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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 :)

4 New OLPF's for Dragon!

John it seems I can add the OLPF's to the cart, are you set up to take orders now for the other OLPF's and take payment?
 
Jake, I'll only be taking orders once we're ready to ship. Please mail me via the site or here if you want to go on the waiting list for priority when they ship. I don't intend taking anyone's money until I have stock ready to go. If you have a pressing need to (for example) spend budget while it exists I can make a special arrangement.

I originally listed only the in-stock items on the site, but there was a lot of interest privately expressed in what was coming up, so I've made them public, but not yet purchasable.

It won't be long however :)
 
That said, I will be allowing backorders to accumulate on the IR and Full spectrum versions once stock is exhausted (only a handful left in batch 1), as the parts are now a simple re-order from their various respective sources... no more R&D, so lead times won't be too bad.
 
John Marchant said:
There are various sources on the examples, mostly monochrome, but one good sharpness example on colour Dragon. All with approximately the same formulation of OLPF. Most of the development has been to get rid of problems, rather than change the potential aesthetic... so these are all fair reflections of results, albeit some were earlier configs.

I will be adding some more self explanatory and consistent examples soon - bear in mind that my final configuration rolled in only days ago, and I want to setup proper example material:)

The cloudscape is Monochrome MX IR,
The bug is Dragon Monochrome IR
The LA cityscape is colour Dragon in IR
The big oak tree is Mono MX with super heavy ND and Pola
The singer is Mono MX with IR pass OLPF and tungsten light
Click to expand...

Absolutely wonderful. I love what you are doing...!

Without jabbing red in any which way, would you say that you have improved on any of the issues that the original LLO filter had? Esp in terms of red colour reproduction and halation around bright sources... That would make me very interested.
 
Reproduction of reds in our LLO is pretty much the same, but we're trying some alternate AR coatings to improve transmission in that range at the moment. We're intending the lowcon to give a mixture of slight black lift and smooth colour matched halation around highlights.
 
John Marchant said:
Jake, I'll only be taking orders once we're ready to ship. Please mail me via the site or here if you want to go on the waiting list for priority when they ship. I don't intend taking anyone's money until I have stock ready to go. If you have a pressing need to (for example) spend budget while it exists I can make a special arrangement.

I originally listed only the in-stock items on the site, but there was a lot of interest privately expressed in what was coming up, so I've made them public, but not yet purchasable.

It won't be long however :)
Click to expand...

Great attitude about taking orders once ready to ship, way too many evfs, matte boxes, gimbals etc.,where you pay up front only to hear about delays "to make things better".

Really excited about where you are taking the OLPFs
 
John Marchant said:
Reproduction of reds in our LLO is pretty much the same, but we're trying some alternate AR coatings to improve transmission in that range at the moment. We're intending the lowcon to give a mixture of slight black lift and smooth colour matched halation around highlights.
Click to expand...

Great. Sounds really really awesome. Good work man.
 
The low con is what I was looking for! ;)

Thanks John for this!

Keep us posted about the development of both the LLO and STH...

What about some bundles!?!?!? ;)
 
It's because the quantities are far lower. Making just one by itself costs thousands for example. Add to that the fact that the R&D cost per unit is spread across a far smaller number of final units.

If I thought I'd sell in the high hundreds or thousands I could come close to RED's per unit price. As it stands I'm creating parts in tens not hundreds, and don't really anticipate that changing.
 
one follow-up question for John - since you've been shooting IR on Dragons for some time now -

do you have any particular lens recommendations for shooting IR landscapes - any with coatings or specific behaviors which you feel are superior to others to maximize image quality, etc etc.?
 
IR landscapes... - I personally like the Tokina 11-16 for making big skies and for practicality. Although its not very sharp, it does behave in IR and takes a 77mm filter OK. The Nikon 14-24 is ultrasharp and fantastic for wide landscape imagery, but a slightly bigger chunk of glass, and won't take screw-on filters which is a little annoying in this context.

All the Nikon glass is good in IR, but older stuff needs stopping down from wide open for sharpness, and still suffers with coma etc.

I like the Canon 70-200 too, although again the Nikon 70-200 is better in IR.

Most older cine lenses work pretty well, but can be more prone to hotspots reflecting the shape of the aperture. The stuff that ironically is not always great is modern cine glass, especially zooms, with complex and effective coatings.
 
Phil Holland said:
Very keen! I'm super excited you're making these. I want to do some BW IR work real bad, but I'm very interested in seeing that low contrast option. I think a few folks will really like that.
Click to expand...

Edit: Very easy to do IR for experimentation for $10 before you buy a dedicated olpf. Here is how:

1) Take the olpf off.
2) Put a very wide angle lens
3) Buy a $10 IR filter from ebay
4) Put it in front of the camera and use as max aperture as possible
5) Press that red record button.

Here are the results:

http://red.3dmovies.com/infrared-florida-3d-video_1c4abc17f.html this was done with the Voigtlander 12mm
 
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Fair enough to test that way for 3 minutes of fun... but your back focus will be miles out, meaning you can't hit infinity focus, even if you wind the adjustment all the way to the end. With an ultra-wide you can probably get away with it.

Most of all your sensor is exposed to dust which shows up very badly in the image. Your example has some very nasty dust bunnies, and it only escalates from there.

If you get dust on the OLPF its out of focus at wide apertures due to the separation from the sensor plane and hence essentially invisible. No OLPF means terrible dust issues.
 
Heh. Yes, I'm looking to do more than a little experiment with IR and Black and White. John's solution is a bit more ideal for maintaining a reasonable back focus and of course that dust protection. One of the major benefits of the OLPF positioned where it is on Dragon is for exactly that reason.
 
I think we all understand the difference between something that just about works and something that's suitable for a professional scenario. I would never discourage people from experimentation, but there's a time and a place of course :)
 
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