Dragon Tips and Tricks.

[Lakis Amarantithis]

First I like to say a huge thanks to the Red team not only for building this camera but for being so unbelievably fair with the upgrade program and for having such an incredibly helpful/fast tech support..

Like the Scarlets and the Epics I owned previously I firmly believe the Dragons are also under priced.

I have the owner of Red company up there in my book with people like Enzo Ferrari and Antonio Stradivari to mention a few. I hope The Legend will have a long long future.

I downloaded all r3d files taken with a Dragon posted here. Not the same as if you shoot. Same thing as if you watch someone else driving vs driving yourself.

I am in disbelief at how good this camera is. How small and how deceptive in it's looks also! It's nowhere close to the Epic. I've seen people comparing etc... No comparison for me. Epic is still fantastic so Scarlet but the Dragon is another game. 6k feels more like 20k to me (feels like you have an entire football field to move around). In addition is much better quality in all respects. Thank you Graeme!
Everybody has an opinion, I'm 55 and been filming since 6yrs old. Last time I was so impressed was when I saw a flawless 8x10" transparency under a magnifying glass made with a laser printer that cost a quarter of a million almost. Here you have a camera doing that at 100fps!

Now is time to learn the cameras inside out for me and my people here.

The purpose of this thread is to post tips that otherwise may take you long to discover.

First tip:

Noise problems? No problem!

Wait until the camera has the environments temperature. Then do a black shade.

Black shade does not work?

Wait more and do it again because the camera did not really adjusted to the environment.

It worked for me.

You can save up to 5 black shades for different iso's and recall them from what I read at another thread.

I notice also that some lenses are just not made to shoot night. You use these lenses you will waste your time no matter what even with the Dragon. However... the Noct 58mm f:1.2 gave me some awesome results!



...and forget that Tokina 11-16mm at 6k. As the quality of the camera increased it's easier to see all kinds of flaws in most but the best lenses.
Nikon 15mm 3.5 AIS is very good for me at 6k! Use the EFXChromaticAberration64.aex and you'll be surprised!

Edit: Thank you Phil, Russ and everyone else for the tips!! I'll appreciate if nobody diverts from the topic here. I want to keep this thread Lean so people can benefit a lot without searching non important replies. Our time is important. So please all Dragon Masters: Post your Tips!

 

[Phil Holland]

My number one tip, and it's more or less been true for Mysterium-X and Dragon, is getting familiar with the on screen exposure tools and features. They are there to help you get predictable and consistent results.

So many just expose off the histogram, while valid information, it's not the only thing "worth" checking while exposing.

Same about using the focus tools I guess.

Also, this is more from a personal perspective. Choose an ISO rating and work from there. I treat Dragon like film. I treat digital cinema cameras like film. I treat film like film. It's a good working method that develops good practices in terms of planning ahead and sometimes improvisation. I understand that this "doesn't always work" for certain shoots. That's fine. I'm more or less suggesting it's "how you work first" before developing a more wild and unhinged method of shooting.

I guess in the tip category I would say. Grab that DSMC Side Handle. I have mapped all my goodies to it and it's on my camera brain like 95% of the time. It's incredibly handy to have an LCD Touch and DSMC Side Handle too. You have so many ways to interface with the camera that it's worth exploring. Soon the Red Switchblade is going to provide similar usefulness in a smaller form factor more ideal for AC use. That's something else to consider when that ships.

Also, last quicky tip before I eat the foods. It's a Modular System. Most of know the strengths behind this. It's okay to "rig" your camera for specific needs. I sometimes build small, I sometimes build a bit larger. Most of the time I have a balance between the too. The Red system is fairly unique as you can make a DSMC style body real compact and still shoot the same image quality whether you are working with a 12lb or 40lb system.

 

[Russ Fill]

Don't under estimate the ability of the camera to hold the highlights. it took me a very long time to realize that you can push the brighter parts of a cine a lot more than you think most of the time..
Im not saying make all the stop lights glow with the intensity of a thousands suns, but you will be surprised at what it can do. I had the privilege the other day of telling the director that I couldn't over expose the highlights in a particular cine because the camera could handle them, and then had to open the lens all the way while he looked over my shoulder just to prove it to him.

I can echo what Phil said about learning all the tools to check your exposure and focus enough, the RAW histogram and switching back and forth, stop lights, false color they all have a valueable use and to be able to switch between them to check your answers until you have a better feeling for the camera it invaluable...

Shoot, shoot, shoot and then take it to RedCine and look and play, look and play, look and play. I don't mean just take a few clips in your living room out the window and say hey thats pretty good, but really get out in the world and take some real situation especially in some low light settings so you know what to expect in the images and then play with them in RedCine X so you can see what is there and what can be done with your image after wards.. Long before showing up to the client shoot with the new camera.. If you can shoot a chip chart/gray scale before you start to shoot your test so you have a reference to what it should or did look like on each setup. I know tedious but effective. You will quickly realize what works and what does not.
You will be amazed, I know I was after shooting with the Epic X and then going to the Dragon it was like riding someone else's bike for a while, until you get use to how it behaves in different light and situations you'll probably at time think what is up but keep moving forward. It is a very different animal and does take some time to understand those differences.

And as Phil said its modular, find what works for you and capitalize on that. My camera setup may not be what someone else's camera setup is. Thats whats so great about the Epic system... PL, Leica, Canon, Nikon all fit on the front and there are many other option and modules to customize your camera for your needs.