DRAGON 6K VS HELIUM 8K: Are we trading higher frame rates for higher ISOs?

[Derrick Cohan]

Trying to wrap my brain around the new Helium sensor and the benefits (or potential set backs) it brings vs Dragon. I don't have experience with Helium yet, however what I loved about my Weapon Dragon was the ability to shoot up to 60FPS at 6K and up to 96FPS+ at 5K. To me, shooting 5K on Dragon yielded excellent IQ and I don't notice a visible difference vs. 6K. 5K on Dragon is equivalent to a Super 35 sensor, and in my experience, that's the smallest sensor size I like to use before I see a noticeable loss in IQ (in RED cameras)

In order to get to 96 FPS in Helium you have to drop the sensor from 8K all the way down to 6K, which means you're using sensor area that's actually less than the size of Super-35 (which was my personal limit on Dragon). This kind of makes me nervous...but I'm also thinking that the Helium sensor has more pixels than Dragon, so maybe it doesn't have IQ loss at 6K? And now that we're using a smaller than Super-35 size sensor at 96FPS that's also affecting our DOF?

The thing I liked about Dragon was the ability to shoot up to 96FPS and not (as least for me) sacrifice significant IQ, and I'm wondering if this is true for Helium? Low light performance is definitely a huge plus, and may prove to be more important than frame rates, but I'm wondering if this new sensor is taking us two steps forward but also one step back.

Any input would be appreciated, these thoughts are all speculation!!!

 

[Jon Carr]

What's the high speed limit of 8kws?

 

[Justin Gum]

on the Epic-w, 30fps. on Helium S35 weapon, 75.

 

[Justin Gum]

Trying to wrap my brain around the new Helium sensor and the benefits (or potential set backs) it brings vs Dragon. I don't have experience with Helium yet, however what I loved about my Weapon Dragon was the ability to shoot up to 60FPS at 6K and up to 96FPS+ at 5K. To me, shooting 5K on Dragon yielded excellent IQ and I don't notice a visible difference vs. 6K. 5K on Dragon is equivalent to a Super 35 sensor, and in my experience, that's the smallest sensor size I like to use before I see a noticeable loss in IQ (in RED cameras)

In order to get to 96 FPS in Helium you have to drop the sensor from 8K all the way down to 6K, which means you're using sensor area that's actually less than the size of Super-35 (which was my personal limit on Dragon). This kind of makes me nervous...but I'm also thinking that the Helium sensor has more pixels than Dragon, so maybe it doesn't have IQ loss at 6K? And now that we're using a smaller than Super-35 size sensor at 96FPS that's also affecting our DOF?

The thing I liked about Dragon was the ability to shoot up to 96FPS and not (as least for me) sacrifice significant IQ, and I'm wondering if this is true for Helium? Low light performance is definitely a huge plus, and may prove to be more important than frame rates, but I'm wondering if this new sensor is taking us two steps forward but also one step back.

Any input would be appreciated, these thoughts are all speculation!!!

Derrick, I totally get you because I was in the same boat in regards to those concerns. I have yet to receive my Epic-W, but the reason why I went for it was because at 6K, it's not THAT noticeably different in regards to framing (as 6K will yield about 1.1x crop against a 3-perf S35 frame) and Mark Toia also mentions in one of the threads, regarding Helium, that at 6K on Helium, it's essentially the same image quality as 6K Weapon.

Yes...
6k Weapon is better at 2000 ISO that 6k Dragon... Helium @6k is the same as 6k Weapon. but !... A cropped sensor.

This was in response to low-light sensitivity, but also in regards to noise levels. So I'm inclined to believe that we're not sacrificing too much to get the same 100 fps at 6K AND we also get the benefit of shooting 8k when the context permits.

 

[Adam Montville]

on the Epic-w, 30fps. on Helium S35 weapon, 75.

High speed limit is about 38fps on 8kws on Epic-W

 

[Dane Henry]

Same boat Derrick...sooooo unsure what to do. I also want to make it clear: I also haven't played with the Helium sensor.

So, these are just some of my thoughts and concerns that I have been wrestling with in regards to going the Epic-W path...

It seems depending on the user, framerates per FOV seem to be more or less important. I am in the boat of "more" important.

My creative decisions for lens usage is severely restricted on the Epic-W in comparison as to what you get with the Epic-Dragon in High frame rate recording. Part of what makes the Epic-Dragon so rad is the High frame rates off the full sensor scan, and this feature sold itself to many clients to use the RED instead of another camera system. You don't have to compromise aesthetic of the image to get higher FPS. I'm not sure I'm ready to downgrade that feature.

High frame rates at a large sensor scan, so I can use the lens I want to use to tell the story, is super important to me and one thing I love most about the Dragon and even the MX sensor.

I originally jumped on board with red when the Sacarlet-MX came out...I only had it for 3 months before I went to the Epic-Mx...Having the framerate restriction makes you crave the full power...I have a feeling that craving will come up very quickly if I go with the Epic-W.

