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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 and low light noise

^THIS What Gunleik said.

That histogram is what matters at any ISO and taking it a step further the RAW histogram is what matters. You can bet that if you there is not enough light hitting the sensor, there is going to be noise. There is no magical formula around that rule.

Battistella
 
Nick Morrison said:
It depends on the OLPF. Skintone OLPF is 320-800, Lowlight 800-2000 (and beyond).
Click to expand...

Nick,

Correctly exposed STH can give you amazing results when push processed. I think 800 is quite conservative. If I light and rate STH at 500 ISO, then it seems like I can eek out a push process to 2000 without many issues. But if the light ain't there to begin with....well, you get the point.

Battistella

PS: time and again we have seen 2 stop under exposure at 800ISO (probably the most common exposure mistake we see on Reduser. That means the person actually rated at 3200 ISO and of course there is a grainer image. Beyond that, I think many people think F.2.8 or T3 is a pretty fast lens. But the difference between 2.8 and 1.4 is 4X the amount of light on the sensor. Not sure people totally "get that".
 
David Battistella said:
^THIS What Gunleik said.

That histogram is what matters at any ISO and taking it a step further the RAW histogram is what matters. You can bet that if you there is not enough light hitting the sensor, there is going to be noise. There is no magical formula around that rule.

Battistella
Click to expand...

Perfectly said. Noise hides in underexposed scenes like a ghost waiting to scare its prey. Matters not if ISO is set at 320 or 2000. If left goalpost (shadow) displays raised levels please take note, or better yet add light/increase exposure.
 
steveszol said:
Here are some test shots I did. https://copy.com/8o6hk4crfNOPdzvy

Thanks for all your help and input. Love red, reduser and it's community!!
Click to expand...



STEVE, are very large the filesssss ...
However, I understand and I see what you mean ....
My behalf ....
- is Underexposed image, iso 2000 and the histogram is all left does not help ... also the compression 8: 1 in the case of low light does not help .I would have fired at least 5: 1.
But still depends on your final target image.
I tried something Davinci very fast, I went down to ISO 500 (image below), I pushed a bit the high lights and have used mild denoise and everything went well;) Doing small masks are extracted details of the hat, or more smoothly :)

It would have been nice to have some more of your shot HORROR still to understand what is worse the image.

Good luck on your project;)

tiff here..
https://mega.co.nz/#!BN81ARbT!2YWwWWjKWOBMFyCfEmgLllYh8VZzic5YIDdmgYnCGTA

a00086408_zpsbb2190dd.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
 
What I read here and there is totally depressing regarding scarlet dragon. A few weeks ago everything was about how much better compression was on dragon vs MX, everything was greater. Now it's "shoot 5:1 or less only". Gavin, in another thread, is talking about some limitations of epic dragon's slow motion and his need for minimag to go even lower. So there is noise, but we can have the same as epic with a specific olpf, we have to choose where we want the extra DR, shadows or highlights but not really both, the iso is not what was announced. And that is for the epic dragon. So is there anyone having something optimistic to say about the scarlet dragon or should I throw it away when it arrives?
 
luigivaltulini said:
STEVE, are very large the filesssss ...
However, I understand and I see what you mean ....
My behalf ....
- is Underexposed image, iso 2000 and the histogram is all left does not help ... also the compression 8: 1 in the case of low light does not help .I would have fired at least 5: 1.
But still depends on your final target image.
I tried something Davinci very fast, I went down to ISO 500 (image below), I pushed a bit the high lights and have used mild denoise and everything went well;) Doing small masks are extracted details of the hat, or more smoothly :)

It would have been nice to have some more of your shot HORROR still to understand what is worse the image.

Good luck on your project;)

tiff here..
https://mega.co.nz/#!BN81ARbT!2YWwWWjKWOBMFyCfEmgLllYh8VZzic5YIDdmgYnCGTA
Click to expand...

wow. Thanks for the time and effort. Sorry for the large clips. I should have just shot 1 second really. I appreciate your help.

