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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

DRAGON vs EPIC MX Noise - NOT GOOD

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Gunleik Groven said:
Or add lights...

Frankly (and I feel/know that I am maybe one of few, and this is NOT to take away from the concern of the OP), one of the real things I have missed with RED cameras before Dragon is the ability to shoot outdoor-scenes without ND 1.8 or higher. Highlight, not lowlight performance is what has to me made it sometimes cumbersome...

But I guess that's just me.
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I agree with you, in general, but it still needs to be clean at ISO 500 - which is often wanted, even outdoors/day - I'm not Phillip Bloom and sometimes I prefer to shoot at f8 for aesthetic reasons, as I know do you, and we are seeing examples of black surfaces in outdoor daylight scenes being noisy.

Has Red stopped upgrades now to find/solve the problem?
 
Domenic I know you tend to favor lower ISOs for shooting. The problem here is that a lot of us are seeing noise at 800 when we shouldn't be seeing that. It's noise, not grain.

Youtube doesn't really show me much as their compression tends to destroy detail fidelity across the board.
 
paul schefz said:
how does the motion mount influence all this? other then adding a stop ND.......
another reason why i was hoping for a little better light performance with dragon....ability to use the motion mount without having to go to higher iso....
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The Motion Mount I believe simply forced him into an ISO 2000, as opposed to 800 where he most likely would have been (w/out MM).

Point being, even at 2000 ISO, w/ even a tiny amount on noise reduction, he's mentioned getting stunning results. Which gives me hope that with just a bit of tweaking from Graeme, we could be seeing very appealing footage...
 
Isaac Marchionna said:
Domenic I know you tend to favor lower ISOs for shooting. The problem here is that a lot of us are seeing noise at 800 when we shouldn't be seeing that. It's noise, not grain.

Youtube doesn't really show me much as their compression tends to destroy detail fidelity across the board.
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I do like lower iso stuff, But three of the shots outside were at 2000 iso. And it looks pretty dang good. I do see noise at 800 or so like i did with mx. When i have light, the noise looks far less. though when underexposed a bit the noise at 800 is far more noticeable on dragon. i will say that after looking at quite a few clips. 800 looks better on dragon than mx in terms of noise and grain.
 
Something very important to remember with low light (zero light shooting) that becomes apparent in high ISO shooting is that you are capturing mostly errant reflected light from any number of crappy surfaces and objects. Youre not getting clean light. You are pulling up all the natural gak that flats in the shadows. There is nothing good in there. The dragon is just rending the garbage light.

When i was teaching at REDUCATION a few years ago, the one thing i went though with the students is that the sensor needs "something" to register as a value for the compression. A tiny tiny fill light, to activate the sensor, and give it a reading above "0" will go miles in giving you clean footage. This has been the case since the DVX100. We shot a Scarlet at 4KHD, at 2500 ISO, but i used a 60w light in a dark room, shooting a guy lighting a candle, to just give the room a few foot candles. it lifted the "black" out of the ambient gunk, and suddenly the shot looked "right" and clean.

If you turn on a light with intention, and give the digital guts something to digest no matter how small, you will get a great image. I cant stress this enough. 2 foot candles will do the trick. Just give it something.
 
Timur Civan said:
Something very important to remember with low light (zero light shooting) that becomes apparent in high ISO shooting is that you are capturing mostly errant reflected light from any number of crappy surfaces and objects. Youre not getting clean light. You are pulling up all the natural gak that flats in the shadows. There is nothing good in there. The dragon is just rending the garbage light.

When i was teaching at REDUCATION a few years ago, the one thing i went though with the students is that the sensor needs "something" to register as a value for the compression. A tiny tiny fill light, to activate the sensor, and give it a reading above "0" will go miles in giving you clean footage. This has been the case since the DVX100. We shot a Scarlet at 4KHD, at 2500 ISO, but i used a 60w light in a dark room, shooting a guy lighting a candle, to just give the room a few foot candles. it lifted the "black" out of the ambient gunk, and suddenly the shot looked "right" and clean.

If you turn on a light with intention, and give the digital guts something to digest no matter how small, you will get a great image. I cant stress this enough. 2 foot candles will do the trick. Just give it something.
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Great point Timur. We did a fashion BTS last week, very dark...on Scarlets, and I was shocked at how CLEAN the footage was...blacks wer spotless....all because what WAS LIT (models, talent)...were bright enough to FEED SENSOR, as you say.
 
i'm seeing increased noise in the mids and throughout the image and not just in shadows, when compared to the MX at same give ISO, exposure, black shade, etc etc. It is most egregious in the 0-13 IRE range but it is most definitely present in the mids and above. And by this I mean it is more present OVERALL than the MX which is the point of all this. Whatever more range in highlights and/or shadows I would like (and this is a huge priority second only to color rendition), I do not want more noise overall than the MX. I think that would only be tiny step forward in camera tech and not the larger leap I expect from RED.

