Dragon??? So after nearly 10months what do we think? NATIVE 2000ASA no 18stops no ..

[Jan Reiff]

honestly sometimes i adjust only a light curve in the redlogfilm, it´s different to MX and i love this high dynamic creamy look with lots of information everywhere. more saturation as MX, richer image. throwing redlogfilm with little adjustment on a 4K screen is pretty nice - will do one film with this look.
redgamma 4 often is way to contrasty, especially when you throw it on a screen (it´s rare that people use the "film modus" or "flat modus" on their TV) - sometimes when i see a commercial of us in TV at a supermarket or smth else i get a shock: colors like bonbons and 6 stops remaining.
this "dynamic setup" TV shit set ups should be forbidden ...

 

[Martin Stevens]

honestly sometimes i adjust only a light curve in the redlogfilm, it´s different to MX and i love this high dynamic creamy look with lots of information everywhere. more saturation as MX, richer image. throwing redlogfilm with little adjustment on a 4K screen is pretty nice - will do one film with this look.
redgamma 4 often is way to contrasty, especially when you throw it on a screen (it´s rare that people use the "film modus" or "flat modus" on their TV) - sometimes when i see a commercial of us in TV at a supermarket or smth else i get a shock: colors like bonbons and 6 stops remaining.
this "dynamic setup" TV shit set ups should be forbidden ...

There's always THX Mode..... well, not always.

 

[luigivaltulini]

thanks for that....you are pissing in the wind....it has become impossible to have a discussion about this here...unfortunately...every thread like this turns into the same couple of people making the same excuses over and over...
the problems are real, very real and MX is the better camera for now....my biggest concern is that this (dragon) was supposed to be the answer and even if the issues are ironed out to get anywhere near the promised specs, in reality RED should be working on the next chip right now behind the scenes...instead of constantly having to meddle with a now already 2 year old one that just won't do exactly what it should be doing....
this is not about hating or bashing or the more and more desperate "don't worry, they will fix it"....it is my concern as a customer and professional who still believes that this is the best system for me right now out there....unfortunatley that system is still MX and that is a little strange and hard to swallow......

sorry Paul, but what are you saying?
We are people who are arguing and I believe that we all have a place to talk.
No one is pissing in the wind.
This is a bad statement on your part.
I have respect for you, however, are convinced that you now have evidence that Mx is better than DRagon, you're a professional now and show us with your example as MX vs. Dragon is better now.
I'm curious and I want to see.
Sorry but the picture below because it is better MX?

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[Christopher Probst]

I'm about as big of a tech nerd as any, but at some point. Go fucking shoot something! I'd rather see some cool projects than read 1000+ posts bitching about the same shit.

 

[Brice Ansel]

Conversely, the 'taking from the bottom and putting it on top' that the V2 OLPF does, should, in theory, be easily reproducible by rating the V1 OLPF at a 1-2stop higher ISO (ISO3200?), forcing the user to expose darker and protecting the highlights as a result (basically what we've been doing with MX by rating it at 800 in exteriors). That would give you the 1-2stops more in the highlights, whilst avoiding V2s haggard noise and very shallow shadows. Or is this bad logic?

It seems like a good way to see things.
I can't talk about the dragon sensor, but when I expose mid grey at 800 iso with the Epic MX I always push at least one extra diaf for the shadows.
Coming from the Red M I never considered the Epic MX as a 800 iso camera, but more in beetween 500 and 620 iso. This number (800) is just about the hype around that famous German brand who obsessed so many people on this board (people who rent gears, professional trolls, and maybe unfortunatly the Red team).
I filmed a lot of stuff in a guerilla style (without trucks full of lights) with my red M, during more than 4 years, and never felt frustrated about the 320 iso rating.
I really like what I saw from a lot of samples coming from the dragon sensor, and I coudn't care less if it is rated at 320 iso at the end.
I don't want to serve the soup to Red, I'm just using a tool they designed.
But after playing with a ton of dragon R3D, and by watching the elasticity of the medias, it seems to me their is something wrong in the way people react.
I just wish I could put my hands on a dragon during a week and try to deal on my own with the terrible things some RU members try to desribe.
Just my two Euros.
B.

 

[D Fuller]

I'm about as big of a tech nerd as any, but at some point. Go fucking shoot something! I'd rather see some cool projects than read 1000+ posts bitching about the same shit.

Exactly!

Aaaaand... That ought to be a wrap on this thread.

 

[Bob Gundu]

I'm about as big of a tech nerd as any, but at some point. Go fucking shoot something! I'd rather see some cool projects than read 1000+ posts bitching about the same shit.

+1.

 

[Brice Ansel]

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Luigi, next time use the drx slider.

 

[Matt Ryan]

Luigi, next time use the drx slider.

It's Gunleiks image. Luigi was just showing the example.

 

[Brice Ansel]

It's Gunleiks image. Luigi was just showing the example.

Yea I know, I was just teasing a bit.

 

[Matt Ryan]

Yea I know, I was just teasing a bit.

I hear you. When these first came out I was like it looks a hell of a lot better with DRX haha

 

[Martin Stevens]

If Sir Christopher Probst enjoys, likes or loves the Dragon, well then, that is truly high praise.

You have been knighted Sir Probst.

Hey, and I'm British.

