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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 :)

My Impressions on Epic M

Jeff Brown said:
A suspect looking at a 3.8MB jpeg may be something to do with it.....

I wish people wouldn't be so quick to find flaws in internet preview material.
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I agree. For ISO 1000 that looks super clean - especially considering that was a compressed JPEG image.
 
Jannard said:
Noise? I opened this in PS and looked at each channel. Super clean. What exactly are you looking at?

Jim
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Jim,
i was looking at the skies.. but for ISO 1000 it is clean, no question about it
 
I see what looks like JPEG crunchiness. Noise-wise, looks just a bit noisier than real life :cheers2:
 
Jeff Brown said:
A suspect looking at a 3.8MB jpeg may be something to do with it.....

I wish people wouldn't be so quick to find flaws in internet preview material.
Click to expand...

It's definitely JPEG compression related. I like to eyeball RED footage closely and that kind of artifact is not typical of REDCODE. Wavelet compression tends to soften details overall, not make it appear clumpy.
 
gradients with fixed bit depth

gradients with fixed bit depth

Probably goes without mentioning, but I'll mention it anyway. If you have even the smallest amount of noise in a source file, it will be amplified by (1) JPEG discrete-cosine compression and (2) 8-bit quantization. Item (2) is made worse by subtle gradients on high-resolution images: the larger the image, the more bit depth is needed to represent a smooth gradient without aliasing. For example, a 5k image needs one more bit of dynamic range to have the same smoothness (on a per-pixel level) as a 2.5k image, other things equal. But of course JPEG has a fixed bit depth regardless of the total number of pixels, so gradients in larger images are always going to look coarser viewed on a per-pixel level.

We are always zooming into these images 1:1 just because we can (I do anyway) but if you're comparing to some other image at a different resolution, to be fair it really should be at fixed overall image size, not fixed pixel size. Unless that 40' screen you've been viewing 2k footage on gets auto-scaled up to 80' when you project 4k on it...

EDIT: I said "...one more bit of dynamic range" above, but of course what I meant was one more bit of precision, to more faithfully encode an image region of small dynamic range (smooth gradient on sky).
 
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You know what would be a lot of fun?

A mathematically lossless .R3D frame to play with. :arf:

Gonna be a bit of a leap in malleability from a .JPG. :emote_happyhappy:

jbeale said:
8-bit quantization [...] is made worse by subtle gradients on high-resolution images: the larger the image, the more bit depth is needed to represent a smooth gradient without aliasing. For example, a 5k image needs one more bit of dynamic range to have the same smoothness (on a per-pixel level) as a 2.5k image, other things equal. But of course JPEG has a fixed bit depth regardless of the pixel size, so gradients larger images are always going to look coarser viewed on a per-pixel level.
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Makes sense. Thank you for posting that.
 
Noise? No.

As a person who spends his entire life pixel-peeping high-ISO footage (I shoot dark-skies timelapse at ISO 3200 on a regular basis), I can tell you that, looking at this Epic footage, noise was the very last issue on my mind.

I was much more concerned about being wide open on that lens, and maybe missing focus.

You can criticize a lot of things, but noise?

Here is a TIFF: http://timescapes.org/noise.tif

This "noise" is nothing compared to most DSLRs. Look at the clouds. Clouds are a noise magnet.
 
Let me also say this. When 5K images from Epic start getting out, and when still photogs start to hear about HDRx™™™, Jim is going to start getting lots of phonecalls from serious still photographers, inquiring about Epic. This resolution is beyond the Canon 1D4.

The HDR image I posted earlier stunned me. I only had to load the image into RCX, then press one button labeled "HDR BLEND", and that was it. No adjustments, no fussing... nothing. One push of a button. And it was blended beautifully. Wow. 16 stops.
 
Maybe its time for people to update their computer monitors before they comment or at least be wise enough to know what they are talking about , by having done pixel peeking on all kinds of footage across the internet.
 
It does have the Master Prime look - no distortion, horizon is a perfect straight line, very flat, crisp and high contrast edge to edge.

Put the camera on a dolly and see what happens...MPs have a very 3D-like immersive feel to them when you start moving the camera on a dolly or a jib.
 
I am very curious to know if there is less noise than that from stills shot with the Canon 1D4? Also what about the Nikon D3s, which has even less noise than the 1D4? Thanks!

Tom Lowe said:
Let me also say this. When 5K images from Epic start getting out, and when still photogs start to hear about HDRx™™™™, Jim is going to start getting lots of phonecalls from serious still photographers, inquiring about Epic. This resolution is beyond the Canon 1D4.
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Tom Lowe said:
Ketch, you left your big GITZO tripod here...! I think that means you will have to bring Epic M8 back out to play when you have a day off! :)
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He he, I know, as I told you Steve Gibby is coming this weekend as we are going to shoot something here in the
California Coast, so we love for you to join us, you can bring my Giant Gitzo then ;)
 
Im more looking at it and going.. bet Tom has that shot.. but better.. in a timelapse.. with some crazy MoCo move.. from that night.. without the PS being needed.. tech cant replace the cinematographer yet =)
 
Roberto Lequeux said:
But with Tom's dolly moves I think HDRx™ would fare much better than with random motion from other scenarios.
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Agreed. Of all the possible M owners, seeing what Tom can do with HDRx and his style of shooting ... it just makes me drool with anticipation. I literally think it will be some of the most gorgeous footage ever filmed. :thumbup1:
 
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