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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 :)

comparison with a DLSR please?

Last but not least, here is the beautiful silhouette of downtown San Diego. Shot at an f/11.

RED:
1_RED.jpg


5D:
1_5D.jpg


XTi:
1_XTi.jpg


I figured that everyone would like full TIFFs from these sequences to play with on their own... to color correct (as it's difficult to match the different cameras on a moment's notice) or to compare, so here are links to all of the above shots:

Flowers:
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/3_RED.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/3_5D.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/3_XTi.tif

Restaurant:
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/2_RED.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/2_5D.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/2_XTi.tif

Temple:
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/4_RED.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/4_5D.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/4_XTi.tif

City:
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/1_RED.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/1_5D.tif
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/1_XTi.tif
 
It appears that some of the RED images - especially the city - are slightly soft; this also reinforces the fact that it's difficult to focus in 4K from a sub-720p monitor in bright sunlight. The dSLRs definitely have an advantage here with autofocus capabilities. My method was to use the long end of the lens combined with the "2x zoom" function to see what areas were sharp - and they look fine oversampled to the 720-1080 range (really, let's be realistic with what we're getting here!), but at full 4K they definitely suffer. Perhaps this was operator error (I definitely wasn't measuring focus here with a tape), but does bring to light the fact that using the camera in a "run and gun" type situation is definitely less forgiving than a 1/3" or 2/3" chip camera ever would be. With great power comes great responsibility!

I do believe, however, that this is why we see far more 720-1080ish footage from other RED users; it just looks better oversampled. Even Jim's images are almost always 2K or less.

I will reiterate that this was something I did for the benefit of the original poster; the methods were crude and although I did ensure that the variables between cameras were as similar as they possibly could be for each shot, it was not a controlled, standardized test. Use the results as you will.

Any questions, I'm happy to answer. Please enjoy.
 
Thank you Häak*. Great performance as one of the most valuable posters here. And now with something truly pioneer over these same boards. They are in any way other than as posts like these are: gold.

* EDIT -- Häakon
 
Haäkon excellent.
Did you focus with the lens open, and then stopped down to f/11?

If so I dont believe mis focusing could be an issue...
 
Anders Holck said:
Haäkon excellent.
Did you focus with the lens open, and then stopped down to f/11?

If so I dont believe mis focusing could be an issue...
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's how I did it. It always looked tack sharp on the monitor, so I'm not sure what the discrepancy might be. Jim has warned that there is no sharpening by RED by default, and that can cause images to look soft compared to other solutions as well. The weird thing is if you look at the shot of the berries, it's clear that they are on the focal plane - yet at 100% they don't resolve nearly as well as the SLRs do. I've shot plenty of great looking stuff with the RED - and I am comparing it to a high end SLR camera here, not an HVX - but it still feels a little softer to me than it should. *shrugs* That's why it's good to test!
 
Astonished comparison test, my friend.
 
My gut says: "Strenght of OLPF+Wavelets+Choice of debayer algorithm"

Try putting a 1 pixel median filter on the XTI image.

Do you have the raw XTI image?
 
Sure, I'll upload one when I get home. I gotta say, using CF for both RED and the dSLRs sure is nice. Looking at these images, I'm really amazed at how good RED's latitude is. It easily holds up to the other cameras.

Thanks Evin and Emanuel for your kind words as well!
 
Note to self:
Having a tack sharp image as a postprocessed DSLR produces, might not be ideal for images in motion, due to aliasing.
 
Häakon said:
Sure, I'll upload one when I get home. I gotta say, using CF for both RED and the dSLRs sure is nice. Looking at these images, I'm really amazed at how good RED's latitude is. It easily holds up to the other cameras.

Thanks Evin and Emanuel for your kind words as well!
Click to expand...
You're welcome! RED ONE goes very well. As well, the RED 18-50mm. Very filmic/cinematic. Beyond the DSLR look.
 
Fantastic work, Häakon! Thanks a lot, this is exactly what I had in mind when I asked for a comparison.

