Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Architectural Shooter's Wet Dream

Christopher Barrett said:
Thanks Paolo, that's a single capture. All the lights (and their damn reflections) are either just out of frame or hidden. We get it as perfect as possible on set (what I like to refer to as RealityShop). We typically spend a couple hours per shot, doing 5 interiors per day... but managed the above in about an hour and a half.
Click to expand...

Again, i'm impressed.
 
What is the main difference between the version I an II of the Canon 24mm ts-e ? You have stated on another thread that ver II is "wicked sharp" and a lot of varying comments have been voiced about ver I being sharp and others saying not so sharp. Does one have to be careful not to get a "lemon" with version I?

Thank you for your postings here and in other threads Christopher. Much appreciated!
 
Christopher, there is something rather harsh about that shot. If you remember, a few weeks back you posted a comparison between an EPIC and a MFD (and you're probably thinking, "Oh, no, not this guy again."). I said the same thing then: too harsh. Surely it can't be the RED? Surely it must be the way you're down-sampling? Because that looks like it was taken out of a Kodak digital compact from a few years ago.

And yes, I viewed it in 1438x2000. If you prefer this to film you're crazy - but no, I have a feeling that a TIFF at native resolution would not look like this. Am I right?
 
Last edited:
How has it been working with the zacuto evf on the epic? Any great points, bad points? Many thanks!


Christopher Barrett said:
Yeah, that's what I've been waiting for.

:)

Epic_Canonn-32522-1.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Thommes, I don't own the first version of that 24. My assistant has it. I imagine we could do a side by side. All I can say is that whenever I view files out of the 24 II at 100% I am amazed at the clarity.

Karim, can you be a little more descriptive? I typically use "Harsh" to describe contrast. Is that what you're talking about?

Sam, that Zacuto is alright. I'm going to compare it to the bomb this weekend. It doesn't have the contrast range of the touchscreen (blows out hilights a little faster) but the color is very close and sharpness is good.
 
Christopher Barrett said:
Sure thing...

Mid ground strobe ceiling bounce on the right.
2 Dedos into the front of the desk from right
2 Dedos into the wood behind desk chair from left
Low Soft Box from left for hilights in chair and black drum under desk
Strobe ceiling bounce from left in conference room to increase ambient
2 dedos into each piece of art

I only needed 9 lights to make it feel like I didn't do any lighting... LoL. But that's the look I usually go for... as if all available.
Click to expand...

How do you trigger the strobes from the Epic? Do you just use a long exposure and manually fire the strobes? Do you need special strobes to work with the camera's electronic shutter?
 
Christopher Barrett said:
Sam, that Zacuto is alright. I'm going to compare it to the bomb this weekend. It doesn't have the contrast range of the touchscreen (blows out hilights a little faster) but the color is very close and sharpness is good.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your fast and informative reply, that is useful info.
 
Christopher Barrett said:
Karim, can you be a little more descriptive? I typically use "Harsh" to describe contrast. Is that what you're talking about?
Click to expand...
No, it isn't contrast. It's that 'video' look that is obvious in the image. The carpet's texture is smeared and looks like chroma noise. So too the white wall in shadow (upper left of frame). It doesn't look liquid-smooth as a DSLR (or 8-perf film scan) would look, let alone MFD. And edges seem poorly rendered. It's not easy to put into words what I'm seeing.

My monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster B2440 - not the best but pretty good. It won't turn smooth images into harsh ones.

IMHO if you used HDRx you could have overexposed by maybe two stops and maybe the chroma noise would have disappeared. I don't know what edge rendition would look like but maybe you could do a comparison one day (HDRx on and off). I just don't see how anyone would be impressed by this image quality (I like the photo, though!).
 
Thanks for your thoughts, Karim. As I begin to work more and more with the Epic as a still camera, I need to be aware of all the pitfalls and how to overcome them. I'm comparing the above image with my original still capture from my Phase One P65+ on an Eizo CG 243W. While I can definitely see some artifacts as tones transition into shadow, I don't really find the Epic image unpleasing. I'm using longer exposures (1/8th S) and that may be contributing noise but I have black shaded for it and am fairly certain my histogram was out of shadow noise. Still, your suggestion to overexpose slightly and then use HDRx is interesting. I absolutely want to get the best images possible out of my tools so I welcome this discussion. Below are the two images, Epic first, Digi-Back second. If you consider both "harsh" then perhaps you should visit my website (linked in my signature) and look at my portfolio. If you also find those images to be harsh then we simply have different esthetic sensibilities... which is cool and will help me understand your perspective.

A003_C018_111390.jpg


111103_001.jpg


This isn't a perfect comparison as the exposures differ and the Epic image doesn't have all the lighting in place, but should give a good idea about tonal transitions. Also, the Digi-Back image is fully retouched with a nice window exposure added where the Epic image is pretty much straight out of RC-X. I need to do more experimenting!

CB
 
Have to say Im amazed how noisy Epic suddenly looks. Whoops! Not trying to start a flame war, but looking and comparing it does. Don't get me wrong. I still see the use of Epic and to me it is hardly justifiable not to, just because of that, but the digital back is cleaner. Could it be settings from REDCINE?

BTW Really nice images, both of them.
 
I dunno... maybe I blew the shadows on that one shot. Here is another project that we did a film for. We were shooting motion and pulling stills was totally an afterthought so everything is at 1/48th. The first shot was definitely underexposed and is noisier than the rest. But the others feel beautiful to me. 3,5,6,7 are actually from the 5d2 (out of time-lapse footage)... the rest is Red.

http://christopherbarrett.net/Client_Proofs/Smith_Group_Stills/
 
Thanks! I'll check them out when I start putting together my should rig. That's almost exactly what I was trying to describe to a friend to have him mill it for me. No need now.

I am noticing the "yellow splotching" which is kind of endemic to digital in the Epic more than the Digiback. One thing you can do that I do with VFX shoots to create a cleanplate is to let the camera run for 2 seconds. Do a frame blend of 48 frames and you'll get a completely noise (ignoring FPN) free image. No need to limit yourself to conventional photographic thinking with a motion picture camera. :) The longer you roll the less noise there'll be.

Left is 24 frames, Right is a single frame. You can actually start to see real texture in the left image that no noise-reduction algorithm would be able to find.
noise.png
 
Perhaps it's the noise that is making me dislike the EPIC's output. If so, it can certainly be fixed (either via overexposure and HDRx or by Gavin's method which requires no HDRx and no overexposure). But have a look at a horizontal section from each file, side by side. The MFD frame is amazingly clean. If you enlarge the image to 200% you'll be shocked.




Gavin Greenwalt said:
Do a frame blend of 48 frames and you'll get a completely noise (ignoring FPN) free image. No need to limit yourself to conventional photographic thinking with a motion picture camera. :) The longer you roll the less noise there'll be.
Click to expand...
You beat me to it! :-) I'd love to see a single frame from a P65+ compared to a frame-blended EPIC frame. That might even it out (almost, because a larger image always downsamples more nicely).
 
Christopher Barrett said:
Also, (and maybe this is 20 years of working with film talking) but I don't really expect an 800 ISO sensor to be as clean as a 50 ISO sensor...
Click to expand...

Of course not and neither would I. I was just simply commenting the difference in the pics and was curious if there was anything done to create the noise. Also not thinking that it would be equal, but maybe something could be done to be closer to the digital back. As I said it's not a ball breaker for me and I wasn't trying to start a huge discussion. Mostly curious.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top