DRAGON - ITS THE REAL DEAL !!!!

[Rudi Herbert]

Though I am a fervent advocate of RAW and retaining all the control possible in my images, I do wonder if the so called halation filter approach in the Alexa can really be replicated in post.

What few seem to realize is that RAW, even if most flexible, is not a magical sauce after all, and though it retains all the light data hitting the sensor, whatever happens to that light BEFORE it hits the sensor is not something that can always be replicated afterwards. Point in case, in the underwater medium where most of my work takes place, we tend to use red filters that decrease the amount of blue and green and thus make the light more balanced, which helps tremendously in bringing back red during grading. A lot of the RAW neophytes, and some very experienced too, seem to think that with RAW you do not need the red filters anymore since "all the info is there", even though it is very simply proven by looking at scopes that the filtered imaged is quite different from the unfiltered one, as it happens before the light hits the sensor.

The point being that, as with the underwater red filters, halation or smooth highlight rolloff is one of those things that, to me, is better achieved before the light hits the sensor and not after. I've tried and it never looks quite the same as it does when using a filter. Very, very close, but not quite the same. And though that creamy rolloff is not something I feverishly desire as do so many others, I would caution that if that look is needed, then emulating the ARRI way of putting a filter in front of the sensor, is the way to do it.

 

[David Battistella]

Rudi,

I hear what you are saying.

I think this is what a mattebox is for.

Personally i prefer to make those decisions myself. I have three films happening right now and on one I am using a lo-con (for the look I want) on another I am using a pro mist and the other I am shooting clean. These are my creative choices.

It's like sharpening. I do not want RED to pre-sharpen any images. I like that they leave the sharpening to taste. I could post a recent image with the Lo-con as an example but I don't want to litter this thread with that kind of thing.

I get what you are saying but I like the RED approach. You put the EPIC in the housing and you decide if you want to use a RED filter. Maybe another company might say, we built you a special underwater camera with a special OLFP, pay us A LOT more.

I don't know, everything is a compromise, but I would rather start with an image where I decide that I want this much ND and this much lo-con or a digicon because that is what works with my story. I do not want to have to say, i need this other camera because they roll the highlights off for me, when I know the tool and I know how and when to do that myself based on a creative choice the film requires.

David

 

[Evin Grant]

Pretty much correct. I rarely get the opportunity to supervise the color corrections and I actually think that if you're clear about your final presentation and understand the individual character of each filter and strength then you can use these filters without fear of damage to the image, quite to the contrary I want to permanently force my clients to use the images as I've photographed them, after all that's why they hired me. Again not to say that having post options is bad but they are rarely as organic as optics.

You didn't respond to my question directly, but I think I see the answers here among your other points. Some of them seem to contradict but I think I have parsed the info I was looking for. Bear with me please.

Adding the filter is just easier for you, and that's it. You are capable of doing it with a lut, a curve but you choose to bake it in to be sure it sticks, and clients who are looking for Alexa-like images from your kit are happy to have it baked in. You do this in spite of the fact that doing it in post processing is more flexible and less succeptable to interaction with the lens for the reasons previously stated.

Do I understand correctly?

Thanks.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Optical diffusion / low-contrast filtering pre-sensor is not the same effect as doing it in post. With a filter, you're reducing contrast mainly by lifting the blacks (and thus the shadows) before the sensor sees it and before it gets recorded. There is not a tremendous gain in shadow detail from filters, most of what you are seeing are lifted blacks, but there is a minor increase in information because it has been lifted above the noise floor, maybe 1/3-stop more detail at best. And in terms of halation, you are spreading a light source due to the particulate matter in the filter but the amount of softening is controlled by other aspects of the filter (and to some degree, loss of sharpness is partly due to loss of contrast.)

Most attempts at post diffusion involve defocusing the highlights and then layering them back over a sharp image. This causes some increase in contrast in the highlights, which you can reduce but at the cost of reducing the halation effect (as people have found who play with layering Gaussian blurs in Photoshop). And there is some softening of detail in the highlights that can be heavier than what happens with a very light optical diffusion filter. So over the years, I've found that if I want halation but minimal loss of sharpness, I get better results with an optical filter than post diffusion. Now I suppose there is post diffusion effect software specifically designed to minimize the loss of highlight sharpness compared to the layering technique, but many D.I. facilities don't seem to carry such software tools.

