DRAGON - ITS THE REAL DEAL !!!! - (PART 2)

[Elsie N]

...
I for one did indeed feel bullied. I'd guess (juts a guess) Mark was the popular captain of the football team dating all the cheerleaders, as he speaks of nerds with some derision on many occasions (including at the beginning of the first Dragon thread), but I was that nerd growing up, and still am, very much, proudly. In high school I was bullied to the point of requiring an ambulance and two days in the hospital, and I really, really don't like it any more now then I did then.

....

Nerd to me is the smart, clever guy in class... not the guy that got bashed.
I got bashed at school almost everyday because I was small and because I was from another country, (seriously) and a very easy target, because I never fort back and I never told on the bullies.
So take no offence my nerd comments as they are more aimed at people more intelligent than I being able to give a more technically polished response.

Robert... Lets hug. lets move onwards and upwards.


...

I think it very revealing how the two of you arrived at your current level of success and I suspect your stories mirror those of many others here on REDuser. Not only that, a backstory helps one understand someone's written words better and helps a reader to put their words into a context that is based on what the reader knows about the person rather than what they read into the sterile words on a page.

So I will share my backstory. I went to a small school which was appropriate because I too was a small person as a kid. And while I don't recall being bullied, we did have a bully at my grade school. He was my cousin and one day he picked on my best friend so I challenged him, although he was my cousin and was literally, twice my size. We were supposed to meet at the gymnasium after lunch. Everybody gathered, even high schoolers, because a fight was a big event back during that time... plus they wanted to make sure nobody got hurt really bad (meaning me.) Long story short we semi-wrestled and my cousin pinned me against the wall and was squushing me pretty hard, so I bit him in the back... the lower back because that's how much bigger he was than me. The high schoolers pretty much stopped the fight then and there and declared it a draw.

I was still small for my age in high school which was a different one than the school where I grew up, but probably a lot like high schools everywhere. Interestingly, I was able to move within the different cliques fluidly, even the cool guys clique. But one of the members of that clique was particularly obnoxious and actually had one or two teachers a little fearful of him because his Dad was on the school board. I didn't like that guy and I guess it showed in my demeanor.

So one day after a track meet we competed in, I was assigned to ride back in my nemesis's Dad's car with some other team members. Looking back, I may have been a little sullen on the ride back to my own car, parked at a meeting place where we left from to go to the track meet. When we got there my nemesis said some stuff to me and I said some stuff back at him and we took a few swings at one another until his Dad decided it was time to break it up. Pretty much allowed to be a draw.

Again, looking back, I think it was the Dad who may have covertly promoted the fight through his son. And re-living the scene in my mind, I think he thought he was doing it for my own good. But by his son trying to wield power over others through his Dad's position, at that time I assumed the Dad was as bad as the son.

But anyway, here I was having had two fights ending in draws.

Then, a third (and final) fight ending in a bloody, scrambled-brain mess that taught me not to get into physical altercations.

My Dad and I were not close, nor was he close to my three older brothers. I think he saw his job as being a teacher to his kids and not their (our) best buddy. There was bonding and doing stuff together of course, but for the most part, he always maintained his posture as parent as opposed to best friend.

As time passes, I think I have a sense of fair play and having seen my Dad make many decisions throughout his life that were detrimental financially to him but were the right thing to do, if I indeed do possess such a trait, I think it came about through observing him.

 

[Brice Ansel]

Nerd to me is the smart, clever guy in class... not the guy that got bashed.
I got bashed at school almost everyday because I was small and because I was from another country, (seriously) and a very easy target, because I never fort back and I never told on the bullies.
So take no offence my nerd comments as they are more aimed at people more intelligent than I being able to give a more technically polished response.

Robert... Lets hug. lets move onwards and upwards.

Ok...
In regarding wanting R3D's.
I cannot load up the R3D's as I have been instructed not to by RED. Why, because the camera I was using is an unfinished beta camera.

You wont be able to read the R3D's in any of your systems anyway unless you have the beta RCX. Which I cannot share with anyone as I have been instructed not to... why? because it does not have the desired colour science in it as yet and RED don't want to release a build that is still in test beta mode. As they have been burnt before with early releases.

You won't be able to grade the R3D's in any other program other than the beta RCX, So technically what i have shared with you already is currently all I can do from within RCX.

Until RED releases the SDK for Dragon to the world, we then wait until Resolve, base-light , Scratch, Auto desk, Apple colour, and Adobe Speed grade etc etc etc release an update to actually be able to play 6k R3D's.

