250 ISO Looks great.

[David Battistella]

certain David,
are bad with English I try to express myself as I can.

Il tuo inglese e molto buono.

Davide

 

[Timur Civan]

I'm perplexed. Isn't the Dragon suppose to be ultra clean at 2000 iso? I'm with Patrick on this one. 250 iso is really a step backwards in camera evolution. I've had a chance to shoot on the Sony F5, it's amazing at 2000 iso. I've ben shooting with the Digital Bolex which can't go above 400, but you can then push it is post and it is CLEAN. Why on earth would we set the dragon at 250 iso? I've been shooting the MX mostly at 800 but sometimes yes I'll take it down to 400. What's happeing here, is the Dragon really creating a lot of noise that we need to take it down to 250? I had also read that the Dragon had really very little noise even when shooting at more than 8:1, what's up?
Cheers,
Damien

Not at all. Being able to shoot outdoors with minimal ND is a godsend. I wish red made a 50iso only version of the Dragon. Dead clean, 16stops. Id even shoot that in the studio and get back to big sources.

 

[Mark Toia]

until now I was shooting broadcast ..... got my scarlet dragon ..... first test ..... grmpf ..... straight out of the camera ..... never had issus with focus - now I have ....
my mbp without retina makes me nervous about the pictures ..... :mad2:


Have to get new monitors .... obviously ........... ;-)

Going from 2/3 inche Broadcast camera with huge depth of field to a super 35mm sensor with a 1/4 of that depth, you'll need to learn to use your focus assist tools.

 

[Brian Merlen]

as someone from 1/3' VX era i have to admit catching focus on my red as a one man band is a hell of a lot harder to manage. whether we talk about sensor size, lighting requirements, ease of use, there are all kinds of ways to measure a camera. regardless of the FW fix the truth is certain cameras will always excel in certain areas and with red shallow DOF is an asset, but also the nature of a large sensor. yes shooting f16 can help, but its still fairly shallow compared to super small sensor sized cameras. yes the focus assist is a good tool, and one i refer to often. but my point is just to exemplify that one camera can never truly rule them all, best tool for the situation is always the best tool, whether you own it or not

ps part of the reason i really wanted 2000 ISO to be the new 800 is because of the shallow DOF... would make it a hell of a lot easier for one man band no light kit situations. would let me be able to go F16 with less light, and then have a fighting chance at catching focus during high speed sports... but at a certain point maybe just using the smaller sized sensor camera i have is an easier fix

 

[Mark Toia]

I'm perplexed. Isn't the Dragon suppose to be ultra clean at 2000 iso? I'm with Patrick on this one. 250 iso is really a step backwards in camera evolution.

No body has ever said 2000iso was ultra clean on the Dragon... however I do get results (when exposed correctly) similar to 800iso on the MX.

Not sure what a lot of people are doing when wanting to shoot at higher ISO's. Many are cranking up the ISO to 2000, 3200, 4000 and expecting a miracle perhaps, You need to remember that when your at 800iso and the image is dark and you feel you need more light, soooo you open up to 1600 or 3200iso to make your monitor brighter... But your histogram is at the bottom end (left)... meaning your still grossly underexposed.
Your now underexposed. If upped your ISO, but you haven't put in anymore light or opened your aperture to get that histogram back into the right side of the histogram.... Your just expecting that the camera save you, but the fact is your not exposing correctly in the first place is what's really happening.

So do a test, set your camera to 2000 or 4000 iso, light your scene or set your aperture of your lens allowing the histogram to be on the right side (brighter side) of the graph. Then see what noise you get.

I can totally live with the noise I'm receiving from the Dragons and MX Cameras.

 

[TD Wood]

No body has ever said 2000iso was ultra clean on the Dragon... however I do get results (when exposed correctly) similar to 800iso on the MX.

Not sure what a lot of people are doing when wanting to shoot at higher ISO's. Many are cranking up the ISO to 2000, 3200, 4000 and expecting a miracle perhaps, You need to remember that when your at 800iso and the image is dark and you feel you need more light, soooo you open up to 1600 or 3200iso to make your monitor brighter... But your histogram is at the bottom end (left)... meaning your still grossly underexposed.
Your now underexposed. If upped your ISO, but you haven't put in anymore light or opened your aperture to get that histogram back into the right side of the histogram.... Your just expecting that the camera save you, but the fact is your not exposing correctly in the first place is what's really happening.

So do a test, set your camera to 2000 or 4000 iso, light your scene or set your aperture of your lens allowing the histogram to be on the right side (brighter side) of the graph. Then see what noise you get.

I can totally live with the noise I'm receiving from the Dragons and MX Cameras.

Great shots, Mark. Are these with old OLPF, new OLPF or both? The reason I am asking is because I see some shots from your first dragon tests, which I believe were done with the old olpf.
cheers

 

[Mark Toia]

but my point is just to exemplify that one camera can never truly rule them all, best tool for the situation is always the best tool, whether you own it or not

1000 % correct.

