ARRI Christmas LUT

[Anton Esteban]

Merry Christmas RED users! I've been working on a RED Helium to ARRI REC 709 LUT for a minute and I finally have a decent Beta Version going. Now the methodology I've used to get there is extremely unscientific and that's why its still a Beta version. At this point I've just reverse engineered a couple of side by side shots of RED Helium and Alexa clips that some Redusers have kindly posted in the past. I want to continue to refine this LUT but I need as many side by side comparisons to get there. So if anyone wants to help me with my little project, please get in touch or post more side by side comparisons for me to get a better LUT going.

Ok, a few notes on the LUT. One thing I'm sure anyone on this board who's ever used an Alexa has noticed is that an ARRI clip is a lot brighter than a corresponding RED clip at the same ISO. Reverse engineering the REC 709 LUT I realized that ARRI rises a lot of the Shadow information into there RAW file. This is great because this is the strong suit of the RED Helium chip, there's so much clean information to dig from the shadows. This being said, its important to note that if you do use this LUT to shoot I recommend setting at iso 800 and leave it there. From my unscientific comparisons with the IPP2 LUT, the ISO rating is basically doubled, meaning an ARRI shot at 800ISO looks right on a RED clip at IPP2 at ISO 1600. I'm including a link on this post with my BETA ARRI christmas LUT and some stills so you can compare. Also, remember that a proper White Balance is extremely important to get the best color out of the LUT.

The LUT and the stills were all made in Da Vinci Resolve 12.5.3. This LUT will evolve as Da Vinci Resolve and the RED IPP2 pipeline grows.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/x0ns1p6vwgdnmw0/AABwTLE-bYewu-Wr5CI9u8f5a?dl=0

 

[James T Mather]

Great will this work with a Dragon?

 

[Anton Esteban]

So far I only did this for the Helium sensor. If people can post enough side by side comparisons between a Dragon and an Alexa I wouldn't mind taking a crack at making one for the Dragon.

 

[Anton Esteban]

One thing I forgot to mention, you need to use RWG color space and Log3G10 for it to work.

 

[Nick Morrison]

This makes sense. My friend owns both an Epic Dragon and Alexa Mini and says at 800 Iso the Mini is twice as bright.

 

[James T Mather]

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.

 

[Dan Landoni]

Also in for a dragon version. Tried it but not looking so good. If you need R3D's from a Scarlet-w let me know.

 

[Alex Sandman]

I get an error message when trying to use this in Premiere. Could this have anything to do with the fact that it downloads as either a .txt or .html? I changed the extension to .cube but still isn't working.

 

[Alex Sandman]

nevermind, seems to be working now. thanks for doing this! excited to mess around with it

 

[Anton Esteban]

Hey James if you own an Alexa and a Dragon why don't you send me a couple of side by side RAW shots in different lighting circumstances so I can work on an ARRI to Dragon LUT. Using a DSC labs chart would make it even easier. Send me a daylight shot, tungsten, HMI, and general night shot, this would be a good start.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Merry Christmas RED users! I've been working on a RED Helium to ARRI REC 709 LUT for a minute and I finally have a decent Beta Version going. Now the methodology I've used to get there is extremely unscientific and that's why its still a Beta version. At this point I've just reverse engineered a couple of side by side shots of RED Helium and Alexa clips that some Redusers have kindly posted in the past. I want to continue to refine this LUT but I need as many side by side comparisons to get there. So if anyone wants to help me with my little project, please get in touch or post more side by side comparisons for me to get a better LUT going.

There is no LUT that will do this consistently. What you need is color correction, which goes beyond just a LUT. Shoot the DSC charts, check the scopes, use calibrated monitors, and I would say you can match the cameras to a point. There are no shortcuts to this, and a LUT is going to be too destructive to work under all conditions, particularly day / night / exteriors / exteriors / underexposures / overexposures. This is a moving target that requires skill and experience to solve.

If one could just use a magic LUT to make one camera look like another, then we'd all have $995 cameras that could look like a Red Dragon or a Helium or an Alexa or a Sony F65 at the push of a button. And it doesn't work that way. There are a thousand different elements involved, all chaos factor.

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.

Usually what I see are more issues on Red with yellow than greens per se. Sodium sources are tough, and 3200° sources can be problematic when underexposed. Art Adams has covered this on his site, and I agree with a lot of his findings. (I have yet to see much with Helium yet, but I liked the last couple of Weapon projects I've worked on.)

A lot of this can be verified if you check out the DSC charts, like the One Shot or the Chroma DuMonde.

 

[Anton Esteban]

Yes you're absolutely right that there's no silver bullet for every occasion but what I find useful about this LUT is using it when shooting with the Helium sensor because it shows how much more shadow detail you have in any given shot. This allows me to protect the highlights when shooting which I find to be a weak point of the Helium sensor.

 

[Sabovic Adis]

Hey James if you own an Alexa and a Dragon why don't you send me a couple of side by side RAW shots in different lighting circumstances so I can work on an ARRI to Dragon LUT. Using a DSC labs chart would make it even easier. Send me a daylight shot, tungsten, HMI, and general night shot, this would be a good start.

Check these:
- Alexa http://www.cinematography.net/edited-pages/alexa-uwe-2015.html

- Red Epic Dragon STH http://www.cinematography.net/edited-pages/Dragon-Skin-uwe-2015.html

- Red Epic Dragon LLO http://cinematography.net/edited-pages/Dragon-LL-uwe-2015.html

Good luck! :biggrin:

 

[keith soucy]

BOOM! Yep. Very nice work. Thank you for sharing!!

 

[Tim Daust]

has Graeme seen this?

 

[Sabovic Adis]

^^
No clue! :rofl:
Think that's Red's primedirective - to make Red look like Alexa? I think Red's doing it better... :biggrin:

@Keith
Ur welcome! :thumbsup:

 

[Chris Sharman]

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. .

Best auto-correct I have seen in a while.

 

[Aaron Lochert]

I'm preferring this to the IPP2 rec709 LUT in just about every single scenario.

First: Anton's LUT. Second: IPP2 with same raw settings except +1 exposure.

More here:
https://postimg.org/gallery/1gzlhowtc/

 

[Chris Bourke]

Wow, beautiful work Anton! One of the best bits of correction I've seen! Excited to try this out.

 

[Sabovic Adis]

Aaron, are those Helium frames all shot with old firmware? I see a green tint in them "IPP2" samples which, I believe, shouldn't apear with new calibration...:biggrin: