Working With the RED

[Michael T O'Connor]

Heres a partial list of some of music videos that I shot with the Red... I've done about an equal number of commercials... Of course, I still shoot lots of film jobs, as well as other digital cameras as well...

Chris Brown, "Forever"
Janelle Monae, "Many Moons"
Jesse McCartney, "It's Over"
Lady Gaga, "Love Game"
Lady Gaga, "Eh Eh"
Katy Perry, "Waking Up in Vegas"
Eminem, "We Made You"
Kelly Clarkson, "Already Gone"
Boa, "I Did It For Love"
Pussycat Dolls, "Hush Hush"
Black Eyed Peas, "I Gotta Feeling"
Kate Voegele, "99 Times"
Esther Dean, "Drop it Low"
Sick Puppies, "You're Going Down"
Michael Buble, "Just Haven't Met You Yet"
Chris Brown, "I Can Transform Ya"
Timbaland, "Morning After Dark"
Chris Brown, "Crawl"
Black Eyed Peas, "Imma Be"
Black Eyed Peas, "Rock That Body"
Yo Gotti, "Women Lie, Men Lie"

While I do feel that your article is a little overly critical of the RED, I understand your justifications about the article. I think the biggest problem that most people have with your article is that many/most if not all cameras have the same limitations as the RED. For instance, the HDD/Flash storage issue, debayering issue, and rolling shutter.

Of course, there are some things(positive and negative) that are unique to RED, such as the way the film is edited, color corrected, battery problems, and compression. I think many people, myself included, feel that you should have compared the RED to other offerings.

For instance, I think you should have noted that many digital cameras have the same storage issues and debayering(which really isn't an issue.... its just how sensors work).

Discussing .r3d, you said you have an issue saying REDCODE is truly RAW because you're comparing it to a file from the Phantom HD. As a disclaimer, I've never used a Phantom, so I don't know how it stores it's data, but I feel that you should explain this issue a little better. As Graeme noted earlier, file size difference alone isn't a justified reason to dismiss REDCODE as being truly raw.

Furthermore, your problems encountered with dropped frames on hard drives is not an issue solely relegated to RED. I think your article made it sound like it was. You probably should have clarified that all digital cameras that use hard drive based storage face this problem, and noted that as an advantage, RED offers multiple storage methods. You could have also mentioned other cameras that offer multiple storage methods as well.

In summation, I thought your article was good. You're a much better writer than I am, and your personal experiences are definitely helpful to people who are interested in RED. Again, my main objection is only that perhaps less technically aware customers(such as those choosing a camera to shoot with for the first time) might come to the wrong conclusion, because they might erroneously believe the problems you encountered are attributable to the RED One only.


On a lighter note, how did you stand shooting music videos for so many Black Eyed Peas songs? You must have heard "Imma be" and "I gotta feeling" thousands of times by now, lol. I would have gone crazy if I had to listen to those songs as many times as you must have while shooting.

 

[Carsten Fenstermacher]

I have every hope that the Epic will make some drastic changes for the better, particularly to improve exposure range, improve S/N, and reduce the rolling-shutter issues. As far as I'm concerned, this will benefit everyone, particularly filmmakers and post people. Anytime pictures get better on the set, life becomes a little easier for colorists.

Hmmm, I found that Red had more detail than d21 by far.
Scaling it down to 2k properly was critical though.

 

[CJ Roy]

If you don't mind my asking: how did you induce it?

Somebody pointed out that a film gate is necessarily in front of the film plane, hence the edge is out of focus and this softer. Whereas the Red is scanning the actual pictures, hence a hard horizontal line.

That having been said, it wouldn't make a difference for strobe split screens, and the text MX footage that the Off Hollywood boys shot had some good test material (bridge supports & lamp posts out a car window) that looked to me about he same as I'd expect with film.

So, while it might be able to be artificially induced under specific torture tests, it doesn't look like a huge problem in actuality thus far.. hence my interest in your test.

-sc

Whip pan, back and forth. Watch the image distort. Foreground objects more skewed than background. If I can induce it there, I might be able to induce it handheld, on a vehicle mount, etc. Anything less than steady or with vibration.

I don't know for sure, but this was just a quick test. Myself and others saw the image skew. Less than the R1, but there.

