DRAGON - ITS THE REAL DEAL !!!!

[David Battistella]

Got it Rudi,

I think we are on the same page.

David

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?

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Where did RED promise 20 stops? Everyone keeps saying that. You can get there with Dragon and HDRx but all we have said is 16 stops native...

I have also said that we can find more in the image than the camera that Mark shot.

Jim

www.cinema5d.com/news/

At least one person wrote it down that way it seems..

As Kevin pointed out, it all started with the "Enter the Dragon" thread and the DR chart. If they would have wanted to they could have quoted the statement that you are seeing 18+ stops on this test. But 20 stops is just a silly comment taken from the fact that the chart has the number 20 on it. Hehehe. Hey, it's faster to read a number on a single image than 5 pages of thread posts.

Enter-the-Dragon

EDIT: my post sounds a bit misleading. Of course I mean people outside of RED stating the 20 stops in their blogs.

 

[David Battistella]

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.

Yes, of course. As Evin stated, you could have some issues at smaller apertures with certain types of filtration. It's like putting a stocking on the back of the lens instead of on the front, makes a big difference. But the real difference is that you can remove one and the other one is permanent.

Arri has a lot of imaging experience and with the Alexa seemingly wanted to mimic film roll off as much as possible so added this filtration to the OLFP. That's' cool, but it does not mean that is the only way, or the best way to achieve it, because lo con filters are not great in every lighting situation.

The RED/Dragon philosophy seems to be: give them so much latitude in the sensor and let each situation dictate the filtration. After seeing Marks forest floor images it's clear lo cons would not be required in those situations. The same goes for sharpening, but I find I never want to sharpen my RED footage.

David



David

 

[Mark Toia]

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

Correct.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Choice is a good thing, but leaving everything for post is not. We've made Epic look very video-ish one time because that's what we wanted (that "live" HD look, and believe it or not it was for a fashion piece that had a story that look suited) we've made Epic look cold and dry, and, of course, we've many times made it look soft and emulsion-like ("film-like" is an abused term with no clear definition I don't like to use, but emulsion-like I feel is precise and essentially technical). That's why I actually prefer Epic over Alexa, cost weight etc. irregardless. I can make it look like anything I choose.

That's also probably why Epic has a bad rep - if you can make it look like anything you chose to an extreme extent, that means some DPs will make it look ugly/tacky/bad, also to an extreme extent. Alexa has a bit of a built in look, and it's a nice one. It protects the reputation of the camera because while it leaves you no choice (halation all the time, no matter what) it forces all DPs, no matter how bad they are, to fail only within certain bounds of awfulness - at least part of their job is "decided for them" by the camera. I think this is also the appeal of the one-note Canon DSLR. Shoot at f.12 and it gives us a "sexy" crushed grade (I call it the "wedding video look") that does not reveal how bad your set, composition and lighting are too much. Sure that look is just one, eventually boring thing (also with many artifacts and flaws) that does not by any stretch of the imagination fit all stories and moments, but if you lack ability it protects you from your own incompetence to some degree, and on Internet demo-films, story is not often clear anyway.

That said, there is not an infinite budget of time or money for post of any project, and I don't see why leaving all choices open for post in any way validates your artistic ability. If you can't make a firm choice and stand behind it you are in the wrong business. Leaving everything open for post is like saying "But what if I'm wrong" over and over again. Also, if you have a real eye for subtlety (and sometimes the difference is not even that subtle) you also realize that digital effects do not actually ever look the same as optical ones. They lack complexity and nuance, they tend to look a little cheap and plasticky, and I've seen these things done by the best post houses in the world. Like MP3 vs CD, you are maybe gaining convenience (one less thing to worry about on set) but loosing a lot of quality.

So yeah, choice is good. But man-up (or woman-up) and make that choice on set and stand behind it. It will always look better, and if you can't commit to choices, what are they paying for? If you can't commit to choices, maybe you need to learn more first and apprentice a while before calling yourself a DP.

 

[António Fagundes]

So yeah, choice is good. But man-up (or woman-up) and make that choice on set and stand behind it. It will always look better, and if you can't commit to choices, what are they paying for? If you can't commit to choices, maybe you need to learn more first and apprentice a while before calling yourself a DP.

