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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 :)

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Jannard

Jannard

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While this info is also posted in "Tips and Thoughts"... I felt like it should also be posted here for feedback.

Our goal was to make a camera that was easy to shoot, easy to post and made incredible images. After a couple of years of working very hard on all of these categories, we think we are now pretty close to having the easiest/best solutions in the industry.

Thoughts?

Jim

Shooting a RED camera.

1. Set up your camera
Load latest firmware
Do a Black Shade Calibration (lens cap on, T22)
Format media (CF card, RED RAM, etc.)


2. Set up your project.
Select a project size like 4K 2:1, 4K 16:9, 4K Quad HD, 4.5K 2.33:1, 3K 2:1, etc.
Select a project frame rate base like 23.976 (default), 24 or 25.
Select an in-camera color space like REDcolor (default) or RAW (we HIGHLY recommend REDcolor)


3. Set ISO/ASA and exposure
Set camera White Balance (or better yet, shoot a MacBeth, grey card or other white reference in the scene and set WB in post).
Use your light meter
Use the camera exposure tools
• Check your histogram.
• Stay inside the "goal posts"- Noise floor (left) and clipping (right) in RAW with Build 30
• Check "RAW Check"- Noise floor (purple) and clipping (red) in RAW with Build 30.
• Check "barber pole"- RAW with Build 30.
• Check "stop lights"- RAW with Build 30.
• Use False Color

RECORD.

GRADING RED footage...

1st Choice. White Balance and grade native R3Ds in a system that supports the R3D SDK like Scratch, Pablo, Baselight, REDCINE-X, FCP, Color, Adobe CS4, Vegas, etc.

2nd Choice. After selecting the correct White Balance, output full range (REDlog or REDgamma) and full res debayer to DPX, TIFF or ProRes 444 from REDCINE-X/RED Rocket. Open output in 3rd party grading applications.
 
I believe this is a good "quick and easy" run down. Unfortunately those who have never shot RED before probably wouldn't follow these guidelines exactly (i.e. newer users, not necessarily professionals)...they may get poor footage and learn from it. So is life. It still shocks me to see some users who produce poor footage, but this stuff happens, I guess they stretch their R3D limits too thin.

Can't wait for Build 30 and beyond. I'm amazed every single time there is an update, I can only imagine when updates for Epic and Scarlet come out, the huge improvements that will happen there.

I still prefer REDlog going to DPX. It works for me the best it seems, and After Effects does some wonderful things with the footage. I've NEVER had a problem.

Thanks Jim, I hope I can make it to Vegas this year. It will be bigger than any other year so far :)
 
it would be nice to have step by step tutorials of the different workflows.
and even some youtube tutorials in 1080p
 
"Crossover Build 30" will be posted VERY soon. It works with both M and M-X sensors.

Jim
 
I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the MX Sensor tomorrow- should be interesting to see for myself how far the new sensor has come. :)

The only thing I do not personally agree (and this is more of a taste issue) with is using Color to debayer the image from the R3D's. Maybe this is less of an issue with the new Color plugin and FCS3- but with FCS2 there is a significant softness given to the image when compared to footage that has gone through RedCine-X.
 
Jannard said:
"Crossover Build 30" will be posted VERY soon. It works with both M and M-X sensors.

Jim
Click to expand...

Nice- with supporting manuals?
 
Hard to comment on MX/B30 relative posts...
But shooting RED is mostly simple stuff...

That's really what I love about the cam. Its simplicity. You're back to shutter/iris/lights/focus/framing.
Photography.

The white balance step can still be a can of worms on R1-M cameras. Especially if some kind of auto WB is done on set. Most "problem" footy I get questions about is related to this and metering done relative to on-set colortemperature and not the sensors colortemperature. It's A LOT better now, but still, this can create unwanted results.

Disclaimer:
I really love RED1 under tungsten. That is not the point of what follows!

3 pitfalls

1. Underexposing blue unneccesarily
I have seen people set lights for WB "low", who want a "delicate blue whatever" in their image.

When WB in camera is set to 3.2, the blue channel is already gained, and then they use too little blue because of that. When they come to post, they're unhappy with the noise/underexposure in blue...

2. Blown red channel
With a low WB the red channel is de-gained, and the meters doesn't properly tell you when the red channel blows, and thus gives you bad skintones.

And thus: I very much agree on the shooting a chart step, keep the cam at raw/native on set and rather postpone the final WB issues for post, rather consentrating on optimal exposure on set.