So I expect what they did as well- 2000 that is as clean as 800 was, or even 1600 that is as clean, or even 1280 that is as clean... PLUS extended range in highlights and shadows. I can tell you what I DON'T expect- MORE noise than the MX at same ISOs. I don't think these expectations are out of line with what has been discussed the past 2 years here. And I think settling for less is making excuses. I expect more and I know the people at RED have great pride in what they are doing and they expect more also. The want to give us what we want, but not if we don't ask for it and let them know it's important to us. You don't have to complain to let them know what you want. Constructive examples can inform and inspire.

I'd love it if excuses were ceased to be made about this issue from Redusers. Rate the camera lower, add more light, use A.D.D., etc etc are all just ways to stop asking and inspiring RED to innovate and achieve beyond their older camera tech and beyond what other camera manufacturers have been able to do. This camera CAN be the best and it CAN be so much better than it currently is...than what I am currently seeing with worse noise than the previous sensor. But only if we want it.
 
Eric.. why don't you just send your camera back and we will put the old OLPF in it for you so you can just get past this already. You are going to loose all the good things that come with the new OLPF but all those things are clearly not what you are asking for here.
 
D Anderson said:
Is that the final solution?
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No it is not.. as I already said. Stop being a dick and stop looking for a fistfight.

Its just an immediate solution for him to get what he is hung up on right now.
 
Eric Haase said:
i'm seeing increased noise in the mids and throughout the image and not just in shadows, when compared to the MX at same give ISO, exposure, black shade, etc etc. It is most egregious in the 0-13 IRE range but it is most definitely present in the mids and above. And by this I mean it is more present OVERALL than the MX which is the point of all this. Whatever more range in highlights and/or shadows I would like (and this is a huge priority second only to color rendition), I do not want more noise overall than the MX. I think that would only be tiny step forward in camera tech and not the larger leap I expect from RED.

So I expect what they did as well- 2000 that is as clean as 800 was, or even 1600 that is as clean, or even 1280 that is as clean... PLUS extended range in highlights and shadows. I can tell you what I DON'T expect- MORE noise than the MX at same ISOs. I don't think these expectations are out of line with what has been discussed the past 2 years here. And I think settling for less is making excuses. I expect more and I know the people at RED have great pride in what they are doing and they expect more also. The want to give us what we want, but not if we don't ask for it and let them know it's important to us. You don't have to complain to let them know what you want. Constructive examples can inform and inspire.

I'd love it if excuses were ceased to be made about this issue from Redusers. Rate the camera lower, add more light, use A.D.D., etc etc are all just ways to stop asking and inspiring RED to innovate and achieve beyond their older camera tech and beyond what other camera manufacturers have been able to do. This camera CAN be the best and it CAN be so much better than it currently is...than what I am currently seeing with worse noise than the previous sensor. But only if we want it.
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Red is definitely on it. I filed my ticket last week about the noise. My rep mentioned that he does see the noise even at 320 on my Dragon. 250-320 on my Epic were absolutely dead clean. Black was black in a dark room. No noise. I knew that was always the safe base to work from, in general, where noise free images would begin. I've mentioned to RED that I would love those numbers back again on Dragon. Noiseless, Clean 250-320. 400-500 would be even better. I think they can do it. Dragon is so beautiful in every other way; dr, rolloff, color.
 
I think it's natural that people want something to rant against, and blame, but look, I'm not an apologist. I think ADD is a ridiculous suggestion as a solution, or rating the camera lower, etc.

BUT...RED has acknowledged this is an issue, let them work a solution.
 
I'm sure Dragon will be truly awesome when they work out the kinks. Until then, no upgrade for us and 10K stays in the bank. Red is being great about fixing problems, but shipping from Canada is expensive and means downtime.

I think that is fair enough and I'm sure I'm not alone. Meanwhile Epic MX is still my favorite of all the digital cinema cams - 2nd only to F65 for IQ (and F65 is not really practical for most shoots - it's a giant brick that makes giant files). It's not like meanwhile an Epic MX is not more than good enough to make any client happy in the right hands, and that's why I'm not upset about the delay. I already have something incredible to shoot with, that gives me a clean 800 ISO - more than enough since we don't do unlit night cinematography (and thank God for that).
 
