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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 :)

Motion to Stills, a first test - "A tough day at the office" (NSFW)

Dominik Muench

Dominik Muench

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Hi Guys,

I finally got around to use my EPIC purely for the purpose of stills image production this weekend. As someone who does a lot of glamor photography I'm extremely excited about a camera system like the EPIC which allows me to do stills & video work with the same camera.
So I took my friend April to the beach to see what results I could achieve by filming a model and extracting stills. Instead of working with my usual stills workflow (Nikon D3s -> shoot raw -> Photoshop, lit with portable Hensel flash lighting gear) I decided to film her with the EPIC and extract single frames from the footage and take them through my usual photoshop routine, this was purely a handheld, run and gun situation. All shot in available afternoon light with no fill or reflectors used. The lens was my 18-50mm Red Zoom (which is in desperate need of a service).

The EPIC was set to 5K-WS 96fps (NO HDRx) and the shutter speeds were between 1/500 - 1/1200 of a second (hence the reason why some of the clips shot in 25fps seem a bit jerky and strobing in the video footage due to the fast shutter)

I took the footage into redcineX, set all the look parameters to default and exported single frames as DPX. I then took the DPX files into Photoshop CS6 and applied my usual grading-, color correction and skin smoothing techniques to it.

Here are some stills pulled from the motion footage:


catwalk.jpg


stand.jpg


white.jpg


These 3 shots where stills extracted from 5K-WS 96fps 10:1 compression footage.

ablack.jpg


This shot was extracted from 5K-WS 25fps 3:1 compression footage.

these are jpeg files exported out of Photoshop as "Save for Web" at 90% quality.

Looking at the files here online now I feel I might have gone a bit too far out on the unsharp mask or how do you guys feel about the stills look ?


In comparison, here is a still taken in pretty much the same spot a little while ago but with my "traditional" stills workflow, where I used my DSLR and a protable flash system for lighting

11a19292a964e867d48c8e2e65cbca48.jpg


The look is quite different to the more natural feel I achieved with the EPIC. I cant waiiiit to have a flash sync mode enabled on this baby. Overall I'm extremely satisfied with the results that can be achieved with such little effort. I cant wait for my gaffer to be back from his holiday and light a scene properly for stills with his HMI gear.



And here is the lightly graded video footage from the shoot:



Workflow for the video footage was redcineX, where I graded the footage slightly. Then trans coded via redrocket into Apple RroRES 4:2:2, edited with ProRES in Final Cut 7, exported as 1280x720 H264 in full quality for web.
 
Dominik Muench said:
...

ablack.jpg


This shot was extracted from 5K-WS 25fps 3:1 compression footage.

these are jpeg files exported out of Photoshop as "Save for Web" at 90% quality.

Looking at the files here online now I feel I might have gone a bit too far out on the unsharp mask or how do you guys feel about the stills look ?
Click to expand...


... works for me ... ;-))
 
Very cool. I dare say that if you took the first shot with a DSLR you'd get a poorer result. What I see is the highlights rolling off nicely and smoothly. RED cameras are very film-like, and I'm not talking about resolution! I also note that the 18-50 displays some light fall-off on the 5K frame. Not a deal-breaker but still. Anyway, were it not for the cost, I'd ditch my DSLR yesterday. That's how good the RED is.

EDIT: I also see some purple fringing around the rock in the first shot. Is that easily removable in something like Aperture (the latest version - I only have 2.x)?

Any chance of a full-res 48-bit TIFF of at least one or two of the images? Pretty please with sugar on top?
 
That's one helluva lens to go handheld! Very impressed! The shots (other than the obvious) look wonderful.

Matt

Ooop, just noticed, it was the 18-50, not the 18-85 that's staring at me from my desk 2 feet away. Been wrestling with it all morning, so its stuck in my head. Still nice looking shots.
 
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Dominik Muench said:
I don't know how to create 48-bit Tiffs, I hope a 32-bit version will suffice ^^

http://www.blacksun-productions.com/april.tif
Click to expand...

Thanks for obliging, Dominik. Much appreciated. I'll load this up in Aperture and give it close examination. :-)

EDIT: The 2nd ungraded image above is so nice that it could be printed/delivered completely ungraded. I'd like to get your take: do you prefer to apply tint/correction in software or would you use filters if you had them? Some prefer one method, some another. I wonder if it even matters in some people's minds.
 
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Dominik,

Great looking footage. Amazing how well the image looks with no fill strobes.
 
Karim: The only filters I usually use are polarizers and ND's. I tend to shoot fairly neutral and do the rest in post. When i shoot with my DSLR i tend to light/ shoot quite contrasty.

Jack: yep thought the same thing, especially the shot of her walking towards the camera, this was shot straight into the sun. i was really impressed too how well the camera holds up in these extreme situations.

Justin: thanks for that, considering its the first real video I edited myself.
 
There are many reasons against using Epic/Scarlet as a motion for stills system.

And there are many reasons for. This is definitely one of them.
 
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