 

[Steven Caesare]

Whip pan, back and forth. Watch the image distort. Foreground objects more skewed than background. If I can induce it there, I might be able to induce it handheld, on a vehicle mount, etc. Anything less than steady or with vibration.

I don't know for sure, but this was just a quick test. Myself and others saw the image skew. Less than the R1, but there.

Thanks.

 

[Christopher Probst]

Looks like I will get to work with a R1 with a Mysterium-X chip this Thursday. I may try to test out its response to still photo flashes during our lunch break. I already hear good things about its noise improvements more so than reports of "increased sensitivity." But if I can shoot with Lightning Strikes and flashes without split frames, that'd be the icing on the cake.

 

[Jon B.]

if I can shoot with Lightning Strikes and flashes without split frames

Are there CMOS sensors that have this ability now?

 

[Christopher Probst]

I never had an issue with any of the CineAlta cameras while using strobes.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I never had an issue with any of the CineAlta cameras while using strobes.

Aren't all CineAlta cameras CCDs? You might see it on a D-21. Is the D-21 global or rolling?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

What I don't care for is the unbalanced reporting. There have been a number of posts here excusing this bad journalism by comparing it to film systems.

"Working With the Red - AC's Technical Editor shares some tips and observations about shooting with the RED One digital camera."

If people here whining read just one part of the article they should at least bother reading the title.

This wasn't a review. It doesn't claim to be a review. It's not 'journalism'. Not everything in a Magazine is fair and balanced objective reporting. Not every article in every magazine has to be comparing something to something else.

Who cares if every hard drive is subject to shakes and bumps... how many people shoot to hard drive on another camera system? Anyone? Even if you were to compare to other camera systems you would be comparing to almost exclusively solid state or tape based systems. Neither of which are as shock sensitive as a HDD.

The title is "Working with RED". Why would another camera need to be mentioned. If I'm reading an article "Working with the F35" I don't need to hear about wavelet compression (unless it's recording to a codex with jp2k). If I'm reading an article on "Working with Film" I don't need to hear about RED's rolling shutter.

It would be stupid to be reading an article on "Working with the RED" and have a paragraph like 'I don't like where they put button A, but you can reprogram button B to do XYZ, also the F23 has a few annoying buttons as well." it would be completely off topic and a waste of space.

 

[Dylan Macleod CSC]

Looks like I will get to work with a R1 with a Mysterium-X chip this Thursday. I may try to test out its response to still photo flashes during our lunch break. I already hear good things about its noise improvements more so than reports of "increased sensitivity." But if I can shoot with Lightning Strikes and flashes without split frames, that'd be the icing on the cake.

Haven't read the article yet, but I am looking forward to it after this thread! ;-)

Doesn't it follow that "noise improvements" would go hand in hand with "increased sensitivity"?

Less noise means a higher ISO rating which equals "increased sensitivity", no?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Haven't read the article yet, but I am looking forward to it after this thread! ;-)

Doesn't it follow that "noise improvements" would go hand in hand with "increased sensitivity"?

Less noise means a higher ISO rating which equals "increased sensitivity", no?

Normally. But Mysterium-X is weird. It doesn't descend into unusable noise. It just sort of stops at usable amounts of noise. It gets non-linear before it hits its noise floor.

 

[Nick Shaw]

You might see it on a D-21. Is the D-21 global or rolling?

D-21 has a spinning mirror shutter, so would only have the issue to the same extent film does, ie you might get a split frame but it won't have a hard edge so wouldn't be so obvious. You can turn the shutter off on the D-21 to get a 360 degree shutter, in which case I guess a split frame might happen. Not tested it though.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

"Working With the Red - AC's Technical Editor shares some tips and observations about shooting with the RED One digital camera."

If people here whining read just one part of the article they should at least bother reading the title.

This wasn't a review. It doesn't claim to be a review. It's not 'journalism'. Not everything in a Magazine is fair and balanced objective reporting. Not every article in every magazine has to be comparing something to something else.

Who cares if every hard drive is subject to shakes and bumps... how many people shoot to hard drive on another camera system? Anyone? Even if you were to compare to other camera systems you would be comparing to almost exclusively solid state or tape based systems. Neither of which are as shock sensitive as a HDD.