Older filters from the 1970's and earlier can cause more softening along with the halation due to the design of the filter. A true diffusion filter has clear areas in the glass to allow focused images to pass through, and then some pattern creates areas of defocusing, and it's the combination that produces diffusion rather than just throwing the image out of focus. However, some designs are better than others, it's a bit hit or miss for older filters. Fog Filters, for example, don't have enough clear gaps between the mist particles so the picture is very slightly blurred compared to a more modern ProMist design. An Ultra-Con or Digi-Con is a better design for contrast-lowering than an older Low-Con filter, but you don't get as much halation.

 

[Eric Haase]

Optical diffusion / low-contrast filtering pre-sensor is not the same effect as doing it in post. With a filter, you're reducing contrast mainly by lifting the blacks (and thus the shadows) before the sensor sees it and before it gets recorded. There is not a tremendous gain in shadow detail from filters, most of what you are seeing are lifted blacks, but there is a minor increase in information because it has been lifted above the noise floor, maybe 1/3-stop more detail at best. And in terms of halation, you are spreading a light source due to the particulate matter in the filter but the amount of softening is controlled by other aspects of the filter (and to some degree, loss of sharpness is partly due to loss of contrast.)

Most attempts at post diffusion involve defocusing the highlights and then layering them back over a sharp image. This causes some increase in contrast in the highlights, which you can reduce but at the cost of reducing the halation effect (as people have found who play with layering Gaussian blurs in Photoshop). And there is some softening of detail in the highlights that can be heavier than what happens with a very light optical diffusion filter. So over the years, I've found that if I want halation but minimal loss of sharpness, I get better results with an optical filter than post diffusion. Now I suppose there is post diffusion effect software specifically designed to minimize the loss of highlight sharpness compared to the layering technique, but many D.I. facilities don't seem to carry such software tools.

I've found that typically in a DI or final commercial grade diffusion tools are minimal. The exception is skin softening which we do a lot of on Resolve or Baselight for the spots I shoot. Highlight diffusion effect seem to be more in the domain of VFX passes. YMMV

 

[Rudi Herbert]

David (Battistella),

My point was simply that if you desire the halation/highlight rolloff effect, especially if you want it to mimic the Alexa look, then it is much better to put a filter on than to leave it for post. And yes, I also prefer my images to not have anything baked in, but once again, just like shooting at magic hour will never be the same as tinting your image red/golden in post, so should some looks be achieved before the light hits the sensor. Not only do many things not look the same, dare I say it, some things are just not achievable in post, period. But this really does not much to do with Dragon, does it?

 

[luigivaltulini]

I may have been a little hasty/off the cuff. I updated the post with a caveat or two. Also, I'm kind of using "sharpness" and "detail" interchangeably... Maybe I should say that RED footage is sharper, but the detail is very similar even though Alexa has half the pixels.



I would love this Kemalettin, especially if you can post the raws of both (or, at the very least, 1:1 comparison jpegs). Don't get me wrong, you can extract the sharpness out of a r3d file, but I find it does more harm than good (looks more like over-sharpened video and less like film), whereas I don't see that with a few other digital cinema cameras (Alexa being the top dog, probably because it isn't technically as sharp, but still resolves detail so well). Hopefully dragon will turn the tables on all this (lord knows it's got a DR advantage).

Admittedly any Alexa footage I've had was shot with (arguably) better lenses than I most often use with my personal Scarlet. That said, I see the (more objective) results of these kinds of tests and they kind of point to the same conclusion. In that particular test they're are comparing Epic 5k downscaled to UHD (better than the 4k I've compared) and Alexa 2.88k upscaled to UHD and I seriously would have no problems mix and matching the two from a sharpness standpoint (granted I haven't seen them on 4k projector as Neil suggests in that thread)... The fact that the Alexa has half the resolution and still holds up fairly well when blown up is a little frightening (as Bob put it). And the only problem I have with all of this is it usually isn't worth the additional render time (and tweaks) required to apply sharpening to RED footage to make its resolution stand out (ironically, as mentioned, applying sharpening actually makes images look a little more videoy as well, so personally it's a lose-lose in my experience).



I haven't tried HBM, only vanilla low-con 1/4 and pro-mist 1/4 (both separately). In the right scenarios they looked good, but again, not consistently great. So, HBM is next on my list I guess. Actually, I think quite a few people have suggested it... Speak of the devil (Nick does too).



