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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Whats going on here HDcam / Red

I understand what you are all saying and I don't disagree. The reason I done this is because the images I am getting from the Red are not great. As I have only got a rented red 50-150 lens to experiment with. I hired a red before I bought the camera and loved the images I got, so my thinking was, is it the lens or is it the camera? I am trying to source some primes to carry out more testing before buying lenses for the camera. Thank you all for the feedback it's great to have a response. ( the images are cropped jpegs)

Paul
 
Opening your RED jpeg in Photoshop and applying an unsharp mask at 100% gets something close to the HDCAM (but better). I would not use that much sharpening myself, but it's a question of personal taste.
 
If the point of the test was to compare lens sharpness, you have to level the playing field -- ideally testing the lenses on the same camera, not two different cameras. And at the same f-stop. If not, at least making sure you have Detail turned off in the HDCAM camera. I once tested the EX3 against the Red-to-HD and had to immediately redo the EX3 test because I had left sharpening on.

You also have to make sure back-focus is set properly on both cameras.
 
I am unable to put the same lens on PL versus B4I have turned sharpening off on the hdcam and picture died! although it was back on for this test.
Is there a lens that you guys can suggest, or what lenses are you using on the red. My work is currently documentary and music videos.

Paul
 
Also paul, is the RED footage simply a 100% crop? Or did you downsample to 1080p? If it's simply a 100% crop I would suggest doing a quick downsample to 1080p and really see the results. The shooting method on the HDCAM I think is particularly flawed, and has a lot of artifacting, and aliasing most likely due to some sort of over sharpening factor, or its inability to resolve real true detail. (what you are seeing as everybody mentioned would be considered in most senses unacceptable, especially in broadcast standards) I would run more tests and try shooting the HDCAM in a fashion where you stop seeing the artifacts and compare the natural look via the natural look.

Then from that comparison people can help you more on how to get a sharper more detailed image out of the RED if you are still not happy with the results from RED.
 
Tom.Wong said:
Also paul, is the RED footage simply a 100% crop? Or did you downsample to 1080p? If it's simply a 100% crop I would suggest doing a quick downsample to 1080p and really see the results. The shooting method on the HDCAM I think is particularly flawed, and has a lot of artifacting, and aliasing most likely due to some sort of over sharpening factor, or its inability to resolve real true detail. (what you are seeing as everybody mentioned would be considered in most senses unacceptable, especially in broadcast standards) I would run more tests and try shooting the HDCAM in a fashion where you stop seeing the artifacts and compare the natural look via the natural look.

Then from that comparison people can help you more on how to get a sharper more detailed image out of the RED if you are still not happy with the results from RED.
Click to expand...


The footage has been down sampled to 1080 and then cropped, I do need to try a different lens to come to a conclusion, I have had good results with a rented Red One so I know what I can get. I just put a nikon lens on, and the pictures look great, but because of the focal length of the nikon I had to move the camera really close to frame the subject SEE Jpeg
 

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I'd have to agree with Jeff on shooting those charts. From what I can tell the shot you took using HDcam are not only suffering from aliasing issues and over-sharpening but interlacing as well. (This is more noticeable when you look at the detail near the buttons.)

The only issue I notice with the the red is that the image is slightly soft which would be a problem with your focus rather than with the lens you are using. That would give you the appearance of losing some detail. If your marks are right in line with the distance the camera is from the subject you may want to check the back focus on the RED you're using.

I will say that those images make me appreciate my RED even more than I did before. If you really want to see the problems we're seeing with your HDcam footage try shooting the same thing on film as well and see which camera (RED or HDcam) comes closer to recreating that quality.
 
Make sure you are doing all the sane things one must do to get the best out of the RedOne - full rez decode, I prefer Lanczos filter for downsample, apply sharpening to taste (Stuart's links should give an excellent start), etc and you should be able to get a nice image. Heck, just oversharpen it if that suits you, this is a creative medium.

I think the real culprit here is that we as viewers have been hit over the head with so much oversharpening that we have lost our "eye" for genuine detail. In the quest to sell TVs, mediocre first generation HD cameras, etc the manufacturers have decided that too much is just enough.

BTW you can achieve greater apparent sharpness in most images through lighting techniques that accentuate edges, have fast falloff and are generally more contrasty.

Cheers- #19
 
Paul,

some thoughts on your issues:

We use both, HDCAM and RedOne, for a simple reason. Both create very different pictures, aimed at different markets. While the RedOne creates more "filmic" pictures the HDCAM is much better in terms of "TV-Footage".

Currently we are working on a project that will end up in an ambitious film shot on Red with Steadicam, helicopter, etc... plus the client needs footage for broadcasters that want to use footage for TV-shows. The TV-broadcaster don't accept Red footage for their show - too artyfarty, too perfect, too shiny. For this reason we shot tons of footage with HDCAM that they really liked - and most of the people on this board would consider to be "inferior" (and they are right in many ways).

I'm purely guessing here but for me it seems that you are expecting the RedOne to make pictures in a way it cannot produce. I've been trying hard to mimic a HDCAM look with RedOne originated footage with SpeedGrade and Smoke for the simple reason to safe the client money. Regardless what I tried, be it sharpening, 3K 50 fps and interlaced that later, adding contrast and whatnot it was impossible to create the needed HDCAM look.

If you need the HDCAM look shot HDCAM. Nothing wrong with that. Horses for....

Hans
 
I got rid of both my 18-50 and 50-150 as after 4 different 18-50's i couldn't deal with the softness and mechancial faults of the lenses. I know some have great ones...i don't question they exist but i just can't go that path again. I would put down a bad lens as a definite thing to look into, and if you said you had good results with a different lens...well. And by the way, i had a tech look into the lenses and they said sorry, can't do anything with them, it's the mechanics letting them down. This i say is a very good reason why they are discontinued! But saying that, i know of plenty that have good ones and are happy.
 
That Red shot all ready looks significantly better than the HDCAM shot, and you should be able to use an Unsharp Mask filter to make the Red shot look just as sharp as the HDCAM shot without all of those artifacts.

I have attached a copy of your Red shot with a basic Unsharp Mask applied. The image is being way over-sharpened, but in my opinion, it stills looks better than that HDCAM shot.
 

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Many thanks for the time you have taken to contribute to my post. Today I have tried a RED 17-50 old type lens and the pictures are much better than the 50-150 I also tried a canon 300mm with great results. So it looks the problem was the 50-150.
Anybody got comments on the new 17-50mm Red lens, or other lens recommendations
 
Alex G. Cohn said:
That Red shot all ready looks significantly better than the HDCAM shot, and you should be able to use an Unsharp Mask filter to make the Red shot look just as sharp as the HDCAM shot without all of those artifacts.

I have attached a copy of your Red shot with a basic Unsharp Mask applied. The image is being way over-sharpened, but in my opinion, it stills looks better than that HDCAM shot.
Click to expand...

Thanks Alex I will give it a try the pic you done looks a lot better than the original

Paul
 
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