The title is "Working with RED". Why would another camera need to be mentioned. If I'm reading an article "Working with the F35" I don't need to hear about wavelet compression (unless it's recording to a codex with jp2k). If I'm reading an article on "Working with Film" I don't need to hear about RED's rolling shutter.

It would be stupid to be reading an article on "Working with the RED" and have a paragraph like 'I don't like where they put button A, but you can reprogram button B to do XYZ, also the F23 has a few annoying buttons as well." it would be completely off topic and a waste of space.

You quoted me, and made some accusations that mischaracterize what I've been complaining about. This has excited me more than any forum ranting should.

Well follow your own advice and read more than one line of what I wrote. Cluestick: I don't think I wrote one word about the F35 or any other camera system.

I know the article is on working with the RED. I even agree with most of the problems Mr. Probst detailed. I've said that almost every post I've written on this thread.

What I expected, and wanted, was more information on WHY he keeps going back to the camera despite the flaws he goes on about for 11 pages.

In other words I expected a fair and balanced look at working with the RED camera.

Now, before you go mischaracterizing what I wrote again, I don't expect an author to give me some sort of exact balance by word count or similar silliness. In 11 pages Mr. Probst gives one sentence of faint praise for the camera.

That's unbalanced.

He gets good results with the camera, and he keeps working with it. Clearly its a good system that works, and it works for producers. Why? What is right about the camera?

I'd ask the same for a "Working with the F35" article, or any other camera for that matter. I don't want to read any cameras hagiography, nor do I want to see a smear job on it.

You state that not everything in a magazine is fair and/or balanced. I agree. Where we seem to differ is that I think that a magazine, or any information source, reduces its utility to me when it produces such an article.

Here is the thing: American Cinematographer is NOT a magazine.

Its a professional journal. There is a difference.

American Cinematographer has for two issues now called itself, "The International Journal of Motion Imaging." AC has called itself a journal going back at least to 1994. (where my collection begins) Professional journals are to be held to much higher journalistic standards than gossip rags on the tabloid rack in the supermarket.

I can't believe I even have to explain that.

AC's entire editorial staff failed on this article. Mr. Probst, as a technical editor for AC, failed on this article.

Let me reframe the argument: Mr. Probst wrote a great blog entry on his frustrations with the RED.

I don't pay for blog entries.

I want very high journalistic standards from any journal, even "The International Journal of Motion Imaging." I pay for AC because I want and need very dependable, well researched and balanced information. I pay for AC because I expect that its staff will include highly competent DP's, like Mr. Probst from what I have seen of his work, and that they will work to peer review the articles and ensure quality and balance.

I do see several signs of "magazineness" in AC, and I don't expect it to be on par with Nature (which I also subscribe to) or other scientific journals, but I expect more than this.

Why is this rant on topic here? I'm addressing an editor of the journal in question as a subscriber and peer. I'm telling him an article doesn't meet my needs, and why. I'm hoping to see a response as an editor responsible to readers, not as an author responsible for and defending what he wrote.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Maybe a medical "journal" is some elevated publication of integrity and science but I don't think 99% of AC's articles could be described as more than the author's completely subjective perspective on the craft and art of cinematography.

There's an article in the same issue in which the DP says that they'll never go back to film. They didn't offer a chance for Kodak to issue a rebuttal saying there are also good things about film.

AC is an opportunity for working DPs to openly discuss and share their views with a wider audience. I don't think comparing it to a blog is an insult to the publication. In fact I think that's actually a pretty apt description. You might even think of it as... oh I don't know, maybe a collection of journals written about production and tools.

And since we're getting all pedantic about vocabulary let's go to Websters:

Journal
1 a : a record of current transactions; especially b : an account of day-to-day events c : a record of experiences, ideas, or reflections kept regularly for private use
2 a : a daily newspaper b : a periodical dealing especially with matters of current interest

or
Google

1) A journal is a magazine, especially one that deals with a specialized subject.

or

Scholarly Journal: Structured; includes the article abstract, goals and objectives, methodology, results (evidence), discussion, conclusion, and bibliography.

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/guides/spmaterials/

Seeing as I can't remember seeing a bibliography abstract or Peer Review in AC I think we can safely say it's not a scholarly journal.