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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:
Maybe I'll try the Dragon OLPF in the Epic !
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Would *love* to see this. I'm guessing you'd still need to use your special-sauce processing though, right?

EDIT: Also, Les, have you used a BM4k yet? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, given the lack of OLPF from the factory.
 
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Les Dittert said:
Cheers Stacey,
The OLPF on Dragon is very well tuned for the sensor. The fact that a sharp lens can make tiny color errors indicates this. The MX was overly blurry, overly 'safe' .
Maybe I'll try the Dragon OLPF in the Epic !
I still like none however ;)

I'll be NAB floor browsing mostly Monday and Tue. I like chatting with fellow Red users any time !
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This kind of sharpness is in large part false sharpness from skipping lines. It is not flattering to skin or human actors and easily leads to moire when you least expect it. Sharper anyway does not = nicer or more pleasing, at least, not often.
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
This kind of sharpness is in large part false sharpness from skipping lines. It is not flattering to skin or human actors and easily leads to moire when you least expect it. Sharper anyway does not = nicer or more pleasing, at least, not often.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Les Dittert said:
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...

Of course that's shooting 4K, if you're shooting 5K or 6K then you should still factor in some equivalent downsampling. In my experience though you can get very close to HD resolution 1:1 on the Dragon sensor so long as you have a lens that resolves close to or past the OLPF. I do think the days of the OLPF are numbered though, Nikon is no longer putting them in any of their consumer cameras, I have a D800e and I think I've seen aliasing once in 10,000 frames.
 
Stacey Spears said:
Are you sure most red shooters want a soft image? I don't.
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Most humans do not look good at 4K without some form of acute facial line attenuation (soft filtration). This can be achieved optically while still maintaining fine textural resolution by using filters like the Schneider Classic Soft, HD Classic Soft and Hollywood Black Magic. This filters use small "lenslets" to slightly refocus small portions of the image in a random pattern. This has the effect of diffusing brighter areas over adjacent darker ones and this reducing micro-contrast or fine line rendition without affecting fine textural resolution too much. Of course this does depend on how sharp the lens is to begin with, how soft or specular the lighting is and the strength of the filter, which needs to be matched to the focal length and the subject being photographed.

For instance on a 28mm lens photographing a 20 something year old person with good skin I'd probably only run a 1/16th HD CS or 1/8th HBM.

On a middle aged woman on a 50mm lens I'd run a 1/4 Classic Soft or 1/2 HBM.

On a more distinguished woman photographed on a 135mm lens I'd be running a 1/2 Classic soft or a 1 HMB, even stronger if the makeup isn't top notch.

Lastly this can also all be done in post if you have the resources, it still looks good but I always prefer the look of optical filtration when I've compared them side by side.
 
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I would like to see a thread of "Post Your Sharpest Dragon Image". I haven't seen one of mine that blows my MX away yet. More DR yes - sharper?? . . . not sure yet
 
Evin Grant said:
This can be achieved optically while still maintaining fine textural resolution by using filters like the Schneider Classic Soft, HD Classic Soft and Hollywood Black Magic.
Click to expand...

I agree. We don't want the camera to soften anything, we can achieve that with filters or in post as you point out. If are you shooting nature, for example, would you really want to soften anything? I would not.

Les Dittert said:
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...

Probably more of an acid test for the monochrome since it does not have to be debayered or for a 3-chip camera. Probably not fair otherwise. I would like to see a monochrome w/ and w/o an OLPF 1:1.
 
Evin Grant said:
Lastly this can also all be done in post if you have the resources, it still looks good but I always prefer the look of optical filtration when I've compared them side by side.
Click to expand...

This is also an advantage of having a high dynamic range linear image like Dragon. Garbage In Garbage Out, you will get the correct flaring if you digitally filter an unclipped image in linear space.
 
Evin Grant said:
Most humans do not look good at 4K without some form of acute facial line attenuation (soft filtration). This can be achieved optically while still maintaining fine textural resolution by using filters like the Schneider Classic Soft, HD Classic Soft and Hollywood Black Magic. This filters use small "lenslets" to slightly refocus small portions of the image in a random pattern. This has the effect of diffusing brighter areas over adjacent darker ones and this reducing micro-contrast or fine line rendition without affecting fine textural resolution too much. Of course this does depend on how sharp the lens is to begin with, how soft or specular the lighting is and the strength of the filter, which needs to be matched to the focal length and the subject being photographed.

For instance on a 28mm lens photographing a 20 something year old person with good skin I'd probably only run a 1/16th HD CS or 1/8th HBM.

On a middle aged woman on a 50mm lens I'd run a 1/4 Classic Soft or 1/2 HBM.

On a more distinguished woman photographed on a 135mm lens I'd be running a 1/2 Classic soft or a 1 HMB, even stronger if the makeup isn't top notch.

Lastly this can also all be done in post if you have the resources, it still looks good but I always prefer the look of optical filtration when I've compared them side by side.
Click to expand...

filed - thank you
 
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...

The debayer patterm does not have 100% sensor surface coverage, and the OLPF helps spread light across pixels os that nothing is skipped or missing in the final result. I don't want a soft image, really, but what comes out of Dragon is more than more than sharp enough without removing the OLPF. I do want a clean image.
 
Stock RCX processing ( with ADD and with OLPF ) shows color errors on the tree branches. My no-olpf version has none of these errors. So which one is the clean image then ?
 
Les Dittert said:
Stock RCX processing ( with ADD and with OLPF ) shows color errors on the tree branches. My no-olpf version has none of these errors. So which one is the clean image then ?
Click to expand...

You should post a regular still without ADD for comparisons sake (as there's potential for it to create chaos) and perhaps one "fully processed" image as well incorporating some sort of sharpening pass.
 
Phil Holland said:
You should post a regular still without ADD for comparisons sake (as there's potential for it to create chaos) and perhaps one "fully processed" image as well incorporating some sort of sharpening pass.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Is the sensor less prone to IR contamination even without the new Olpf? So that you could shoot without Olpf on IR problematic shots (lot of ND, tungsten...)? It would meen there isn't any IR filtration going on on the Olpf? Only "high frequencies stopper"

Pat
 
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