EPIC Monochrome chrome response tests

[John Marchant]

As part of some broader tests, we did a little scientific (ish) testing today to discern how the monochrome 'sees' colour compared to an Epic-XShort answer? Very differently. Check out one of our example spectrums here.There's a stack more information I'll have to show you all another day, but even this was fascinating to me

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Thanks! That is informative!

 

[John Marchant]

If you click through and download the large jpeg, its 1:1 pixel size, so you can judge noise character too

...and now I see my browser autocorrected 'chroma' to 'chrome'... and I can't edit LOL

 

[Martin Stevens]

Thanks John........nice work.

 

[Mark Phelan]

Very informative and eye-opening.

 

[Paul Ellington]

Awesome thank you!

 

[Patrick Tresch]

This tells me that doing BW form a Color sensor is a huge loss of details. The details only deep saturated colors can show and wich is absent in the Epic-X 0 sat stripe.
We can see that the Mono has a beautiful gray rendition in the near to black zone, where colors of the Epic-X gets really noisy (muddy?).

Wonder if bright green/yellow/orange would be more prone to clipping than with the Epic-X? Should have you under exposed the Mono a bit (1 stop)?

Thanks a lot for your test.

Pat

 

[Paul Ellington]

This tells me that doing BW form a Color sensor is a huge loss of details. The details only deep saturated colors can show and wich is absent in the Epic-X 0 sat stripe.
We can see that the Mono has a beautiful gray rendition in the near to black zone, where colors of the Epic-X gets really noisy (muddy?).

Wonder if bright green/yellow/orange would be more prone to clipping than with the Epic-X? Should have you under exposed the Mono a bit (1 stop)?

Thanks a lot for your test.

Pat

It's all about what you expose for. Color science.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Mad! Cool to see.

 

[John Marchant]

IR is inherently better controlled with the Mono too - I guess it doesn't have to worry so much about polluting the reds to pink with near IR, so the cut seems to have been implemented differently, hence there's no little band of IR down below the deepest red.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

It's all about what you expose for. Color science.

Hello Paul,
For you, personally, is red brighter than green?

This is a cultural point of view. Fuji and Kodak didn't have the same point of view.

Wonder what point of view RED is choosing? I hope (and bet) it's not only an electronical one...

Pat

PS: or is it?

 

[PatrickFaith]

As you do these tests, it seems like all the redcode and resolutions are identical ... are all the menu's identical between the monochrome and normal epic ?

 

[Ketch Rossi]

The main factor with any Monochromatic sensor which does not suffer form any debayering process, and or filtration thru a secondary Bayer filter, is that the Monochrme sensor will always see a much broader shades of pure Gray, in turn giving much crispier Blacks and more pure withes.

And your nice test John, shows exactly this.

Extra resolution and sharper images are just icing on the cake as a direct result...

 

[C.H.Haskell]

Thanks for sharing John, have you done any night ext experimenting? I need to pop up to the UK soon.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Wonder if bright green/yellow/orange would be more prone to clipping than with the Epic-X? Should have you under exposed the Mono a bit (1 stop)?
Pat

WOW. Great point. These colors WOULD pop more in a B/W world...even if your "color" reading eyes can't distinguish that. I guess you'd have to really monitor on set carefully. Anyone with lots of B/W experience probably wouldn't blanche at this situation, but WOW...you are right...you'd have to remap the world in gray-scale in your mind, and suddenly worry about different colors popping entirely. Even wardrobe concerns would change. A green shirt means something else to a monochrome camera.

I like where your mind is going...

 

[Jason Diamond]

Thanks for sharing John, have you done any night ext experimenting? I need to pop up to the UK soon.

Clay,W
e shot a ton of Night exterior in savannah georgia with the Epic Monochrome, Will post a few clips/stills in a bit. ISO2000 is beautiful.

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Fifty shades of gray and more, lol. Man, I can only imagine what Dragon Mono looks like, crazy stuff.

 

[John Marchant]

As you do these tests, it seems like all the redcode and resolutions are identical ... are all the menu's identical between the monochrome and normal epic ?

Nearly identical. Certain colour specific stuff is greyed out - no colour temp. to set for example. The ISO menu starts at 800, not 250. Otherwise its all very similar. Interestingly you can still set colour based 'looks' in camera to tint the mono image in metadata.

 

[John Marchant]

Thanks for sharing John, have you done any night ext experimenting? I need to pop up to the UK soon.

We're working on something exciting on that front. Can't say more at present. Be good to meet you (Your PM is full)

 

[John Marchant]

WOW. Great point. These colors WOULD pop more in a B/W world...even if your "color" reading eyes can't distinguish that. I guess you'd have to really monitor on set carefully. Anyone with lots of B/W experience probably wouldn't blanche at this situation, but WOW...you are right...you'd have to remap the world in gray-scale in your mind, and suddenly worry about different colors popping entirely. Even wardrobe concerns would change. A green shirt means something else to a monochrome camera.

I like where your mind is going...

This is definitely a part of why the mono's skintone reproduction is different, some of it is also in its application specific OLPF.

On the exposure front - even though its rated ISO2000, and in camera goes no lower than 800, in RCX you can retrieve highlight way back down to ISO320, so there's no way the spectrums shot were tipping close to filling the photosites.