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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 OLPF tests

Les Dittert said:
Phil, you mean that ADD causes problems sometimes on regular OLPFed cameras ? That's what that frame is. I was trying t o make the best possible frame from the Dragon as a comparison.

What I should post is a regular Dragon frame with OLPF in, with my method. It's better as well. More definition and less false colors.

I have shot in India,Africa,Burma,Philippines,Hungary with MX sans OLPF. Sharper than stock Dragon. Rare aliasing even with regular RCX processing. I love it.
Click to expand...

I just mean a straight exported tif/jpg so people can see the difference. There's a million ways to finish REDCODE and there's a lot you can squeeze out of a single frame if you desire that look. Conversely for narrative work some may not want that level. I'm somewhere in the middle these days when it comes to image sharpness.
 
Les Dittert said:
Not sure what you mean by skipping lines. That is often done in DSLR video, but not Dragon.
This is absolutely not false sharpness. Yes , there are moire cases, as can be seen in the fence in my 'Tondo' Manila video, which was not processed in a special way, it was just RCX, so worse looking than it should be. I plan to redo that piece for the best 4K experience. Processing can remove moire on motion pictures. The key is motion.

For what I do, the extra sharpness suits me fine. The faces ( covered in charcoal or dirt ) is gritty and real. On a large screen at high resolution, it approaches an IMAX experience. I respect those who shoot glamour models in the style of 40's films, soft filters on all the girls, etc. Quite frankly you should be fine with an HD camera for that look.
It's also true that most Red shooters want a soft image. A well respected Red employee told me that Red customers prove to be a challenge : They want a 4K camera but want a soft image.
All said, the Red can do it all. It's up to the user to decide what he or she wants to make!

Side note: those that think they are getting 4k details, this is the easy test: crop out the middle 1920x1080 window and play that on a good HD panel . Does it look like sharp HD ? That's the acid test.
Click to expand...
Just read this. haha.


The difference is TONALITY. 4K tonality is better than 2K/HD. If one wants true soft, they have to shoot in 4K or higher. Too much false detail in HD. 4K+ is a must for soft.
 
OK, here is a Dragon frame with OLPF ( factory stock camera ), with RCX and My process. Also the r3d frame for you guys to play and try to get close.

Dragon RCX ( blown up 4X to see better ):
DrAGON_OLPF_RCX.024.jpg



Dragon , My process ( same camera with OLPF in it as well ) :
DrAGON_OLPF_LesProcess.024.jpg



The r3d link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61349012/misc-RED-test/DRAGON/A002_C003_0317RF.0000023F.R3D

Let me know if link does not work. I've had issue with drop box .
 
Well your "home" processed image in post 1 is much better than your "home" processed image in post 43. In 43 there are a lot of compression artefacts (due to R3D?) in the low light, and the black clipping is not nice (uggly).

Pat
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Well your "home" processed image in post 1 is much better than your "home" processed image in post 43. In 43 there are a lot of compression artefacts (due to R3D?) in the low light, and the black clipping is not nice (uggly).

Pat
Click to expand...

There may be different color corrections between post1 and post43 samples. The OLPF really limits the ultimate results.
Using special processing on MX with OLPF is not worth it, as the blur is too heavy to recover much detail from that combo.

@Grant , post #1 has the ADD with OLPF in . Post #43 is regular RCX export with OLPF, without ADD.
Are we confused yet ? Too many variations, I know.
 
Les, might be worth adding the new images to the original post.

Would still like to see the version w/o OLPF w/o your post processing.

Since you have been shooting w/o an OLPF for a while, how much content has actually had visible moiré that you have had to remove?

If you were in a sharing mode, it would be great if you could provide 3 frames w/ OLPF and 3 w/o OLPF so that we could also run ADD. It looks like your processing is bringing out the sensor noise by sharpening it up. I would assume an ADD version would be cleaner in that regard. The noise I see in the shadow kind of reminds me of the pattern I have seen with error diffusion, like Floyd-Steinberg.
 
