Dragon Skin...

[Evin Grant]

Thanks to Jim and Jarred, I had a chance to spend some time with the Dragon last weekend...

My goal was to explore the color and dynamic range of the new sensor specifically on people and skin tones.
First off I want to make a few things clear...

This camera's color science is beta, in fact the version of RCX I used is still using RG3 & RC3 so they are not yet matched to the immense DR and color info of these files.

This camera also had a brand new IR filter installed and no adjustments had beed made to the CS or RCX for any impact that might have on color rendering.

All of the above meant I felt in order to be fair to the camera and sensor I needed to do some color correction beyond RCX, to that end I did a single primary pass in Resolve on the Prores 444 output.

The kelvin and tint settings noted in the video are my approximation of the ambient lighting according to the eye-dropper in RCX, I developed at different settings when I though it looked best. I also pushed the color saturation as far as I felt I could before looking garish, this is not actually my preferred taste but I felt it was important for the test.
Last off I am not a colorist, I'm a DP and I'm sure a professional who works in Resolve every day could do an even better job given how much color info is in there.

Ok, now I can gush a bit...
Wow, it's hard to describe the amount dynamic range, sensitivity and color information coming off this sensor. It it's really weird to just hold everything, the highs the lows and know you just got it. My feeling is there is more DR visible here than the stated spec, but it's hard to quantify. You'll also notice I was very good about avoiding any hard clips. Even the fire ball shots hold color. Another thing is I'm really in love with the grain-like noise when the sensor is pushed to ISO 3200+ it's really organic and gives the truly high ISO material a beautiful pushed film quality. It also handles mixed and discontinuous lighting like nothing I've seen. The shot of the girl dancing at 6400 ISO is shot under just an LED street lamp and plays much brighter than my eyes were seeing.

As far as skin tone the sensor picks up all the subtle colors and variances in the flesh and make-up, this is the trade off for so much info and detail and if you really want smooth skin rendering you'll need to have a great make-up artist and really understand filtration. The only diffusion filter I used on some shots was a Schneider 1/16 HD classic soft just to take the edge off. It's noted in the video when I do. You really can go pretty much anywhere with all this color info in post though.

One final note some of you may be asking where the tungsten studio test is and I will be honest and say that I did shoot one, but it was tacked on to another show I was shooting at the same time and the make-up artist was not really able to give the attention I felt necessary to make the test useful. If I get a 2nd chance with the Dragon before my Epic gets it's upgrade then I'll take a 2nd crack at it in earnest.

Special thanks to Poolhouse Productions for putting this together on such short notice.

 

[Martin Stevens]

AWESOME!

Thanks Evin!

I love the woman walking on the bridge backlit by the sun.

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Brandon J.F.]

Looks great. The fire footage is really impressive!

I sure could use this camera in 3 weeks when we start shooting again

 

[Clark Dunbar]

very impressive!

thanks Evin.

 

[Phil Holland]

Well that does look good. Nice Evin. The shot around the 2 minute mark is really telling of the dynamic range available to the camera. Also the bridge shots too.

Curious question. Did you use "normal" straight up NDs on this or did you use something else. If they are normal that certainly is showing the power of the new IROLPF for sure.

Can't wait to test out the ISO performance on Dragon. Promising and useful results by you and Mark for sure.

 

[Justin McAleece]

Thanks for your work Evin. The High ISO stuff is spectacularly clean.

 

[Evin Grant]

Curious question. Did you use "normal" straight up NDs on this or did you use something else. If they are normal that certainly is showing the power of the new IROLPF for sure.

Can't wait to test out the ISO performance on Dragon. Promising and useful results by you and Mark for sure.

Thanks, Phil. I used regular NDs for the shots that indicate .6 but Formatt HMND combos (my normal choice) for the .9 and 1.2 stated shots. However I did not see a noticeable difference between them when switching filters.

 

[Guy Staley]

<SNIP>The shot around the 2 minute mark is really telling of the dynamic range available to the camera.<SNIP>

No sh!t! That's the shot that got my attention too! Full sun and full shade, holding detail without even breaking a sweat!

