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Dragon Vs Alexa Low Light Tests - Someone?

Jeremy Hildebrant said:
The 1Dc will probably have that large blocky over compressed and over NR'd feel in motion, but will the average viewer notice?
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The 1Dc looks exactly the same in motion as the still. This still is in fact one of 24 (or 25) identical stills produced by the mjpeg codec. There are no motion algorithms at play. Just individual frames in rapid sequence. There is no blockiness, and at over 500Mbit/s I find "over compressed" to be stretching the terms.

You can produce rolling shutter, but that would also show in the still, so the statement still holds.
 
Mark Toia said:
Haste... ? I'm not one to ponder if my grammar or spelling is up to spec for a Blog post. I just type quickly and move on... Sorry.
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Mark, it was indeed directed at Phil's comment saying that the 1Dc "murders the details, not producing a 4k image". I then pointed out, sort of, that the 1Dc has more detail in the man's face (after noise reduction) than the Epic has, in this specific scenario/light setup, before noise reduction.

Phil has since responded and given his view and he stands by his statement. All good—horses for courses.
 
AndreeMarkefors said:
The 1Dc looks exactly the same in motion as the still. This still is in fact one of 24 (or 25) identical stills produced by the mjpeg codec. There are no motion algorithms at play. Just individual frames in rapid sequence. There is no blockiness, and at over 500Mbit/s I find "over compressed" to be stretching the terms.

You can produce rolling shutter, but that would also show in the still, so the statement still holds.
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Yes, but there is movement in grain/noise/artifact patterns that can look bad or film like based on the camera. My point was, that I do agree with you on those tests, the 1Dc does do a really nice job in low light situaions and even with the NR applied in camera there is still a good amount of detail retained, and I don't think the Epic mx would have that much detail retained with post noise reduction techniques. I have always like Canon's processing algorithm's. And yes I guess over compressed was bit much... Back to topic :)
 
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Jeremy Hildebrant said:
and I don't think the Epic mx would have that much detail retained with post noise reduction techniques.
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I'll have to dig up some images to find some 4K stills, but here's some two year old 4K 8:1 low light pushed images with NR applied.

ISO 320-6400 in 2160p (most people don't like the music, so I'd mute it!):
* much of the lower end gets nuked by the web re-compression, but sort of shows the idea.

ISO 3200:
A015_C004_12302V.0000226.jpg


ISO 12800:
RedScarletX_ISO12800_0001.jpg



I'll shoot some more relevant material with Dragon to show "what's up" when digging into the noise floor and applying noise reduction.
 
this is a major purchase i would test both cameras myself
 
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Phil I see a great amount of detail after Noise Reduction, and I wonder how much NR and which software you used. I own a Scarlet and I get a lot of noise at night if I used 3200 ISO. not to mention 12800. But I see amazing images here from that video and I am very impressed.

Thanks for sharing Phil!
 
Alain M said:
Phil I see a great amount of detail after Noise Reduction, and I wonder how much NR and which software you used.
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Neat Video. Best money you'll ever spend if you are looking clean up material. There's more expensive solutions of course. Resolve 10 now has some interesting noise reduction features as well.

Only downside is the rendering time.
 
Awesome! Gonna buy Neat Video. Thanks Phil!!! I am gonna do some tests in Low light with my Scarlet in more depth because I see More room to play with ISO + NR now that I see these examples in order to maximize the results in limited light situations. Great timing before getting to post in my feature film which I ll start editing soon.

Thanks
 
Yeah I remember these, they do look good. I've had good results with Epic in low light as long as there is some contrast and highlights somewhere in the scene. The CML examples are different story though IMO.
I forget who posted the Dragon footage of the girl lighting the match, but I was impressed with that. Was able to push it to ISO5000 at 3200K and still looked good once downsampled without any noise reduction. Would be curious to see something similar with some neutral mid to dark texture-less grays in the scene since noise sometimes hides itself pretty well in the deep blacks and colors that already have texture.


Phil Holland said:
I'll have to dig up some images to find some 4K stills, but here's some two year old 4K 8:1 low light pushed images with NR applied.
Click to expand...
 
Alain M said:
I own a Scarlet and I get a lot of noise at night if I used 3200 ISO. not to mention 12800.
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Disclaimer: not saying the following applies here, but…

I feel there's lots of confusion as to what "low light" photography is. I've seen people go out late at night—yes it was pitch black—only to shoot city footage with lit up store fronts or Las Vegas style neon signs. Then they came back thinking that it was low light footage.

Just like shooting fireworks isn't low light photography.

You can use ISO6400 in the middle of the day, stop down and put NDs on, and you've got a perfectly good image because the high ISO almost saturated the photo sites.

But if you're in available light and the ambient light is so low that you NEED ISO3200+ to get acceptable levels and your sensor is starving like in the candle test here… that's a different game.

I've always felt that if you light your productions, and want best possible IQ go with RED or similar. Films, commercials, music videos... that kind of stuff. Who cares about ISO? You bring your own light anyway...

