Dragon/Epic comparison

[Alain M]

Hello Gunleik! Could you share your workflow with us. or your most used workflow. That would be great to know too since you guys are very technical and it is good to know from you and Phil and see different ways you do it.

For example: My workflow is WB in REDCINE-X + Exposure Adjustment and do a little conservative color grading. Then in Premiere Pro CC I edit in RAW and finish the Color Grading either in PPRO or SPEEDGRADE.

Thanks for sharing

Alain

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

For example: My workflow is WB in REDCINE-X
Alain

Some DPs like to work with a "fixed" white balance and use gels, filters, etc. to control their image. I see this more and more. If you are working with a DP that does that - you usually don't want to adjust white balance. That's the thing about RAW - there's more than one way to work with it - you get lots of "knobs" to turn - but that doesn't mean you should or need to turn all of them. Depends how the artist and/or technician is using the tools.

But yeah, I've seen plenty of films come into DI where it was very clear that they either didn't care about white balance while shooting - or did not know how to leverage it to control a look on set - and in those cases, we'd WB from scratch before grading. But ... it's better to get it right (WB) in camera - because you can

 

[Alain M]

Thanks Mark! Yes indeed always WB on camera. I forgot to add that "When Necessary to Adjust in Redcine-X" for whatever reason. The Raw workflow is what I would love to see different approaches from the Pros and check em out. There's always room to learn and this is what I love of this forum...

Thanks for your feedback Mark!

 

[Phil Holland]

Hello Gunleik! Could you share your workflow with us. or your most used workflow. That would be great to know too since you guys are very technical and it is good to know from you and Phil and see different ways you do it.

Tough one for me. I don't typically have one workflow as I mostly cater to studio's desires for shoots. If they want graded material, I grade. If they want frames, they get frames. If they just want .R3Ds, they get that.

VFX-land I tend to deliver DPX, TIF, or EXR images either straight from camera or right out of Redcine-X Pro with some minor correction work done occasionally.

If I'm grading I typically am using DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Speedgrade, or Baselight. I sit in on sessions here and there in LA and those folks use Pablo setups or Baselight. Just depends. Nucoda Film Master is something I'm not too familiar with, but I took some time earlier this year to educate myself on the system.

When I edit I use Adobe Premiere Pro. I'm pretty invested in the Adobe workflow and have been "exploiting" the whole Production Suite (now just part of the Creative Cloud) for years now. I was the "Adobe, PC, and Red Guy" at a studio I worked at for some time. Between grading and FX using Speedgrade and After Effects, not to mention having Audition in there; it's just pretty much a full fledged suite for nearly everything I do. For how I personally prefer to work, not much touches it.

 

[Alain M]

Thanks Phil!!!

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Some DPs like to work with a "fixed" white balance and use gels, filters, etc. to control their image. I see this more and more. If you are working with a DP that does that - you usually don't want to adjust white balance. That's the thing about RAW - there's more than one way to work with it - you get lots of "knobs" to turn - but that doesn't mean you should or need to turn all of them. Depends how the artist and/or technician is using the tools.

But yeah, I've seen plenty of films come into DI where it was very clear that they either didn't care about white balance while shooting - or did not know how to leverage it to control a look on set - and in those cases, we'd WB from scratch before grading. But ... it's better to get it right (WB) in camera - because you can

In my earlier life there was no such thing called WB. And personally I don't see a reason to WB today: WB is levering everything to neutral and often (mostly) this is not helping the mood/look. Back then, we put a 85 in front of the lens or left it out on purpose or used an 81EF, Coral, etc... . Red's sensor is by default daylight sensitive. I find that doing all later in post with a log encoded RBG files works best. All that sidecars files and "pre-grades" in-camera done on set don't help the result really, at least if the production cannot afford a seasoned colourist on set and the needed time for such tasks. When does the director have the time to talk about looks on set? I never have. And I don't want to. There is so much time later to rethink twice how the result should look like.

However, I understand the need to create proper looking dailies for editorial, it makes a lot of sense. Editing off Log files makes everyone unhappy. Actually, the possibility to edit off R3Ds with RG3 is a meaningful way, for editorial this fits most needs. But unfortunately post-land in general is not prepared for that, exceptions prove the rule.

Hans

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

The girl who looked into Dragon. (Ha, ha...)

I find that doing all later in post with a log encoded RBG files works best.
Hans

Hans, I am not sure if I would agree that fixing WB in post is the better solution. Is it not true that if you fix WB in post, you're pushing up the blue (or red) channel out of proportion to the other channels, therefore increasing noise in that channel?

 

[Paul Watt]

My (perhaps flawed) understanding is that although you can change the WB via RCX or Premiere, the wavelet compression somewhat compromises this. It's better to be relatively close to balanced, then go from there.
Is my thinking wrong on this?

 

[Gunleik Groven]

The girl who looked into Dragon. (Ha, ha...)


Hans, I am not sure if I would agree that fixing WB in post is the better solution. Is it not true that if you fix WB in post, you're pushing up the blue (or red) channel out of proportion to the other channels, therefore increasing noise in that channel?

Well, this exactly what happpens when you do it in cam...

 

[Elsie N]

There's no relationship between WB and black shading is there? I mean, changing the WB from scene to scene won't require a new black shade... right?

 

[Gunleik Groven]

There's no relationship between WB and black shading is there? I mean, changing the WB from scene to scene won't require a new black shade... right?

Absolutely none

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Hm... It nice to see a digital motion camera that really outshines some top DSLR contenders in DR...

 

[Phil Holland]

I wanted to add something as I just conducted this experiment, and it's one I've conducted under an older calibration too.

I think everybody who's considering purchasing Dragon or has one on pre-order should do this btw.