Stacey, I'll see if I can post some more r3d's on Tue. I'm going on a shoot in Dominican Republic next week so I have to prioritize packing for that trip too.
If you look at the video I posted in the 'shot on RED' thread, the Tondo Manila one, it was all no OLPF ( mostly 5kFF and 4K ) and was processed with the old SDK via Premiere Pro. There is some aliasing on the fence in the shot with the water in the BG, and there are false color errors in the water with the kids swimming. Also color errors on the man's necklace where he carries a big bundle on his back.
I will reprocess it all soon, but honestly, on a UHD monitor these things don't call attention to themselves much. With high resolution the errors seem to get less noticeable than HD , oddly. The 3840 playback is razor sharp so the viewer is a bit stunned when watching it, not noticing the technical issues as much, unless they are a pixel geek ( like me ;)

also: I tried ADD on no-OLPF shots, and it didn't like it. Not surprising, as it was never tuned for that.
Question for Red : Why is your process leaving in false color errors in ADD ? ( in my first post example )
 
Les,

Just watched your Manila/Tondo short and, wow, I am VERY impressed. Besides the subject and the great framing which combine for great, heartfelt story, on the technical side I have to say that I have NEVER been so impressed by MX footage until now. My God, it is as if there is no air between camera and subjects, like the proverbial feeling that the viewer can reach out and touch that which he is watching. Barriers are removed and the viewer is truly transported. No doubt this adds greatly to the effectiveness of the piece, for it has that immediacy of the old Kodak chrome large format photos that seem to pop out of the page with an HDR like quality, or what you get when watching a pristine 70 mm print on a good projector and screen. I could not believe this was shot on MX, it really looked like a large format film camera, and of course, devoid of most visual aberrations and artifacts that the lack of OLPF can introduce. All hyperbole aside, I would say that the additional sharpness and your process for removing all associated problems have created a new medium, a truly different and unique visual experience. Wow!

Which leads me to the question: would you consider making your process available as a plug in or stand alone process for those of us who would want to capture images with this level of vivid, crisp immediacy? It would be an instant hit I can assure you. I will PM you just in case you miss this.
 
aaranyan ramanujam said:
Hello,
Can anyone from Red chime in ? Let us know the advantages and minus from shooting without an OLPF in an Epic Dragon ? Thank you
Click to expand...

Optical Low Pass Filters serve many purposes. It's main duty is to be an anti-aliasing filter that tackles high frequency detail that could create moire, false color, and other aliasing artifacts. Effectively this "softens" the image very slightly, though has the massive increased benefit of not producing those particular artifacts which are very visible and difficult to remove out of motion pictures.

OLPF designs also typically contain layers of glass and/or coatings as well. The most common would be IR Absorption, IR Coating, and an Anti-reflective Coating. This helps improve the overall color reproduction and helps manage internal reflections that can create unwanted effects to your image. The main downside to these layers and coatings is they can block a bit of light.

How this currently relates to the RED Dragon OLPFs can be seen in the differences between the Skin Tone - Highlight OLPF and Low Light Optimized OLPF. The SKT has "all the fixings" and removes most of the optical artifacts while also producing the most accurate color, but blocks more light than the LLO OLPF. The LLO OLPF has less layers/coatings and allows for about 1.3 stops of a cleaner image when taking into account it's unique color profile and calibration, however it can produce certain reflective artifacts like the small aperture Red Orb Grid Pattern and Red Orbs around bright light sources.

RED also has developed a few specialized OLPFs like the H2O OLPF, which tackles some of the difficulties regarding filming in various depths of water and the reduction of color information due to the effects of the water itself. There's also the IR Pass OLPF which allows Infrared Light to hit the sensor and doesn't feature any IR Absorption or Coatings. The IRP OLPF will produce images that aren't color accurate to how you and I experience them, but it's an interesting world to explore creatively.
 
The Dragon OLPF is much weaker (a good thing) in terms of the low pass (LP) than the MX OLPF. The MX OLPF smears a lot of detail while the Dragon lets a bit of chroma aliasing (false color) through while retaining more detail. I would say that I am happy overall with the LP portion of Dragon. I am doing some post processing (deconvolution) to regain some of the lost detail.
 
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