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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 :)

HOPE

Michael Lindsay said:
Hi Gunleik

Thanks for posting.... But every time I see this comparison I feel the Red comes off worse. My worry is that one of the main reasons for this is the subject to bare bulb distance being so different between shots. Where there any frames that where closer.?

Thank you for sharing

Michael L
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I don't think it he subject is any closer to the bulb. The camera appears to be positioned farther to the right in the red shot, causing the bulb in the foreground to stack up more with the actor. You can tell by the angle of the table and the background.
 
The cameras were not similarily alligned.

Went back and did that with the matching shot later when I took in what I had thought I had learned over the first two days.
 
It is not a simple colour correction to make Epic footage look like Alexa, you need quite a few secondry corrections depending on how many colours you have in your scene, completely different colour pallette.. I have shot alot of side by side tests and graded to match so it is very apparent the differences. Personally Drive is the best looking Digital film i have seen in the cinema. The colour pallete I liked a lot and didn't have notice the softness that seems so apparent on the Alexa footage. I really wish the Epic had a more filmic colour pallette, by this I mean making colours look like they do on certain film stocks, the colour red on the Alexa is a bllood red much more like film. Why not have a few more choices when it comes to the colour science. That said so many films shot on the Alexa look very similar, skins tone have so little red in them they can look fake and they have that soft filtered feel that looks great with certain genres but horrid on others. The Avengers Assemble in my opinion looks awful but very successful in the cinema so what do i know anyway. My takes is that you can change the colours on the epic, add a ultracon filter and you get Alexa footage, now I don't think you can get an unfiltered image out of the Alexa which means you either like your images to look filtered, fair enough nice look but get boring after a while.
 
Try 1/4 soft?

Graeme
 
Film developing, something the film industry has been doing for over a hundred years, is a raw workflow. Redcine, ACR, LR, etc are simply a digital darkroom.

This baked-in, the-look-on-set-is-the-look-forever thing is a comparatively new development, byproduct of the early stages of the digital revolution.

Why then, is the raw workflow incomprehensible to so much of the film industry? It's this baked-in nonsense that should be foreign!


TL;DR: Looks can always be added but are much harder to take away and sharpness is the opposite. You want your footage to be as neutral and sharp as possible.
 
Mark Toia said:
Firstly sorry, did not mean to insult you. I am more worried for you... thinking that you cannot make RED footage looking like ALEXA footage.. Very easy to do. Like I siad, It's easy to go backwards, Easy to match it. Alexa footage carries no more information or color than EPIC... Mimicing it all so easy..

Regarding DRIVE.... Yes. Not a problem at all.... Great film by the way, but what makes you think DRIVES look is so hard to match ?

Ryan-Gosling-Drive-movie-image-8.jpg
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The image you posted is perhaps not the hardest to recreate on an Epic. But no way in hell that you would be able to get the same feel as the indoor shots and night exteriors as shown in the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWX34ShfcsE&feature=related

It's not possible without an extreme amount of CC-work, that often introduce other synthetic artifacts and ruin the picture. Sorry, DRIVE has a very clear signature from the acquisition format. And remember, it was also a low budget feature. Probably shot without immense light setups and complicated color developments.

Just to elaborate, I don't think it makes Epic less of a camera. For instance; Prometheus would not look as good if it were shot on Alexa, at least I don't think so.
 
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Jon MIchael Puntervold said:
This is a a really nice spot, very nice shot and edited, but to my eyes the skin tones look awful.
http://vimeo.com/21474462

If I were a producer - I would not risk using Epic if the images would look like this.
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No offense Jon, but are you serious?

Here are two screen grabs - both literally snipped off the screen - of the Vimeo you cite, and almost the same frame (I don't have access to identical frames) from a submission to an Epic reel from last summer, obviously from the same shoot. And before you get too carried away about the colors of the Epic reel shot, remember it is at least 3 levels of abstraction from the original shot. It is screen snipped out of a 1920 x 1080 frame (ie. it's not even the full frame) from an H264 .mov. But even so, the difference is obvious. Please, if you must cite shots that demonstrate how badly Epic does with skin tones compared to Alexa, at least use frames directly from the cameras. And citing movies you like as proof of a camera's capabilities is like believing an actor really is the character he/she plays...

NEWS FLASH:

In a shocking revelation today, an undercover reporter for Bleedin' Obvious News revealed that Ralph Fiennes isn't really Lord Voldemort! Apparently he was pretending all along so as to get the job. Covert sightings also revealed he has a nose. A spokesman for Fiennes refused comment.

(Sorry! Had to.)
 

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Thank you for submitting the stills. The esthetics looks better on the stills. For sure. I guess it's a question of taste. But different cameras has different looks, and it's also visible after color correction.

