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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 :)

Dragon Aerials - Los Angeles | Axiom Images

jason dewey said:
what was the ISO you decided on for this? looks amazing.
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Shot 800 for day, 2000 for sunset/night. Since there's no way to change the ISO because there's no time to land during the sunset, I adjusted the stop to what I thought it would give the thicker negative. So it looked somewhat over exposed, then got better.

During some of the shots I was a bit under, not being used to the 2000 mindset. I'm not used to cityscapes looking so bright from the air. It was pretty amazing.
 
Here's a couple of shots from the shoot.

axiomgroup.jpg


From left to right: James Clayton, Aaron Fitzgerald, Tom Hallman, CJ Roy, David Arms.

heli_eclipse2.jpg


heli_eclipse5.jpg
 
Very nice, I guess you're going to have to update your signature to say 6K Aerial stock footage :)

Also I got confused for a second because your company has the same name and color scheme as the Apertus Axiom 4k open source camera program... I assume that is just a coincidence?
 
Noah Yuan-Vogel said:
Very nice, I guess you're going to have to update your signature to say 6K Aerial stock footage :)

Also I got confused for a second because your company has the same name and color scheme as the Apertus Axiom 4k open source camera program... I assume that is just a coincidence?
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Pure coincidence. Had no idea they existed until recently. And just to note, we shot 5K. The fuji 18-85 did not cover 6k.
 
Is that WMD on that Dragon?

WMD + Helicopter + Dragon... to be continued...


Jarred Land said:
Love this...
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CJ,

So that was you shooting over my house! :)

Your shots remind me of how much I hate LA traffic. From up there though, everything looks beautiful. The road traffic, freeways and cars drew me in ... is that weird or what? Seriously some good stuff, nice work. Good music choice.

LA got a lot brighter while you flew the skies!

So you shot plenty of MX footage. Dragon is really that much better? Can you speak a little about your experience with low light footage in the past, noise, and how Dragon could change it all?
 
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Will Keir said:
Is that WMD on that Dragon?
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Unfortunately not, it's a preston, but I'm very interested in the WMD. We get a lot of requests for lens data from VFX houses that purchase stock from us, and the WMD's metadata would satisfy that perfectly. Even though a lot of these films are shot with other cameras, the VFX guys are always blown away with Red's quality. We get a ton of great feedback.




Will Keir said:
CJ,

So that was you shooting over my house! :)

Your shots remind me of how much I hate LA traffic. From up there though, everything looks beautiful. The road traffic, freeways and cars drew me in ... is that weird or what? Seriously some good stuff, nice work. Good music choice.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. I detest LA traffic and it keeps me mainly to the valley… because all the helicopters & aerial companies are here, not to mention a good amount of the rental houses. But when you see it from the sky, it's pretty mind blowing and hypnotic. On one hand I'm in awe, on the other I'm like "F*ck, I have to drive through that on Wednesday." When we fly in other parts of the country, we'll come across traffic and we'll shoot a bit of it, but it's never as impressive/scary as LA.


Will Keir said:
ISo you shot plenty of MX footage. Dragon is really that much better? Can you speak a little about your experience with low light footage in the past, noise, and how Dragon could change it all?
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I didn't do a formal test in the traditional sense, but since I'm mainly the one shooting, editing and color correcting, I think that I have a sense of what to expect. The Dragon caught me off guard more than a few times and felt like I just had more breathing room. With aerials, the lighting is often really harsh and you go from really dark shadows of buildings to overexposed clouds in the same shot. It's all circumstantial based upon the weather you got that day, so you never really know what you're going to get. That can be pretty nerve racking on a flight that's a 25min away from a landing zone, because you can't change a filter in mid-air. Certainly more testing is needed, but I'm really happy with the results I got and it's my preferred camera of choice.

The other aspect that factors in for Axiom, and probably no one else, is that Red's format has made it dead simple to sell 4k/5k raw files directly to customers-- which they really love. Due to the size and bandwidth, I can't sell Sony Raw or even Arriraw. It's too big for servers and bandwidth, as far as I last checked. Red has made raw files marketable to every type of customers in the stock world and just about anyone can use them with ease in RCX. Not an easy thing to do.

Not to sound like a fanboy, but I think they really outdid themselves, in a variety of ways. I'm taking the Dragon up in NYC at the end of the week, so I'll get to put it through its paces a bit more and have a better conclusion.

Now, if only I could get the touchscreen or some sort of RCU in the helicopter to change settings, these shoots would be MUCH easier.
 
Will Keir said:
So you shot plenty of MX footage. Dragon is really that much better? Can you speak a little about your experience with low light footage in the past, noise, and how Dragon could change it all?
Click to expand...

As far as the noise goes, with the MX I felt that 1280ISO was getting sketchy and 1600ISO was pushing it. With Dragon, I feel very comfortable with 2000ISO. The noise didn't scream at me like it normally does. I need to pull up some older aerials and compare the two side by side, but I won't have a chance until I'm back from NY.
 
Did you get a chance to use the RRX Card with the Dragon footage?
 
Wow! Great job CJ Roy. Some of the best aerial footage I have ever seen. Still working with my Red One, but that Dragon sensor is amazing.
 
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