Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 - ITS THE REAL DEAL !!!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Matt Ryan said:
Has anybody considered that this may be the very first time EVER for a Digital sensor (stills or motion) to shoot a no penalty 16+ stops (or even 14 stops for that matter) DR from 250ISO all the way to 6400+ISO?

That is HUGE! I don't know of any other sensor or camera that is capable of this feat. Someone enlighten me if I am wrong. Film also had variable DR based on the specific stock, so this may be the first time EVER!
Click to expand...

Kalulu Ngilo said:
So essentially, history was being made from the get go ever since that DR chart was shown. :)
Click to expand...

I guess so. It seems no one really seems to comprehend how huge this is...
 
I think everyone should stop and think about the numbers that we throw around routinely these days.... 14 stops... 16 stops, 18 stops of dynamic range... Trying to even create a 16-stop lighting condition is extremely difficult.

Let's be pragmatic and just look at the numbers of what we are saying...

If we start with metering the darkest something in frame at an f1.0, we'd need to have something bright come in at an f256 to be 16 stops brighter! That f number doesn't even compute to our photographic brains!

Here are 20 f-stop numbers listed out... So, from an f.35 to a f256 represents a 19-stop range!

.35, .5, .7, 1.0, 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 64, 90, 128, 180, 256

Who can even contemplate an f256! So sliding that first scenario away from those ridiculously high f numbers, let's shift our low light reading to an f.35... Okay, I actually have light meters that go that low... But even then, that still would put a highlight source in shot at an f90...

That is some massive contrast ratio to try to capture!

Finally, anyone even want to venture the largest dynamic range the best display mediums, be it film or electronic, can reproduce? A hint, it's no where near 16 stops!

Now I will play devil's advocate here and encourage anyone with a spot meter to go out and find within 1 visible "scene" a measurable 16 stop "shot"... I'm interested to hear the results! It may even open a few eyes!
 
Dragon Mark Test

Dragon Mark Test

Having said that, I'm still scratching my head as to why Red decided it would be a good idea to show the very first footage of a camera that everyone is so eagerly waiting for and have such high expectations, to show us a test showing the sensor under stress!
Click to expand...

Because RED had the balls to get it done....simple......no other company in this universe has even dreamt of doing this.....it does not give the right to anyone or everyone to hammer a company which is open
regarding their developments.... that is RED......

Thanks

Harcharan
 
Christopher Probst said:
I think everyone should stop and think about the numbers that we throw around routinely these days.... 14 stops... 16 stops, 18 stops of dynamic range... Trying to even create a 16-stop lighting condition is extremely difficult.

Let's be pragmatic and just look at the numbers of what we are saying...

If we start with metering the darkest something in frame at an f1.0, we'd need to have something bright come in at an f256 to be 16 stops brighter! That f number doesn't even compute to our photographic brains!

Here are 20 f-stop numbers listed out... So, from an f.35 to a f256 represents a 19-stop range!

.35, .5, .7, 1.0, 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 64, 90, 128, 180, 256

Who can even contemplate an f256! So sliding that first scenario away from those ridiculously high f numbers, let's shift our low light reading to an f.35... Okay, I actually have light meters that go that low... But even then, that still would put a highlight source in shot at an f90...

That is some massive contrast ratio to try to capture!

Finally, anyone even want to venture the largest dynamic range the best display mediums, be it film or electronic, can reproduce? A hint, it's no where near 16 stops!

Now I will play devil's advocate here and encourage anyone with a spot meter to go out and find within 1 visible "scene" a measurable 16 stop "shot"... I'm interested to hear the results! It may even open a few eyes!
Click to expand...

You are so right, Chris.
The limiting factor is actually the displays we use.
 
Hey Mark, I'm curious, I thought you stopped using light meters... ? How did you measure the f stops then? Or did you make an exception for the Dragon?
 
Stacey Spears said:
Mark, beautiful job. Ignoring dragon for a second, what you were able to shoot and edit in such a short period is exquisite.

When you first mentioned "smooth" I was thinking soft. Now that I have seen your footage, I get what you mean by smooth.
Click to expand...

I graded everything in RCX because thats all I had that could actually see the 6k R3D's... Nothing else worked, AE, PS, FCPX, Smoke, CsPREM, resolve... nothing.

So once finished grading in RCX, I exported out DPX sequence and put into Smoke, then AE.. but as we all know, a DPX workflow is slow. I wanted to edit to get this out to you guys quickly... . so i ditched that idea.. then decided to crank out some 4444 PRORES 4k & 2k export tests to see against the DPX's...no difference at all, no gamma shifts like the old days.. all perfect.
I then put all the PRORES files into FCPX to quickly edit something up then banged it out to you all... simple as that. And it all looked exactly the same as the images I was seeing from RCX.