I know what I'm looking for, I just don't know what it is. I'm citing cinematography and looks that I like, not movies. Organic images is what I like. Some formats look more synthetic than others. BUT for the love of christ, we are in the beginning era of high grade digital acquisition for motion images. It will only become better from here.
 
Fair comment Jon.

Jon MIchael Puntervold said:
...But different cameras has different looks, and it's also visible after color correction.
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It's this point that really is the crux of the matter. I have seen quite a number of comments on this forum, some from very experienced folks, that say that you cannot make Epic raw look like Alexa's "look" or the skin tones cannot be matched. Yet no-one ever shows proof of this. Perhaps someone could submit a still of the same subject from each camera (raw in the case of Red) that they think cannot be matched and see if anyone else can match the Red to the Alexa look. If no-one else can without going to extreme lengths, then fair point. But so far all I've read is opinion and poor examples. I'm open to learning. Let's see what you guys are talking about.
 
Mike Smith said:
Fair comment Jon.



It's this point that really is the crux of the matter. I have seen quite a number of comments on this forum, some from very experienced folks, that say that you cannot make Epic raw look like Alexa's "look" or the skin tones cannot be matched. Yet no-one ever shows proof of this. Perhaps someone could submit a still of the same subject from each camera (raw in the case of Red) that they think cannot be matched and see if anyone else can match the Red to the Alexa look. If no-one else can without going to extreme lengths, then fair point. But so far all I've read is opinion and poor examples. I'm open to learning. Let's see what you guys are talking about.
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Fair comment, but then one has to match the filtering that the Alexa comes with by default.
Simulating the same optical signal chain, would be smart.



But of course the cameras aren't identical.
Otoh, very much of the digital imaging tech driving all digital cameras is very similar, and the more I learn, the more similarities, not differences, do I see between cameras....
 
Gunleik Groven said:
Fair comment, but then one has to match the filtering that the Alexa comes with by default.
Simulating the same optical signal chain, would be smart.
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That would presuppose one wants the Alexa look, something RAW is not tied into.

Incidentally, I find it amusing these discussions even occur when much of the "film look" that's out there - like in Lord of the Rings - has blue shadows and washed out, pale looking skintones - and everyone emulates it! They couldn't be much further from natural if they tried.

I don't spend any time on DSLR forums, but I wonder... do they argue on those that smaller, lower rez pocket cams with built-in jpeg images that are pre-sharpened and color graded are better than a raw-outputting DSLR coz the picture looks better right out of the camera? Perhaps they would if those pocket cams cost a lot more than the DSLRs.
 
Mike, maybe it's possible. I'm just basing my comments on what I've seen.

Jens Jakob Thorsen said:
The lens,the lens and the lens..Thats why I would never shoot the epic with Master Primes, but always use my Elites, my vintage cookes or my Lomo anas...
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Yes, good point - and I agree. But a friend of mine just shot a feature on Alexa and Master Primes, and told me it looked beautiful. If I'm not mistaken True Grit was shot on Masters and Alexa, and it has a very organic look.

BUT normally I agree 100% about old lenses and digital images, but I'm on pre-production on a project that needs very clean images (due to VFX-work), sometimes vintage glass is not practical.

Btw: I think the norwegian film Rottenetter was shot on Red, I guess they used vintage glass... anyhow - it looks _great_.
http://vimeo.com/9271789
 
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Just found this quote at Deakins forum by the man himself:


Let's get real here. The supposedly 'new way' of saying you will create the look you want in post is absolutely bull! And I do mean absolute bull! It's just an excuse used by people who have no idea what they want. Just stop and think for a moment. In a digital medium, just as with film, it is a fact that the closer your original is to the 'look' you are after the more flexibility you will have in post and the less 'processed' that image will look. Some might say that that's OK, they say they don't mind the processed look, in fact that's what they were after. Well that's bull as well.
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;D
 
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Mike Smith said:
No offense Jon, but are you serious?

Here are two screen grabs - both literally snipped off the screen - of the Vimeo you cite, and almost the same frame (I don't have access to identical frames) from a submission to an Epic reel from last summer, obviously from the same shoot. And before you get too carried away about the colors of the Epic reel shot, remember it is at least 3 levels of abstraction from the original shot. It is screen snipped out of a 1920 x 1080 frame (ie. it's not even the full frame) from an H264 .mov. But even so, the difference is obvious. Please, if you must cite shots that demonstrate how badly Epic does with skin tones compared to Alexa, at least use frames directly from the cameras. And citing movies you like as proof of a camera's capabilities is like believing an actor really is the character he/she plays...

NEWS FLASH:

In a shocking revelation today, an undercover reporter for Bleedin' Obvious News revealed that Ralph Fiennes isn't really Lord Voldemort! Apparently he was pretending all along so as to get the job. Covert sightings also revealed he has a nose. A spokesman for Fiennes refused comment.

(Sorry! Had to.)
Click to expand...

Looks like someone got carried away with the ol' S-curve on color correction. :(
 
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