 

[Bruce Allen]

This bun is already in the oven and coming in the form of "DEB" or Dragon Enhanced Blacks. Though quickly we've learned that's it's not just correcting the red specks, but actually improving the color channel cleanliness and resolved detail through an adaptive debayer algorithm. Fairly cool stuff. And best of all it doesn't come at the expense of any sort of additional processing time. The Redcine-X Pro build I've been testing is likely soon to be released. And it will be just a matter of time to get it into the SDK for 3rd Party Tools.

That's a bit sad. I would personally prefer that they just get the latitude out of the sensor without post tricks. Post tricks often bring compromises. Or they improve things but hurt *other* post tricks down the line... the chain is tricky and it's better to fix at the hardware.

Phil, in case you're wondering why people are accusing you of spin, take a look at your original post on the new OLPF:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?111400-Dragon-Flare&p=1320952&viewfull=1#post1320952

When you tested it, you said "That's approximately 1.3+ stops improvements in the highlights."

You did not say "...and a matching noise increase in the shadows."

Instead you said stuff like "richer shadow detail" - so I think folks then reasonably expected to see the same shadow detail but with better color and 1.3 stops improvement in the highlights with the new OLPF and they put down their $$$$ for the Dragon upgrade. And now they are pissed because you didn't mention anything about the shadow noise.

Surely you saw it, right? Why didn't you say anything? All you said was "Dark shadow areas are clean"

It sucks to post tests. It's pretty thankless because everyone just rags on every tiny thing you do wrong (hey, I still have people mad at Macgregor and I on DVXuser for the GH4 tests which dared to tell folks that the F35 still kicked its ass in a few ways). But hey, you're getting to play with the fun RED stuff early and you seem to enjoy it, so I hope it works for you.

But if you say "For the last couple days I've been digging into it real hard" ... how can you completely miss the shadow issue? Was it a mistake or deliberate? Either way, I can see why people are pissed. Sorry.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Bruce Allen]

...and for Part 2, the funny thing is: I personally think the Dragon with new OLPF is my favorite RED camera.

PERSONALLY, I always hated RED MX's color, crosstalk, etc. So the new OLPF Dragon is a big improvement. That said, new OLPF Dragon with 15-16 stops of clean dynamic range would be so much better. I'm sure it'll happen - either an improved version of the sensor will happen or else they'll just make a gigantic medium-format sensor so everything will downscale to a gorgeous image. Or both.

I do, however, suspect that a lot of that dynamic range came from the sensor sites picking up stuff that they weren't supposed to.

CMOS is highly sensitive to infrared. So let's say you have a sensor that's supposed to be picking up only visible red. But by accident it lets through some IR as well. And some green and some blue. And some colors through the rainbow in between. Guess what, that pixel will have a fantastic signal to noise ratio. But the color will be less true.

My guess is that the Dragon really did have fantastic dynamic range... but that was before they filtered out all of the IR light and put better color filters on it, etc. So comparing RED's initial Dragon numbers to Alexa etc was never apples to apples. Who knows, maybe Alexa had 25 stops of dynamic range before they had to filter out the IR, put Bayer filters on it, etc. Of course, nobody bothered to mention that the dynamic range would go down a bunch once you put the filters on needed for accurate color imagery. But hey. At least it means you can get a little bit better dynamic range than original RED, maybe slightly lower sensitivity, but much better colors. Works for me. But I'm weird that way.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

sorry Paul, but what are you saying?
We are people who are arguing and I believe that we all have a place to talk.
No one is pissing in the wind.
This is a bad statement on your part.
I have respect for you, however, are convinced that you now have evidence that Mx is better than DRagon, you're a professional now and show us with your example as MX vs. Dragon is better now.
I'm curious and I want to see.
Sorry but the picture below because it is better MX?

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Yes MX clips faster, but you can rate higher, so your pictures don't really say much. For what I do, having tested, MX is a better choice because I need higher ISOs and a gentle noise floor that does not clip blacks.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

I'm about as big of a tech nerd as any, but at some point. Go fucking shoot something! I'd rather see some cool projects than read 1000+ posts bitching about the same shit.

So why read them? Read another thread. Not all these posts say the same things - some do, some don't. I for one am glad to see complaints from reasonable people that match my findings - they make me think "I'm not crazy, the camera I tested was not defective, my methodology was not completely whack, these problems are real." If it's 30 people saying the same thing, then it's all the more reassuring that I am not alone in this, and that he friends who also said the very same things are not just Alexa-biased or whatever, that the issues are real. It's fine to run out and shoot things, but of you;re going to be handing back footage with surprise unfixable magenta flares, crushed shadows and so on, then maybe it will be a while before a client hires you to run out and shoot again. Maybe better to run out and shoot with an MX camera instead.

And by the way, I keep hearing "You guys will never be happy". Well no, we can be. When MX came out for Red One, people were delighted. MX talk was almost 100% positive. So it is possible to please "the complainers" by delivering a product as advertised, without huge technical issues.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

You do understand that you've just spewed blasphemy to those who are perpetual fault-finders?

You know who else are perpetual fault finders? DPs who choose their gear very carefully, and test everything extensively. It's a big part of doing the job well.

 

[Andrew Huse]

Im holding off on upgrading my epic for now. Which sucks because I just finished amassing the funds! But maybe it's best to wait and see how this plays out. Thanks everyone for giving us the heads up.. This thread is very interesting.

 

[NOSA OBAYIUWANA]

Agreed. Diversity of opinion is a good thing.

 

[NOSA OBAYIUWANA]

Have not shot dragon yet. But it seems for night photography the F55 might be a better option particularly on an independent feature and tight budget. Does anyone here have experience of cutting both together - night F55 and day dragon?