Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 vs 35mm, 16mm & digital stills

R

Richard Bradbury

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 21, 2008
Messages
82
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Hi all
I've just come back from a two-day Red One field test. The idea was to test the Red against the most obvious alternative for three different types of work. As well as looking at the quality of the footage, we were also testing field usability. Details of the tests are below.

We are about to start work on post production of the footage and I have some ideas about how best to do that, but I would love to get some input from others about appropriate and fair post production workflows to explore.

The environment for all the tests was a beach in south Wales (for you folks in the US Wales is a small town just outside England). The weather was cold, dry and windy with some sun. All cameras had polarisers, some ND to get us around T4 and occasional attenuators as necessary. All available light.

Test 1. Red vs 16mm - Natural history scenario - horses galloping in surf
Red 2K 16:9 @ 100fps - Redcode36
5000K, 320ASA, 1/50
Red 300mm / Canon 600mm / Arri 11-110mm with doubler
-vs-
Arri SR2 HS s16mm @ 100fps
Kodak 250D, 180deg
Red 300mm / Canon 600mm / Arri 11-110mm with doubler

Test 2. Red vs 35mm - Exterior Drama scenario - person walking along beach
Red 4K 16:9 protected at 2.40:1 @ 25fps - Redcode36
5000K, 320ASA, 1/50
Canon K35 primes / Century short zoom
-vs-
Cameflex CM3 2-perf 35mm @ 25fps
Kodak 50D, 180deg
Canon K35 primes / Century short zoom

Test 3. Red vs digital stills - Exterior Timelapse scenario
Red 4K 16:9 @ 1 frame every 8 seconds
5000K, 320ASA, 1/50
Canon K35 18mm
-vs-
Nikon D200 DSLR @ 1 frame every 10 seconds
6000K, 100ASA, 1/50, jpeg fine, 3872x2592px
Nikon 18mm

Let me know your thoughts.
Richard Bradbury
 
Nowhere yet! We're just about to start postproduction, and I'm keen to hear people's opinions about a Red vs film comparison.
 
Oh I get it. Read a bit too fast and was desperately clicking everywhere trying to find a link. :)

Haven't received the camera yet so I'll let others with more experience give you some advice. What kind of telecine are you doing?
 
should you be telling us what the results where. beyond the specs its hard to offer an opinion without footage or results or both
 
We'll most likely do a 2K scan on a Spirit Datacine for both the 16 and 35. I'm interested in knowing people's views about how to approach the DPX output from RedCine to give us a good comparison.
 
Did you already shoot? I hope the 100fps Red stuff wasn't shot at 1/50 shutter speed. It should be in relative shutter mode to make sure that the motion is crisp and not blurry...

Otherwise, sounds exciting!
 
Very good point. The test was the first time I had used a Red and I have to admit I didn't fully understand options in the shutter menu, and still don't. So as far as I know it was set to 'Normal' mode, and 1/50 was showing on the LCD. However the exposure did change as I changed the frame rate, and I find it hard to believe that a shutter speed of 1/50 is possible when capturing 100fps. And the footage looks fine... Can anyone tell me what shutter speed I was using?
 
Richard,

'Relative' mode locks the camera at 180 degree shutter for us film types, relative to the frame rate, so exposure would be at 1/200th of a second at 100fps?

That's my understanding of it anyway!

Mike C
 
Thanks Mike
That's what I'll be using in the future, particularly in offspeed mode. Any ideas what my shutter speed was at Normal / 1/50 / 100fps?
 
Richard Bradbury said:
Thanks Mike
That's what I'll be using in the future, particularly in offspeed mode. Any ideas what my shutter speed was at Normal / 1/50 / 100fps?
Click to expand...

Richard,

The thing is that in 'Normal' mode the camera will let you set 1/50th at 50fps but, AFAIK, will only let you use exposure values that are at least equal to and not greater then your frame rate. So if you set 100fps, 1/100th of a second will be your minimum exposure by default. So if you select 'varispeed' with a shutter speed that is incompatible with that which you need the camera will change the default, or selected, shutter speed and the new speed will show up in red on the LCD

Not actually being there somewhat restricts my ability to be in any way certain of what you did though :usd: At least this all seems to make sense to me. I am essentially a film guy and like to keep film practice as much as is reasonable and like the safety of 'relative' which assumes an 180 degree shutter unless you choose otherwise.

I would assume you would have set the shutter at 1/50th at the beginning of the project and the camera would control the shutter to match your frame rate when you selected 'varispeed'. When you returned to 'normal' 25fps the camera would put the shuuter back to your selected option.

Hope this helps,

Mike C
 
I get it. Actually for the 100fps tests I was shooting, 1/100th would be a much better shutter speed than 1/200th. What we're saying is that a 360 degree shutter is possible? I'll be exploring this some more.
 
Richard,

I assume you are using Build 14?

'Shutter speeds are absolute and independant of frame rate' according the the 'build op' but if the frame rate is 100fps then the mimimum shutter speed must also be equal to or slightly less than that amount, and therefore this will be your resultant shutter speed, as this is the amount of time it takes to 'pull' a frame from the sensor. I suppose, academically, there is a recharge time for the sensor also.

I am sure the real red savants have yet to wake up in the US and they will correct the incoherant ramblings of a red novice!

Mike C
 
Build 15. I did wonder when I was shooting if 1/50th was possible at 100fps, since that would be a 720 degree shutter! I'm going to do some proper tests on this with a lightmeter next week.
 
While, exposure-wise, it's great to be able to shoot at 100 fps with a 1/100th shutter (i.e. no shutter)... I don't think the slow-motion effect looks as good, it's somewhat smeary-looking, compared to the common 1/200th shutter for 100 fps. At least, that's my experience shooting 60P at 1/60th for slow-motion.
 
Hi David,

I completely agree, crisp exposure on slo-mo is going to make a lot of different to the final look. We were rather tentatively discussing default exposures 'in theory' if one hadn't checked the shutter at that frame rate and had left it at 1/50th at 25fps.

I assume that the camera will only be able to provide a 'default' exposure which is just less than the frame rate, allowing for charge, transfer and disappation times of the sensor.

Mike Costelloe
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top