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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 :)

23 stops of range?

am I taking crazy pills or did that image look like crap? Also, I hear with more stops of range you can tell better stories!
 
Look vs. stops...

Look vs. stops...

JNFilms said:
am I taking crazy pills or did that image look like crap? Also, I hear with more stops of range you can tell better stories!
Click to expand...

Cinematic footage that looks good used lighting to bring the tonal range within the limits of the display, about 9 bits.

If you have a 23 bit image in linear mapped linear or log to a 9bit display range it will look very flat and "soft".

While there are some cases in uncontrolled lighting where extra stops can help get a less clipped film like look, for the most part 12bits is all you need if you light to control the brightness range of the subject to hold it within the center 10bits.

Rent "How Green Was My Valley (1941)" if want to see how cinematic lighting is done, look closley as where the light is comming from and how many fixtures are being used even on simple shots...
 
if that's the only source, than that light is being bounced onto a mirror
 
I actually find the image incredible. It certainly has very high DR that would be impossible to achieve using traditional cameras.
 
Pawel Achtel said:
I actually find the image incredible. It certainly has very high DR that would be impossible to achieve using traditional cameras.
Click to expand...

why do you say this? do you mean this isn't possible with a red one? I think it would be easy if you expose for the filament, use a very bright key up and right of camera, and some fill for the shadows. am I wrong?
 
Brandon said:
why do you say this? do you mean this isn't possible with a red one? I think it would be easy if you expose for the filament, use a very bright key up and right of camera, and some fill for the shadows. am I wrong?
Click to expand...

If you think that they are liars then you may be correct. If you trust that they are not then you are wrong.

I mentioned earlier that I feel the amount of dynamic shown is incredible. If it is truely only lite with the 1 open face 500 watt light and silver bounce or mirrors the it has fantastic dr. I don't know anything about the about the camera or the people that are stating that it is only lite with the 500 watt in the still. Because I do not know them I feel I have no right to call them liars and trust for now that the information given is correct. It would definately call for future due dilligence to make sure that what is presented is fact but for now I see no reason to call it bull sh*t.
 
This is fun, but I can't buy into the single source theory for four reasons.

1. The specular highlight on the wine bottles is clipping while the filament on the lamp is not. How can this be?

2. Also the reflections in the wine bottle and on the plastic bottles in front of Ernie's feet clearly show a circular secondary source, besides the rectangular halogen source in the picture, that is aimed down at the set at approximately 37 degrees to the right of camera, producing the hard shadow.

3. While the reflection in the wine bottle indicates a single source light, the plastic bottles reflect three separate hot spots, which could indicate that a single light was moved twice for separate exposures or a tight grouping of three sources for a single exposure.

4. If the light from the halogen is being bounced or re-directed by a mirror, then why do we not see any of the apparatus reflected in the glass and plastic? And if the light is redirected, how can the reflected highlight on the bottle clip, while the filament in the halogen lamp does not?
 
Jeff Coatney said:
This is fun, but I can't buy into the single source theory for four reasons.

1. The specular highlight on the wine bottles is clipping while the filament on the lamp is not. How can this be?

2. Also the reflections in the wine bottle and on the plastic bottles in front of Ernie's feet clearly show a circular secondary source, besides the rectangular halogen source in the picture, that is aimed down at the set at approximately 37 degrees to the right of camera, producing the hard shadow.

3. While the reflection in the wine bottle indicates a single source light, the plastic bottles reflect three separate hot spots, which could indicate that a single light was moved twice for separate exposures or a tight grouping of three sources for a single exposure.

4. If the light from the halogen is being bounced or re-directed by a mirror, then why do we not see any of the apparatus reflected in the glass and plastic? And if the light is redirected, how can the reflected highlight on the bottle clip, while the filament in the halogen lamp does not?
Click to expand...

agreed, seems open-shut to me.
 
Pawel Achtel said:
I actually find the image incredible. It certainly has very high DR that would be impossible to achieve using traditional cameras.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I could duplicate that image with the RED One or the F23 or my Nikon... But that's beside the point. We don't know the full details of their setup or any way to confirm anything about this image.

At this point, I'm highly skeptical of the 23 stops, but I want to believe because that sort of range would just be amazing. I was a little down on the image earlier in the thread because it's a crap image that tells us absolutely nothing. As Evolve said, if that halogen lamp is indeed the only light source, then they must be bouncing it off a mirror to get the sort of reflections and light streaking they're getting. But I'm still not convinced it's the only light based with the shadows that are present. If it is in fact the only light, then the DR is very impressive. I don't think we can tell if it's 23 stops of impressiveness from this image, but still impressive. If they happen to be fudging the truth and using a fill light in addition to the halogen, then it's all bogus.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I'm pretty sure I could duplicate that image with the RED One or the F23 or my Nikon... But that's beside the point. We don't know the full details of their setup or any way to confirm anything about this image.

At this point, I'm highly skeptical of the 23 stops, but I want to believe because that sort of range would just be amazing. I was a little down on the image earlier in the thread because it's a crap image that tells us absolutely nothing. As Evolve said, if that halogen lamp is indeed the only light source, then they must be bouncing it off a mirror to get the sort of reflections and light streaking they're getting. But I'm still not convinced it's the only light based with the shadows that are present. If it is in fact the only light, then the DR is very impressive. I don't think we can tell if it's 23 stops of impressiveness from this image, but still impressive. If they happen to be fudging the truth and using a fill light in addition to the halogen, then it's all bogus.
Click to expand...

