Dragon and low light noise

[steveszol]

I have noticed my dragon is quite noisy. Even when exposing to a centered histogram at 800+ ISO and no lit up goal posts. Sometimes it so bad it makes me think the camera is f*ed. I shot something recently with the dragon and C300 and the stupid C300 had no grain, while the Dragon had an unreasonable amount. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Is the dragon really this bad in low light? Shouldn't grain just be black. Why is it boosting the low light areas?

And yes I have made sure the camera is black shaded and at the right operating temp and exposure and blaaa blaaa blaaaa.

would love to get this sorted out asap.

Its hard to keep having to tell clients "No no we can remove that grain in post!"
My red one was usually good at 800ISO in any type of lighting.

Could it be something wrong with the camera or is there something I am not doing right?

some test shots I took. https://copy.com/8o6hk4crfNOPdzvy

Here are some TIFFs of the basic tests I shot

https://copy.com/BTpda4TdEGd7Jpfj

 

[Andrey Nikolaev]

It has been discussed a lot already. The reason of the grain is the new Skin-Tone OLPF (it removes flares, gives nice skin tones, but it is less light sensitive). You need the Low Light Optimized OLPF to get rid of the grain at ISO800 (and even at ISO2000). I was surprised and terrified as well after my first shooting day on Dragon. I got so much noise, because I was sure Dragon could shoot at ISO2000 as it had been advertised. It was a disaster to reduce the grain in post.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

would be good to see an example r3d

if the shot looks "as it should" at 800, i don't see a lot of issues. but if you decide to push it 2 stops from there in post, issues do arise...

this is 1600/ fluorescent with skintone olpf

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...ence-from-me&p=1442100&viewfull=1#post1442100

 

[luigivaltulini]

Steve,
The C300 is a great camera at high ISO and low noise this you know.
Anyway, I think it all depends on where you want to get with the image, as well Gunleik said, there are problems when having to push in post production, over 2 stops in case of low light.
We wait a couple of your still so you can understand.
This image is shot 6kana 50mm T3, with OLPF HIGHLIGHT and one kinflow. and two 150w tungsten lights but I do not see many noise problems also push to 1600.

R3d:
https://mega.co.nz/#!5QVDmSiQ!Aaodc4GGgNlsMIf6H5weVf4UZ2KW2-_1H64ZGAiEZVA

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[steveszol]

Thank you for your responses. It is freaking me out for sure. It just seems the camera has to be in perfect lighting or the image just falls apart. I have the OLPF Low Light on order, hopefully this will fix something as I am usually shooting low light, low budget horror movies.

I am shooting today and will post something later tonight. Thanks guys you are making me feel a little better.

PS I would take a grainy RED DRAGON over the C300 any day.

 

[ericyoung]

Post a short R3D clip or even a snapshot of your problem footage and you should get more detailed advice.

 

[luigivaltulini]

Thank you for your responses. It is freaking me out for sure. It just seems the camera has to be in perfect lighting or the image just falls apart. I have the OLPF Low Light on order, hopefully this will fix something as I am usually shooting low light, low budget horror movies.

I am shooting today and will post something later tonight. Thanks guys you are making me feel a little better.

PS I would take a grainy RED DRAGON over the C300 any day.

maybe I understand what you mean ...
some aspect still .. everything is remedied

 

[Steve Speers]

Alexa doesn't need the OLPF to be swapped out to get good skin tone and low noise. No flare issue either. C300 for that matter is the same.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Alexa doesn't need the OLPF to be swapped out to get good skin tone and low noise. No flare issue either. C300 for that matter is the same.

Scaling 6K down to Alexa and C300 sure look similar. C300 does internal NR too.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

This is an interesting example:

Steve,
The C300 is a great camera at high ISO and low noise this you know.
Anyway, I think it all depends on where you want to get with the image, as well Gunleik said, there are problems when having to push in post production, over 2 stops in case of low light.
We wait a couple of your still so you can understand.
This image is shot 6kana 50mm T3, with OLPF HIGHLIGHT and one kinflow. and two 150w tungsten lights but I do not see many noise problems also push to 1600.

R3d:
https://mega.co.nz/#!5QVDmSiQ!Aaodc4GGgNlsMIf6H5weVf4UZ2KW2-_1H64ZGAiEZVA

[/URL][/IMG]

It is interesting because Luigi chooses to expose at ISO 1600 for the "dark" feeling he wants to get. When I play with the histograms, I see the image as being "normal" between ISO 3200-4000 and a color temperature shift from 4000K to 2700K, which means another 1.5-2 stops of amplification for the blue channel. Thus, technically the image is underexposed somewhere between 1-3 stops. With ISO 1600 for effect, and D.E.B., noise is not a problem. But if this needed to be lifted so that we could see details in the room, as if it were a daylight shot, we'd certainly see the noise that crops up at ISO 4000 and 2700K, even with D.E.B. And this is where proper (not necessarily perfect) lighting comes in.

Thank you for your responses. It is freaking me out for sure. It just seems the camera has to be in perfect lighting or the image just falls apart. I have the OLPF Low Light on order, hopefully this will fix something as I am usually shooting low light, low budget horror movies.

I am shooting today and will post something later tonight. Thanks guys you are making me feel a little better.

PS I would take a grainy RED DRAGON over the C300 any day.

