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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 :)

ARRI Christmas LUT

Šabović Adis;1699026 said:
Aaron, are those Helium frames all shot with old firmware? I see a green tint in them "IPP2" samples which, I believe, shouldn't appear with new calibration...:biggrin:
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These all are, yes. So maybe the IPP2 LUT isn't a good point of reference. That said, there's not really any point of reference for anything from Helium before v6.3.73. So for now, at least we can say stuff previously shot on Helium looks great with this LUT. For current firmware, I'll have to set up some shooting/testing so I can see how it fares against current firmware + IPP2.

But before I can do that, that leads me to the next question:

Anton, was this LUT created using old firmware versions on Helium? Is it safe to assume that using current firmware will have unintended effects in the output?
 
Full disclosure I made this LUT with two shots, the ones I posted in the Dropbox so yes it's with the old firmware. But I have tested this with my RED helium weapon with the new firmware and it's still a marked improvement, for me, then the IPP2 LUT because it helps you shoot to protect those highlights! RED did an amazing job with the Helium chip you just need to dig in those shadows and you have a sensor that I think stands up to any camera out there now. When I made this LUT I wanted color that fell somewhere in between the Alexa rec 709 LUT and RED's IPP2 transform. I wanted less yellow skin tones, better sky colors, better color contrast, and more subtle gradation of tones. This LUT is far from perfect. I said I need more side by side comparisons. Maybe we need to even expand this beyond the ALEXA. RED got it right with this new sensor, now it's up to us to make it the best it can be!
 
Any screengrabs of footage using this? I'm curious....
 
Thanks for doing this Anton, this is very interesting..

The Blue color in Arri Alexa looks similiar to IPP2 LUT, in your LUT it's brighter, but everything else seems very close.

For the Night shot of Target Logo, how does it look good on Arri, but looks too bright on Helium?
I know Graeme said something like the RedWideGamut would show this better, would lowering the Saturation fix it?
I don't have the R3D for that shot (in Anton's Dropbox)
If you could post it along with the Arri Raw file, I'd appreciate it.
 
I had to make some compromises for this LUT to work in as many situations possible. I found that I got my look even closer to each lighting setup but then it worked less as an all around fix. I did this on two shots, I can definitely tweak this to be better. My wish list is a couple of people with different skin tones with a DSC Labs chart shot in daylight at different times of day along with shots of the same people under Tungsten, HMI, LED, and mixed lighting sources. If we could expand this test to shoot Alexa, Dragon (New and Old), Film, Panasonic Varicam, and a Sony F65 then maybe we could get something going that would be the best of all worlds! It's never going to be perfect for all situations but I know we can squeeze out eve more amazing things form this sensor.

As for the Target shot, you can find the R3D's in one of the original Helium posts. The sign is clipped and thus the color is not right. You could fix it pretty easily with a secondary correction in Resolve. My main focus with this LUT is to make skintones look better--to my eyes--and use it as a shooting tool to get the most dynamic range out of the sensor. That being said, I think I can improve how this LUT looks with out of gamut lights. This camera is so good in lowlight compared to any previous RED camera. It's also a lot more color accurate. I always found that the color from my Dragon can get 'splotchy' for lack of a better word as soon as you shot outside of daylight. The Helium sensor is definitely an improvement.
 
What are people's opinions on owning a helium + alexa and using them together for corporate work with lots of 2-camera interviews? To me, helium with IPP2 already looks reminiscent of the arri look in some situations. I can't really articulate exactly what it is, but I definitely see it. I'm thinking that with Anton's LUT or just with a little tweaking, you could mix the 2 together without great effort. I have a Weapon Helium and Epic-W, but I'm strongly considering selling one and getting a Mini and playing them both to their strengths. I ruled out this approach with Dragon, but with Helium I feel it's realistic. Thoughts?
 
I can shoot a comparison of Weapon Helium, Alexa Mini and Sony F65 all on a Zeiss LWZ.2 if anyone is interested?
 
Before people get overly excited with LUT building and get unrealistic expectations it is beneficial to stress:

1) One chart side by side cannot give a referent basis for camera analysis and matching and compared to full signal range gives a very rough info, dependent on the properties of light captured reflected from particular chips on the chart with particular color values.

2) Whatever you can export from Resolve in form of a LUT is limited by
a) signal manipulation aspects of the tools used
b) principles of color space used through which the tools operate
c) what Resolve is able to translate from those manipulations to a LUT

3) No, matching shot charts in Resolve and exporting a LUT will not copy one camera look/behavior to another. It may only make some things look "closer" with particular colors + light properties, with a price of unpredictable signal behavior in many aspects as circumstances and captured signal basis vary.

Nevertheless, tests are always useful and greatly appreciated.
 
James T Mather said:
I own both an Alexa and Dragons - the alexa has a very soft response - more pastel and requires much less light than the dragon (roughly twice as bright - 800=1600). The shadows on the Alexa are way more "open" for want of a better word (kinda more HDR). The red creates more primary colours than the Alexa which seems more secondary. The Alexa also is more flexible under mixed sources (sodium etc) the red tends to spike green I notice. The gradation in the shadows on the Alexa seems more refined too - more gradation - the Dragon kind of goes grey and flatlines from what I can see. Also the Arri noise floor is nonexistent - you can give it virtually zero light and it will still produce a brainless image under a wide variety of circumstances.

Congrats and thanks for the LUT. From your examples it seems that you've cracked the dragon shadows. If you happen to get a dragon version going I'd love to have a look. Nice one.
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To this day, the most beautiful blacks and lowlights I've ever seen were shot by Jeff Cronenweth with an Epic-MX on Social Network. The idea that the Red's blacks are unavailable is sorta ludicrous and DR tests don't bare that out.
 
Justin McAleece said:
To this day, the most beautiful blacks and lowlights I've ever seen were shot by Jeff Cronenweth with an Epic-MX on Social Network. The idea that the Red's blacks are unavailable is sorta ludicrous and DR tests don't bare that out.
Click to expand...

The MX sensor was far less noisy than the Dragon.
 
Šabović Adis;1699353 said:
How's a sensor with a bigger latitude more noisy?
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Just like the low light olpf on Dragon reduced visible noise, the MX had another handling of registered light. That's probably why it clips so soon compared to Dragon.
 
Ok guys, this is happening. We are shooting tomorrow in our studio with following cameras: Sony F65, Weapon Helium, Epic Dragon, Alexa Mini. All on Zeiss LWZ.2. I have a Colorchecker Chart I will be shooting next to an assistant for skin tone reference.

Light will be a Broncolor Para 800W HMI fully defocused for nice shadows.
Anything particular you want me to shoot?

I will share all the raw image data shot.

Best,
Chris
 
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