Black shading at temp. WAHOO!!!

[Domenic Barbero]

so ive done a couple black shades with my scarlet after just starting it up in the past. So last night i let my cam run about 20 mins to get warm and then did a black shade. Let me tell you, Way less noise than i had before. It really makes a difference doing the black shade at temp. Didnt think it would be that noticeable but it really was. Just letting some people know of my success and stupidity all at once.

 

[Carey Lee Coffey]

Like an old car. Needs to warm up before you can drive it huh?

 

[Andy White]

When you turn on your Scarlet - crank the ISO to max and watch the screen as the machine comes to temp. It's quite interesting seeing the sensor settle...

 

[paulherrin]

here's a better one, turn the fanspeed down manually to whatever you have the recording speed set at... let it run for 20 minutes, then do a blackshade

 

[Les C.]

here's a better one, turn the fanspeed down manually to whatever you have the recording speed set at... let it run for 20 minutes, then do a blackshade

Until power management is implemented, is there any difference in heat production while recording or sitting idle?

What we really need is a way to pick a temperature and have the camera adjust the fans ever so slightly to stay at that temperature to minimize deviations from black shade temperature.

And some kind of a calculator that would tell us what temperature to set given the ambient air temperature - so that it could stay at that temperature while using the lowest possible fan speed.

 

[paulherrin]

shouldn't matter if it gets cooler, Les - just warmer as I understand

also, you can't control the camera temperature simply by adjusting your AC - best to just keep it comfortable for you, waste of money/energy otherwise. The camera still produces heat internally... so on a snowy day, you'll have the camera assistants fighting over who gets to warm their hands

 

[paulherrin]

as a part of the power management, it would be nice to have a 'warm-up' feature that runs everything the same as recording, without actually recording - or a 'warm-up and blackshade' command that will blackshade after a certain amount of time or temperature is reached.

 

[Les C.]

shouldn't matter if it gets cooler, Les - just warmer as I understand

also, you can't control the camera temperature simply by adjusting your AC - best to just keep it comfortable for you, waste of money/energy otherwise. The camera still produces heat internally... so on a snowy day, you'll have the camera assistants fighting over who gets to warm their hands

I was not clear in my post.

I was hoping that in the future, if indeed it does matter noise-wise to record at a temperature higher than the Black Shade temp (which seems to be the case), to have the CAMERA set to a certainly temperature and adjust it's own fans, not my A/C system (while keeping the fans as low as possible). There must be some 'perfect' temperature that could be calculated by an app, where the camera could deal with just barely using the fans - that would vary depending on the ambient air temperature.

BTW - where did you hear it doesn't make a difference if the temperature of the camera is less than the black shade temp?

That sounds counter-intuitive?

as a part of the power management, it would be nice to have a 'warm-up' feature that runs everything the same as recording, without actually recording - or a 'warm-up and blackshade' command that will blackshade after a certain amount of time or temperature is reached.

That's an excellent idea!

 

[Robert Hart]

Rapid thermal cycles are the enemy of aircraft engines. Apparently delicate electronics are not immune either. My personal preference is for the fans to do their thing as they do now and make the initial warming cycle slower.

If it is any consolation, the P+S Technik docking recorder for the SI2K starts up initially slow, then when the camera initiates and the processor starts to really do some work, the fans go up to speed until you set off a take.

 

[Brian Iannone]

I too did a black shade calibration just recently after leaving my Scarlet on for a while and wow, was I surprised by how much of a difference there was in the reduction of noise! I hadn't realized that black shade calibrating was such a crucial part to shooting with Scarlet. It's amazing the difference it makes.

 

[Domenic Barbero]

Right brian? i was very surprised that it made that much of a difference. glad i did it though. thats for damn sure

 

[Adam Eden]

My Epic X is a lot noiser than my M. So i will try this out tomorrow when i am back at work.

The Epic X is that noisy that when i shoot on digicomp green, the blacks on the subject are crawling with so much noise which makes the camera unusable

 

[Les Dittert]

By noise, are you guys seeing a difference in the fixed pattern noise ( held noise ) or the actual randomized noise, like moving grain/ dancing snow type of noise ?

I can't see any reason that a black shade could reduce the random variety of noise.

 

[Domenic Barbero]

not sure, but my blacks seem much cleaner and overall my image has less noticeable moving noise in the shadows and mids. my underexposed images especially

 

[Adam Eden]

By noise, are you guys seeing a difference in the fixed pattern noise ( held noise ) or the actual randomized noise, like moving grain/ dancing snow type of noise ?

I can't see any reason that a black shade could reduce the random variety of noise.

I was shooting an news reader on green digicomp and his suit was dancing, I tried everything from iso 320 to black calibration, still no difference.

