How to use HDR-X?

[Kevin Wild]

Hey, All. Since most of our work is in controlled environments, we haven't used HDR-X. This weekend, we were shooting an interview on a covered porch with a great mountain background and thought it would be perfect for HDR. I believe we set the camera to 3 stops.

So, I get the concept of HDR-X, but I don't quite get how to use the HDR-X simple slider. Without the ability to say "decrease the levels of the sky" and "bring up the interviewee," I feel like it's not working. I mean, when I slide it more towards the "A" which has a lower exposure setting, the sky looks great but the interviewee is underexposed. If I slide it towards "B," well the sky gets blown out again. So, in essence, I could do this same thing with the exposure setting, ISO, curves or FLUT.

So, am I doing something wrong. Maybe I'm expecting too much without having secondaries in RC-X. Speaking of that...when, Red, when? This would be KILLER.

Thoughts?

Thx.

Kevin

 

[Kevin Marshall]

In my (admittedly limited) use of HDRx, I've found the Magic Motion slider works better than the Simple Blend (the same way FLUT works better than Exposure for me). I just try to recover blown highlights reasonably (looking in log or linear to see when I have all of the detail I need), and then reign it in more (if necessary) with secondaries. Alternatively, the way I've heard a lot of people recommend to work is to bring in each track separately and luma key and so on from there.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

Resolve lite.

 

[Eric Haase]

Skip Simple Blend and Magic Motion. They are terrible for getting the most out of your HDRx. Head for a grading app like Resolve (Lite) where you can key the highlights of the A track and replace with the X track. It takes some finessing but this is the best way I have found. I have achieved similar results in Resolve, Baselight, and NuCoda Film Master.

 

[Kevin Wild]

So, what's the point to having the slider in RC-X? Anyone using this in a way that works?

I am fine trying other apps, but really like RC-X when we transcode. Hoping this can be worked out, though I think it may involve secondaries being added before it's truly useful.

Thx.

Kevin

 

[Eric Haase]

The point of having the slider is that it is a fast way to incorporate A LITTLE HDRx. It doesnt really work like most people want it to. I would like a slider that replaces the highlights of a shot with the X track- one slider to control the highlight point, one slider for softness of the point, and one slider for exposure (FLUT) of the X track. You still might need more color/exposure controls for just the X track in this scenario.

I don't think a lot of people use HDRx in Redcine. It would be nice to have something fast and easy for a dailies workflow from RED that does HDRx better.

 

[Harry Clark]

I will +1 Eric's request. It would be great to have a little more control within Redcine-X for quick dailies grading.
The way the simple blend slider works, as far as I can see, is to make a simple exposure choice; you can grade for either the "A" or "X" track, but not really get an HDR result.
Resolve works really well, but when you are working quickly on set and batching dailies, it would be great to stay within one application.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Kevin Wild]

Thanks, Guys. From reading your posts, I'm glad to hear I'm not crazy about the non-functionality of this setup. I hope RED does what Eric suggested or even better, added secondaries in RC-X soon. Then, HDR will be much more usable for what we need it for.

Thanks!

Kevin

 

[Will Keir]

Eric,

Do yo u have any examples you can show us?

Skip Simple Blend and Magic Motion. They are terrible for getting the most out of your HDRx. Head for a grading app like Resolve (Lite) where you can key the highlights of the A track and replace with the X track. It takes some finessing but this is the best way I have found. I have achieved similar results in Resolve, Baselight, and NuCoda Film Master.

 

[Eric Haase]

Eric,

Do yo u have any examples you can show us?

www.ericjhaase.com

The AT&T spot- the roof was pretty blown out/clippy in the three shot where the phones are handed off and the closeup of the guy holding the phone that follows. I used HDRx +2 or 3 - i dont remember which. We keyed the highlights in Baselight and replaced with the X track on the top half of the frame for the roof. In the wider shot most of the side of the house was blown out. It's still hot, as it should be since the guys are in the shade and the house in sun, but we recovered a lot of detail that was lost in the A track.

I also just finished the DI on a feature. There are scenes under a jungle canopy that looks toward the ocean. There is a massive exposure difference under the dark canopy and the ocean. The A track was nearly completely gone. X track was +3. We keyed the highlights in the NuCoda FilmMaster and replaced with the X track. It took some fiddling with the key but it worked pretty well. The Cooke S4s were a little bit flarey which made things trickier. You can now see the water and a small island where before it was just blown out. I cannot show you stills yet of this but when the movie is released I will be able to.

 

[Kevin Wild]

Thanks for the examples, Eric. Great work, too.

Guess I need to dig into Resolve Light until RED adds some more firepower into RC-X.

Thx!

Kevin

 

[Eric Haase]

Resolve is amazing. And its documentation is superb. They tell you exactly how to do HDRx in the manual.