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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 Noise Confirmation

Mark L. Pederson said:
Yeah ... sorry guys. Didn't mean to add any more confusion :)

But of course, what is actually funny is that I must confess that I'm currently digging rating the Dragon at ISO at 640 - taking an incident reading at the subject (caucasian face) - and then open up a full stop - which means I'm technically over-exposing a stop :)
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Doesn't that also technically mean you are exposing at ISO 320?
 
D Fuller said:
You are saying exactly what I'm saying. My point is that for the play of a scene, consistent noise levels matter. For two reasons - the look of the noise itself, and the things that are done in development in response to the noise (or lack thereof).
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Gotcha I thought you meant there were gamma and color shifts. (Which I guess is slightly true at >2,000 ISO in the extreme shadows w/ a bit of FPN.)
 
Kenny Mosher said:
I just wanted to post an R3D from our first gig with our new Dragon. We upgraded to the latest firmware 5.1.38 and performed the default Black Shade after the camera warmed up for about 15 minutes. This project was shot at 23.976 fps and 48th shutter so we did not do the custom Black Shade.

Just based on my Epic experience from the last couple of years, this seems a little noisy for ISO 800. What do you guys think?

https://copy.com/ieWlbCV16dvJ
https://copy.com/wSqX4r9mPvIn

Look at the noise in the shadows. Let me know if you have issues downloading these R3Ds.

Thanks!
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My experience with RED is - it will always be noisy on ISO 800.....320 and 400 are noise free ISO settings
 
Slobodan Milivojevic said:
My experience with RED is - it will always be noisy on ISO 800.....320 and 400 are noise free ISO settings
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My experience with DRAGON is that when you grade in Davinci Resolve, a single frame of temporal noise reduction (*) really makes the noise disappear. Two frames of noise reduction makes Resolve disappear--it's a bug they need to fix.

(*) This, too, is presently fragile on a nMP. It doesn't work at 6K FF resolution. But it works beautifully at sub-4K resolutions, which most delivery formats are. I expect that BlackMagic will get full 4K working soon, and they will at least do some run-time error checking so that if a resolution is selected that is beyond what the GPU can handle, it won't simply crash Resolve or the whole damn Mac.
 
Michael Tiemann said:
a single frame of temporal noise reduction (*) really makes the noise disappear. Two frames of noise reduction makes Resolve disappear--it's a bug they need to fix.
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:001_tt2:

On another note, does anyone have any R3D snapshots showing the Dragon at 320/400 clean as a whistle? Would really appreciate it.
 
The other (ALMOST PERFECT) way to clean the grain from high ISO (800, 1000) is with NEAT VIDEO plugin for AFX and PREMIERE. It really makes the image look amazing without loosing details. TO avoid posterizing effect, turn on 16bit project settings when working in After Effects.
 
Björn Benckert said:
Yes as stated here your histogram does not peak even when I bring it up to 5600ISO.... so basically you only used the lower end of the sensor. Simply you shot your scene more than f4 stops under perfect exposure...

If you would have exposed to the right and then pushed down 4 stops, then your image would have looked exactly the same... but made out of glass instead of sandpaper :)


So yes, looks about right for well under exposed 800 ISO.

See screendump when brought up to 6800ISO with no clipping.


Evin just so I understand what do you mean with " I'd say correct exposure (assuming it wasn't a creative choice) would have been ISO 1280." ?

I mean he got 4 or 5 stops to go before he's highlights hit the roof so no real reason for laying so low if clean image is the goal, or? Needs to open up or bring more lights simply. Or just see the noise go away in the downsampling :)
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Just re-read this thread and this one statement stood out and captured my imagination.

But to clarify, shaping a scene or group of scenes using exposure tools as advocated by Mark L Pederson from Offhollywood and David Fuller are right for certain people... but as Robert Ruffo said, doing that requires more time on set. For me personally, I will have more time available during post rather than on set due to the different hats I wear. So for me, even on a narrative shoot, I have to trust the post workflows to bring it all together in a pleasing or artistic way.
 
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At what ISO is Dragon clean in the shadows. This shouldn't be an underexposure thing, a lot of cameras are clean in the shadows between 320 and 800. MX is smooth in the shadows at 320, so I'm just trying to find out what we're really looking at here. Where does it look like we're getting digital gain and the blue channel splotches, which isn't easy to see in a still. The noise reduction thing works for some shots you have to rescue but it shouldn't be standard practice.
 
Charles Bergquist said:
At what ISO is Dragon clean in the shadows. This shouldn't be an underexposure thing, a lot of cameras are clean in the shadows between 320 and 800. MX is smooth in the shadows at 320, so I'm just trying to find out what we're really looking at here. Where does it look like we're getting digital gain and the blue channel splotches, which isn't easy to see in a still. The noise reduction thing works for some shots you have to rescue but it shouldn't be standard practice.
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I'd say at 800ISO. The problem is, most people underexpose at 800 ISO and then want to boost the image in post thus inducing noise. If you expose properly, 800 ISO is noise free. Just capture low light footage properly and don't push it in post...
 