My M is clean as a whistle. My X is about a week old and I have lodged a support ticket with RED.

Also the noise is only in the blacks, skin tones are perfect and so was the green key.

 

[Dmitry Burenok]

Would be great to get some advanced advise from RED TEAM about advanced way of doing black shading calibration. Current chapter in manual seemed to be extremely basic. As I'm understand this process could dramatically affect final image quality and should be more precise than just go to menu and cover camera in black cloth Technically (as I understand) this procedure has to be done every beginning of "shooting day" with exact shooter speed (used for shooting) and exact temperature of camera and outside air. Would be great to have more "slots" in camera menu for different weather condition and camera temperature to get it more flexible and accurate.

 

[Domenic Barbero]

I read from a RED member a few days ago that they recommend a black shade if you are going to be in extreme different ambient temps and if you plan on doing very very slow or very very fast shutter speeds. But they said a standard black shade at 4k 1/48 should cover a broad spectrum. if i can find the text ill send it

 

[Scott Crawley]

Would be great to get some advanced advise from RED TEAM about advanced way of doing black shading calibration. Current chapter in manual seemed to be extremely basic. As I'm understand this process could dramatically affect final image quality and should be more precise than just go to menu and cover camera in black cloth Technically (as I understand) this procedure has to be done every beginning of "shooting day" with exact shooter speed (used for shooting) and exact temperature of camera and outside air. Would be great to have more "slots" in camera menu for different weather condition and camera temperature to get it more flexible and accurate.

I have seen some users advocate calibrating every shooting day, but I seem to recall Biederman state it was not necessary. I wish I could remember the thread.

I don't think the procedure itself needs to be that complicated. You just need to do it as described below and in the manual. As to the when and why, more info will be great to have. See below.

03-13-2012, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by Adriaan Kirchner
Having same issues as most of you..

Black shades only at 4k 24fps and 1/48 second. Help!

We're looking into this issue.

Some guidelines:
The black shading (default) feature is for shutter speeds 1/48 and faster.
The black shading (Current FPS/Exposure) is only intended for longer shutter speeds.
The format you are in when you run black shading has no effect on the process.

-- Matthew Biederman

03-07-2012, 02:41 PM

Originally Posted by Mohamed Younis
I just upgraded to 3.0 and i did a black shade calibration 2 days ago

After upgrading, the camera will default to the factory calibration map. However, the user calibration map will persist between upgrades.

Best practice is to run a new black shade after a firmware upgrade, but we do provide the ability for you to recover your previous user calibration map in the calibration menu.

A good tip for checking whether or not to run black shading is this:
1) Let the camera come up to temperature
2) Put a lens cap on the camera for a nice flat black field
2) Crank the ISO to 12800

If you observe a nice flat field image, you're calibration is good and you don't need to black shade.

03-12-2012, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Josh Beadle
Thanks Matt,
How about posting a sticky official document on all things Black Shading: when, how, why, issues, examples . . . everything there is to know on the subject. This would be very helpful.

I've heard that big changes in ambient temp creates the need to recalibrate - shouldn't it be a big change in the sensor temp as read out on the EVF? Like if it drops from 50C to 44C. Who cares what the temp is outside - it's inside on the sensor that drives noise. If that is correct, then what is the on-sensor temp spread that necessitates a recal?

I think a more appropriate place for the information would be the Ops Guide. But I agree, black shading needs better documentation our part.

Sensor temperature certainly plays a large role in the overall noise of the sensor. From my experience, anywhere between a 5 and 10 degree swing you'll start seeing better results in the dark with a re-calibration. Again, that's on the sensor temperature.

The first temperature we readout in the bottom status bar is the sensor temperature and the other is for other critical internal electronics. The sensor calibration temperature is visible in the system configuration menu.

Looking forward, (in addition to making the entire calibration process smoother) we're looking to add warnings if the camera detects a deviation between the current sensor temperature and the calibrated temperature.

 

[Trevor Meeks]

I did this the other night - set my manual fan settings to 30% standby, let the camera warm up for 20 minutes or so, until it's at 60-65ºC, then black shade. Generally won't run the camera that hot during standard operation with decent fan settings, so noise should be next to zero. It sure looks a LOT cleaner than just flipping the camera on and running a black shade with the fan blasting!

 

[Al Lougher]

I guess I've been a big complainer of noise recently since I've only had my Scarlet for a few days. First time out I did a black shade right after powering up and I experienced lots of unacceptable noise when shooting 2K 60FPS. Yesterday I let it warm up (43C?) then did a black shade and my footage at 2K 60FPS is noticeably cleaner! What I don't understand is why an expensive camera like this has so much noise to begin with? My 5D2 is very clean certainly at ISO 320 and light noise ISO800.