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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 :)

Cropping rather than scaling down?

C

Chris Pyle

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I am needing to shoot aerials for a curved screen experience. The theater will have 3 projectors and the image will be split into 3 and re-stiched by the server and projectors. The vendor who is designing the theater is telling me it would be better to shoot and finish pixel for pixel (the projection size will be somewhere around 3K - maybe a little less). I would prefer to shoot in 5K and scale down but they tell me that will introduce pixel artifacts or blurring and that I should shoot in 4K and crop the image down to the desired size for projection, rather than scaling it. One of my problems with this is that I need to shoot very wide and if I crop that much I'm going to need a really really wide lens...
Does this sound right? I am fairly new to shooting with Red but I was under the impression that it is better to capture more information and use the full sensor rather than just a portion of it. Will scaling down introduce unwanted artifacts or softness?
Thanks much,
Chris Pyle
 
Scale! It resolves better detail, a sharper image, smaller noise pattern....Shooting pixel for pixel is a bad idea with RED (flames!!) Test it for yourself.
 
Matthew Scott said:
Scale! It resolves better detail, a sharper image, smaller noise pattern....Shooting pixel for pixel is a bad idea with RED (flames!!) Test it for yourself.
Click to expand...
Ha Ha, thank you. I will test for sure. But I figured that was the case. I just wanted to throw it out there to make sure i wasn't crazy....
 
I also recommend shooting 5K and scaling down to 3k. For all the reasons Matthew listed. Will look much better. "Scaling Down" is, in esseence, the heart of RED's workflow. Dragon shoots 6K to scale down to 4K and other delivery formats.
 
You also use more of the sensor shooting 5k over 3k.

Nick Morrison said:
I also recommend shooting 5K and scaling down to 3k. For all the reasons Matthew listed. Will look much better. "Scaling Down" is, in esseence, the heart of RED's workflow. Dragon shoots 6K to scale down to 4K and other delivery formats.
Click to expand...
 
So while I agree with all of the above advice... Is there a bigger picture here where we don't know all of the details?

I presume that the company that is designing / installing the projection equipment has done this before - and has maybe some experience on what works best for their particular setup? Is there something about the 're-stitching' projection splitting process that works best with pixel for pixel? Perhaps these guys have run into this problem many times in the past?

Can you run a test?
 
I think as long as his final resolution matches their required resolution exactly, it will be fine. That's what I was getting from it....but thought it was mentioning the above anyway.
 
Say what??? Downscale all the way! It amazes me that there is people that think downsampling is a bad thing (talking about your client). Perhaps he means the downsample you could do on the computer when playing a 1080p on say a 720p monitor. In that case I understand what he mean. Its of course better to show a source pixel by pixel than scaling on a display.
 
you should definitely do the scaling yourself, do some test to see what works best. down-scaling can produce artifacts in high-frequency areas and otherwise, but generally it should look great, although using hardware designed for scaling will generally be your best bet. i would shoot 4/5/6k, as much as you can for your framerate, that will give you room to stabilize/crop and scale down to your output.
 
Thanks everyone! Much appreciated. As Glen Powell said, there may be more related to the software stitching / projection process, which I hope to find out more about in the near future. But my instinct is still to shoot full frame and downscale. Another thing to consider is the archival quality of the footage in the long run.
 
You can tell your client that you'll shoot pixel for pixel if they can find a projector that projects the bayer pattern.
 
You would only crop an image to eliminate parts of it if "undesired" or you would also crop as a result, in order to stabilize an image, but you would NEVER crop an image just because you do not need nor want or can't use the all RESOLUTION provided at time of capture...

Frame as desired, then downscale to the proper resolution as needed, yet make sure that PRIOR doing so, you work on the image and do all post work, especially color grading, THEN render out at desired resolution... ;)
 
Thanks guys. This is what I suspected, but its nice to have confirmation from other users. It seems so obvious, but then when someone tells me something contradictory but with great authority and confidence, I get a little insecure...
Cheers,
Chris
 
Chris Pyle said:
I am needing to shoot aerials for a curved screen experience. The theater will have 3 projectors and the image will be split into 3 and re-stiched by the server and projectors. The vendor who is designing the theater is telling me it would be better to shoot and finish pixel for pixel (the projection size will be somewhere around 3K - maybe a little less). I would prefer to shoot in 5K and scale down but they tell me that will introduce pixel artifacts or blurring and that I should shoot in 4K and crop the image down to the desired size for projection, rather than scaling it. One of my problems with this is that I need to shoot very wide and if I crop that much I'm going to need a really really wide lens...
Does this sound right? I am fairly new to shooting with Red but I was under the impression that it is better to capture more information and use the full sensor rather than just a portion of it. Will scaling down introduce unwanted artifacts or softness?
Thanks much,

Chris Pyle
Click to expand...

The guy is wrong. Better shoot higher resolution and downsample to 3k or what ever he needs. All downsampling will be for the better. Cropping while shooting will give you less "lens resolution" bigger noise, worse Debayer and all in all it's for sure not a "better way to go".
 
Björn Benckert said:
The guy is wrong. Better shoot higher resolution and downsample to 3k or what ever he needs. All downsampling will be for the better. Cropping while shooting will give you less "lens resolution" bigger noise, worse Debayer and all in all it's for sure not a "better way to go".
Click to expand...

Tack så mycket, Björn! It means a lot to me that you all take the time to comment here and help me out.
Chris (born in Stockholm, BTW) :-)
 
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