Matt Ryan said:
I'd say at 800ISO. The problem is, most people underexpose at 800 ISO and then want to boost the image in post thus inducing noise. If you expose properly, 800 ISO is noise free. Just capture low light footage properly and don't push it in post...
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Very true. I've seen quite a bit of underexposed Dragon footage which...if shot properly...would have probably looked noise free and amazing. It's almost as if the camera is so good some people's first impulse is to push it to the limit...
 
Nick Morrison said:
Very true. I've seen quite a bit of underexposed Dragon footage which...if shot properly...would have probably looked noise free and amazing. It's almost as if the camera is so good some people's first impulse is to push it to the limit...
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Agreed. When I've seen people complain about noise on Dragon, after looking at their R3D's they are underexposed by 3 to 4 stops and in some cases even more. If you wan't a clean image, especially in low light, capture it properly and don't push it in post. All should be good. The camera isn't a see in the dark where theres only street lights kind of camera. You would need a c300 with it's in camera noise reduction if you want clean files directly out of camera.
 
Matt Ryan said:
Agreed. When I've seen people complain about noise on Dragon, after looking at their R3D's they are underexposed by 3 to 4 stops and in some cases even more. If you wan't a clean image, especially in low light, capture it properly and don't push it in post. All should be good.
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That said . . . the nature of "low light" is that there is . . . well, low light. The problem is that not every shooting environment is on a movie set where you can shout out "3 more stops of light please". Dragon likes light - lots of it - which has little to do with DP skillz in available lighting situations. So to say we just need to not underexpose to reduce noise is great where you have ultimate control of the light source - but not relevant where you don't.
 
Matt Ryan said:
Agreed. When I've seen people complain about noise on Dragon, after looking at their R3D's they are underexposed by 3 to 4 stops and in some cases even more. If you wan't a clean image, especially in low light, capture it properly and don't push it in post. All should be good. The camera isn't a see in the dark where theres only street lights kind of camera. You would need a c300 with it's in camera noise reduction if you want clean files directly out of camera.
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Exactly. 3 or 4 stops under is a lot. And were in an age where if anything, you should consider LOWERING your ISO at night, for perfect blacks (ie bracket exposure down).
 
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Zeb B said:
That said . . . the nature of "low light" is that there is . . . well, low light. The problem is that not every shooting environment is on a movie set where you can shout out "3 more stops of light please". Dragon likes light - lots of it - which has little to do with DP skillz in available lighting situations. So to say we just need to not underexpose to reduce noise is great where you have ultimate control of the light source - but not relevant where you don't.
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But in all fairness RED cameras are Digital Cinema Cameras, not ENG, docu cameras. You don't see low light/available light footage shot on Alexa or F65 online do you? RED owners tend to always want to push it beyond its limits which is cool, but it also freaks a lot of people out when they see noisy low light footage. We don't see this kind of stuff with the other big boys. Were used to seeing C300 footage in low light which is much better at handling it. RED has never claimed to be a low light camera. You can shoot in low light but don't expect to get clean results like a pre processed, noise reduced, c300 file directly out of Dragon.
 
Matt Ryan said:
But in all fairness RED cameras are Digital Cinema Cameras, not ENG, docu cameras. You don't see low light/available light footage shot on Alexa or F65 online do you? RED owners tend to always want to push it beyond its limits which is cool, but it also freaks a lot of people out when they see noisy low light footage. We don't see this kind of stuff with the other big boys. Were used to seeing C300 footage in low light which is much better at handling it. RED has never claimed to be a low light camera. You can shoot in low light but don't expect to get clean results like a pre processed, noise reduced, c300 file directly out of Dragon.
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Alexa gets pushed a lot too. I've seen my fair share of noisy Alexa footage here at the network, seems for similar reasons we see noisy RED footage: people often underexpose quite a bit, or don't appear to have enough lighting on hand (budgets?).

I have some gaffer friends who work indie features, and they admit Alexa is often picked as a cost saving measure on grip/lighting. So presumably when they NEED more lights (in a pinch), they won't always have it.
 
I honestly think RED footage can be pushed pretty hard if you use noise reduction. I pushed Phil Hollands first Dragon matchlight R3D footage to 6400ISO and would call this useable at UHD (youtube compression sucks). If you don't mind using noise reduction then you can push much harder. If not, proper exposure is essential.

Download it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hqqv4s52rpul5dn/PhilMatch6KHD2000iso.mov.zip
 
Matt Ryan said:
(snip) RED cameras are Digital Cinema Cameras, not ENG, docu cameras.
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That's a point that is missed because it is not marketed that way. I mean . . . what's up with "Scarlet" and running adverts in Videomaker Mag etc if not to suggest this is a one man crew camera?? RED at its core are serious movie cameras made for professional movie crews that have a high level of control over the shooting environment and lighting budgets to go with. If that does not describe your mission then you might be in for a bumpy ride using a RED (or Alexa / F65 if you say so).

That's why my next bit of gear is a wider selection of LED lighting and even faster lenses. Dragon is always hungry for more 5600K balanced light. If you don't feed it - it can get ornery
 
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