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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 :)

Black Shade

P

Peter Cote

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I was a little behind on my firmware, and hadn't updated in months. I finally caught up and did a black shade, and I was impressed at the improved black shade time. It took less than 15 minutes. I remember it used to take 30 minutes, and sometimes it might even fail and you'd have to start over. Was very pleased about this. Even faster would still be better yet, but improvement is improvement.
 
Getting closer to the Red One time. Still about 40% slower though. But certainly all of the benefits that come with Epic make that extra few minutes worthwhile. :-)
 
We black shade every day the epic is in use. I have posted a few times on this subject.. I would never shoot any job, paid or personal without a proper black shade first. We may be a bit maniacal but i swear this is how we get the cleanest noise free image.. we record ( no lens needed) for about 15 minutes to bring the temp up to almost over heat... we then let it cool down to normal op temp and then do the black shade... I know it sounds a bit crazy but we honestly get a cleaner picture than just letting camera come up to normal op temp and then shading...
 
I think firmware v4.0 made the big leap in black shading times.
 
If there's a stored calibration in the camera... what's wrong with applying that particular calibration each and every time?

Why calibrate more often than needed?

I'm a bit confused.
 
Nathaniel Kramer said:
We black shade every day the epic is in use. I have posted a few times on this subject.. I would never shoot any job, paid or personal without a proper black shade first. We may be a bit maniacal but i swear this is how we get the cleanest noise free image.. we record ( no lens needed) for about 15 minutes to bring the temp up to almost over heat... we then let it cool down to normal op temp and then do the black shade... I know it sounds a bit crazy but we honestly get a cleaner picture than just letting camera come up to normal op temp and then shading...
Click to expand...
No need to record, just turn fan to minimum and let it heat up until the fan override kicks in...
 
Nathaniel Kramer said:
We black shade every day the epic is in use. I have posted a few times on this subject.. I would never shoot any job, paid or personal without a proper black shade first. We may be a bit maniacal but i swear this is how we get the cleanest noise free image.. we record ( no lens needed) for about 15 minutes to bring the temp up to almost over heat... we then let it cool down to normal op temp and then do the black shade... I know it sounds a bit crazy but we honestly get a cleaner picture than just letting camera come up to normal op temp and then shading...
Click to expand...

We have also found this to be true. I think there might be more going on than just temp. Maybe some kind of electrostatic charge build-upon the sensor, or some other electronic bits?
 
George A. said:
If there's a stored calibration in the camera... what's wrong with applying that particular calibration each and every time?

Why calibrate more often than needed?

I'm a bit confused.
Click to expand...


Because of different exposures, different temperatures (both camera and environment).Each camera does have STATIC noise, which would fit into the lit pixel definition, that are mapped out when doing a Black Shading. And over time, certain characteristics of your sensor that are mapped out in the black shading might change, for instance something could have caused a pixel to get stuck (lit pixel R G B or W). Black shading often will help make sure that your image is as clean as it can be under your current lighting and exposure ability. And it will help keep STATIC noise to a minimum.


And on a side note, I do like the fact that we have a simple way to export calibration maps now too... allowing us to build a "library" of different temperature and exposure calibration maps for a camera (I personally wouldn't apply a cal map from one camera on a different camera). Adding it "permanently" is nice but it still clocks in I think a bit long to apply. The "temporary" option is nice and only takes a few seconds, you just have to remember to re-load the map if you power cycle.
 
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The only time I've ever experienced corrupt frames with either of my Epics is when I black shaded for 48 timebase and changed to a 24 timebase. Didn't black shade for the 24 and noticed I had a warning on my camera UI that my black shade was not suited for what I was shooting but couldn't stop to fix it. Paid for that later in post when I had to individually find and delete the corrupt frames that caused problems on my Premiere Pro timeline and especially in AME.
 
Steve Sherrick said:
Getting closer to the Red One time. Still about 40% slower though. But certainly all of the benefits that come with Epic make that extra few minutes worthwhile. :-)
Click to expand...


The 40% difference in black shading time between the R1 and the EPIC makes up for the time it took to boot up the R1...
 
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