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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 Flare

Wow.. great write up Phil. Thanks for digging deep.
 
I am stunned by the colorimprovements. I tthink they are pretty juicy as is.

Did you say that you managed to dig up more highlight stops?
 
Harcharan Singh said:
Thanks Ketch

But I think RED should work out something for faraway REDUSERS for whom sending the camera back is a big pain....

Harcharan
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I hear you loud an clear Harcharan, as I am also currently in Europe and very deep in to production with dead lines approaching fast...

However since I had actually had the opportunity to assist to few camera calibrations, I know that it is almost impossible for any but the specialized and equipped user to attempt any such Calibrations, and to the way things are with Epic, I can say with no hesitation that this process would be far more complex, and not possible by self installing a Calibration via an SSD...

Unless RED was to be well beyond genius and create an entire new system of calibrate such components with also a end user map to follow process.
 
Gunleik Groven said:
I am stunned by the colorimprovements. I think they are pretty juicy as is.

Did you say that you managed to dig up more highlight stops?
Click to expand...

The calibration has moved where "things are placed" slightly, giving us more useful dynamic range placement where we would want it most under the vast majority of shooting conditions.

Highlight Roll-Off and that organic looking "burn out" is still there and rad distinct character. Love that they kept this look in.


Justen Nguyen said:
Always love these test from you Phil. Very informative, and very impressive! Seems like most of the magenta woes are gone.
Click to expand...

Thanks Justen. This one is an important update. I shoot fire and VFX elements a lot. This just made things about 100% better.
 
Phil Holland said:
That's approximately 1.3+ stops improvements in the highlights. Also to note, the New OLPF wrangles light fall-off and bloom a bit nicer. So you get richer shadow detail, where the previous OLPF with it's IR contamination flattened out those areas a bit. Subtle, but visible noticeable in captured material.
Click to expand...
Looks fantastic! Good job -- that is quite an improvement.
 
Harcharan Singh said:
Thanks Ketch

But I think RED should work out something for faraway REDUSERS for whom sending the camera back is a big pain....

Harcharan
Click to expand...

Harcharan...Not sure what you are getting at....
 
I cannot wait for this! It's ironic that I shot a spot where I LIKED the OLPF flare present for that and now can bring my camera in and get yet another step up in quality. Sign me up!
 
Are there any implications for underwater filming with this new OLPF?
 
David Battistella said:
There is no doubt that arri took years of film color experience from their scanners and film to digital workflows and emulated those values to reproduce on a digital sensor.

In a sense they gave all of their customers with cameras who were used to a film to digital DI everything that's goes with that. So DPs say, "the skin looks right or the color looks right" because it is a "familiar image", not necessarily because it is technically better but for familiarity, aesthetic and nostalgic reasons.

So as ARRi transitioned to digital they created a camera that emulates the look of film stocks but it's coming off a digital sensor and that knowledge of film scanning film colors and DI isn't something you go out and buy, it's honed on years of image making and collaborating with Fuji and Kodak and knowledgable people across the industry. Even though Alexa was behind RED they did take a slow steady course and brought years of image science and color matrix to sensor development.

Then, they added and brought to their digital workflow a simpler post workflow than film. Let's use the term "digital and modern workflow" SHOOT>EDIT is what production accountants and producers wanted when they were making the move to digital and a few years of production with RED's post solutions (at the time) made people very ready for that solution even at what we would see as a hit to quality that makes no sense.

What at ends up pissing all of us off is that it's a quarter the resolution, a bit less flexible in color, but it plugs in perfectly to every aspect of production.

Rental house, check
producers, check
dp's, check
large film and tv post facilities, check

red stormed out of the gate and was not afraid to make a few public mistakes while constantly improving. It appeals to a more adventurous and rebel set of people. Anti establishment, etc. kinda like apple, but not as refined as apple is now, but more like apple with woz and jobs in the early days.

so in many ways Alexa is a PC (from those early days of computers) and RED is a Mac from those days and the customer base is kinda similar as well. Both attract creative people but for very different reasons.

So if anyone wants to know why I am harping on a post solution that needs to be way better than a PCI E card and free software, then it's the observation of this pocket history that partially describes how an industry wide trend can happen.

the "hard to post" moniker hangs over red (even though I do not agree).

Arri has been married to a generation of DPs and not a lot of them wanted to throw out the wife for the new hot chick. The wife ( arri) responded with a little more boring, a little more stable, a little less sexy, but right by your side attitude and that was well received.

Dragon not only has to be better, the whole top to bottom system has to equal because more goes into the decision than pure image quality. At least, that has been the case until now it seems.

