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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

Jarred Land

Jarred Land

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He all, I posted in another thread but thought I would start a new one since I am getting so many questions about the new OLPF coming and concerns about the optical flare / reflections that some people are seeing with the old filter.

In certain situations the current Dragon OLPF can exhibit a reflected IR flare or magenta glow around bright sources inside or on the edge of Frame in different strengths depending on the light, the angle of reflection, lens etc.

Good news is that the new OLPF comes out of the oven en masse in about a month.. and it solves the flare issues as well as fixes a few other optical / IR characteristics that we have seen over the last couple months.

Graeme is going to kick my ass for posting this image because he is still in the middle of the new color science that goes with the new OLPF, but I thought it was important to share with you an example of the new filter as the difference is meaningful, and an image is worth a thousand words.

New on top, current on bottom.

Of course, for all existing Dragons already out there we will gladly swap out the OLPF to anyone who requests it for no charge, just let your Bombsquad rep know you would like it done.


1390059814.jpg




Update Feb. 4th. Phil Holland took the new OLPF for a spin...

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...
 
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  • #5
Curran Giddens said:
I assume this isn't user-replaceable. We will need to send the camera in for this?
Click to expand...

The OLPF is user replaceable, but for the existing Dragons with the old filter you will need to send your camera in, since the color science is different with the new OLPF we need to reprogram your camera to tell it which filter it has, so all the post tools know which color science to apply.
 
If OLPF is user replaceable... Could this work with current mx chips or dragon only?
 
Jarred Land said:
The OLPF is user replaceable, but for the existing Dragons with the old filter you will need to send your camera in, since the color science is different with the new OLPF we need to reprogram your camera to tell it which filter it has, so all the post tools know which color science to apply.
Click to expand...
What about Dragon upgrades that are performed between now and the OLPF upgrade? Will those cameras need to be sent back as well?
 
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Paul Russell said:
What about Dragon upgrades that are performed between now and the OLPF upgrade? Will those cameras need to be sent back as well?
Click to expand...

Same thing... the OLPF is a month away so if your Dragon is due before then you can either have it wait at RED for the filter to come in and do everything at once, or send it back at a later time to get upgraded. Obviously if you are far away from a RED repair center, the first option might be best.
 
Jarred Land said:
Same thing... the OLPF is a month away so if your Dragon is due before then you can either have it wait at RED for the filter to come in and do everything at once, or send it back at a later time to get upgraded. Obviously if you are far away from a RED repair center, the first option might be best.
Click to expand...
Thanks for letting us know. At the current run-rate in the 'who took Dragon upgrade' thread it looks like either event could be very closely timed.
 
Outstanding example of what RED will do for us and others wont.

NAB 2005 possibly '06
My 2 buddies were kicked off the NAB floor by JVC because they pointed out an issue with the way the new JVC HD camera was giving some odd
unpleasing results from their sensor due to how the light was hitting it in a certain angle.
The JVC engineer said thats how it is cant do anything about it.
We were there to select what we were gonna buy next. That camera was tops of our list.

Welp didnt happen instead of JVC addressing the issue they just had my friends go away.
=) fun times.
 
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