Does it seem like there is more noise then there should be? Maybe something wrong with the dragon? I just don't remember battling with noise this much with my red one.
 
steveszol said:
wow. Thanks for the time and effort. Sorry for the large clips. I should have just shot 1 second really. I appreciate your help.

Does it seem like there is more noise then there should be? Maybe something wrong with the dragon? I just don't remember battling with noise this much with my red one.
Click to expand...

you could have get R3D snapshots from RCX and share those..few MBs for each snapshot
 
sam karr said:
So is there anyone having something optimistic to say about the scarlet dragon or should I throw it away when it arrives?
Click to expand...

no need to throw it away. Send it over here, I promise I'll make beautiful images with it.

Battistella
 
sam karr said:
What I read here and there is totally depressing regarding scarlet dragon. A few weeks ago everything was about how much better compression was on dragon vs MX, everything was greater. Now it's "shoot 5:1 or less only". Gavin, in another thread, is talking about some limitations of epic dragon's slow motion and his need for minimag to go even lower. So there is noise, but we can have the same as epic with a specific olpf, we have to choose where we want the extra DR, shadows or highlights but not really both, the iso is not what was announced. And that is for the epic dragon. So is there anyone having something optimistic to say about the scarlet dragon or should I throw it away when it arrives?
Click to expand...

Just a side note.... both the Scarlet Dragon and the Epic Dragon are beyond amazing cinema cameras.
The images and the movies made by them speak volumes as to their qualities.
 
sam why don't you stop the order if your concerned? or resell if needed...or buy a lighting package and expose to the right? many options....


and for the record less compression red code wise (or any camera) during low light or high speed surely cannot hurt the image.... no one said you have to, but people were doing this even on MX...it just helps given the constraints... and I've seen underexposed arri too, people try to tell me its a low light cam and i refute it all the time, its damn noisy without light kits or daylight exteriors...
 
sam karr said:
What I read here and there is totally depressing regarding scarlet dragon.
Click to expand...

Scarlet Dragon is an amazing camera. I've shot people at 60fps 16:1 and it looked great. I don't know how useable 16:1 would be if you are shooting a bunch of trees blowing in the wind, but with Scarlet MX you would likely have problems with that at 8:1 compression. Dragon is definitely better. Every time I shoot with my Scarlet Dragon I'm in awe at how much better it looks than my Scarlet MX and I loved my old camera. You won't be disappointed.
 
steveszol said:
Does it seem like there is more noise then there should be? Maybe something wrong with the dragon? I just don't remember battling with noise this much with my red one.
Click to expand...

When I fired up my dragonized Epic the first time I was puzzled by the noise it produced when you follow the advertised ISO 250-2000 range and use ISO 2000 for lowlight shots. I was sure that my camera had an obvious defect. This are the facts as far as I know:

- the V-2 OLPF or highlight/skintone optimised OLPF does the Epic no good and brings its sensitivity down far below where the contestants are.

- with the V-2 OLPF the Dragon is a ISO 250-500 sensor.

- if I see ISO 2000 exposed Dragon/OLPF V2 pictures that contain hardly any noise I'm dead sure they are effectively exposed a stop or more over which leads to an real wold ISO 1000-800 exposure which still is pretty rough.

- ISO 800 is for mainstream shots usable but leads quickly to a visible texture which can be quite nice. However, the step to unwanted noise is quite small.


Ok. Personally I'm very happy with the Dragon. It has many advantages in other areas but low light sensitivity is not its big plus. Or to say it differently, most of the professional feature or commercial crowd hardly need a camera with a higher sensitivity than 800 ISO and hence experience no deal breaking noise issues. Remember that Dragon/OLPFV2 sensitivity range matches pretty well 35mm.