You can make scenes look plenty dark by properly exposing your images and then grading the results. The magic of RAW is not that it allows you to utterly ignore the lighting equation when shooting, and then fix everything in post. The magic of RAW is that it lets you do practically anything you want to do with a well-exposed image. Swapping 150W lamps for 300W or 500W lamps is still pretty darned low-budget.

 

[luigivaltulini]

This is an interesting example:



It is interesting because Luigi chooses to expose at ISO 1600 for the "dark" feeling he wants to get. When I play with the histograms, I see the image as being "normal" between ISO 3200-4000 and a color temperature shift from 4000K to 2700K, which means another 1.5-2 stops of amplification for the blue channel. Thus, technically the image is underexposed somewhere between 1-3 stops. With ISO 1600 for effect, and D.E.B., noise is not a problem. But if this needed to be lifted so that we could see details in the room, as if it were a daylight shot, we'd certainly see the noise that crops up at ISO 4000 and 2700K, even with D.E.B. And this is where proper (not necessarily perfect) lighting comes in.



You can make scenes look plenty dark by properly exposing your images and then grading the results. The magic of RAW is not that it allows you to utterly ignore the lighting equation when shooting, and then fix everything in post. The magic of RAW is that it lets you do practically anything you want to do with a well-exposed image. Swapping 150W lamps for 300W or 500W lamps is still pretty darned low-budget.

Yep perfect if you think I used 3 lights .. I do not think a huge cinemobile

 

[luigivaltulini]

Alexa doesn't need the OLPF to be swapped out to get good skin tone and low noise. No flare issue either. C300 for that matter is the same.

are you sure Steve !!!
Play all day with ALexa and Amira are noisy ... equal to a certain point without light throughout the decade.
The colors are best on DRagon, now that Alexa, including skin tone, I'm sorry but I disagree with you. What I can give this OLPF is something spectacular. Obviously requires more light and be more noisy in low light, but if you use it to 500iso is perfect.
Here are some shooting now on Amira, poor light in Studio, 1600 iso t4 .... then pushed a little in Davinci ...
These cameras need a minimum of light, needless to shoot without light and push 2 or 3 stops in more and expect to have clean images.
They are two different tools and should be used and known.

Amira proress to TIff. 1600 iso t4

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no like eheheh

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[Ryan Emanuel]

Steve,
The C300 is a great camera at high ISO and low noise this you know.
Anyway, I think it all depends on where you want to get with the image, as well Gunleik said, there are problems when having to push in post production, over 2 stops in case of low light.
We wait a couple of your still so you can understand.
This image is shot 6kana 50mm T3, with OLPF HIGHLIGHT and one kinflow. and two 150w tungsten lights but I do not see many noise problems also push to 1600.

R3d:
https://mega.co.nz/#!5QVDmSiQ!Aaodc4GGgNlsMIf6H5weVf4UZ2KW2-_1H64ZGAiEZVA

[/URL][/IMG]

Is it just me or is underexposed white the biggest culprit on Dragon Skintone OLPF. All of the rainbow noise examples I have seen are white walls underexposed 3-5 stops at 800 ISO. In your example, its at least my belief, that the grey walls are easier to underexpose. May be wrong. Does the reflectance of a surface impact noise?

 

[luigivaltulini]

Is it just me or is underexposed white the biggest culprit on Dragon Skintone OLPF. All of the rainbow noise examples I have seen are white walls underexposed 3-5 stops at 800 ISO. In your example, its at least my belief, that the grey walls are easier to underexpose. May be wrong. Does the reflectance of a surface impact noise?

Ryan I see what you say, good point.
From what I see is white is worse than a gray as the background, notice a lot more noise if that area is very underexposed. I agree with you.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

The low light OLPF is the answer. It should be the standard in my opinion. I absolutely love it. The rolll off is fantastic, as is the dynamic range and color. I'm completely enamored with it.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I dunno....

ISO 2000, 3000K, no ADD, no DEB, no NR, RG4/Dragoncolor
Skintone OLPF

 

[Brandon J.F.]

The low light OLPF is the answer. It should be the standard in my opinion. I absolutely love it. The rolll off is fantastic, as is the dynamic range and color. I'm completely enamored with it.

I totally agree. I was shooting more available light night stuff yesterday. Really pleased with the results.

 

[Mike P.]

Jason/Brandon; are you guys are using the swappable Low-Light OLPF (like the presumably re-designed one, not the "OLPFv1")?

To be honest, the only problem I had with OLPFv1 was the magenta orbs, but even with them, I probably would have taken it over OLPFv2. Now that they're interchangeable and OLPFv1 has had some slight enhancement, the LLO is even better (on paper -- I have only used STH).

I always kind of figured the "skin-enhanced" one was a little bunk, as it basically just forced you to expose a certain way that maximizes the mids/skins whilst eliminating low-light/highISO. I (maybe naively) presumed you could get the same results from the LLO so long as you exposed ~1.3 stops under at ISO250, and then just brought up the lows in post.... You know, like how we've been shooting MX since 2010... But again, I haven't been able to test/compare and wouldn't purchase either before doing so.

 

[steveszol]

Obviously the camera is best at 6k. How does 2k - 5k resolutions effect the grain, latitude and sensitivity of the camera?
I assume more grain and less sensitivity the lower res. Would the latitude chance as well? I assume it would be the same.

 

[Ignacio Aguilar]

If your final master is going to be 2K/4K, at the same ISO ratings, you'll always get cleaner results by shooting at 6K/5.5K/5K and the scale down your footage. Sensitivity and latitude shouldn't be affected… but then, again, test it.