mass of useless chroma noise!

It's no different than people vilifying Red for using compression for their RAW output and spreading fear & doubt about it.

All that matters is results. Does Redcode compression WORK? Does it work well? Does ARRI's method of RAW recording WORK? Does it work well? I see this as two sides of the same coin. Red asks us to look at the results and believe that it works, not listen to fear & doubt about compression, Bayer patterns, whatever... So if I'm supposed to have an open mind about how Red does things, should I then turn around and have a closed mind about how ARRI wants to do things? No, I have to approach them with the same attitude, which is SHOW ME RESULTS.

[Rick Burnett]

Hey. Do you even read the whole post before replying? I know about the metadata, and the question remains. why does David need a D.I. to tweak THE SAME options in post, when he can do it himself on the camera.. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Maybe he was in a hurry? Maybe it was a complicated scene with multiple sources of lighting and getting it right in camera wasn't as important as getting the shot done if their were time constraints. Maybe it's mixed footage from two different cameras with different settings. Does it really matter why the operation got differed in this instance?

There is a MULTITUDE of reasons why changed might need to be made in post. But, you don't have to. The point here is the FREEDOM of changing those values DURING the shoot or AFTER the shoot. Yes, I read your whole post. How many different ways does the operation of the metadata in terms of shooting and the post flow have to be explained?

[Rick Burnett]

Not saying that's proof of anything one way or the other, just that you may find it better to do some things in-camera after all. It just struck me after awhile in the D.I. session that I had considered using a filter and didn't, but maybe I should have.

Of course, speaking devils advocate here, had you shot with the diffusion filter and it ended up not working that great after seeing it with the rest of the material, it would have really limited your options in post. :) That's the ONLY thing that scares me with certain filters is when I am doing something crazy!

:)

[Barend Onneweer]

All that matters is results. Does Redcode compression WORK? Does it work well? Does ARRI's method of RAW recording WORK? Does it work well? I see this as two sides of the same coin. Red asks us to look at the results and believe that it works, not listen to fear & doubt about compression, Bayer patterns, whatever... So if I'm supposed to have an open mind about how Red does things, should I then turn around and have a closed mind about how ARRI wants to do things? No, I have to approach them with the same attitude, which is SHOW ME RESULTS.

This really should have been the end of this thread.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

ARRIRAW on the D21 is only 12bits though. Anyone got the specs on ALEXARAW?

Graeme

Possible. I was operating from their tech PDF on the Dual Gain system:
http://www.arricsc.com/pdf/2009_09_A...S_ALEV_III.pdf

The camera's 14 bit A/D converters then deliver two 14 bit images, that are recombined to a single 16 bit high dynamic range image.

Then again that 16 bit image might get squished back down to 12 bits--and they refer to a 13.5 stop dynamic range as "high dynamic range" so I don't know how much of that to raise an eyebrow at.

All this uproar over WB is a bit much -- in all my years, I've never picked the wrong white balance for a scene, whether I was shooting film or video.

I wish you DP'ed every shoot I ever got footage from. :) I've seen some very very wrong WBs in the past.

[Nik Skjøth]

Maybe he was in a hurry? Maybe it was a complicated scene with multiple sources of lighting and getting it right in camera wasn't as important as getting the shot done if their were time constraints. Maybe it's mixed footage from two different cameras with different settings. Does it really matter why the operation got differed in this instance?

There is a MULTITUDE of reasons why changed might need to be made in post. But, you don't have to. The point here is the FREEDOM of changing those values DURING the shoot or AFTER the shoot. Yes, I read your whole post. How many different ways does the operation of the metadata in terms of shooting and the post flow have to be explained?

Oh wow..Now you are actually arguing against me, by picking my brain and saying EXACTLY what has been my point the whole time.

Having the freedom of setting the whitebalance in post is a plus, and I gave examples as to why. Then you go about, saying that it dosnt work that way...

David kept explaining what the sensor did and not did, having you on his tail, while I was sitting here the whole time thinking.. IT's IRRELEVANT.

What ever is going through the sensor cannot be circumvented neither in camera nor in post. On the flipside you have exactly the SAME freedom to tweak your image in post as you have in camera menu system. INCLUDING WHITEBALANCE. and if you need a D.I. for one then you need him for the other. because it works the same way.. (ignoring the fact that David actually was talking about a difusion filter, which has nothing to do with the camera, the sensor, the file system, the light setting or the WB either) so again. Irrelevant.

Even if the sensor is 5000K biased.. Irrelevant.. You cant do anything about that. Not in post. Not in camera before shooting.

So here is the buttom line.. No matter what setting you chose to shoot with, you can reset it in post. Including WB.

Therefore you have the freedom to shoot a scene with multiple colorbalances. You DON'T have to. but you CAN. (and of´course by can I mean, that it does not degrade the image by doing so with the red)

Do we agree or not?

[Jannard]

OK... we are probably getting near the end of this. Maybe RAW is better. Maybe whatever Arri is planning for Alexa is better. Maybe they will read all this and decide to do it different than they were planning (that is an option). Maybe none of it matters. Until their camera is released and/or we hear what their plan is... the speculation has probably run it's course. I started this thread with a "hats off" to Arri. I still feel the same way. 163 pages later...

Jim

[David Mullen ASC]

David kept explaining what the sensor did and not did, having you on his tail, while I was sitting here the whole time thinking.. IT's IRRELEVANT.

What ever is going through the sensor cannot be circumvented neither in camera nor in post. On the flipside you have exactly the SAME freedom to tweak your image in post as you have in camera menu system. INCLUDING WHITEBALANCE. and if you need a D.I. for one then you need him for the other. because it works the same way.. (ignoring the fact that David actually was talking about a difusion filter, which has nothing to do with the camera, the sensor, the file system, the light setting or the WB either) so again. Irrelevant.

Even if the sensor is 5000K biased.. Irrelevant.. You cant do anything about that. Not in post. Not in camera before shooting.

So here is the buttom line.. No matter what setting you chose to shoot with, you can reset it in post. Including WB.

Therefore you have the freedom to shoot a scene with multiple colorbalances. You DON'T have to. but you CAN. (and of´course by can I mean, that it does not degrade the image by doing so with the red)

Do we agree or not?

Not really. It's not irrelevant that the sensor is biased for daylight-balance; it DOES have an affect on your ability to white-balance the image even when working with a RAW recording. It definitely does with the old Red Mysterium sensor. But practically speaking, as long as the recording has a low level of noise to it, you shouldn't have much problem picking different white balances in post. However, also practically speaking, if a white balance was baked into the RAW recording, you're not necessarily locked into using it, again, if the noise is low enough, you have some flexibility in changing it in post. So ultimately it becomes a question of the degree of freedom or limitation in making these choices in post without artifacts showing up, and that has to be determined by testing.

The problem of using your experience with RAW versus JPEG is that a JPEG is baking in far more than WB into the image, it's baking in contrast, lossy compression, etc. -- all sorts of things that make correcting the image harder.

If this were about RAW versus a white-balanced Rec 709 gamma video image, definitely you'd be better off working with RAW. But we are talking about two different ways of doing RAW here, one with compression & no WB, and one without compression but with WB, with different software dedicated to the RAW conversion, with slightly different output RGB formats... all of which to day that the devil will be in the details.

However, this may also be a case where Red's superior pixel resolution may also be a factor in flexibility in dealing with noise in different color channels if the final project will be downsampled. On the other hand, this may be a case where if the Alexa turns out to have a lower noise floor than the M-X sensor, it may also increase the flexibility of working with individual RGB channels.

So all of this is a bit theoretical for now.