I bought a SONY A7S today... to say the least. I'm really fucking impressed with what you get for 2500 bucks. If your looking for a low light beast, stick one of those in your side pocket of your bag.

 

[Gerald Menclik]

Going from 2/3 inche Broadcast camera with huge depth of field to a super 35mm sensor with a 1/4 of that depth, you'll need to learn to use your focus assist tools.

yep, sure that, starting a learning curve :crazy:

 

[Mark Toia]

Great shots, Mark. Are these with old OLPF, new OLPF or both? The reason I am asking is because I see some shots from your first dragon tests, which I believe were done with the old olpf.
cheers

There shots are from all generation Dragons... Ranging from the early beta Dragon that we did the launch with.. The 1st production Dragon which I believe is better than the Beta...
Also the latest Dragon with the newest OLPF.

I can openly say that I can see the RED noise people are talking about when I under exposed... but when exposed correctly, its not an issue at all... But happy to know it will be eliminated shortly.

My reason for the last post is try explain to people (that are having noise issues) is to keep that histogram to the right near traffic lights even in Hi ISO's. Then your exposure is correct.
If its to the left, then its not. Simple as that.

 

[David Battistella]

Mark,

Just for clarity, those are the ISO's you "processed" at, not necessarily the ISO's you "rated" at, correct?

What I mean is, and I think people end up running into this problem, is that they set the camera to ISO 4000 and then stop down accordingly, effectively rating at 800 and underexposing.

The point I try to get across to people is that you have to hit the sensor with light (with fast glass or slower shutters or whatever) to get a "base" exposure that will allow you to push process the way you have in these shots(if you push processed).

If you show the dragon in a closet with no light you can't expect miracles.

All of the low light frames you show in this post are excellent examples of composing frames and using light to your advantage. The forrest is a great example of how much you can push clean well lit daylight ISO images.
You are right to tell people to expose to the right (looking at the RAW VIEW) not the ISO view. With just a small amount of light to work with the Dragon does indeed produce the results you display here, but people have to know how much light they are getting onto the sensor. There is a MASSIVE difference between T2.8 and T1.4 and the fast glass gets light onto the sensor.

I think what we see a lot of is people riding the edge of exposure and "accidentally" rating at 2000 when they think they are rating at 800.



Battistella

My reason for the last post is try explain to people (that are having noise issues) is to keep that histogram to the right near traffic lights even in Hi ISO's. Then your exposure is correct.
If its to the left, then its not. Simple as that.

 

[Mark Toia]

Correct David,
These ISO's i set in camera and exposed to suite...

Not shooting in the dark and then trying to suck out light afterwards. Which is the major problem for novice players.

Treat the sensor like Film and all is sweeet...

 

[Med D]

I don't understand all the discussion about ISO. If I understood Mark P at Reducation correctly, the ISO figure is meaningless when it comes to what the camera is actually capturing or is able to capture. This almost seems like a hardware vs software issue to me. The hardware -- the camera and sensor -- is totally driven by exposure as show by the goalposts and stoplights. These alone drive the captured data quality -- including noise and image information. ISO -- whether in-camera or in Redcine -- is software and can only work with the data that is provided to it. Am I getting this right? If so then the talk about ISO seems pointless.

 

[Daniel Stilling]

You are right. It is metadata yes. So if you know what you're doing you are not paying attention to that particular setting when you're shooting. with experience, you know that for example, if you're at night , on a street, with no additional lighting, you can shoot wide open and get as much light in as possible, regardless of the ISO.
That is one super frustrating thing that a lot of professionals don't understand that there are only 2 ways to change the amount of light hitting the sensor: Aperture and shutter speed.
The whole point of this is, that when you process the shot, you should be able (according to initial claims) to push it to 2000 and expect a noise level of the MX at 800, thus having a more sensitive sensor. And this seems to not be the case.

 

[Mark Toia]

If I understood Mark P at Reducation correctly, the ISO figure is meaningless when it comes to what the camera is actually capturing or is able to capture. ISO seems pointless.

Mark P and you are dead right....

Some people rate the sensor at 800 iso... I rate it at 320... And I seldom leave it.
Think of the sensor as film and you find that sweet spot and stick to it.


1000 Iso, 2000 iso.. 6400iso... is just you push processing your film or pushing past the limits of the sensor.
Your just changing meta data at the end of the day, not swapping our sensors (or film emulsions)
I only use the higher ISO's so I can see something on my monitor.


Simple as that.

 

[Charles Bergquist]

So let's say the past 3 Red cameras have been 320 ISO, why don't they publish this as a base ISO just as Canon C series are 850, Arri is 800 or Sony's array are like 1250 - 3200.

 

[David Battistella]

Nobody says it's 320 ISO (except the original red one). Red actually rates it at 800iso which is where they say (correctly) you get the most even number of stops over and under middle gray.

like film, you can rate the sensor differently than the manufacturers suggestion. You can also rate other digital cameras lower.