I really Love the look of the Helium from what I have seen though! The Toia video is an amazing piece and sells the sensor very well, but the one thing he doesnt touch on is high frame rate per FOV when you are restricted via the Epic-W brain choice. Just don't think I can shell out the cash to go to what is basically a Scarlet feature set camera.

Yes, the Dragon weapon is what I guess I need to go with, steep for going the same sensor...Wifi and ProRes is pretty cool though.

Or go Weapon Helium...you still lose framerate per FOV with that camera as well now...

Sure do Love the Epic-Dragon!

-dane

 

[tobyheslop]

I feel the same way as Dane, and sure others do too. After running with Epic Dragon for a few years Weapon Helium seems the only choice though quite a large investment.

It's a huge factor thats holding me back from upgrading

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Consider though that often high frame rate shots in a movie have less depth of field because of the need to open up the stop to get enough exposure, so unless you were also shooting your 24 fps material near wide-open, gaining a little extra depth of field when shooting at 96 fps might help compensate for the loss of depth of field when you have to open up the iris.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Consider though that often high frame rate shots in a movie have less depth of field because of the need to open up the stop to get enough exposure, so unless you were also shooting your 24 fps material near wide-open, gaining a little extra depth of field when shooting at 96 fps might help compensate for the loss of depth of field when you have to open up the iris.

But sometimes you want shallow depth of field in high speed footage, which is impossible in wider angles on Helium. And if planning for shooting high frame rates on a location where there's gonna be normal speeds as well, then lighting the scene with ND's and then removing those for the high speed shots will make the images more consistent throughout the scene. However, on Helium you don't have the choice to be close to s35mm and shoot 100fps, so initially the argument is correct that we trade high speed for more resolution and higher ISO. So depending on what people are shooting, the different cameras have their places. Another thing is that you can't shoot HDRx at 50 fps on Helium, all those shots will be limited to a maximum of 30 fps.

Personally I don't have the funds to go Helium, but even if I did I would be unsure about getting it or not. As of now, all jobs I do wouldn't want 8K, they barely want 6K (even if I'm explaining why to them), they don't want to handle such large files and their end product might not even be 4K. So even for 4K productions, as a storytelling tool, the regular Dragon is more versatile. It all comes down to the good old "good enough" argument. Is the ISO/noise and resolution enough on the regular Dragon or are you in need of that extra resolution, extra noise free ISO?

Whenever there's a new camera around people look back at the, only days old, previous tech and feels it's not enough for creative jobs. But as long as you are making something for the public, narrative, commercials, music videos etc. they will never spot any difference. For technical work or let's say shooting stuff in space as on the ISS, then in those cases 8K might be really beneficial.

But if we are gonna talk about creative images, having a larger sensor at higher frame rates is much more used right now than 8K. Maybe I'm just justifying my own position of not being able to upgrade, but I'm not sure Helium is as big a step as the MX to Dragon was when it came out. Color-wise they are very very close (even if we have to see what the new colors science does).

 

[Justin Gum]

High speed limit is about 38fps on 8kws on Epic-W

I took the spec off the website. Didn't know it could do 38.

 

[Evin Grant]

From the Stormtrooper I played around with the extra SNR and cleaner shadows are absolutely worth the framerate loss and narrower crop for overcranking. For any of my clients/jobs where 6/7/8K RAW is an issue the scaled 4K prores/DNxHD will be the best choice anyway. The extra EI flexibility will mean I can light more naturally and not have to fear underexposing or noise creeping in. I've sucsessfully shot my Dragon as high as 3200 but it needed some good post NR. The Helium seems to be able to handle this EI similarly to the Dragon at 1000 or 1280.

 

[Baker]

I have yet to get my Weapon upgraded to Helium, so I haven't been able to test, but... Why do the max frame rates for Helium Weapon and Epic-W become the same after 6K? Weapon doubles the frame rates of Epic-W at 8K and 7K, then they become the same for every resolution less than that?

 

[Rakesh Malik]

My guess is that the limiting factor at 8K and lower is readout rates.

 

[Dana Rice]

Go Helium all the way. The difference between Helium and Dragon is night and day. Once you use Helium you will never want to touch Dragon again. Yes, having to go to 6k for 48 fps and up is annoying, but the image quality is almost the same. Not near as drastic as dropping res on Dragon or MX was in terms of image quality loss. Also if you shoot mostly widescreen like I do, I often times just shoot 38 fps, which isn't too bad actually. But if you have to go to 6k, the crop factor is the only downside, not image quality. The ability to shoot clean ISO up to 3200 with no need for NR can be amazing in certain situations. And can be very helpful even in instances where your well lit for 800. I do a lot of Ronin stuff, some times the DOF without a remote focus puller can be challenging when shooting indoors or outside at night. Being able to stop down and pull your ISO up to get deeper DOF can really help. Not to mention you can simply get shots you can't get on Dragon. I recently did a shoot, we were getting some stuff at sunset... after the sunset it was too dark IMO to keep filming without lights, but the director insisted on getting more shots. I reluctantly agreed cus I thought the footage would be unusable, but when I got home and looked at the footage at 4000 ISO with an aggressive upward curve in the mids, to my suprise there was virtually no noise at all... at least on a 1080 transcode. Sure if you look at it 100% in 8K, the noise looks really bad, but soon as you do a 1080 output it's completely gone.