I understand your point Robert, but there's a lot of talk here about options, freedom, etc... and I fail to see how on earth having a clipped highlight is an option? And no, the Alexa doesn't have a 'baked in' look, just because it has a filtration on the OLFP to control peaking. It records RAW.

I would absolutely love Red would once and for all solve this issue. Filtration or not, whatever they decide to do, as long as they don't leave their cameras open to peaking, because that will actually work against a DP on the set. He has to stop and control his camera so that it won't 'break'. That is not an option in my book. One should be free to light the way he wishes and not worry about the camera.

Please Red, get this thing sorted once and for all. It's a ugly, useless and cumbersome technical flaw. Most DP's don't want to be worrying about how the camera will react to their lighting, they just want to trust the camera that is going to 'see' what he is seeing, without peeking and poor rolloff. They just want to get on with it, and not having to cheat their lighting in post!

The day Red solves the highlight problem, the world becomes a better place to live!

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

I understand your point Robert, but there's a lot of talk here about options, freedom, etc... and I fail to see how on earth having a clipped highlight is an option? And no, the Alexa doesn't have a 'baked in' look, just because it has a filtration on the OLFP to control peaking. It records RAW.

I would absolutely love Red would once and for all solve this issue. Filtration or not, whatever they decide to do, as long as they don't leave their cameras open to peaking, because that will actually work against a DP on the set. He has to stop and control his camera so that it won't 'break'. That is not an option in my book. One should be free to light the way he wishes and not worry about the camera.

Please Red, get this thing sorted once and for all. It's a ugly, useless and cumbersome technical flaw. Most DP's don't want to be worrying about how the camera will react to their lighting, they just want to trust the camera that is going to 'see' what he is seeing, without peeking and poor rolloff. They just want to get on with it, and not having to cheat their lighting in post!

The day Red solves the highlight problem, the world becomes a better place to live!

Clipping highlights is an exposure issue. When we went for that video look it had no clipped highlights, just no blooming - it looked very "dry" and airless. It's hard (actually kind of impossible) to get that look on Alexa.

All DPs have to worry about how the camera is going to react to their lighting - it was the case with film stocks as well, and is in no way unique to Red. This isn't stage lighting for a live audience.

It sounds like you're saying DPs would prefer not to be required to have technical knowledge of the tools they use. I'd say those DPs should quit the business and leave the space for others more willing to actually do the homework needed to be great at the craft.

 

[Luis Otero]

...And no, the Alexa doesn't have a 'baked in' look... It records RAW...

Antonio,

Not to be argumentative, but just want to point out that I think you meant that "Alexa doesn't have a "baked in" look WHEN it records RAW". Unfortunately, most of the times and productions, the people uses the APR 4444 footage, which even if is decided to record it in Log-C, the looks are backed in when you linearize it. This is mainly due to the fact that going Alexa RAW is multiple times the cost of Epic-X.


My 2 cents,

 

[Björn Benckert]

Regarding the highlights and roll off of any log image. Try using the kodak and fuji logtolin 3Dluts I uploaded here. When you use them as your last node in your grading tree you will see that roll off and blomming does not really need to happen before or on the sensor, those 3D luts actually maps the highlights in a way that to me far exceeds the alexa camera output. Why, because it's added post grade.


So simply put.

The alexa might bloom the highlights nicely in camera. The epic is more linear, but using these 3D luts or similar you can easy get the alexa blooming effect, and you can control it. However you can not shoot a without this "rolloff look" in alexa.

So to me that makes the epic far superior as you got options.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I understand your point Robert, but there's a lot of talk here about options, freedom, etc... and I fail to see how on earth having a clipped highlight is an option? And no, the Alexa doesn't have a 'baked in' look, just because it has a filtration on the OLFP to control peaking. It records RAW.

Only when its shooting ARRIRAW. Don't forget a lot of times Alexa's shoot PRORES (the only way I ever see it, I work in TV)

I would absolutely love Red would once and for all solve this issue. Filtration or not, whatever they decide to do, as long as they don't leave their camera sopen to peaking, because that will actually work against a DP on the set. He has to stop and control his camera so that it won't 'break'. That is not an option in my book. One should be free to light the way he wishes and not worry about the camera.

