Achtel "True Blue" OLPF. Remove Magenta from Water and Skies. *Review Coming*

[Corey Benoit]

Achtel "True Blue" OLPF. Remove Magenta from Water and Skies. *Review Coming*

So I was speaking with Pawel. The owner of Achtel. They manufacture underwater housings and aqua equipment for film, theatre and IMAX cameras as well. If you shoot RED you know that the skies sometimes can have a whitish look to them. I notice it myself that its really hard to get a natural blue sky sometimes. Well according to Achtel, their new OLPF will remove the Magenta Pollution giving us an accurate color spectrum which in turn will make water/skies look blue without destroying any other colors or making any other impact.

How about low light? How about sharpness? Does it work? Highlight protection? I will be doing a full review of this OLPF in the next week.

The cost is about $2900 AU. Which is around $2100 USD. So its pretty pricey. Lets see if it can do what it supposed to.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

I have all current Dragon OLPF offerings from RED and KipperTie's IR & Full Spectrum...

This sounds like an other interesting one... But yeah at almost 4 times the most expensive one currently available I'll say it is VERY pricy.

 

[Stacey Spears]

I assume the price is simply a volume issue. If it were in the same price range as John's, it would be a no brainer to try. At this point, I am waiting for the email from Red saying its your turn to upgrade to Weapon, so no OLPFs until I have my Weapon.

John posted some spectrums a while back. No Dragon spectrum though. Wish I had a monochromator.

Pawel is really smart engineer and I am sure it is awesome for underwater. Corey, are you doing underwater tests or just all tests in general? Would be nice to compare it to the RED underwater OLPF if you do underwater tests.

If you shoot RED you know that the skies sometimes can have a whitish look to them.

Some of the white sky problems are simply the dynamic range of SDR. In HDR, you can get the blue sky. Take a look at my attachment(s). Same clip, one exported as 800 ISO (whitish sky) and the other 100 ISO (blue sky). A colorist can do their magic and have the nice blue sky in SDR.

 

[Brett Harrison]

This also comes with its own colour science/post workflow.

I am definitely intrigued. Graeme Nattress has posted pictures of the spectrum response and nixed the whole concept of this filter, but I am still open to the benefits of this method.

Just need some footage of regular stuff to determine what's happening.

If you look at the blue channel on RED footage it's often quite shocking.

 

[Will Keir]

We have missed Pawel Achtel since he was banned from this forum. It's cool to hear he's still developing OLPFs.

This was the issue that ruined his relationship with Jarred and RED. He knew the answer to the issue with magenta casts in UW RED footage long before the others but he held his help at a price and Jarred wouldn't play.

Whatever it was, it doesn't seem worth it now, too bad those two couldn't have worked together...

So I was speaking with Pawel. The owner of Achtel. They manufacture underwater housings and aqua equipment for film, theatre and IMAX cameras as well. If you shoot RED you know that the skies sometimes can have a whitish look to them. I notice it myself that its really hard to get a natural blue sky sometimes. Well according to Achtel, their new OLPF will remove the Magenta Pollution giving us an accurate color spectrum which in turn will make water/skies look blue without destroying any other colors or making any other impact.

How about low light? How about sharpness? Does it work? Highlight protection? I will be doing a full review of this OLPF in the next week.

The cost is about $2900 AU. Which is around $2100 USD. So its pretty pricey. Lets see if it can do what it supposed to.

 

[Corey Benoit]

I hope I am not going to be on radar for talking about Pawel. I am wondering why all of this went down over OLPF's.

 

[Matt Ryan]

All I can say is this is way too astronomically priced. I'm sure a lot went into it and getting it perfect, but why would anyone pay $2,100 for a single OLPF when you can own John's low con kit and all of RED's olpf's for the same price of just the one olpf by Pawel. If this is as good as reported, then at $500 I'm sure there would be quite a few orders. I doubt many will purchase at $2,100...

 

[John Marchant]

Trying to be polite... And I should probably stay out of this... However:

I am unconvinced by the thinking behind this. If it works, it has to be at a cost that is not being described.

Is there a published response curve for Pawel's glass? He must have one. That's the only bit of tech information that counts IMHO.

Does it have a true OLPF section? The one picture I've seen looked like a single layer glass, but that could just be pre-production or just the nature of the photo.

A commercially relevant test would be to compare to Red's H20 OLPF ...

 

[Will Keir]

Does matter, Pawel is not here to answer any questions. He was banned.

Trying to be polite... And I should probably stay out of this... However:

I am unconvinced by the thinking behind this. If it works, it has to be at a cost that is not being described.

Is there a published response curve for Pawel's glass? He must have one. That's the only bit of tech information that counts IMHO.

