Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Best iso setting for dragon

P

Pascal Payant

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
219
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Montreal,Canada
I've read a lot of thread that they are saying that i need to shoot everything outside at 800iso for the best noise free resutlt and Everything iso320 for inside. Is that true? even for the Dragon?

what is the best setting for exposure inside and outside.
thank you
 
You can safely shoot between 250 and 1000ISO if you actually expose correctly for those ISO ratings. Many people set their camera to 800ISO but then raise the exposure by 1.5 stops in post. That is not shooting 800ISO. That is shooting 2000ISO with the brightness turned up on your camera monitor.

Use a light meter to make sure your light sources are hot enough to match your ISO setting, or use the in camera exposure tools such as False Color to make sure your actually getting the desired amount of light. The DSMC user manual has a great explanation for how to use the exposure tools. I highly recommend reading it.

Hope that helps.

Julio
 
From another thread I posted into. These are the pillars of good exposure on RED.

Raw view
histogram
goal posts
exposure tool


become best friends with these four things and you dramatically increase the quality and elasticity of the images you make.
Learn what each does intimately. Test them. These four things in that order will tell you how much light is hitting the sensor.


Oh, don't forget your light meter either. :)


Battistella
 
I'm having a hard time understand why it's noisy on the goal bar when i'm at 800 ISO and perfectly balanced in the middle range of my histogram. Can anybody help me?
no matter what i do , going outside, inside. It's grainy. When i see footage from the sony F55 it's crispy clean like day and night. I know i must do something wrong cause it's suposed to be the best camera.
 
Pascal Payant said:
I'm having a hard time understand why it's noisy on the goal bar when i'm at 800 ISO and perfectly balanced in the middle range of my histogram. Can anybody help me?
no matter what i do , going outside, inside. It's grainy. When i see footage from the sony F55 it's crispy clean like day and night. I know i must do something wrong cause it's suposed to be the best camera.
Click to expand...

Hi Pascal,

For the moment, you may benefit from DEB and NEAT VIDEO.

Thank you very much

Fury
 
The F55 does a significant amount of noise reduction in camera. Sony, IMO, has the most sophisticated on board image processing portfolio in the industry. To my taste, the F55 image looks a bit "airbrushed" and lacks texture.

The data set created by the RED cameras is intended to include as much information as possible with the "RAW development" step intended to be the second half of the process. If I end up killing the bottom stop in post (RCX-P, etc) to reduce the noise component then I have "crushed" the blacks vs the original file - but if I'm looking at a stop that a different camera wouldn't have even put into the output signal…

If you really don't like noise then rating at 800ISO might not be your comfort zone. With the excellent highlight roll off of Dragon OLPF V2 I'd suggest you rate at 400ISO, nail the skin tones or other key elements and not worry about the top end.

Cheers - #19
 
Keep your histogram levels to the right. Expose so the traffic light warnings to the right of the histogram are just about to peak.
If you float your histogram levels around the middle then your going to be a stop down, favor the left of your histogram and you will be two stops under.
I rate the sensor at 250 for ultra clean results. 800 is more than safe enough but live by the rules above for best results.
 
I recently filmed at the SECC in Glasgow at 1000 ISO and the images where great, I was super pleased with them.

A.
 
The DSMC manual isn't explicit about this and I'd like to know: if all the stoplights are off, does that mean that no single photosite is full? I have a feeling that the subtly in whites can be lost because a small fraction of that area of the image consists of outlying values. Like clouds for example lacking some definition.
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately, this thread doesn't encourage me to send in my Epic to get upgraded. Are you guys pleased with the dragon or not?
 
Lee Dashiell said:
Unfortunately, this thread doesn't encourage me to send in my Epic to get upgraded. Are you guys pleased with the dragon or not?
Click to expand...

I'm very pleased.

The way I see it, the problems people have with Dragon is that they film with it like an MX, but they shouldn't, it's a different sensor and olpf.

If you like how you film with MX, then maybe Dragon isn't for you for now (until they release the V3 olpf, "Dragon Standard").
Jarred Land said:
Dragon Standard : In the middle of the "Low Light Optimized" and the " Skin Tone - Highlight " .
Click to expand...


If your willing to change some things, here's what to look out for:
250-400 ISO on Dragon is what you should use, forget 800 unless you need it.

Highlights roll off great on Dragon, so it's best to expose to the right in my opinion, specially with V2 olpf.
If you expose to the middle like MX, then if you raise the exposure up in post, it will look noisy. This isn't an issue with V1 olpf (which is cleaner in shadows and low light, but does not have skin tone or new color, and no IR protection).

Dragon takes about 15 seconds to turn on, but also it's very important to wait a few minutes for the temperature to raise up, or you'll get noisy footage (T will be red, then turns to green after a few minutes. Some people press record so the temperature raises faster, then format the card.)

Blackshading is more important on Dragon than MX, but also you're able to have 4 saved slots.

------------------------------------------------------

Here are the things that make the update worth it:
Highlights are way better, specially when it's over exposed, it gives a nice roll off.

Skin tones look amazing.

No need for Infrared ND filters.

Redcode compression is a step above MX, it works differently. I've filmed from 8:1 to 14:1, looks great.

You'll be able to switch olpf's when needed in the near future, as seen here http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?121658-Interchangable-OLPFs



It does take a while to get used to filming with Dragon, but you'll easily notice the 2 stops above, at least I did and I loved it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top