 

[Kyle Stryker]

I know this has already been stated before, and maybe I'm just saying this because it's the position I am in and just trying to make myself feel better . But I really love the image I get out of my Epic Dragon. I don't think anyone will look back at the shows or films shot on dragon and think "Oh wow look how far digital cinematography has come!" I like the Dynamic range, texture on the footage (just finished a feature shot at 2.5k on 16mm lenses), HDR. All i ever wanted was a camera with an infinite amount of Vision 3 500T and Dragon blows that dream away and then some. I like having a wider image circle with higher FPS than better noise floor. On my "film theory" side of things, I think Dragon needing to be lit, creates more cinematic images. There is just something ingrained in viewers minds of what cinematic lighting looks like and a nice strong backlight looks "right" to me more than gaining up the ISO so streetlights or lamps are exposed properly. Practical lighting shot at 3200 ISO still looks a bit unnatural to me, but I am glad RED has chosen that and 8k as their newest improvments. My Dragon has become even more popular recently because the hardware needs and workflow required in post is almost negligible,with what it used to be and with much thanks to the redcode wizardry. I think Helium and VV 8k is amazing and it's great for projects that need 8k, but for my current shooting dragon is almost perfect.

 

[Joseph Victorine]

I think you just have to weigh how much you need extreme low light performance against how much of a deal breaker the crop factor is going to be if you go Epic W. The crop factor is no small thing on the Epic W. For me I rarely shoot in low light level environments and do shoot a lot of 60 fps or more and I HATE having to swing a lens or drop down in resolution so I'll most likely be sticking with my Dragon.

 

[Jason Han]

I think Dragon needing to be lit, creates more cinematic images. There is just something ingrained in viewers minds of what cinematic lighting looks like and a nice strong backlight looks "right" to me more than gaining up the ISO so streetlights or lamps are exposed properly. Practical lighting shot at 3200 ISO still looks a bit unnatural to me, but I am glad RED has chosen that and 8k as their newest improvments.

Just wanted to share my experience with both. I've used Dragon and Helium extensively in many different lighting scenarios and I just wanted to say, because you get more latitude in shadows doesn't mean you don't light in a cinematic way... Helium is not clean at 3200 ISO, nor does it mean you should light any differently, though 1000-1280 seems to be the native. I treat it the same as Dragon when I light, it's just I have the option of going up to 2000 when certain scenarios occur (depth / time etc) whereas the Dragon would need heavy NR, sacrificing IQ. Also, the IQ at 6K helium is actually really good, you just have to deal with the crop which isn't that bad.

However due to the Dragon's latitude in the highlights and (currently) better color science, if I had to pick an A camera right now, I would go with the dragon. Low light is great, but it isn't usually a feature I plan on using, it's just when I'm in a pinch and I need to I will start using higher ISO's.

 

[Rakesh Malik]

Just wanted to share my experience with both. I've used Dragon and Helium extensively in many different lighting scenarios and I just wanted to say, because you get more latitude in shadows doesn't mean you don't light in a cinematic way...

I can almost guarantee that we'll be seeing more people with Helium cameras trying to get away with not lighting their sets just because they can get away with it, and of course they'll complain about the noise.

Good lighting is always going to produce better results even if you're shooting with a cell phone. Using a Helium just means you have lots more potential available, when you get right down to it.

However due to the Dragon's latitude in the highlights and (currently) better color science, if I had to pick an A camera right now, I would go with the dragon. Low light is great, but it isn't usually a feature I plan on using, it's just when I'm in a pinch and I need to I will start using higher ISO's.

Low light does have the advantage of making lighting easier to do with smaller lights.

 

[Jason Han]

I can almost guarantee that we'll be seeing more people with Helium cameras trying to get away with not lighting their sets just because they can get away with it, and of course they'll complain about the noise.

Good lighting is always going to produce better results even if you're shooting with a cell phone. Using a Helium just means you have lots more potential available, when you get right down to it

Low light does have the advantage of making lighting easier to do with smaller lights.

I agree that low light does give you more potential, but it shouldn't necessarily completely change the way you light scenes. Lighting affects everything, including skin tones, contrast and rolloff. If you shoot a subject with a candle light and crank ISO because you can, how do you think that'll look versus if I lit that subject with a 1k bounce through grid with lower ISO? There is no shortcut to film IMHO, well at least good lighting requires the same amount of effort

 

[Rakesh Malik]

I agree that low light does give you more potential, but it shouldn't necessarily completely change the way you light scenes. Lighting affects everything, including skin tones, contrast and rolloff. If you shoot a subject with a candle light and crank ISO because you can, how do you think that'll look versus if I lit that subject with a 1k bounce through grid with lower ISO? There is no shortcut to film IMHO

A candle isn't a smaller light, it's a candle. A smaller light is a 650 instead of a 1K.

What it allows me to do when I don't have access to a 2K or an HMI is to use a 650 through a silk and still get a good exposure, or using a 1K as a bounce fill for a room where I'd require at least 2K with a less sensitive camera.