BTS insights - Dragon Calibration temps

[Stewart Read]

Hi All

I have been watching a few BTS featurettes recently where the Dragon has been used.

One thing I have noticed is that often the calibration temp indicators are amber or red quite often, thing has confused me as I thought that green/green indicators were essential for the optimum image in terms of texture/noise ?

Interested to hear thoughts on this as I am fastidious about this but the greatest cinematographers doing the best work seem not so bothered by it !

Keen to learn more about this

Many thanks all.

 

[Stewart Read]

Calibration continued..

Calibration continued..

Here are two examples..

 

[Anton Shavlik]

Running too hot for your calibration crushes the noise a little, I think. It's possible it was intentional or not worried too much about.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Also, photographers will rarely take a photo on set during an actual take. They usually will do so during a dry run. Theres a good chance the calibration was correct during the actual shoot.

 

[Stewart Read]

Good point Bob

 

[Stewart Read]

Though I have just noticed both shots are being recorded

 

[Anton Shavlik]

How much of Straight Outta Compton was anamorphic? I thought the parts that didn't look anamorphic must be zooms, but some of it was shot 6k?

 

[Patrick Tresch]

It's tricky to get the sensor at the callibrated temp. I ususally set core temp to 70C° on the fan and try to use highest cal temp possible at "forseen room temp". So it won't change a lot as the fan is going to keep core temp at the same level (Max) and minimize room temp variations.

The hickup is that the fan is set for the core temp and not for what is important for best picture quality : sensor temp.
It seems that Dragon has a heater built in but don't remember if this was a fact or a rumor...

But yes it's really tricky to get optimum sensor temp all the time. I bet those cameras where rolling out of range.

Pat

 

[Stewart Read]

Thanks Pat

 

[Mohammed Almedfa]

As far as MX, I've found noise to not vary unacceptably when you need to run amber regularly for longer takes, assuming good light levels on set / generally empty noise bars to begin with. Dragon may prefer to be in its ideal range more, can't remember if that is the case.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

This happens if you have the camera set to Adaptive fan mode at your target temp and leave the camera on for a few hours, even on a climate controlled stage. If you set the target temp a few degrees lower than your black shade target, you should be in the green all day assuming you're not shooting in a very hot or cold environment.

 

[Lee Kelly]

"This happens if you have the camera set to Adaptive fan mode at your target temp and leave the camera on for a few hours, even on a climate controlled stage. If you set the target temp a few degrees lower than your black shade target, you should be in the green all day assuming you're not shooting in a very hot or cold environment"

This is quite a nice little trick!
I have been shooting a fair bit in HOT places and sealing a camera in a water housing and noticing my temp are often not green. I am going to play around with this idea a bit more.

Can being cooler than calibration have a similar noise effect?