Very, very exciting!

THANK YOU!

 

[Michael Ou]

I can't help but to feel a sudden surge of excitement each time I watch another RedUser Dragon evaluation, so much better, unbiased and truthful than the ones we are all used to seeing. DR is stunning! That shot of the elevator descending into the darkness, WOW! If the images look this good in uncontrolled environments, utilizing available light, I get goosebumps thinking of the possibilities when we start lighting specifically for the shot. Damn, just damn!

Much gratitude Evin! Thanks for taking the time and effort to show what Dragon can bring!

 

[Evin Grant]

Just to be clear Michael, I did use the occasional silk and bounce fill, those are necessary tools for the light quality if not necessarily the contrast range.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

This is exactly the kind of test I was hoping for - something to prove that the time/inconvenience of frequently having to pull secondaries for skin on MX is no longer a requirement on Dragon.

If things are only going to get better, great, but this is already more than good enough to be worth the upgrade price (and I could care less about 6K and more resolution I neither need nor even really want - nor do we wish to shoot without lights - it's worth 10K just for the color)

All that is missing is a test showing someone with freckles. Freckles show up as much too pronounced on MX, and I hope this has also been fixed, although my guess is it already has along with other skin-related factors. Sometimes also, a bit too much red color seems to creep in (Asian girl on left in two-shot for example) , but like you said, this isn't the final color science.

Epic competed with Alexa, but Alexa had advantages. Dragon looks to be a full-on Alexa killer.

 

[Michael Ou]

Just to be clear Michael, I did use the occasional silk and bounce fill, those are necessary tools for the light quality if not necessarily the contrast range.

Good to know, still very impressed with the DR!

 

[Phil Holland]

Thanks, Phil. I used regular NDs for the shots that indicate .6 but Formatt HMND combos (my normal choice) for the .9 and 1.2 stated shots. However I did not see a noticeable difference between them when switching filters.

Excellent. Good to hear. And thanks again.

No sh!t! That's the shot that got my attention too! Full sun and full shade, holding detail without even breaking a sweat!

Heh, you're seeing what I'm seeing. I'm a DP and a colorist. Can't tell you how excited I am for Dragon. Been waiting for this beast for a long time.

 

[Tom Gleeson]

Evin,

Would love to see how much you could pull out of the Bridge shot. Any chance you could use a secondary on the girl and bring her up to "normal" exposure and see if anything breaks? I realise you can't yet do this off the R3D files yet but still worth doing. For an unfinished camera and beta software it looks very promising.

 

[Luis Otero]

Evin,

Excellent job, as usual and expected...!!! Is there a way you can upload in Vimeo at 1080p, please?

Thanks, man....


Edit Note: Those shots with the "ring of fire" are just out of this world. My, my... without a doubt, the DR is SO much better than MX in low lights! And that elevator shot at the illumination transition is a killer.

 

[Martin Stevens]

Hello there Evin,

Do you think at this time you could say at what ISO you think the Dragon Sensor
has equal stops above and below middle gray?

 

[Evin Grant]

Martin, that's a tough one. I don't expose strictly by the numbers, I look at the scene then the histogram and stop lights and try to get the best exposure without clipping that I can.
That question also depends on your tolerance for noise, I shot plenty of stuff at 3200 and 4000 iso that has a pronounced but IMHO beautiful noise/grain so you could say that the sensor probably had 8-9
stops on either side at 4000 ISO if you're cool with the texture. The elevator shot for example was shot at 4000 ISO but I probably could have held the bright stuff easily at 2000.

I mostly set the camera at 1000 iso for 24FPS shooting and upped it to as much as 4000 when I wanted to shoot 96fps.

Tom, no need for a secondary, a simple curve will do...

But this was not what I was going for in the original.

 

[Mike P.]

Is there a video link; I'm iPad bound.

 

[Luis Otero]

This is beautiful, Evin. Good call on both instances.