Now... I promise you this, the moment RCX has been released by RED to the public, and then RED give me permission to upload my raw files. then I will.
But once again, don't hold your breath, because the current beta Dragon camera I used , does not have the latest colour science, does not have the desired IR filtration and does not have the up incoming low pass filter in it so I doubt RED actually want R3D's from this camera actually floating around being judged on, knowing that the images generated from it will be not as good as compared to the release models that we will all someday get.

So in fact... this test was more about depth and range of the new sensor, just to give everyone a taste of the up incoming latitude and DR... not color. As that's still work in progress. And I'm sure you will have plenty of material to grade and test once the finally finished camera is released.

I hope this all makes sense, because Im starting to feel and sound like a broken record.

Thats it from me Robert... I'm all done.

Humility and maturity...
I don't know you but you sounds like a wise man Mark.
Good on ya.
B.
Ps At my school, the smart guys you are mentioning were the ones who had their ass kicked.

 

[António Fagundes]

I wasn't bullied. I was the bully. Good times!

 

[Elsie N]

I wasn't bullied. I was the bully. Good times!

Thought it was just a cultural thing with you '-)... good to know how you became who you are.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Thought it was just a cultural thing with you '-)... good to know how you became who you are.

Watch it! There are other Portuguese folks here you might not readily recognize... But then I am boorish, so maybe you have a point. I am just one other guy though. ;-)

If I had a Dragon in my hands we might almost be on topic...

 

[Brice Ansel]

Thought it was just a cultural thing with you '-)... good to know how you became who you are.

Bummer the ignore button doesn't ignore the quote. ;-)

 

[Elsie N]

Bummer the ignore button doesn't ignore the quote. ;-)

Hopefully the smiley thing showed I was joking about that. The second part of the comment was in a more serious vein unless Antonio was making a joke. No smiley in his post though, so who knows?

EDIT: Apologies to Brice Ansel. My post using his quote makes it look like I thought he was directing his post at something I said, but he was of course referring to something else entirely. Thanks Brice for bringing that to my attention so I can clear that up.

 

[António Fagundes]

Hopefully the smiley thing showed I was joking about that. The second part of the comment was in a more serious vein unless Antonio was making a joke. No smiley in his post though, so who knows?

Just thought this conversation of feeling sorry for yourself as a kid was getting very boring, plus it's way off topic. Who had a perfect chidhood anyway? We're all grownups now, so lets all behave accordingly.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Mcqueen: "And there's the insult we were missing. Grazzi."

 

[Lliam Worthington]

Mark thanks for your terrific work and no bullshit approach. I haven't done much car work, but shooting in forests and in and around the Ocean I know pretty well. I wasn't paying attention to the quality of the highlights as I didn't think that was the point, I cared how much I could see in the stress tests you chose. DR and low light looked pretty incredible to me. Oh and managing to catch Mick Fanning free surfing too by the looks was cool) Thanks mate.

Best

Lliam

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Nerd to me is the smart, clever guy in class... not the guy that got bashed.
I got bashed at school almost everyday because I was small and because I was from another country, (seriously) and a very easy target, because I never fort back and I never told on the bullies.
So take no offence my nerd comments as they are more aimed at people more intelligent than I being able to give a more technically polished response.

Robert... Lets hug. lets move onwards and upwards.

Ok...
In regarding wanting R3D's.
I cannot load up the R3D's as I have been instructed not to by RED. Why, because the camera I was using is an unfinished beta camera.

You wont be able to read the R3D's in any of your systems anyway unless you have the beta RCX. Which I cannot share with anyone as I have been instructed not to... why? because it does not have the desired colour science in it as yet and RED don't want to release a build that is still in test beta mode. As they have been burnt before with early releases.

You won't be able to grade the R3D's in any other program other than the beta RCX, So technically what i have shared with you already is currently all I can do from within RCX.

Until RED releases the SDK for Dragon to the world, we then wait until Resolve, base-light , Scratch, Auto desk, Apple colour, and Adobe Speed grade etc etc etc release an update to actually be able to play 6k R3D's.

Now... I promise you this, the moment RCX has been released by RED to the public, and then RED give me permission to upload my raw files. then I will.
But once again, don't hold your breath, because the current beta Dragon camera I used , does not have the latest colour science, does not have the desired IR filtration and does not have the up incoming low pass filter in it so I doubt RED actually want R3D's from this camera actually floating around being judged on, knowing that the images generated from it will be not as good as compared to the release models that we will all someday get.

