Dragon compared to 35mm Vision3 200T

[Ivan McCullough]

All good points Nick but none of them negate the fact that Alexa has a look that people prefer to RED historically, and nothing I have seen from Dragon makes me think the weird green stuff that pops up out of nowhere has gone away completely.

 

[Nick Morrison]

All good points Nick but none of them negate the fact that Alexa has a look that people prefer to RED historically, and nothing I have seen from Dragon makes me think the weird green stuff that pops up out of nowhere has gone away completely.

Even from what little Dragon footage we've seen, its pretty clear it's capable of spell binding imagery. An artist will be able to create great things with a Dragon, an Alexa, an F65 - at at certain point any of these cameras are capable of remarkable work. The difference for me is how accessible Dragon is...for a reasonable upgrade fee, RED owners have available to them a brand new camera that is surprisingly small, with 6K resolution, and rich DR...all at a price point that is very affordable given how demanding this Digital Cinema market is.

 

[Ivan McCullough]

The difference for me is how accessible Dragon is...for a reasonable upgrade fee, RED owners have available to them a brand new camera that is surprisingly small, with 6K resolution, and rich DR...all at a price point that is very affordable given how demanding this Digital Cinema market is.

None of these things are important to the majority of people who shoot.

The majority are not owner or owner-op's

If RED have made a camera that has the same DR as Alexa, more (unnecessary for most) pixels, and some of the legacy colour issues that other brands don't have then RED will not be winning back the TV shows and TVC's etc they lost to Alexa.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Even from what little Dragon footage we've seen, its pretty clear it's capable of spell binding imagery.

Yes. Shot a few feet with my dragonized Epic. My findings tell me that the gap between Alexa and Epic is finally closed, apart from the fact that the Dragon sensor resolves considerable more and the body is much lighter and less bad to the spine.

The colour science that comes with Dragon is the biggest improvement since Red came out with build 16 years ago. Back then build 16 was a vital improvement and necessary to stop the nagging about skin tones etc.... Personally I was never totally satisfied with Red's colour science offerings. This changed now with Dragon and DragonColour. Skin tones are now more delicate, contain more nuances of red, green, and blue. Very nice!

Colour casts, tint etc.. are oftentimes the result of the lighting environment and rarely the result of a slightly off-based colour science or film emulsion.

Hans

 

[Paris Remillard]

People are saying that Dragon's skin tones are so much better and that is has to do with factors other than color science, and yet here we have an example where both film and Dragon are shot side by side and we can clearly see the difference. And the film skin tones look better. The Dragon has unpleasant patches of green. I'm not sure how else to highlight the issue more clearly.

 

[Ivan McCullough]

People are saying that Dragon's skin tones are so much better and that is has to do with factors other than color science, and yet here we have an example where both film and Dragon are shot side by side and we can clearly see the difference. And the film skin tones look better. The Dragon has unpleasant patches of green. I'm not sure how else to highlight the issue more clearly.

This

 

[Matt Ryan]

People are saying that Dragon's skin tones are so much better and that is has to do with factors other than color science, and yet here we have an example where both film and Dragon are shot side by side and we can clearly see the difference. And the film skin tones look better. The Dragon has unpleasant patches of green. I'm not sure how else to highlight the issue more clearly.

This is with old olpf/calibration as well. I'd say wait to see what the new olpf/calibration along with Dragoncolor do to the look. This comparison was shot with old olpf/calibration and redcolor 3. It's not very professional to judge the camera based on this comparison. Shoot with it yourself and see what You think. Film does a better job of handling color casts and multiple color temp situations. So the green cast we see could be an accurate rendition of the source light more so than film. But film handles these subtleties in smoothing them out and shifting them to a more pleasing skin tone color. I still say don't judge until a similar test is done with new olpf/calibration and Dragoncolor. Even then you should do your own test.

I also wonder if the white balance was adjusted on the Dragon footage or if a standard 3200k setting was used. I'm sure dialing in proper color temp might have fixed the cast.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

People are saying that Dragon's skin tones are so much better and that is has to do with factors other than color science, and yet here we have an example where both film and Dragon are shot side by side and we can clearly see the difference. And the film skin tones look better. The Dragon has unpleasant patches of green. I'm not sure how else to highlight the issue more clearly.

Do you speak about the Vimeo file or do you have access of Cineon and R3D files?
Please post the link if it is possible. I'll be also happy to test out your findings.

Thanks

Pat

 

[Ivan McCullough]

Do you speak about the Vimeo file or do you have access of Cineon and R3D files?
Please post the link if it is possible. I'll be also happy to test out your findings.

Thanks

Pat

I have heard this one so many times before.

It seems that RED sourced material is more susceptible to compression artifacts.

Accept it, there is an issue with RED.

