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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 :)

Red with Ultra Primes, etc

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flmguy

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just finished a feature using the Red. Great images but mucho expensive and too many kinks that red still needs to work out. Focus problems, Shims that give out too easily, cant handle too much detail or low light. Overall looks awesome

attached some images.
 
Can you elaborate on the issues you encountered? Don't quite get the reference to "can't handle much too much detail." With a 4K sensor and Ultraprimes, you should have pretty amazing resolution. And what focus problems did you have? Related to depth of field in low light, or back focus/shim issues? The new PL mount should fix the shim problems.

Other than that, were you happy with the Ultraprimes on the Red?
 
flmguy said:
just finished a feature using the Red. Great images but mucho expensive and too many kinks that red still needs to work out. Focus problems, Shims that give out too easily, cant handle too much detail or low light. Overall looks awesome

attached some images.
Click to expand...

Hi Filmguy,

I would have expected Ultra Primes to have been sharper than that. Did you use any filtration?

Stephen
 
Ultra Primes have out-resolved every lens I've put on a RED with the exception of Master Primes. I've used pretty much every "major" piece of cinema glass on the RED that such a statement would bring to mind. Something else was going on... your shots all look very soft.

Focus problems means that your camera wasn't shimmed properly [or your lenses weren't...]. With the old mount, I noticed some shim slipping using RED's shims, but using normal shims solved that problem. I believe we may have had an unlucky batch of shims from RED. At this point our REDs tape out perfectly... and they haven't been shimmed in about a month. And those are the cameras with the old mount.

I'm not quite sure why you'd think that the camera couldn't handle much detail. Compared to what? Do you come from a HD background with lots of in-camera sharpening?

As for its light sensitivity, I suspect that you're processing the footage incorrectly. You can get a clean image to 500 ASA and a textured but usable image to about 640-800 ASA.

I wouldn't call the RED expensive when its closest competitors are literally 15-25 times more expensive.

I don't mean to make this sound like such a condemning response, but your post really doesn't make any sense to me. Are you trying to stir the pot or was that just one long typo? I feel like a lot of details were left out.

Just for good measure, here's a 100% crop from an 85mm Ultra Prime on one of our shoots. It was exposed at 500 ASA and was taped out by an assistant. Excuse the JPG compression. The full image is sharp from corner to corner.

5_1199261914.jpg
 
When shooting outside since the trees did not have leaves and there were too many branches the camera just would not record.
 
no filters and Lot of lights
 
Sorry about the short post but We were working with a beta version. The owner said they are changing mount and some were just software issues. We got codec errors twice and It just stopped working twice.
We had to focus by eye coz the shims were off. Overall the Red is the best HD camera out there, this is the only one that gets close to film.
I love 4k. I would not shoot with anything else, Wish I could afford one.
 
flmguy said:
When shooting outside since the trees did not have leaves and there were too many branches the camera just would not record.
Click to expand...
Forgive my stupidity, but I don't quite understand. Are you saying the sensor was unable to resolve the amount of detail because there were too many branches? Perhaps the framerate exceeded the compact flash write rate? Was it too cold because you were exposed and had problems as an early beta cam?

Would love a bit more info on the problems and I'm sure Red would like to hear about them if you haven't told them already.

Paul
 
I think that an earlier build had trouble keeping up with the data when compressing highly detailed images. It is the nature of variable compression wavelet systems, but I believe the issue has been addressed. I know on the SI-2K there is a gauge readout to indicate when the data rate might catch up to the buffer and crash the system.

Mitch Gross
Abel Cine Tech
 
There was a build that would resist high detail and overexposure with a codec error. I assume you contacted RED support immediately and learned that you just had to upgrade or downgrade to fix the issue? I'm surprised your RED technician would even allow the aforementioned build on set.
 
The camera had the latest firmware build installed (Build 11) but still
exhibited the problems found in the earlier builds when a
highlight/highly
detailed image was recorded resulting in a codec recrding error.

The lens mount was of the old design and did most likely have RED shims
installed which lead to the flange/focus problems, sadly, we weren't
near
the RED facility to bring it in for a fix and even if we were near
enough,
 
flmguy said:
Sorry about the short post but We were working with a beta version.
Click to expand...

Brook Willard is right. Some things in your post do not add up. Did you shoot this film with RED?
 
PaulClements said:
Forgive my stupidity, but I don't quite understand. Are you saying the sensor was unable to resolve the amount of detail because there were too many branches? Perhaps the framerate exceeded the compact flash write rate? Was it too cold because you were exposed and had problems as an early beta cam?

Would love a bit more info on the problems and I'm sure Red would like to hear about them if you haven't told them already.

Paul
Click to expand...

I think there a a few things that are fairly apparent if you read the post properly. The camera had one of the original mounts that probably wasn't shimmed properly, causing focus / sharpness issues.

It was running a version of the firmware that had problems with codec error, resulting in the camera dropping out of record mode due to areas of high detail (in this case the branches in the trees). Also numerous builds had problems with the camera crashing (needed to pull power connector & reboot)

It's really up to the owners of the cameras to make sure the cameras go out as a properly working unit. As well as making sure the mount is properly shimmed (if you can't do it take it to a service facility), make sure it is running a stable version of firmware. There is no point having a beta version or a version that has a few extra bells & whistles (that might not actually be needed for the shoot) at the expense of the camera becoming unstable!!

Both the mount issues and the codec error bug (incl which firmware versions are affected) have been reported and documented on the forums.

In this case I would guess that the owner of the camera let the user know that it was "beta" gear. However the user (probably first time user with film background) went out with gear that didn't work properly, had problems and reported them here. Probably also talked to a lot of non-red users and let them know there were problems too.

Overall not a particularly constructive exercise for the owner of the camera, the user or the "Red community"
 
twlim said:
Care to elaborate more on this Alexander?
Click to expand...

Not much to elaborate on sadly....The camera had build 11 installed but still exhibited the same problem as the older build when attempting to record a highly detailed / blown out shot so what filmguy is saying is more than a familiar happening.

redicule said:
It was running a version of the firmware that had problems with codec error, resulting in the camera dropping out of record mode due to areas of high detail (in this case the branches in the trees).
Click to expand...

He said it was running build 11........We all have to remember that the camera as well the firmware is still in its infancy.

Even though some builds say stable, you're still likely to find a bug here and there.....

No worries though, RED has been quick to fix all the problems found thus far, before you know it, everything will be running like a well oiled machine.
 
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