The problem is that is not always a realistic scenario, as the DP or director or both rather would like to set "a look" on set, and thus end up doing poor exposure choises based on in-camera look settings... (It seems only sooooo logical to go for that on-set finished grade, right?)

YES. I know this goes back to the "one look for all outputs" and "metering after metadata" issues. And I see that you do recomend RAW/Native for exposure decissions and I so much agree!

But still these issues pop up.

As to post...

The WB issue persists.
Is it better to develop and native settings and grade into the correct WB or to "set WB"?

The answer is actually IMHO:
Both. And sometimes a bit of each...
Sorta: Use your eyes and trust what you see... -:)

With the "New color sience" the blue-channel noise @ lower K settings is a lot better. But @ lower K settings, the blue channel gets (gaussian?) blurred. And that's not always adviceable. And the lower the K, the worse it gets. Still.

The closer you go towards native settings and the lower the ISO, the less noise or blurred image info. There are limits to how low you can/should whatever go. But this still applies...

So at lower exposures at low K lights, native settings with lower exposure and brightness/contrast adjustments can still be a pretty good starting point to get a dark, low-noise image from the M sensor.

Of course it's best to finnish in an app that supports RAW natively. Theoretically...
But it depends a lot on the signal chain.

Because you want to do the grade on "the image" and not on "raw", even though you want to be able to go back to "raw" to adjust parameters there easily, without having to render out DPXs first.

As long as your app locks the image into a full range full debayer RGB image prior to grading, it is of course better NOT to have to render out RGB files. But I guess there is a reason you guys came up with the RED Rocket™™™™, which basically is a very good way to spit out RGB files fast (as of today at least...). For a lot of situations - noisefree log-RGB files are a very good starting point for a grade. Still.

But as things develop, I guess the Rockets role will change more to a playback card (like in the current Scratch beta) and a renderer for Red Ray/finnishing codecs.

So why do I write all this?
I actually mostly agree, even without B30 @ hand...

Because I think people are still best off remembering why you write "Check xxx RAW" and that's because the sensor is still daylight balanced. Both for shooting and grading.

That is not a problem, but just something not to forget.

Edit:
I am so happy that RedSpace is ditched as the "recomended" gamma!
That's gonna solve a lot of hassles.

As they say:
You guys rock etc... -:)

Edit 2:
And I didn't see all the new RAW metering tools in B30 prior to posting this.
Rockin' on etc...
 
Jannard said:
While this info is also posted in "Tips and Thoughts"... I felt like it should also be posted here for feedback.

Our goal was to make a camera that was easy to shoot, easy to post and made incredible images. After a couple of years of working very hard on all of these categories, we think we are now pretty close to having the easiest/best solutions in the industry.

Thoughts?

Jim
Click to expand...

I think you have pretty much nailed it here.

I'll add two things here:

#1: If you are using a rental camera, or any camera that has been out of your hands - do a RESTORE for LOOK, USER and SYSTEM. You still have to do them one at a time - (Stuart - I'd REALLY, really love to get a "ALL" checkbox here so I can restore everything in one shot). I've seen more than a few people bring in footage they shot with a few left over settings from previous shooters and they don't even know it. This procedure should be part of your camera prep/check-out.

#2: With respect to exposure and using a light meter. You need to do your own tests. You can read every post on REDUSER - you still need to shoot your own exposure tests. Why?

So many people meter differently. Some point the meter at the light, some at the camera, etc. And everyone seems to do some magic over/under adjustment / calculation in their brain based on the situation and his/her experience. We saw most DPs rating RED at ISO 200 and ISO 250. Mysterium-X is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CAMERA. Sure, it's in the Red One body - but I assure you ... it's a new camera. You need to test all over again.

I like ISO 800 on MX - even for daylight exteriors. That's me. You need to shoot your own bracketed exposure tests, metering the way you meter. Take your time and examine the RAW images in Redcine-X. You will find all the answers there.
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
I think you have pretty much nailed it here.

I'll add two things here:

#1: If you are using a rental camera, or any camera that has been out of your hands - do a RESTORE for LOOK, USER and SYSTEM. You still have to do them one at a time - (Stuart - I'd REALLY, really love to get a "ALL" checkbox here so I can restore everything in one shot). I've seen more than a few people bring in footage they shot with a few left over settings from previous shooters and they don't even know it. This procedure should be part of your camera prep/check-out.

#2: With respect to exposure and using a light meter. You need to do your own tests. You can read every post on REDUSER - you still need to shoot your own exposure tests. Why?