Yeah, in that Army Wives example the Scarlet footage looks way cleaner, which honestly may work against it from a perceived sharpness/detail point of view. Was that ArriRAW or prores? Even with vimeo compression the Scarlet footage looks to be sharper, but not necessarily more detailed (again, maybe the cleanliness has something to do with it.)

hey Mike!
I'm sorry but I can not understand how you do not notice the difference!
Epic 4800x2700, Alexa vs Raw, 2880x1620 right?
You almost 500 lines in more ......
I give to you right on a screen at 1080 do not see anything, and unfortunately it myself.

Again today I wanted to play with the three projectors that are available to me on television Christie 4kD4K2560 with the technical Christie a friend of mine.
I connected my Hackintosh with the new board of blackamgic extreme 4k, we went in with 4kUHDTV Resolve color with a basic r709. I brought in the studio DP, and Directors, all obviously pro Alexa, I took the two movies, and 'I showed them the difference. No one spoke more, most of them asked me if it was a new camera for RED!!!! , 'Cause they had never seen so well the colors and details of the Epic, others responded but who cares so much we are still in 1080i, no use the 4k!!
I turned around and I held my smile. The world goes on I know I made the right choice.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Yeah, in that Army Wives example the Scarlet footage looks way cleaner, which honestly may work against it from a perceived sharpness/detail point of view. Was that ArriRAW or prores? Even with vimeo compression the Scarlet footage looks to be sharper, but not necessarily more detailed (again, maybe the cleanliness has something to do with it.)

Not sure how Army Wives shoots natively...whether ARRI-RAW or ProRes. The footage we recieved though was PRO RES. When I was on set, I noticed that the Army Wives camera team were using HBM diffusion (I made sure to ask), so keep in mind their footage is diffused. Sorry I should have mentioned that in my original post (it was late).

In terms of sharpness, I think the Scarlet footage punches through optimally...which is ideal for promo, as you very clearly know when you are watching PROMO shots, and when you are watching cutaways to the SHOW. It's very clearly delineated.

If I wanted to make the interviews match even more, I probably would have shot with HBM 1 (which I believe is what they use on the show, and maybe even HBM 2...which is more diffusion than I'm ordinarily used to)

 

[Evin Grant]

Generally the strength of a given filter is determined by the lens choice or the talent in front of the lens, for instance for wide lenses from 15-25mm I'll generally go clean or 1/8 CS/HBM, for 25-50mm I'll usually chose the 1/4 strength and for 85mm+ I'll usually use the 1/2 strength. Strengths 1 & 2 are reserved for close ups of leading ladies, especially older ones. These are all general guide lines and often change depending on the particular details of the shot. It's also important to be aware of your aperture, especially on wide lenses it's possible to "See" the dots in some of the diffusion if you shoot at small T stops.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Hollywood is sometimes referred to as the Fantasy Factory. Making the female stars look fantastic is typically a high priority. One of the leads is Kim Delaney (whom I've had a crush on for 30 years) who is now 51, Cathy Bell is 44, etc. HBM filtration sounds like a great idea to me, Robert LaBonge likely feels the same way and, just a guess, would like to keep the gig ;-)

Cheers - #19

 

[Nick Morrison]

Generally the strength of a given filter is determined by the lens choice or the talent in front of the lens, for instance for wide lenses from 15-25mm I'll generally go clean or 1/8 CS/HBM, for 25-50mm I'll usually chose the 1/4 strength and for 85mm+ I'll usually use the 1/2 strength. Strengths 1 & 2 are reserved for close ups of leading ladies, especially older ones. These are all general guide lines and often change depending on the particular details of the shot. It's also important to be aware of your aperture, especially on wide lenses it's possible to "See" the dots in some of the diffusion if you shoot at small T stops.

Love this. I'm going to file this away in my "notes"!

 

[Evin Grant]

Since this seems to be of interest I'll give a little rundown of the different types of filtration from Schneider which I think are the most pleasing and are by far the most used on the shows I see today.