Maybe its Red Colour 3 (I would have thought in a test like this you would be going with redlogfilm or RGB or something a bit more 'neutral'), maybe its the olpf ( RED released it so its as professional as anything else) whatever the reason its there and really should not be if other manufactures have avoided it.

 

[Paris Remillard]

It's not an overall green cast. So white balance would just make the neutral and magenta areas more magenta if the green were balanced out.

I find that to get good, uniform skin tones with my MX I often, though not always, have to key out the green. Which works a lot of the time. But I'd rather not have to have that step.

And no, I don't have the Cineon and R3D files. But neither is any of our work ever shown in such formats. It's transcoded to whatever the display/delivery format needs to be for each situation. And in this situation, both files were processed and transcoded to be viewed on the web. And it's looks to have been done quite well and is very well matched.

I understand that there are many factors that can introduce noise and color shifts and overall weirdness/crappiness when processing and displaying files. But in this case, there was no weirdness in displaying the film images in the exact same manner as the Dragon images are being displayed.

And the Dragon images look great for the most part. There's just still the nagging green blotches in skin tones which I've never been a fan of.

I'm just curious if none of the people who always so quickly defend Red have never seen this in their own footage. I've had a Red One since early 2008 and an Epic since 2011. And it's an issue that i'm frequently fighting. I speak not only from my personal experience, but also based on continuing to see the same issues in most of the Dragon tests that I've seen posted so far.

I'm simply trying to be objective and point things out in the hope that they may be improved upon. And not only make our lives easier when shooting, but also change Red's reputation and sell them more cameras and win them more users. That, to me, has always been the biggest reason for this forum. Not to jump up and down and high five Jim and Jarred everyday.

I obviously like the cameras or I would't have bought 3 of them. But I still think that they can be made better.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Apples and oranges

Apples and oranges

At the risk of stating the obvious: when comparing finished images the entire signal chain impacts how it looks. Since its impossible to create identical signal chains from different capture devices there will always be dependent variables in the matrix. Moreover, I think Bayer pattern re-construction algorithms will always have to compensate to at least some degree for the inherent green bias of 50% of the photo sites having green filters vs 25% red, 25% blue.

As others have noted, a decent colorist with the necessary tools should be able to get a pleasing (even if somewhat inaccurate) look from Dragon, Alexa, etc and that's a part of the creative process regardless of the personality of the capture device.

Cheers - #19

 

[Paris Remillard]

Moreover, I think Bayer pattern re-construction algorithms will always have to compensate to at least some degree for the inherent green bias of 50% of the photo sites having green filters vs 25% red, 25% blue.

And that being the case, this is why I think that Red should open up their debayering to third parties. It's been, what, 7 years since the Red One was introduced? Let some other companies take a shot. I can use several different options to debayer and process my raw stills. I see no reason why Red won't allow that with their raw files. Options and different perspectives and tastes are a good thing.

 

[Ivan McCullough]

...... I see no reason why Red won't allow that with their raw files.

I can give you one. REDCODE....

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I can give you one. REDCODE....

REDCODE is JPEG2000 + some channel preprocessing. There was brief window where third parties could debayer RED footage. I wrote one of I think two or three tools which did so. But I made the mistake of sharing my discoveries and RED promptly encrypted the file format.

 

[Tommaso Alvisi]

Let some other companies take a shot. I can use several different options to debayer and process my raw stills. I see no reason why Red won't allow that with their raw files. Options and different perspectives and tastes are a good thing.

Now that would be great!

I can give you one. REDCODE....

Maybe...but RAW files from DSLRs can be opened in different decoding engines yielding wildly different results...and that's the beauty of it!

 

[Sidney L. Plaut]

Looks like the Dragon Close up was shot with an ND.06 and the 35mm with a ND.03 - the green cast could easily be the ND filter, and as most working DP´s, who has tested ND´s can attest to, ND´s are not particularly neutral in their colour cast.

 

[Ivan McCullough]

Looks like the Dragon Close up was shot with an ND.06 and the 35mm with a ND.03 - the green cast could easily be the ND filter, and as most working DP´s, who has tested ND´s can attest to, ND´s are not particularly neutral in their colour cast.

Quite possible. But when it comes to stray green on the 'old' olpf it is not an isolated incident.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Looks like the Dragon Close up was shot with an ND.06 and the 35mm with a ND.03 - the green cast could easily be the ND filter, and as most working DP´s, who has tested ND´s can attest to, ND´s are not particularly neutral in their colour cast.

Good point.

 

[Paris Remillard]

But the color cast from an ND is uniform. Unless it's from IR contamination, which at ND.6 it very likely wouldn't be and doesn't manifest as green blotches.

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

The Dragon ftg in this test does have an overall green shift (look at the sweater in RGB parade) - but who knows when that was introduced - esp if it went through a grade.

But we've seen the green cast in the old OLPF on Dragon, so that's unsurprising.

I have yet to see it on the new OLPF Dragon ftg - if someone else has - please share.