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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 overexposure latitude?

It all depends on where you want to place middle gray and your tolerance for noise.
With 16ish stops of DR and really clean shadows you can easily shoot at EI 2000 and have a pretty even distribution of 8 stops over/under with about the same S/N ratio as the MX@EI 800.
That said I found I was using EI 1000 as my default because it held highlights really well and was a more practical working EI for normal lighting scenarios.
 
It's better than MX and looks like well into Alexa / F65 territory at least.
 
Evin Grant said:
It all depends on where you want to place middle gray and your tolerance for noise.
With 16ish stops of DR and really clean shadows you can easily shoot at EI 2000 and have a pretty even distribution of 8 stops over/under with about the same S/N ratio as the MX@EI 800.
That said I found I was using EI 1000 as my default because it held highlights really well and was a more practical working EI for normal lighting scenarios.
Click to expand...

8-stops over and under would make it 17 stops of DR in total, does it really have that much? Either way, 8-stops of overexposure latitude would be terrific, did you find that was dropping to 7-over at 1000 ISO?

I've been trying to figure out the Alexa's highlight mojo, and I think most of it comes down to the 7-stops of highlight latitude it has (which far exceeds the Sony F5(5)'s 5.5-stops and Epic MX's 5ish-stops) the extra headroom simply lets you play around with greater contrast ratios across people's faces without having to underexpose and start to dig towards the camera's noise-floor.

If Dragon now matches that 7-stop of overexposure latitude, then that'll be brilliant.
 
I don't have concrete numbers for you but it certainly feels like it has 7 stops over at EI1000 but since I always expose to hold my highlights (ETTR) it's a little hard to quantify.
Also by your calculation the Alexa would have 6 stops over not 7.
 
Evin Grant said:
I don't have concrete numbers for you but it certainly feels like it has 7 stops over at EI1000 but since I always expose to hold my highlights (ETTR) it's a little hard to quantify.
Also by your calculation the Alexa would have 6 stops over not 7.
Click to expand...

Cheers. Yep, Alexa is either going to be 6+/7- or 7+/6-. Though given how much smoother it's highlight rolloff is relative to the other cameras on the market, and the fact that it can get a little noisy in the shadows, I think it's probably more likely to be 7+/6-.
 
I have to say that this technical discussion about DR over/under drives me a little crazy. I know most don't have Dragon but let me say that as a DP I don't care about numbers. Dragon has smooth highlight rolloff.....

You will all be pleased......
 
Peter Lyons Collister said:
I have to say that this technical discussion about DR over/under drives me a little crazy. I know most don't have Dragon but let me say that as a DP I don't care about numbers. Dragon has smooth highlight rolloff.....

You will all be pleased......
Click to expand...


:-)
 
Peter Lyons Collister said:
I have to say that this technical discussion about DR over/under drives me a little crazy. I know most don't have Dragon but let me say that as a DP I don't care about numbers. Dragon has smooth highlight rolloff.....

You will all be pleased......
Click to expand...

Thanks for precisely summing up what I have tried to say over too many pages... :)
 
I love this quote so much! All I want is a gorgeous image!

Peter Lyons Collister said:
I have to say that this technical discussion about DR over/under drives me a little crazy. I know most don't have Dragon but let me say that as a DP I don't care about numbers. Dragon has smooth highlight rolloff.....

You will all be pleased......
Click to expand...
 
Peter Lyons Collister said:
I have to say that this technical discussion about DR over/under drives me a little crazy. I know most don't have Dragon but let me say that as a DP I don't care about numbers. Dragon has smooth highlight rolloff.....

You will all be pleased......
Click to expand...

I like your answer. I just want to hear pros say "the image is beautiful, I haven't had any clipping issues, the shadows look great, the highlights are smooth, in short, the sensor is great" I get the feeling that is how you feel. I want to know in practical day to day shooting what the real experience is but I realize that there needs to be numbers for "official specifications".
 
Peter Lyons Collister said:
I have to say that this technical discussion about DR over/under drives me a little crazy. I know most don't have Dragon but let me say that as a DP I don't care about numbers. Dragon has smooth highlight rolloff.....

You will all be pleased......
Click to expand...

Of course image is all that matters, but until we have Dragon-sensored units in our hands to test and compare, numbers are all we have for a frame of reference. The numbers aren't for chest-beating, or for the ridiculous boasting you see on camera forums far too often - they're simply a frame of reference.
 
Evin Grant said:
I don't have concrete numbers for you but it certainly feels like it has 7 stops over at EI1000 but since I always expose to hold my highlights (ETTR) it's a little hard to quantify.
Also by your calculation the Alexa would have 6 stops over not 7.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you meant ETTL for highlight protection? Or am I misunderstanding?

BTW - as noted by others not only are there 16 clean stops, but the character of what little noise there is and the way the top end rolls out is just so much sweeter. On Ketch Rossi's "The Red Dress" short we shot scenes in front of Jarred's black cyclorama that were essentially a noise floor torture test - A+.

RED has spent the last 6 years redefining the digital cinema space; enough compression to make high resolution practical without killing the image, file based workflows that leverage commodity hardware, putting cutting edge technology into a tiny package (Epic), etc. As revolutionary as all that is, like all digital image capture devices, it is still dependent on the quality of the sensor. With the purpose built Dragon sensor up front RED has raised the bar substantially. ARRI, Sony, Panavision or some other manufacturer will eventually eclipse Epic Dragon, such is the nature of technology - but from what I've seen that's going to take some doing.

Cheers - #19
 
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