Lowcon: Lowers contrast by spreading highlights into shadows and vice versa, also halates or blooms point light sources.
Digicon: Same as Lowcon but supposedly without the halating or blooming (personally this defeats a primary reason to use the lowcon but test YMMV)
Classic Soft: These are my go to filters, they offer a clean look that knocks down the acute sharpness (fine line detail) while still maintaing high resolution, they add a pleasing glow to practicals as well.
HD Classic Soft: Same as above but tuned for a more subtle look or 2/3" and smaller sensors.
Classic Black soft: Same as Classic soft but with an added 1/8 black frost for lowered contrast and added bloom/halation
Hollywood black magic: The same as the Classic Black softs but tuned for a more subtle look or smaller 2/3" sensors
Black frost (Black pro mist): black for reducing contrast while maintaining a rich black/shadow tone

 

[Phil Holland]

Nice filter breakdown Evin. Thanks for that.

 

[Mike Nagel]

Since this seems to be of interest I'll give a little rundown of the different types of filtration from Schneider which I think are the most pleasing and are by far the most used on the shows I see today.

Lowcon: Lowers contrast by spreading highlights into shadows and vice versa, also halates or blooms point light sources.
Digicon: Same as Lowcon but supposedly without the halating or blooming (personally this defeats a primary reason to use the lowcon but test YMMV)
Classic Soft: These are my go to filters, they offer a clean look that knocks down the acute sharpness (fine line detail) while still maintaing high resolution, they add a pleasing glow to practicals as well.
HD Classic Soft: Same as above but tuned for a more subtle look or 2/3" and smaller sensors.
Classic Black soft: Same as Classic soft but with an added 1/8 black frost for lowered contrast and added bloom/halation
Hollywood black magic: The same as the Classic Black softs but tuned for a more subtle look or smaller 2/3" sensors
Black frost (Black pro mist): black for reducing contrast while maintaining a rich black/shadow tone

Evin, thanks for the breakdown !

Which brand would you recommend (or are you using) for the low con to reduce contrast and bloom highlights ?

I know the low con filter has been around for a while and there are so many versions of it...

- Mike

 

[Andy Roberts]

...different types of filtration from Schneider...

I'm thinking Schneider

 

[Mike Nagel]

I'm thinking Schneider

hahahahahaha... good eye, Andy ;-))))

so Low Contrast 2000....

Thanks ! ;-)

- M

 

[Nick Morrison]

Since this seems to be of interest I'll give a little rundown of the different types of filtration from Schneider which I think are the most pleasing and are by far the most used on the shows I see today.

Lowcon: Lowers contrast by spreading highlights into shadows and vice versa, also halates or blooms point light sources.
Digicon: Same as Lowcon but supposedly without the halating or blooming (personally this defeats a primary reason to use the lowcon but test YMMV)
Classic Soft: These are my go to filters, they offer a clean look that knocks down the acute sharpness (fine line detail) while still maintaing high resolution, they add a pleasing glow to practicals as well.
HD Classic Soft: Same as above but tuned for a more subtle look or 2/3" and smaller sensors.
Classic Black soft: Same as Classic soft but with an added 1/8 black frost for lowered contrast and added bloom/halation
Hollywood black magic: The same as the Classic Black softs but tuned for a more subtle look or smaller 2/3" sensors
Black frost (Black pro mist): black for reducing contrast while maintaining a rich black/shadow tone

Wow a two-fer tonight! Adding these to notes as well!

 

[Will Keir]

Evin,

Excellent info, when you get a chance, please add this to the filter section in the Lenses category for reference.

Since this seems to be of interest I'll give a little rundown of the different types of filtration from Schneider which I think are the most pleasing and are by far the most used on the shows I see today.

Lowcon: Lowers contrast by spreading highlights into shadows and vice versa, also halates or blooms point light sources.
Digicon: Same as Lowcon but supposedly without the halating or blooming (personally this defeats a primary reason to use the lowcon but test YMMV)
Classic Soft: These are my go to filters, they offer a clean look that knocks down the acute sharpness (fine line detail) while still maintaing high resolution, they add a pleasing glow to practicals as well.
HD Classic Soft: Same as above but tuned for a more subtle look or 2/3" and smaller sensors.
Classic Black soft: Same as Classic soft but with an added 1/8 black frost for lowered contrast and added bloom/halation
Hollywood black magic: The same as the Classic Black softs but tuned for a more subtle look or smaller 2/3" sensors
Black frost (Black pro mist): black for reducing contrast while maintaining a rich black/shadow tone

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't one benefit of the built-in ARRI approach would be behind-the-lens placement of the LowCon or Halation filter. Mattebox placement could be problematic with very wide angle lenses.

 

[Evin Grant]

Yes, but the trade off is never having a totally halation free image when you want it.