Black Shading Nightmares

[Christian Munoz D]

Absolutely, that amount of BS is insane. I've stooped doing BS, just as needed basis only.

[Chris McKechnie]

So it seems that BS is ideal at the beginning of every shoot (once ideal sensor temperature has been reached), then again only if there are significant temperature changes or shutter speeds less than 1/15th. Doesn't seem too bad.

[Stephan File]

I have similar issues with my Epic M. After working for 20 minutes under normal working conditions (room temperature 20-25ºC), Camera is showing some major issues.
First issue: When camera is on working temperature, it’s impossible to do full process of black shading until camera is cooled down.
Second issue: When camera is powered down and immediately powered up, it starts showing vertical lines, sometimes gradient from right to left. These lines are also showing on R3D files, so it’s not monitoring issue.
These two issues cause shooting with camera impossible, Every time batteries are swapped camera needs to cool down and that’s unacceptable to do mid shooting.
This makes camera basicly unusable.
Camera shows same problems on different versions of firmware so it’s pretty clear it’s not software issue.
i've added still from r3d file in attachment.

[Andrae Palmer]

If you think it's an hardware issue... send it in to get fixed. I was on a nighttime shoot recently where I noticed a lot of noise at iso 500. I switched over to RAW view and the image looked so clean. I could only think it was something happening in the color science. The native iso is 500 to 800... the color temperature was set at 5000. I couldn't see anything in the camera settings that would cause the noise.

[Scott Brown]

My recommendation is to blackshade:
1) upgrading to new firmware
2) big ambient temperature changes
3) long exposure times (longer than ~1/15th sec)
4) very short exposure times (shorter than around ~1/1000th)
5) beginning of a project
6) as often as you feel like

Remember to black shade at default after long/short exposure black shade when your finished.

More convenient/flexible black shading coming later.

This seems a major step backwards from the RED ONE which has been very stable for us in recent times. I gather a BS on Epic takes 20 minutes to do on set and I really think Arri are going to love this news...I really don't want to waste valuable filming time nursing a temperamental camera.

Our Epic is due to arrive in the next few weeks so I'll obviously test this fully myself when the camera arrives but if this is truly the case then I won't be happy.

Scott

[Brian Robbins]

Many firmwares ago black shading didn't take 20+ minutes but now it does,, and has for the passed few firmware versions.

[Mike Lary]

These two issues cause shooting with camera impossible, Every time batteries are swapped camera needs to cool down and that’s unacceptable to do mid shooting.
This makes camera basicly unusable.
Camera shows same problems on different versions of firmware so it’s pretty clear it’s not software issue.
i've added still from r3d file in attachment.

None of what you described is normal camera behavior. You should contact RED support (either via email or phone) so they can help you resolve the issue.

[Ezequiel Arribas]

Shooting it's first job, an independent feature on Idaho, the camera sensor started picking up a green horizontal pattern. Black shading failed on every firmware available and the camera is leaving tonight to RED fo Evaluation. The production had to run to get a back up body but we still loose an entire day. Please let me know if somebody experienced same problems with this camera. I feel this is an issue that have to be adressed by RED because it's not cool, after spending 70k on a camera system one would expect reliability. I dont know if I will be able to retain my client in the future and this certainly an issue.