So many people meter differently. Some point the meter at the light, some at the camera, etc. And everyone seems to do some magic over/under adjustment / calculation in their brain based on the situation and his/her experience. We saw most DPs rating RED at ISO 200 and ISO 250. Mysterium-X is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CAMERA. Sure, it's in the Red One body - but I assure you ... it's a new camera. You need to test all over again.

I like ISO 800 on MX - even for daylight exteriors. That's me. You need to shoot your own bracketed exposure tests, metering the way you meter. Take your time and examine the RAW images in Redcine-X. You will find all the answers there.
Click to expand...

Mark... great points. I always forget about #1. :-)

Jim
 
2nd what Mark said in #1... regarding reset all... that would be rad.

Meantime, I think this is a good practice to adopt after gear return.... i.e. RESTORE ALL - so our clients dont have to. Thanks for sharing best practices Mark- Jim et al... this is when reduser is at its best. well that and when Jarred bans someone for being a tool:)
 
The very first thing I do at a prep is to reinstall the firmware on the camera with a freshly downloaded copy. Leave the same firmware on your system and it will eventually change. I've seen rental houses panic when all of their cameras start exhibiting the same bugs... when it was just a mildly corrupt firmware they were installing!

Call me old fashioned, but I always manually input and check every setting in the cameras. I know I can load user profiles, but one can knock through every menu in the camera in about 2-3 minutes... so why not be 110% sure?

After setting it up, I'll put the camera in "silent" mode and roll it until the camera is at an appropriate operating temperature [don't walk away to get lunch though... silent mode is not for extended takes!] before I do a black shading. I'll always crank up the ASA to its max before I uncap... just to see the assumed noise character. This is more critical on the M sensor than MX [the M sensor can have sub-par calibrations sometimes and not others... beware the FPN!]... but I'm still going to see what I can see!

The list goes on and on, but those are just a few quick thoughts.
 
Jannard said:
GRADING RED footage...

1st Choice. White Balance and grade native R3Ds in a system that supports the R3D SDK like Scratch, Pablo, Baselight, REDCINE-X, FCP, Color, Adobe CS4, Vegas, etc.

2nd Choice. After selecting the correct White Balance, output full range (REDlog or REDgamma) and full res debayer to DPX, TIFF or ProRes 444 from REDCINE-X/RED Rocket™. Open output in 3rd party grading applications.
Click to expand...


Well, right now Adobe CS4 dosen't support the new color "science". I asked it several times without getting an answer : will the Adobe plugin be updated to allow people to use the flut thing/Redgamma within CS4, or will it be necessary to update to CS5 ? And if yes, would it be possible to get a release date ? Outputting to DPX is another way, but a pain in terms of storage needs for a feature.
Giving some dates, even approximated, helps people to make workflow choices.
Thanks !
 
No, I crank the ASA all the way up after a black shade to get a look at the noisiest setting that I can see on the monitor. Try it on an M camera - cap it and turn the ASA up. You'll see a particular look to your noise. Now black shade. Looks different! Now heat the camera up. Looks different[er]! Now black shade at the hot temperature... looks different[er[er]]!

It's just a quick way to look at the status of the sensor, calibration and camera without needing to shoot and process footage. You can get a lot of information about the status of a given camera from the character of its noise...!
 
Brook Willard said:
It's just a quick way to look at the status of the sensor, calibration and camera without needing to shoot and process footage. You can get a lot of information about the status of a given camera from the character of its noise...!
Click to expand...

Yup.
They are quite individual beasts, aren't they...
 
When using rental cameras always check OLPF for scratches etc., had one camera arrive with a fingerprint on the OLPF. Delkin Sensor Scope works well for this.

Confirm with 1st AC that collimation is correct.

As Brooke says check everything!
 
This may seem obvious, but don't shoot a really small T stop or you can have dust shadows visible in the image. We did a test of this and sure enough the dust was there. Keep it wider than T8 if possible, and you still need to GENTLY blow dust off the OLPF now and then. Maybe there has been several threads on this...? Thoughts?
 
Brook Willard said:
No, I crank the ASA all the way up after a black shade to get a look at the noisiest setting that I can see on the monitor. Try it on an M camera - cap it and turn the ASA up. You'll see a particular look to your noise. Now black shade. Looks different! Now heat the camera up. Looks different[er]! Now black shade at the hot temperature... looks different[er[er]]!

It's just a quick way to look at the status of the sensor, calibration and camera without needing to shoot and process footage. You can get a lot of information about the status of a given camera from the character of its noise...!
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing. I will pay more attention to this in the future.
 
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