Jarred Land said:
Eric.. why don't you just send your camera back and we will put the old OLPF in it for you so you can just get past this already. You are going to loose all the good things that come with the new OLPF but all those things are clearly not what you are asking for here.
Click to expand...

Jarred, I definitely want all the good things that the new OLPF brings! Number one priority (and I have mentioned this since the beginning rumblings of a post MX upgrade) for me has been color rendition. Number 2 has been dynamic range since I rarely am able to "break" the DR of the Epic. And lastly low light high ISO performance and minimal noise which I utilize very little since most of the work I do has decent size lighting budgets. It seems like you guys have kicked ass on my 2 main priorities and I can't believe how fortunate we are as cinematographers to have this kind of range and color rendition at this resolution. It's an incredible time to be a DP for sure. Thank you for all the tireless work to make an amazing camera. I know this noise thing is just a small hiccup.

I'll stop making my point about this as I have clearly offended and annoyed, which was not my intention at all. Message received. I truly only want to help improve and contribute and keep focus on what this thread is about. But it looks like it's time for this one to evolve or devolve into whatever it may become....

I've been shooting with your cameras since Build 16 on the R1 and done some of my best work with them. Thanks for taking note of this and seeking to find a quick remedy. I can't wait to see the results and am excited to shoot a project with my Dragon when the fix is in! I've been so excited about this beast for over a year. Again, it's really the best time in the history of moving pictures to be a cinematographer, in large part thanks to how you guys have pushed the industry with this camera tech.
 
Isaac Marchionna said:
I think it's natural that people want something to rant against, and blame, but look, I'm not an apologist. I think ADD is a ridiculous suggestion as a solution, or rating the camera lower, etc.

BUT...RED has acknowledged this is an issue, let them work a solution.
Click to expand...

I agree , RED are on it. I want DRAGON to work out. We wait to hear. Its hard for that information vacuum not to be taken up by either stressed customers or (as you put it) ridiculous suggestions.
 
Eric Haase said:
Jarred, I definitely want all the good things that the new OLPF brings! Number one priority (and I have mentioned this since the beginning rumblings of a post MX upgrade) for me has been color rendition. Number 2 has been dynamic range since I rarely am able to "break" the DR of the Epic. And lastly low light high ISO performance and minimal noise which I utilize very little since most of the work I do has decent size lighting budgets. It seems like you guys have kicked ass on my 2 main priorities and I can't believe how fortunate we are as cinematographers to have this kind of range and color rendition at this resolution. It's an incredible time to be a DP for sure. Thank you for all the tireless work to make an amazing camera. I know this noise thing is just a small hiccup.

I'll stop making my point about this as I have clearly offended and annoyed, which was not my intention at all. Message received. I truly only want to help improve and contribute and keep focus on what this thread is about. But it looks like it's time for this one to evolve or devolve into whatever it may become....

I've been shooting with your cameras since Build 16 on the R1 and done some of my best work with them. Thanks for taking note of this and seeking to find a quick remedy. I can't wait to see the results and am excited to shoot a project with my Dragon when the fix is in! I've been so excited about this beast for over a year. Again, it's really the best time in the history of moving pictures to be a cinematographer, in large part thanks to how you guys have pushed the industry with this camera tech.
Click to expand...

No worries Eric your all good.. I just want you to be happy.

Just to be clear though, the DR just moved, we didn't take it away with the new OLPF. There is a stop more in the highlights with the new OLPF, along with the better color. The low end gained some noise, or more specifically some red colored noise ( which is much more noticeable than monocromatic noise as the old OLPF has ) in the RED channel, which Graeme is fixing. In the long run, the new OLPF is the better option because once you clip the highs.. you clip for good.
 
Jarred Land said:
No worries Eric your all good.. I just want you to be happy.

Just to be clear though, the DR just moved, we didn't take it away with the new OLPF. There is a stop more in the highlights with the new OLPF, along with the better color. The low end gained some noise, or more specifically some red colored noise ( which is much more noticeable than monocromatic noise as the old OLPF has ) in the RED channel, which Graeme is fixing. In the long run, the new OLPF is the better option because once you clip the highs.. you clip for good.
Click to expand...

I don't doubt that it's the better option! I am so excited to see that noise cleaned up. I was looking at some match lit footage with the old OLPF and it was so clean. If Graeme gets it that clean and keeps the extended highlight range I think people are go to flip out about how good the sensor is. I know I will.
 
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