Does it have a true OLPF section? The one picture I've seen looked like a single layer glass, but that could just be pre-production or just the nature of the photo.

A commercially relevant test would be to compare to Red's H20 OLPF ...

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I have seen some underwater tests, and kinda get what the H2O and Pawel try to accomplish.

Would love to see results and analysis.

Also the analysis of gains and losses.

Once you filter anything, you lose something.

Not questioning Graeme or John here, but I'd love to see how different approaches affects the image.
Non-destructive would of course be the right way for a generalist tool, but for specialist filters... Destruction can be good.
As long as you know how it works.

As to magenta/white sky, that seems to me to be an MX thingy which is long gone.
Colors on Dragon are a different thing under normal conditions. Dynamics, too

 

[David Battistella]

A couple of things.

If if red is not introducing a color science to go with the olpf I think it could something that generates FUD.

If if the use of the olpf means you have to use specific color science settings in RCX, what happens if those parameters change or become obsolete.

has anyone, anywhere, published what any of the OLPF response curves are?

Just some food for thought and a few personal curiosities.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

With REDs (and I guess John's if they are recognized the same way) OLPFs, I'd guess the matrix is changed to adjust for the different filters color-bias. The posts here on result f you have chosen wrong on LLO vs STH points at that.

I can see how a that could be corrected for in a non-"obsolete" manner, and why the different OLPF's can feel like different cameras (as to spectral response, and not only high/lowlight response).

As to colors/DR, the Dragons I have had (and by now I have had 3), I could give them each some definite character.

 

[David Battistella]

Yup.

All of of this is quite important at the point of capture, as we have seen with having the wrong OLPF selected, you severely limit the range in which you can bend footage (and in some way that is a destructive process).

i can understand the thinking, "well I can create any OLPF I want and then just set parameters in RCX to decode the RAW", but you have to have a matrix set at the point of capture for that to be effective.

With the known OLPFs the camera matrix is set when it is swapped out. (I don't know if johns are based on the sth or LLO color matrix or how his OLPFs bake in colors but presumably there is a guideline from him on this.

I know John is a very bright guy and he's working with RED on this stuff so I trust the work he has been doing.

I'm not saying this other system would not produce good results, but I just haven't seen anything other than this thread.

 

[Michael Hastings]

I hope I am not going to be on radar for talking about Pawel. I am wondering why all of this went down over OLPF's.

Pawel rubbed a lot of people the wrong way for quite a long period and long before the OLPF issue - I think that was just the last straw.

 

[Stacey Spears]

If if red is not introducing a color science to go with the olpf I think it could something that generates FUD.

This is the trouble with any non-Red OLPF. Would be nice if there was a way for a custom matrix to be used that could support a 3rd party OLPF. With that said, John has done some great work within the constraints he has.

I hope I am not going to be on radar for talking about Pawel.

While I don't know for sure, I think you are going to be just fine. Nothing wrong with sharing info and this thread has been civil. At the end of the day, we are all on the quest for the best.

 

[Will Keir]

Yes but I saw much more good and progression on the Underwater Bubble Blowers forum when he was active.

He was right about MTF numbers on his housing with NIKNOS vs others, several issues, he solved the magenta issue long before any others and as much as he was abrasive, he was hassled for the posts he was corrected about. It seemed people just got sick of him promoting himself and his products and maybe that was Pawels mistake, he was better in some ways, he got stuck in the mud, willing to debate anyone, even down the name calling, a fighter and pretty brilliant too.

I never saw him lose a factual debate.

Pawel rubbed a lot of people the wrong way for quite a long period and long before the OLPF issue - I think that was just the last straw.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Not intending to get my feet "wet", but Pawel was a resource here, up to a point.
And I miss him in many ways.
Like David and me , he was part of the real early days.

At some point he decided he had all the right answers and everyone else were wrong.
Which in a way is fair.

And tend to happen when you invest a lot of resources in research and development to get the perfect "something".
Comes with ambition.
(And I don't have any opinions on his findings, as I am not competent to evaluate them.
I just can remotely relate to the research bit...)

That's about when you should collect your savings of a few billion USD and start a company called something like "Blue Digital Camera inc", and open a forum called
"blueuser.net".

That said, I miss him.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

I don't understand the banning policy. People getting bored about other people have the right to ignore a specific "hot" thread. There is no need of banning people.

Pat

 

[Corey Benoit]

I can understand to a degree what happened now. For the color matrix. He based it off of H20 and LLO. I am currently in testing now. It comes with the frame, screws in just like the RED filters. Then switch to H20. Done.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Can't wait to see your results Corey.