Well, I am not sure it is actually 23 stops - maybe, maybe less, but it sure has considerably more DR than any camera I have seen. Assuming it is not just an HDR composite and there are no motion artefacts, I can certainly see some good use of such camera. Just point it on a scene that needs high dynamic range to look good. The example provided in not one of them, but does seem to demonstrate that something is different here. Interesting.
 
Two light meters?

Two light meters?

Why can't they take a photo of two light meters, one with a 5K spot pointed at it, and another in a black panted box to the other side of the frame, show us that the incident dome reading is 18 stops different, they would need a few extra stops so that the white dome on the hot meter would not be burned out, and the black case would not be blank in the dark box meter?

Why can't they take a back-lit shot of a door way to bright sun so that we can see that the outdoors look good as well as in unlit indoors?

Anyway, HDR or 14bits is the way things will go, maybe 16bits or more in 5years for some DSLR cameras etc.

Right now, few if any 12bit cameras give 12 accurate bits for all three colors, the noise can be much higher so you only get maybe 6 true bits in each pixel and they average the primary colors into luma and low passed chroma to get a lower noise than the RGB would show, and even then the Blue and sometime the Red have more noise than the Green.

Once they pass 16bits of accurate data the future use of film would be for what?
 
Jeff Coatney said:
4. If the light from the halogen is being bounced or re-directed by a mirror, then why do we not see any of the apparatus reflected in the glass and plastic? And if the light is redirected, how can the reflected highlight on the bottle clip, while the filament in the halogen lamp does not?
Click to expand...

hmmm....well not sure why you think you'd see the apparatus (i assume you mean the physical light itself yes?) reflected in the glass and onto the bottles. The clipped highlight on the bottle could be from catching both peripheral light from the light itself as well as the reflected light.
Also, as a hypothesis, i'd imagine that the bottle has difference absorbent qualities than the filament. Perhaps the bottle is reflecting the light back onto the mirror which is then reflecting back yet again, and so on and so on, thereby causing the clip.
I dunno, I don't see a reason to fudge the test if they're trying to prove that they have great dynamic range. Kinda defeats the purpose no?
 
Herring, you might be right about the light pointing at the camera being THE light source, but the poster is most vague about 'reflectors' and then goes on to say he's NOT SURE if a secondary light source was used. If the light in shot is the only light source, THAT would be an achievement. We need more info.

I'm not sure if it's a perfect analogy (given the post differences) but in stills work there's a point when long tonal range gets too much for most tastes, and ironically is often countered with harder- higher contrast- paper grades. I'm sure you've all seen platinum prints from long scale negs: they can be quite beautiful for the occasional interpretation but would be too bland for most scenarios. I'm sure digital isn't quite there yet but there will likely be a point when added tonal range will mean a fair amount of post compensating. Still, it's better to have it and not need it.. .
JN Films- no, the image doesn't look like crap if you're looking for tonal range potential; if you're looking at it as a cereal commercial then it's crap- And having fewer stops won't help your stories any more than being restricted to 1/3 inch sensors will. This is simply about giving us choices- like red's incredible range of sensor development.
Brandon this scenario could easily be duplicated but you'd have to lie about how it was done in order to make the same claims because I can tell you without moving from the couch that you will not be able to replicate this with any camera you have- outside BS'n. And we have no reason to believe that this is just bullshit. Where would RED be if Jim had claimed it had 28 stops of useable dynamic range? Don't you think people would notice this kind of thing when it came time to roll camera?

And this tonal range isn't made up of flare.
 
That has to be one of the most F**ked up things Ive ever seen and that's saying something. Incredible.

If for any reason its true, RED, Please make it better and cheaper.
 
By the way, if they are using electronic shutter HDR processing, then this is way easy. Yeah, I know all you geeks have been thinking about the magical sensor that takes 3 frames for every frame and blends it on board. This may just be it.
 
There is another source. It's not even a question.

The filament is clipped so the question is, if the ratio on the bulb around the filament (brightest place I see detail) to the deepest shadows really is 23:1 and if this was achieved by true means. Then comes the need to see a moving image. You can get away with more in a still than in motion.

Is it converted to a 12bit for recording? There are many many questions.
 
Dan Hudgins said:
With the light pointed into the lens you get lens flare that lifts the shadow areas, in fact if you put bias lights into your RED ONE you could get a A+B=C curve that expands the dynamic range, but would give too much noise in the dark areas since the sensor area is too small.
Click to expand...

I'm getting a little offtopic here, but I've seen this claim a lot and never been able to make it work in my own digital photography or understand the principle. To my eyes, the additional veiling flare doesn't add any information (details) to the shadows, it just lowers contrast (as if I had done it in Photoshop). (Maybe I'm doing it wrong.)

I understand how it worked in film: film has a nonlinear response, so flare (or even flashing) caused more of the grains into the higher response range where just a few photons would set them off. Digital, though, is linear, so even at the lowest levels (shadows) the response is the same.

Is it because the flare helps some of the shadow details to get further from the noise floor?
 
I agree...looks like some HDR process.
If it was 23 stops, looking at it on a 7/8 stop monitor won't show it.
Like Graeme needing to adjust the Red test images in photoshop to reveal 11.3 stops.
anyway, if you import the image into photoshop and look at the luminous curve, you see shadow and a little highlight detail only, but nothing in the middle.
This suggests two images taken a different exposures during sensor sampling or in post.
High & low exposures here:
48_1236038609.jpg
48_1236038648.jpg

Combined exposure here:
48_1236038864.jpg


Still the cleverness of how they did this so it looks a plausible image (except for the mids) is lost on me.
Dave
 
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