Documentary on the other hand… no light, no extra time for involved setups... that's where a nimble camera with a ready-to-go image comes in handy.

It will be very interesting to see how Dragon performs. We've already got a lantern test I believe... but that was lantern + an additional light if I remember correctly.
 
AndreeMarkefors said:
Disclaimer: not saying the following applies here, but…

I feel there's lots of confusion as to what "low light" photography is. I've seen people go out late at night—yes it was pitch black—only to shoot city footage with lit up store fronts or Las Vegas style neon signs. Then they came back thinking that it was low light footage.

Just like shooting fireworks isn't low light photography.

You can use ISO6400 in the middle of the day, stop down and put NDs on, and you've got a perfectly good image because the high ISO almost saturated the photo sites.

But if you're in available light and the ambient light is so low that you NEED ISO3200+ to get acceptable levels and your sensor is starving like in the candle test here… that's a different game.

I've always felt that if you light your productions, and want best possible IQ go with RED or similar. Films, commercials, music videos... that kind of stuff. Who cares about ISO? You bring your own light anyway...

Documentary on the other hand… no light, no extra time for involved setups... that's where a nimble camera with a ready-to-go image comes in handy.

It will be very interesting to see how Dragon performs. We've already got a lantern test I believe... but that was lantern + an additional light if I remember correctly.
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You have good points Andree. Thing is that in my case when I have $40k to make a film, there are some gorilla situations where lights can be used and that's why I always read here from the PRO's TIPS to learn more and more about the techniques and approaches to leverage as much as possible on these situations...Understanding technical things like you mentioned, Phil, Gunleik, Toia helps a lot in getting more confident in what to do at those situations. Of course, this is 5 to 10 pct of the film that I must battle to get the best out of it so it is not a big deal because in post you fix a lot. But getting the best of the camera is always the best and last few weeks there has been very important info here in the forum where everybody that reads carefully learns a lot.

Now I do not care if noise comparison between MX and Dragon are the same or not enough of a difference. I will get the Dragon, it is by far amazing and the tests tell the story. But in the meantime I do care because I will learn a lot in advance before I even get the dragon late in 2014.

I always appreciate the folks here spending so much time explaining rock solid info...Always thankful for taking their valuable time!!!
 
AndreeMarkefors said:
I'm sure Phil will fill in a lot of the blanks. He has already contributed enormous amounts of information and resources. And he has got a Dragon... =)
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That's right Andree. When I go to L.A maybe I get lucky and bump into Phil so I can see Dragon in action... hehehehe
 
AndreeMarkefors said:
I'm sure Phil will fill in a lot of the blanks. He has already contributed enormous amounts of information and resources. And he has got a Dragon... =)
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Will do and I have some notes to share. Exporting some tests before I hit the bed this evening. Tune in tomorrow.


Alain M said:
That's right Andree. When I go to L.A maybe I get lucky and bump into Phil so I can see Dragon in action... hehehehe
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Heh. I'm a hard man to pin down sometimes, but if I'm around I'm game. Also, I have a sneaky suspicion that relatively soon there will be an Epic Dragon in Red Store Hollywood for people to investigate and fondle.
 
Alain M said:
You have good points Andree. Thing is that in my case when I have $40k to make a film, there are some gorilla situations where lights can be used and that's why I always read here from the PRO's TIPS to learn more and more about the techniques and approaches to leverage as much as possible on these situations...Understanding technical things like you mentioned, Phil, Gunleik, Toia helps a lot in getting more confident in what to do at those situations. Of course, this is 5 to 10 pct of the film that I must battle to get the best out of it so it is not a big deal because in post you fix a lot. But getting the best of the camera is always the best and last few weeks there has been very important info here in the forum where everybody that reads carefully learns a lot.

Now I do not care if noise comparison between MX and Dragon are the same or not enough of a difference. I will get the Dragon, it is by far amazing and the tests tell the story. But in the meantime I do care because I will learn a lot in advance before I even get the dragon late in 2014.

I always appreciate the folks here spending so much time explaining rock solid info...Always thankful for taking their valuable time!!!
Click to expand...

is your budget 40,000 (what part of this is for camera and post???)
 
Kemalettin Sert said:
http://www.cinematography.net/valvula.html
Still shows that Film has more dynamic range than Alexa.The question is Dragon better than Film?
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And also look at the colour chart. Color of Alexa and film is almost identical but RED's color are wrong (shifted).
Look at especially the "red" boxes in charts. In alexa and film all red boxes are "blood red". but it is almost magenta in RED footage. Orange and yellow have the same problem.
It is impossible to fix it with primary grading . You can only fix it by seperate LUT or secondary (area selection) correction. This is what i am suffering everytime.

I hope it will be much better in Dragon.
 
What is displayed with that test is some of the "knowns".

This test will be done again in 2014 with Dragon. I can't stress enough how different the color and dynamic range is.
 
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