With the now optional low light OLPF ISO 800 should be easily noise free achievable and brings Dragon back into Alexa territory. I'm sure that Red's R&D department recognised by now that the OLPF development should have been performed better and the quickly released V2 did no good either. They won't do this mistake again. To apologise Red: they are surfing the edge of development pretty hard and sometimes they/we get cut. I remember the years 2008 and 2009 as an extreme bumpy road. Fun times! Bus we also gain from Red's will to perform: currently Dragon is the most advanced sensor in the film world when resolution, DR and read speeds are important points. And the price-tag is more than acceptable.

If lowlight is important use a C300 or a Sony or whatever. For 300+ fps I always rent a Phantom. But I can assure you this camera has many, many issues. There is no issue free camera.

Hans
 
Ah, crap. You guys are making me doubt my order now.

Is the Low Light Filter on a Dragon worse sensitivitiwise than an MX, too? Bit worse? Bit better?

I´m always pressed on ISO on my MX as of my shooting conditions.
 
Brian Merlen said:
sam why don't you stop the order if your concerned? or resell if needed...or buy a lighting package and expose to the right? many options....


and for the record less compression red code wise (or any camera) during low light or high speed surely cannot hurt the image.... no one said you have to, but people were doing this even on MX...it just helps given the constraints... and I've seen underexposed arri too, people try to tell me its a low light cam and i refute it all the time, its damn noisy without light kits or daylight exteriors...
Click to expand...

I was ironic. I'm just amazed at how picky people are sometimes and how shitty the scarlet dragon would be if I was listening to them. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was whot in a 3600px large window, Social network was 4k at 7.5:1, they both looked great. I'm wondering if i missed something regarding audiences. Is there a specific audience equiped with microscopes and charts that I should be aware of?
 
Thomas Koba said:
Ah, crap. You guys are making me doubt my order now.

Is the Low Light Filter on a Dragon worse sensitivitiwise than an MX, too? Bit worse? Bit better?

I´m always pressed on ISO on my MX as of my shooting conditions.
Click to expand...

Much better! In my opinion the LLO Dragon at ISO 2000 gives you about as much noise as an MX at ISO 800, but with much better color, and the noise you get with Dragon doesn't feel digital. It feels organic.
 
steveszol said:
wow. Thanks for the time and effort. Sorry for the large clips. I should have just shot 1 second really. I appreciate your help.

Does it seem like there is more noise then there should be? Maybe something wrong with the dragon? I just don't remember battling with noise this much with my red one.
Click to expand...

You do not remember Steve?! hehe .. If you had shot this stuff with Epic would have been worse, why? simple, you'd have blue noise contamination from the tungsten (impossible to remove), you have less resolution, you have less dynamic range, the colors of Dragon on mixed light are spectacular. I could go on .... :)
The compression factor is your choice, with Epic I have never dropped below 4: 1, with Dragon I can get good results with a 8: 1, and we are talking about a lot more data (from 5k to 6k) Epic, I think a big step forward.
However, my thoughts :) I got Dragon with low OLPF for 2 months (carbon DRagon) can shoot them with less noise (less light), much better than MX, if you then want to use ADD and boom everything is super clean, there are many tests Phil that the new low OLPF and even better.
So I can assure you that the iso 2000 are as clean as the 800 MX LOW OLPF.
I use High OLPF, because I love to have a camera that captures well the high lights on the set rather fill the blacks in case of need, and if everything is overexposed difficult to recover, and when I tried this OLPF, I fell in love .. :) ... .All this is very close to the film, and I love this look. So I do not know, maybe I'll try again LOW light OLPF but for now do not talk. Indeed, if it were up to me I would still earn :) 1 stop in highlights :)
But DRagon is another beast and how things should be known.
Make the tests, can always change and use the OLPF LOW light;), or use fast lenses ..

Maybe being in front of the monitor and watch too many pixels you move you become crazy eheheheh
if you need we are all here;)
sorry for my english ...
 
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