I hope people are not going to compare these images pixel for pixel. It shows that the RED camera is comparable in dynamic range, noise and color to a DLSR and that is a great thing.
 
Yeah, I've been extremely happy with the 18-50... it's one thing I definitely recommend people purchase if they don't already have good glass. I can't wait for the 50-150!

Anders, here's the "berries" XTi RAW file:

http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/IMG_4915.CR2

Sander: No problem - I'm glad it worked out! I'm impressed with the qualities you listed above too. This is the first digital acquisition tool I feel like I can really get behind and not have to make any compromises with when I shoot. I'm still working on my 35mm vs. RED tests, but I am very happy with RED's performance there as well. We live in a really good time to be making movies!
 
Anders Holck said:
Note to self:
Having a tack sharp image as a postprocessed DSLR produces, might not be ideal for images in motion, due to aliasing.
Click to expand...

The choice of OLPF for motion camera is different with a still camera. Aliasing in motion is much more offensive. Also, pulling focus become much much harder if you design a system to be too sharp. The perception of when something is out of focus occurs faster and the depth of field starts to 'feel' shallower.

Haakon, do you live in Coronado?
 
Häakon said:
Yeah, that's how I did it. It always looked tack sharp on the monitor, so I'm not sure what the discrepancy might be. Jim has warned that there is no sharpening by RED by default, and that can cause images to look soft compared to other solutions as well. The weird thing is if you look at the shot of the berries, it's clear that they are on the focal plane - yet at 100% they don't resolve nearly as well as the SLRs do. I've shot plenty of great looking stuff with the RED - and I am comparing it to a high end SLR camera here, not an HVX - but it still feels a little softer to me than it should. *shrugs* That's why it's good to test!
Click to expand...

Very nice stuff Hakkon. Before directing I pulled focus for quite a while and as far as a wide shot of a city at f11 goes I can tell you that pretty much everything in frame will be sharp no matter how off focus is wrong. Any focus position between 20'-infinity will compose an overall sharp image. I would suspect 1 of 2 things. 1 a badly collimated focal flange distance (Of the first 100 cameras I pm'd and emailed over 20 owners and worked with 6 other reds and not one had been properly set when delivered) so your FFD may be an issue? 2 Jim told us no sharpening is added so that may just be the way they are. All that aside the images you posted look great.
 
Häakon thanks a lot.

Amazing test.

I would have one suggestion.

You could use a full manual lens (with adapter) for example from Nikon, Leica or Zeiss to perform focusing manual like on RED.

Is this possible?

I am so far away from San Diego otherwise I will offer you my manual still lenses (zooms and primes) for testing.
 
Okay I had a closer look at the tiff's. Some comments:

Especially in the flower shot you can get the RED to look as sharp as the DLSR's with some sharpening. The city shot however seems to be a bit soft, maybe a problem with manual focussing? I find it VERY hard to use manual focus lenses on my D200 and it usually takes me a few tries to get it right.

Fine detail looks very different on the RED than on the DLSR's - look at the palmtrees in the temple shot. I am saying different and not soft because maybe it is supposed to look that way because of the different OLPC filter. Or could it be that we see wavelet compression here? Anyway, I think actors will be happy with it, makes their skin look smoother :-)

The RED seems to clip highlights a bit earlier than the DSLR's. In the city shot, although the RED shot seems darker, the whites are clipped while in the DSLR's they are not. But then again, these are shot with an original RED #79 so there could be some improvement with the new cameras. Or maybe there is some room in RAW processing.

Noise seems to be very well controlled, more akin the 5D than the XTi which is quite amazing since the 5D's sensor is twice the size of the RED one's. And that's without the camera upgrade so it might even get better than that.

As a photographer I am very happy with these tests and they tell me more than many of the clips posted. A camera like the 5D is the reason why most photographers have gone digital and seeing the RED hold up to it I imagine film is going to have a hard time in the motion picture world.
 
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