And to make it fun, I decided to do all of this out of my laptop, ( to the disgust of a friend that dropped in for a nosey, he thinks everything should go through Flame and Resolve.. DUH ! )
I did it in my laptop because I just wanted to see if a 6k work flow was possible on a Laptop and was it going to slow me down when I'm out on location... In short, it doesn't.
All very simple, All very fast... :)

Oh and that very faint pink tinge in one of the car highlights that some people may have spotted, I turned DRX on in RSX and it disappeared. That was my fault, sorry about that... Don't blame the camera :) I don't use RCX that much, so forgot about it. All perfect now :)
 
Last edited:
Mark Toia said:
I graded everything in RCX because thats all I had that could actually see the 6k R3D's... Nothing else worked, AE, PS, FCPX, Smoke, CsPREM, resolve... nothing.

So once finished grading in RCX, I exported out DPX sequence and put into Smoke, then AE.. but as we all know, a DPX workflow is slow. I wanted to edit to get this out to you guys quickly... . so i ditched that idea.. then decided to crank out some 4444 PRORES 4k & 2k export tests to see against the DPX's...no difference at all, no gamma shifts like the old days.. all perfect.
I then put all the PRORES files into FCPX to quickly edit something up then banged it out to you all... simple as that. And it all looked exactly the same as the images I was seeing from RCX.

And to make it fun, I decided to do it all of this out of my laptop, ( to the disgust of a friend that dropped in for a nosey, he thinks everything should go through Flame and Resolve.. DUH ! )
I did it in my laptop because I just wanted to see if a 6k work flow was possible on a Laptop and was it going to slow me down when I'm out on location... In short, it doesn't.
All very simple, All very fast... :)

Oh and that very faint pink tinge in one of the car highlights that some people may have spotted, I turned DRX on in RSX and it disappeared. That was my fault, sorry about that... Don't blame the camera :) I don't use RCX that much, so forgot about it. All perfect now :)
Click to expand...

Mark The Dragon Master! Oh so so so good.
 
Patrick Grossien said:
Hey Mark, I'm curious, I thought you stopped using light meters... ? How did you measure the f stops then? Or did you make an exception for the Dragon?
Click to expand...

I still use light meters, If some silly client wants me to shoot film.... But in this case no. I decided to use the camera's histogram to check perfectly what was going on within the highlights and the darkness of each scene. I would literally point the camera deep into the shadows, set a stop, then point into the highlights, set a stop. Just to see the actual range we were working within.

Yes.. It's the best way to see exactly what f stop is needed for any part of any image. Very similar to spot metering, actually, it's exactly the same as spot metering. I used to do this with film as well, but if I didn't believe my meters readings, (especially in Hi contrast scenes and especially at night !) , I would use my stills camera and shoot fstop tests to see actually what was going on, giving me exact stops to set my camera to. Worked perfectly !

In the forest it was anything between f1.8 and f3.5. I took the biggest F-stop because I did not want to exaggerate. Then I did the same for the highlights or brightest sections of the shot, which was varied depending on if it was a hard high light like the sun hitting me dead in the face through the trees or onto the surface of a tree or the ground or into the hard sun reflection bouncing off a cars paintwork, And that reading could be anything from F22 to F45. I couldn't even stop my lenses down to F45 !, I had to ND the lens to know exactly what that highlight reading was.
 
Mark Toia said:
I still use light meters, If some silly client wants me to shoot film.... But in this case no. I decided to use the camera's histogram to check perfectly what was going on within the highlights and the darkness of each scene. I would literally point the camera deep into the shadows, set a stop, then point into the highlights, set a stop. Just to see the actual range we were working within.

Yes.. It's the best way to see exactly what f stop is needed for any part of any image. Very similar to spot metering, actually, it's exactly the same as spot metering. I used to do this with film as well, but if I didn't believe my meters readings, (especially in Hi contrast scenes and especially at night !) , I would use my stills camera and shoot fstop tests to see actually what was going on, giving me exact stops to set my camera to. Worked perfectly !

In the forest it was anything between f1.8 and f3.5. I took the biggest F-stop because I did not want to exaggerate. Then I did the same for the highlights or brightest sections of the shot, which was varied depending on if it was a hard high light like the sun hitting me dead in the face through the trees or onto the surface of a tree or the ground or into the hard sun reflection bouncing off a cars paintwork, And that reading could be anything from F22 to F45. I couldn't even stop my lenses down to F45 !, I had to ND the lens to know exactly what that highlight reading was.
Click to expand...

Are you allowed to post TIFFs from that video?
 
Mark, did you discover IR polution over Dragon sensor ? I notice that you shoot on pretty high contrast and in the forest and you dont use any NDIR filters.

Rivai
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top