Please Red, get this thing sorted once and for all. It's a ugly, useless and cumbersome technical flaw. Most DP's don't want to be worrying about how the camera will react to their lighting, they just want to trust the camera that is going to 'see' what he is seeing, without peeking and poor rolloff. They just want to get on with it, and not having to cheat their lighting in post!

The day Red solves the highlight problem, the world becomes a better place to live!

Are you asking for RED to create a camera that is incapable of clipping? You realize that's currently IMPOSSIBLE right?

Dude, everything clips eventually...FILM, Alexa, Sony 65, everything. All mediums at a certain point reach their threshold and clip. It's called working within the bounds of current science. And it's not a technical "flaw". All DPs know the tools they work with (for example by looking at Histograms), and learn how to maximize their exposure. That's ALWAYS been the case, since the early days of cinema. You have a LIGHT METER, and you MEASURE, and you make sure you don't BLOW OUT your image.

Asking RED to make everyone a perfect DP out the gate by removing clipping entirely is like asking Apple to make us all famous designers because we own a Macbook Pro.

It's your work that defines you, not the tool. But the tool helps and you have to know how to use it.

 

[Luis Otero]

...Try using the kodak and fuji logtolin 3D LUTs I uploaded here... you will see that roll off and blooming does not really need to happen before or on the sensor, those 3D LUTs actually maps the highlights in a way that to me far exceeds the Alexa camera output... The epic is more linear, but using these 3D LUTs or similar you can easy get the Alexa blooming effect, and you can control it. However you can not shoot a without this "rolloff look" in Alexa.

So to me that makes the epic far superior as you got options.

Exactly, Björn! In addition, as pleasant as described here, why are those characteristics being presented as the "standard look"? There are many people that do not like that.

I see it as a pitfall since, as Evin describe it several postings before, "...the trade off is never having a totally halation free image when you want it."

 

[Scott Crawley]

I like and understand your main point of make a choice and commit to it, but you seem to do it at the expense of the darkroom portion of our art. I get the impression that you are making little of it because it has traditionally been done by someone other than the DP, so leaving things for the darkroom means passing the buck to someone else. I get that, but as time passes I think we will see that diminish. More and more Cinematographers are coming from still photography, where we are not only accustomed to doing our own work in the digital darkroom, but it is where we apply much of our art. For me it is an exciting place and I enjoy the time I spend there. Delegating tasks to the digital darkroom does not have to be a cop out.

I would also mention (as a friendly reminder) that art and aesthetics are all subjective and like fashion, looks come in and go out of favor. Hard, blown highlights are one man's failure and another man's triumph. Lens flares used to be taboo, now they are a signature. Art is about choices. Make them... definitely, but it matters not when and where you make them. They are yours and not everyone is going to like them. Choice is freedom. Red gives me choices. I am free to fuck up, and I like that. If you look at my choices and blame my camera, you are likely looking in the wrong place. My Scarlet is not responsible for my choices or my mistakes but yes, she has her own limitations just as I do.

Whether it is film emulsion or sensor, optical filtration or digital effect I reserve the option to choose the one whose look I like for the job at hand. Sometimes I can choose for strictly artistic reasons, but frequently external influences play a part. If I am a DP working for a client I understand that the choices are not all my own. In that instance leaving choices for the DI means leaving room for collaboration with my many creative partners while committing to a creative choice in camera may mean committing myself to the title of Jackass.

Many people are comparing optical and digital filters, emulsion to sensors in terms of how similar they are to one another. They seem to be suggesting that one must be empirically superior. Again I say it is subjective. I prefer to concern myself with whether or not they match only if I am in the position of incorporating material and some of it has optical filtration, some of it does not and I need to make them look the same. In that case I have limited myself by committing to an optical filter. It may sometimes be an argument against, as some others pointed out already.

I am not a Cinematographer. I used to believe it was what I wanted to become. I'm not really certain of that anymore. Whatever the title; Photographer, Cinematographer, DP or jackass we are all storytellers, and I am one who is no longer bound by a fraction of a second limit. I like it that way.

Choice is a good thing, but leaving everything for post is not. We've made Epic look very video-ish one time because that's what we wanted (that "live" HD look, and believe it or not it was for a fashion piece that had a story that look suited) we've made Epic look cold and dry, and, of course, we've many times made it look soft and emulsion-like ("film-like" is an abused term with no clear definition I don't like to use, but emulsion-like I feel is precise and essentially technical). That's why I actually prefer Epic over Alexa, cost weight etc. irregardless. I can make it look like anything I choose.