Grab Gunleik's ISO test .R3D and export an image sequence (DPX, TIF, or EXR) via timeline using ISO 200-12800 at both 4K and 2K resolutions with REDcolo3/REDlogFilm. Then encode a ProRes4444 Quicktime and play that back.

Watch those files on the display of your choice. It's worth doing and tells you everything you need to know in reality.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

THX Phil for kinda breaking down what I think people should do...

I think the example is pretty telling...

And as I said, it is not "lab", thus not 100% controlled, but it is pretty good, in many ways...

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I would also like you goys to really examine the tungsten behaviour when approaching what should be clip values in the shots of my daughter, and check that it does not seem to have the "predictable" one stop punishment for shooting Tungsten over daylight.

Trying to figure out how that works, because I am intrigued by riddles, but main point is that it works...

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

I always do a quick pass in redcine the days after the shoot, and simply re-save the metadata (I don't transcode) and hand this over. Sometimes there is no time to white balance or do anything on set other than "MOVE!", and I know Red so I shoot to make sure the info is there and will look right without much DI effort, but fine tune WB, ISO, etc. after the fact.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

This example also shows off a lot of the top/bottom differences.

This time overcast daylight,

In this example the Dragon clips properly.

For a number of reasons this example is not as precises as the Espen example. The situation is a lot less controlled, so there is no real point measuring out exact stop differences between these images.

But if you look at them in 2-3-4 stops intervals, there is a lot of info to be had on saturation, color and noise-behavior on a more general level in this example.

Repeat;
This example is not good for "measuring anything exact", but more for looking at general tendencies.


(BTW. I do not think the example is BAD, just that there are to many things to control for which have not been properly controlled for...)

http://www.gunleik.com/dragonepic/r3d_8stop_backyard.zip

Look at these images, and imagine you had "an important foreground object"

Fun, right?

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

...

Hans, I am not sure if I would agree that fixing WB in post is the better solution. Is it not true that if you fix WB in post, you're pushing up the blue (or red) channel out of proportion to the other channels, therefore increasing noise in that channel?

RedCineX/SDK is post. In-camera you cannot change anything on the software side that affects the R3D, apart from exposure time and frame-rate. When you alter things in-camera such as colour, gamma, WB etc... you don't touch the R3D but you create a sidecar file which is read by RedCineX or the SDK in third parties applications.

When you set WB in-camera you only tell the SDK, or RedCineX for that matter, how to read the R3D regarding colour when transcoding to RGB. Technically Log encoding makes a lossless transcode from linear RAW to RGB in a given Bit depth possible. Hence, it does not matter wether you grade/WB you shot in RedCineX (e.g. triggered by pressing WB on set) or later off Log encoded RGB files.

If you want to WB in a sense of actually modifying the RAW/R3D in a meaningful direction you have to use filter in front of the lens, for instance. This has been the procedure with film for the last 100 years. If you are concerned with an under fed blue channel help the sensor with blue light or blue filter. Software cannot fill the channel magically with more signal.

Therefore, true WB in a sense of altering the R3D MUST be done with physical filtering on set if desired. WB in RedCine/SDK alters only the levels of the 3 RGB channels in the transcoded RGB result. In a lossless production pipeline it does not matter wether you manipulate your shot in the transcoding process or AFTER the transcoding to RGB. But with an untouched, not white balanced RGB file that represents the sensor's information log encoded very well you have much more options later in the pipeline when it comes to finishing.


----

Because this subject is so confusing and ambitious not many users of Red or other digital cameras understand it thoroughly. I know very good masters of our craft that prefer other cameras because they deliver Log RGB in straight and easy to understand way. But the good news with Red is you an do it as other cameras do: In the SDK/RedCineX dial in 400 ASA, 5000K, RedLogFilm and RC3 and you are in a save realm for anything that will come. For convenient monitoring chose RG3 /Rec709.

And lastly, oftentimes WB kills moods. Cinematographers are used to create the desired mood on set, colour is one tool of their pallet. If you WB the shot chances are high that you level out desired colour casts and the picture does not look anymore as originally created by the filmmakers.

Hans

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

In-camera you cannot change anything on the software side that affects the R3D, apart from exposure time and frame-rate. When you alter things in-camera such as colour, gamma, WB etc... you don't touch the R3D but you create a sidecar file which is read by RedCineX or the SDK in third parties applications.

Hans

Not exactly true. You can adjust curves in-camera - or load a look with any RAW parameter adjustments from RCX into the camera. When you alter RAW parameters in camera - that information is saved in the header of the actual R3D recorded.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

If you want to WB in a sense of actually modifying the RAW/R3D in a meaningful direction you have to use filter in front of the lens, for instance. This has been the procedure with film for the last 100 years. If you are concerned with an under fed blue channel help the sensor with blue light or blue filter. Software cannot fill the channel magically with more signal.
Hans

This is an important point - and this is why as I mentioned in an earlier thread - I see many folks on long form set the camera to 5500 or 5000 and keep it there as a "fixed WB" color temp and do color temp adjust lighting with gels, etc. or other RAW controls on camera - and if the DP is working this way - one should leave the WB alone in post.

I'm a HUGE fan and advocate of doing primary color adjustment IN-CAMERA - and I believe that is the future. And I have been kicking and screaming for wifi control of RAW parameters on EPIC since before there was an EPIC.

Meizler Module is dead now - and that's fine with me since there are several great proxy recorders and I have a couple great wireless video options - and now RED has a lens control option in addition to current industry standards that some Acs will fight to stick to - but we RED should create a wifi module or dongle yesterday - and empower users to quickly adjust and control RAW parameters on the camera. And IF and WHEN we get that - the digital version of "putting a filter on the camera" should be adjusting lift/gamma/gain and/or curves via wifi mobile device - not WB IMO.