DRAGON Upgrade advantages for a primarily 16:9 projects?

[Alexander Manning]

Good Morning my fellow REDheads!

I have a quick question for all of you - and was hoping I could get some answers.

Tthe studio I work at has an EPIC-MX we purchased around 8 months ago - incredible camera. Yesterday we received "the phone call" regarding upgrading to the EPIC DRAGON at the current price. I've been pretty excited about the DRAGON since they announced it and understand all the fantastic advantages over the MX (+3 stops, base ISO of 2000, 6K, Color Science). We use the MX mostly for Commercial work and shoot mostly 5K HD (16:9)...

I've noticed, and tell me if I'm wrong, that the 16:9 resolution/specs for the DRAGON are the same as the MX. Is this true? If we go through with the upgrade should we expect to see any advantages (besides those stated above) in our 16:9 workflow?

Also, is it best to stay with the MX for 5K HD due to some of these noise issues I've been hearing about or has that been fixed with OLPF?

Best,
Alex

 

[John Schick]

If you want the cleanest possible ISO 2000, make sure to request the LOW LIGHT OLPF. The SKINTONE HIGHLIGHT OLPF comes by default I think. It fixes the red orb flares, but it also shifts the dynamic range about 1.3 stops into the highlights (at the expense of noisier shadows).

You can always order both and easily swap between them later, but I don't know if the individual OLPF's are shipping separately yet.

Here's a good comparison of the two available OLPF options:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...PF-on-Dragon&p=1433752&viewfull=1#post1433752

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Good Morning my fellow REDheads!

I have a quick question for all of you - and was hoping I could get some answers.

I (the studio I work at) has an EPIC-MX we purchased around 8 months ago - incredible camera. Yesterday I received "the phone call" regarding upgrading to the EPIC DRAGON at the current price. I've been pretty excited about the DRAGON since they announced it and understand all the fantastic advantages over the MX (+3 stops, base ISO of 2000, 6K, Color Science). We use the MX mostly for Commercial work and shoot mostly 5K HD (16:9)...

I've noticed, and tell me if I'm wrong, that the 16:9 resolution/specs for the DRAGON are the same as the MX. Is this true? If we go through with the upgrade should we expect to see any advantages (besides those stated above) in our 16:9 workflow?

Also , is it best to stay with the MX for 5K HD due to some of these noise issues I've been hearing about or has that been fixed with OLPF?

Best,
Alex

Alexander, you should probably spend some time reading Phil Hollands excellent DRAGON pages: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92999-Red-Dragon-Info-and-Data-Sheets

The super-short answer to your questions are: DRAGON packs pixels slightly tighter than MX, so for the same lens you can get higher resolution. Or for the same resolution, you'll have a smaller piece of the sensor working for you (which means you are closer to the lens's sweet spot). If you are shooting 5K on MX because THAT'S ALL IT CAN DO (!), then you'll want to shoot with DRAGON, because it can do more (6K) with better compression, provided your lens has a couple extra millimeters of image circle to give you.

The real advantages (also evident if you see Phil's posts, Mark Toia's posts, and others) is that DRAGON's color is simply fantastic. That, and 6K, are the Big Stories concerning DRAGON, and reason enough to move up.

The story about ISO has been far more contentious, though I think it has really been settled, and documented by Phil Holland here: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...PF-on-Dragon&p=1433752&viewfull=1#post1433752

I have an EPIC DRAGON and a SCARLET DRAGON, and everything Phil says agrees with my own experiences. However, if you don't have a DRAGON some of the claims may be hard to understand/believe, especially if you want to believe something contrary. The basic story is this: with the Low Light Optimized (LLO) OLPF, sensor texture (analogy: film grain) goes from pixel-peeping clean (ISO 200-500) to smooth (800-2000) to grainy (ISO 2500+), and yes, the smooth of ISO 2000 is definitely more grainy than at ISO 800, but looked at by itself, it could be sorted into a category called smooth. And the color science is better than anything RED had ever done in the past, and very, very nice. The Skin Tone Highlight (STH) OLPF goes from pixel-peeping clean (ISO 200-400) to smooth (500-1000) to colorfully textured (ISO 1280+), and again, at the lower end of the range things are cleaner whereas in the higher end of the range they get more textured. The colorful texturing can be mitigated with DEB (DRAGON Enhanced Black in RED CINE-X and Resolve 11.1.3). But whatever shortfalls you may perceive in the sensor texture, the color is just mind-bendingly good. It comes out of the camera and it looks FANTASTIC. And better than RED has ever done, including LLO.

If you shoot either OLPF at ISO 2000 and expect to get perfectly smooth images that show no sensor texture in the shadows using Red Log Film as your reference, you will be sorely disappointed. However, as Phil's post shows, the sensor texture can be rendered entirely moot, depending on the color grade. If you grade a lot, then the differences between STH and LLO may be trivial compared to your grades. But the color difference between MX and DRAGON is *not* trivial. DRAGON's color science, ability to handle highlights, support better compression, etc., are all to the good.

If your typical shots are low-key, LLO will give you great shadow detail at ISO 800. If your typical shots are not low-key, STH will take you to a place in the color world you will never want to leave. And if you absolutely have to shoot at ISO 2000, be prepared to do extra work--it doesn't come for free.

 

[Stacey Spears]

The short answer is 6k HD (16x9) is 5568x3132, which is higher resolution than MX 16x9.

 

[Alexander Manning]

The short answer is 6k HD (16x9) is 5568x3132, which is higher resolution than MX 16x9.

I see - Thanks for the info! RED needs to change there spec sheet on the DRAGON product page to match this. It should say 16:9 on the 6K res Acquisition formats.