That's also probably why Epic has a bad rep - if you can make it look like anything you chose to an extreme extent, that means some DPs will make it look ugly/tacky/bad, also to an extreme extent. Alexa has a bit of a built in look, and it's a nice one. It protects the reputation of the camera because while it leaves you no choice (halation all the time, no matter what) it forces all DPs, no matter how bad they are, to fail only within certain bounds of awfulness - at least part of their job is "decided for them" by the camera. I think this is also the appeal of the one-note Canon DSLR. Shoot at f.12 and it gives us a "sexy" crushed grade (I call it the "wedding video look") that does not reveal how bad your set, composition and lighting are too much. Sure that look is just one, eventually boring thing (also with many artifacts and flaws) that does not by any stretch of the imagination fit all stories and moments, but if you lack ability it protects you from your own incompetence to some degree, and on Internet demo-films, story is not often clear anyway.

That said, there is not an infinite budget of time or money for post of any project, and I don't see why leaving all choices open for post in any way validates your artistic ability. If you can't make a firm choice and stand behind it you are in the wrong business. Leaving everything open for post is like saying "But what if I'm wrong" over and over again. Also, if you have a real eye for subtlety (and sometimes the difference is not even that subtle) you also realize that digital effects do not actually ever look the same as optical ones. They lack complexity and nuance, they tend to look a little cheap and plasticky, and I've seen these things done by the best post houses in the world. Like MP3 vs CD, you are maybe gaining convenience (one less thing to worry about on set) but loosing a lot of quality.

So yeah, choice is good. But man-up (or woman-up) and make that choice on set and stand behind it. It will always look better, and if you can't commit to choices, what are they paying for? If you can't commit to choices, maybe you need to learn more first and apprentice a while before calling yourself a DP.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

This is from Fight Club commentary..Jeff Cronenweth is a wise man (Alex Mcdowell- Production Designer)

(Jeff) l do think that you'd be a fool not to acknowledge the technology and know that ultimately it's gonna be digital.From one point of view, it's fantastic that you could walk into any theater in the country and have a digital image that's identical to the other.For a cameraman, that's one of the tragic things that happens.You go from three theaters on the same block, watching your movie,and it will look three different ways.Digitally, there's so much more control.You'll be able to time your picture digitally,and they won't have to make a thousand prints,farm it out to some lab in Canada or somewhere else where it's gonna be inconsistent and every roll changes colors, and you won't have to have somebody making roll changes at the wrong times.l think it's fantastic. But at the same time,l haven't yet seen digital that gives you the same feeling of film.But l know that it ultimately is coming.And so l would embrace it and go with it.l think it's wonderful.

(Alex) lt may never be the same as film,but it's gonna be.So, as you say,l think you have to embrace it.

(Jeff) But along with it, you need to learn there's certain advantages to it.You need to learn the technology, and then you just run with that.There's so many things that you can do with it that you can't do with film.As it is now, when you do a commercial or a music video,you don't make prints,it's all transferred right off the negative.So there's conscious choices you make while you're shooting,to leave things in shots,to light with this color light,knowing you'll do it differently when you do the transfer.So certainly, in a lot of aspects, it's gonna make life easier.l'm hoping to do enough pictures and make enough money so that when it replaces me, l'll be all right.When it's all done at a switch and we don't need anybody up there.

I mean, as it gets more and more digital there'll be more and more motorized cameras.l know that David would love nothing more than every shot to be motion-control,

so...

(Alex) He'll need somebody to program it.
(Jeff) l'll be a programer.

 

[António Fagundes]

So to me that makes the epic far superior as you got options.

I keep reading about these 'options' here. Please tell me what options are these? Clipping or no clipping? Is that an option? As in, 'I want to have the option to make my highlights look like s***'? Or I want to have the option of not being able to do what I want to do?

Please, I'm dumb, explain to me what options are these?

And no, the Alexa doesn't clip, the F65 doesn't clip. Technology can handle highlights. But at the moment that technology hasn't arrived at any Red cameras yet... Everyone is submissive and accepts this way of thinking of 'it is what it is'. And whatever Red does, it's fine by me... good luck with that...