So in fact... this test was more about depth and range of the new sensor, just to give everyone a taste of the up incoming latitude and DR... not color. As that's still work in progress. And I'm sure you will have plenty of material to grade and test once the finally finished camera is released.

I hope this all makes sense, because Im starting to feel and sound like a broken record.

Thats it from me Robert... I'm all done.

Hug accepted and reciprocated. Thanks Mark.

As I've said many times before, I may not always agree with your work methodology, but I do pretty much always think your work is amazing.

Thank you also for the further tech details, (which may have been stated before, but perhaps buried in other long threads) which are of great interest. They make me even more eager than before to plunk down my 9.5K, because even if all Dragon was was what we saw n your footage, I was already a future satisfied customer. As you are are all I would imagine aware, I am not a fanboy by any means, so that is sincere.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

II'm going to try a novel approach. I'm gonna keep my mouth shut about dragon until it's all done.

jay

At which time it will be too late for you to express your concerns or affect its chosen technical compromises (nothing is perfect, everything is a compromise) in any way. I've affected the design of many products I use by speaking with the companies that make them. I'm now even looking at, on my desk, a product I basically invented through my comments to its manufacturer about another device. This device is amazing, for our work, even game changing.

I'm glad I don't live by that book. That book says other should always be left to make choices for you, and that you have little power. There are only a few thousand Red owners out there and this forum is a direct form of two-way communication. We do each have some power to have our voices heard and affect real change.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

There is a difference in here somewhere. And I can understand the reluctance to release stuff, because all thing possible and impossible are interpreted in the extremes. Either extremely good or extremely bad, like the sun reflection in Marks initial video.

Those who knew what they saw, knew that that was "nothing".

Others went ballistic.

The camera isn't done. If it was, it would be out making RED money.

But it is close enough for real world testing.

THAT is an achievement in and by itself.

There will be tons of comparative tests, and they will have little value in public display until RED says the cam is done and start shipping.
And most of them will not have much value in public display anyways, because if the methodology isn't recreateable, it isn't of any real value.

And we test for different things.

BUT
Being able to have a glimpse at what guys like Mark and Tom can make out of it with their individual approaches to photography, gives a certain hunch as to what might be in there.

And at the moment, I actually think that sounds more promising than any 18+ stop image of a wedge chart I have seen.

And hopefully there will be more tests dripping out in the next month or so.

THAT does not mean that legitimate concerns are illegitimate, but as long as we don't know how the dragon actually performs on a couple of areas, it is of little use to make assumptions.

But to me, Dragon with MotionMount seems like a killer package.

 

[Tony Harris]

what happen to seeing some more amazing Dragon footage or is this a skin tone thread??

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

There is a difference in here somewhere. And I can understand the reluctance to release stuff, because all thing possible and impossible are interpreted in the extremes. Either extremely good or extremely bad, like the sun reflection in Marks initial video.

Those who knew what they saw, knew that that was "nothing".

Others went ballistic.

The camera isn't done. If it was, it would be out making RED money.

But it is close enough for real world testing.

THAT is an achievement in and by itself.

There will be tons of comparative tests, and they will have little value in public display until RED says the cam is done and start shipping.
And most of them will not have much value in public display anyways, because if the methodology isn't recreateable, it isn't of any real value.

And we test for different things.

BUT
Being able to have a glimpse at what guys like Mark and Tom can make out of it with their individual approaches to photography, gives a certain hunch as to what might be in there.

And at the moment, I actually think that sounds more promising than any 18+ stop image of a wedge chart I have seen.

And hopefully there will be more tests dripping out in the next month or so.

THAT does not mean that legitimate concerns are illegitimate, but as long as we don't know how the dragon actually performs on a couple of areas, it is of little use to make assumptions.

But to me, Dragon with MotionMount seems like a killer package.

For sure it's a killer package. No arguments there. Very reasonably priced.

 

[Martin Stevens]

So.....how many years has there been since the MX came out?

I ask because I wonder when the next Sensor from Red might be released.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

3+ years these days, even though it performs differently in the R1 MX and in the Epic...

Why?

 

[Scott Crawley]

3+ years these days, even though it performs differently in the R1 MX and in the Epic...

The original R1 sensor was close to four years old when MX came out as well, right? One more sensor in 3-4 years and we can call it a pattern.

 

[Martin Stevens]

3+ years these days, even though it performs differently in the R1 MX and in the Epic...

Why?

Because I wonder when the next Sensor from Red might be released.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Might take a while - Dragon pretty much gives you all you need, from the looks of it.