I've always rated the MX and dragon at 320. With MX you had to watch highlights way more than you do on dragon and blown highlights in dragon actually roll off smoothly (not the hard clipping of MX)

rating is based on how clean an image you want to get and noise tolerance. But how much light you let hit the sensor is the biggest factor when it comes to noise. This is also the biggest factor when you push process (raise the ISO in redcine x)

I also rate lower on exteriors because I am not into shoving too much ND (glass in front of my glass) because the higher ND needed when rating at higher ISO's means I can introduce IR problems and need to cut more light to the sensor. This is less of a problem on Dragon as I only start to notice color shifts at 1.8 ND and above. The IR filter built into the dragon OLPF is excellent.

common problem we see a lot here on reduser. Histograms don't lie.

Camera is set to 800iso
lens is 2.8
metered light is 1.4 or less
shot is captured 2 stops under
shot is then processed at 2000iso

see how this can create noise?

if this person rates at 320 they they will look at the scene and say, "this is dark, we need more light" if they added even a stop or 1.5 stops of actual light (not boosting the image by raising ISO) then I think there would be a lot less complaining.

Two stops under is going to get you noisy images on any imaging system that does not have auto enhancements to make up for your deficiencies (like an iPhone)

battistella

 

[Charles Bergquist]

Nobody says it's 320 ISO (except the original red one). Red actually rates it at 800iso which is where they say (correctly) you get the most even number of stops over and under middle gray.

like film, you can rate the sensor differently than the manufacturers suggestion. You can also rate other digital cameras lower.

I've always rated the MX and dragon at 320. With MX you had to watch highlights way more than you do on dragon and blown highlights in dragon actually roll off smoothly (not the hard clipping of MX)

rating is based on how clean an image you want to get and noise tolerance. But how much light you let hit the sensor is the biggest factor when it comes to noise. This is also the biggest factor when you push process (raise the ISO in redcine x)

I also rate lower on exteriors because I am not into shoving too much ND (glass in front of my glass) because the higher ND needed when rating at higher ISO's means I can introduce IR problems and need to cut more light to the sensor. This is less of a problem on Dragon as I only start to notice color shifts at 1.8 ND and above. The IR filter built into the dragon OLPF is excellent.

common problem we see a lot here on reduser. Histograms don't lie.

Camera is set to 800iso
lens is 2.8
metered light is 1.4 or less
shot is captured 2 stops under
shot is then processed at 2000iso

see how this can create noise?

if this person rates at 320 they they will look at the scene and say, "this is dark, we need more light" if they added even a stop or 1.5 stops of actual light (not boosting the image by raising ISO) then I think there would be a lot less complaining.

Two stops under is going to get you noisy images on any imaging system that does not have auto enhancements to make up for your deficiencies (like an iPhone)

battistella

RAW view on MX is 320, that's what I was basing it on.

 

[David Battistella]

RAW view on MX is 320, that's what I was basing it on.

That is what I have always based it on. I treat dragon the same way and it's even cleaner. But I don't have to worry about highlights so much.

Red has "just overnight" changed RAW view on all their cameras to be 800iso 5600k, from about 320iso 5000k, I get it for dragon, but now going back to MX is going to be confusing.

Im guessing the arguement was, if you rate the camera 800 then change the RAW view "look or lut" to 800. I think it was just to make the base look easier to deal with in post and to make it easier to add LUTS to the raw images.

If I stick a lut on a 320 5000k raw image in resolve it looks like shit. If I stick the same lut on a 800iso 5600k REDlog film image it looks "like it's supposed to". Like slog, arri raw, bmd and all the rest of them.

So I think this was more to avoid those sorts of "down the road issues".

it is what it is, I still rate at 320.

Mark at. Offhollywood will probably jump in here to talk about why every client is salivating now that the raw view is set to 800 REDlog film and 5600k

Battistella

 

[Damien Molineaux]

After reading tons of post about noise issue, and i am really tired of reading about them, let see if i can explain something about the v2 dragon. Basically it is the same sensor as the original dragon. What has been updated, or better yet, improved, is the OLPF. The new one gives you many improvements over v1 olpf. But like many things, sometimes to improve some qualities you have to trade with other things. What I am talking about is olpf sensitivity. The new one eats more light, about 1.5 to 2 stops maybe. So the light hitting the sensor is a lot less. So if we rate at 800, in reality the light hitting the sensor is the same as if you were rating somewhere @2000 or more. This of course means that the image will have more "sea monkeys" naturally like any system without NR.
In other words what was 800 before now is 320-500iso . I personally think it is a great trade off considering all the benefits v2 olpf gives you.

If i am wrong please enlight me.

Hi Jacobo,

Where do you get this info from, or is this your deduction?

I'm not seeing any mention of the Motion Mount here, it gives you a global shutter at the cost of 1 and 2/3 stops, if we're at 250 iso, we end up at 80 iso, now that is low...

Cheers,
Damien

 

[Will Keir]

No nonsense, you are going to shoot this camera on the full moon with ambient light only for a scene in the field.

Not shooting in the dark and then trying to suck out light afterwards. Which is the major problem for novice players.