But I say, no! It can be better!

But these 'options' argument is so clearly a old hat trick! Like let's convince ourselves that this is not a flaw but a blessing!

Really? Do you really think this is how the Red team works? They constantly want to make it better. And they succeed. If all they had for guidance was your blind submission, Red would have been seven feet under a long time ago.

But I got the point by now anyway.

 

[Luis Otero]

Using different filters and their inherent effects, or just have it clean.

 

[Scott Crawley]

You might consider the possibility that your highlights look like shit because you shot them that way, not because the camera is incapable. It's just a thought, a possibility.

It is possible that you are a perfect technician, incapable or error. I grant that, not knowing you or your abilities but achieving perfect exposures isn't as easy as some make it look. My experience is that people are fallible, and odds are you too are imperfect.

I don't mean that as an offense.

I keep reading about these 'options' here. Please tell me what options are these? Clipping or no clipping? Is that an option? As in, 'I want to have the option to make my highlights look like s***'? Or I want to have the option of not being able to do what I want to do?

Please, I'm dumb, explain to me what options are these?

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

I think Scott has a great point here.

Most experienced DPs will know how to control the highlights in an image, whether on the camera side or G+E. But what we all lack is time. And it is my experience that clients want more-better-faster-fix-it-in-post a lot these days.

So what a robust sensor gets you is the ability to move fast when you can't take the time to not, basically, shoot your highights like shit.

I think someone mentioned earlier that 12 stops is enough. Well, it is until you're out of time.

 

[Scott Crawley]

I think Scott has a great point here.

So what a robust sensor gets you is the ability to move fast when you can't take the time to not, basically, shoot your highights like shit.

Thank you Mark, but I don't view DI and DR as tools that enable me to be lazy or rush through my job, though they can save my bacon if I do.

 

[Justin Kirchhoff]

I keep reading about these 'options' here. Please tell me what options are these? Clipping or no clipping? Is that an option? As in, 'I want to have the option to make my highlights look like s***'? Or I want to have the option of not being able to do what I want to do?

Please, I'm dumb, explain to me what options are these?

And no, the Alexa doesn't clip, the F65 doesn't clip. Technology can handle highlights. But at the moment that technology hasn't arrived at any Red cameras yet... Everyone is submissive and accepts this way of thinking of 'it is what it is'. And whatever Red does, it's fine by me... good luck with that...

But I say, no! It can be better!

But these 'options' argument is so clearly a old hat trick! Like let's convince ourselves that this is not a flaw but a blessing!

Really? Do you really think this is how the Red team works? They constantly want to make it better. And they succeed. If all they had for guidance was your blind submission, Red would have been seven feet under a long time ago.

But I got the point by now anyway.

I'm sorry Antonio, but I don't understand your logic. The Alexa doesn't clip? The F65 doesn't clip? What?

Then why do DPs still set exposures and rate scenes to a certain F-stop? Oh, probably because they don't want to OVEREXPOSE an image.

By your logic, you can take the Alexa, go outside in the bright Texas sun, and shoot a scene wide open at F/1.2 and nothing will be clipped.

Come on, man. That's absolutely ridiculous. Everything clips. Everything. Our eyes even clip information when it's too bright or too dark.

Why am I even having to get into this?

Most trained DPs, photographers, and even some amateurs have all learned to expose for middle gray...now does that change with technology? The practice of this may have evolved, however, the science of it all still exists. Now with the EPIC, we have all come to the conclusion to "expose to the right" before it starts clipping. This is, in essence, the same type of practice as exposing for middle gray...you want to get a big fat negative in your histogram to allow the most and best control over the final image when shooting RAW. I've done this since DAY 1 (or 2 to be fair) when shooting RED. Sure, the image clips...but to put a permanent LP filter in front of the lens because 3 people on this forum think it'll make the highlights roll off better is such a waste of resources. We all know what the filter could do. If it's that important to those 3 people, maybe RED can just make it an OPTION, and not a permanent fixture for everyones cameras.

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

Thank you Mark, but I don't view DI and DR as tools that enable me to be lazy or rush through my job, though they can save my bacon if I do.

Yeah, that's what I meant.