Battistella
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ARRI has huge customer loyalty, and incorporate some classy looking color profiles into camera which is can be 100% replicated on RED.
Producers/directors/editors loves it cause they can deal with originals on descent laptop - no problem at all. It is low resolution files. Works flawless.
DOPs loves cause it looks and feels like descent ENG camera - and in fact - it is ENG Camera. With big sensor.

And what really will piss me of - when ARRI will introduce 4K ALEXA later this year everyone loyal to it will act like it is wasn't any 4K camera before that:)))
 
wow.. Thanks Phil for sharing,
waiting to return the camera to RED ..:lol:
 
David Battistella said:
[...]

red stormed out of the gate and was not afraid to make a few public mistakes while constantly improving. It appeals to a more adventurous and rebel set of people. Anti establishment, etc. kinda like apple, but not as refined as apple is now, but more like apple with woz and jobs in the early days.

so in many ways Alexa is a PC (from those early days of computers) and RED is a Mac from those days and the customer base is kinda similar as well. Both attract creative people but for very different reasons.
Click to expand...

As a person who lived through the personal computing revolution, I'd like to argue that the above analogy is deeply flawed. RED's commitment to modularity is the hallmark of the success of the PC platform--despite unbelievably crappy software from Microsoft for years. ARRI's all-in-one solution was the hallmark of success of the Apple platform--despite the unbelievably limited capabilities of Apple to deliver anything more than a toy operating system until they switched to BSD Unix. Lots of companies have lots of icononclastic leaders who break all the known rules. Some of them are ultimately successful. Some of them ultimately fail. But it is not the willingness to break rules alone that determines success. Millions of people in prison today can testify to that. Rather, it is the specific consequences of the rule-breaking which, when analyzed, lead to a deeper understanding of what the real rules are.

What the PC platform offered, that Apple didn't (and almost died because of it) was the relentless progress of Moore's Law, delivered in a modular platform that admitted innovation from all corners. (Well, almost all corners--Windows was a terrible blight that really hampered progress in the software arena.)

RED is the modular platform that admits rapid, incremental innovation. Which is why it is exciting to me.
 
Phil Holland said:
I have a secret. And this is a very, very important post.

Last week Jarred invited me to test out the new Epic Dragon OLPF plus the new camera/sensor calibration. For the last couple days I've been digging into it real hard.

I'll keep it brief because the images do the talking.





First up, FLARE.

As Jarred mentioned the "OG" Dragon OLPF exhibited reflected IR flare or magenta glow around bright sources. Much of what I've been doing is hard stress testing and comparisons to the New Dragon OLPF.

The Sun.



40 Watt Incandescent Bulb.



Single Source Flashlight.



A Match.




The magenta glow around intense sources is gone. This is great news.

You may notice that there are color and "tonal density" improvements. Dragon received a new calibration and update to the color science to play nice with this New OLPF.

So you might ask, is the IR Cut still as effective and what's the net results on the color utilizing hard Neutral Density Filtration?

Daylight - ND 2.7



IR Cut performance is still wonderful. You will not need additional IR Filtration with the New OLPF on Dragon. You just want regular NDs. I have tested 0.3-2.7 ND.

If you look extremely closely you will notice color has slightly improved overall. Additionally in shadows and highlights IR contamination has been eliminated with the New OLPF. Those blue shadows are extremely pure (check out the sky in the Sun Flare image too). White highlights are white. Dark shadow areas are clean. You may noticed that chroma is richer in the 2800K WB/ISO 2000 Match test image as well. Good stuff.

One more chart.

Artificial Daylight Source - No ND.



Color looks great.


The new calibration has also improved other areas.

Highlight Retention and Highlight Roll-Off.



That's approximately 1.3+ stops improvements in the highlights. Also to note, the New OLPF wrangles light fall-off and bloom a bit nicer. So you get richer shadow detail, where the previous OLPF with it's IR contamination flattened out those areas a bit. Subtle, but visibly noticeable in captured material.


I'm still conducting a few tests, but this is info you're looking for. I hear that the new OLPFs are coming soon and will be dropped into Dragons with this new calibration as well.

Hats off to the Red Team for developing and implementing this New OLPF tech. They listened and worked very quickly.

Now Dragon is even better.

Thanks go to Jarred for letting me break this thing in.
Click to expand...

That was exactly why I was asking before for the new OLPF design just because a combination of balanced RGB beam from the sensor,

plus OLPF custom design together with firmware (colour science) gives desired and pleasant IMAGE QUALITY.

Arri was a leader with Alexa Alev III sensor till this year but now as I can see and smell that Dragon is going to beat this fact with its 14+ stops of DR,

much higher spatial resolution and IQ that the most of cinematographers and DPs like to have!!!!
 
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