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DRAGON vs EPIC MX Noise - NOT GOOD

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How are your low light tests with the new Olpf Bjorn?

i get what you are saying. RCX is not moving the ISO in a linear way, it's affecting the histogram differently. So you can't loose an nd and replace that mathematically with ISO in camera or RCX. Should just be like putting in or removing an ND.

Stuff still ill looks great though.

Battistella
 
So if I read you right Björn, RAW is not RAW? There is different 'clamping' as you approach clip at the top end?

edit clarification: different clamping at different iso's,

I realise you are saying this is in rcxp but do you think this is done on the in-camera lut and so effects the histogram and scopes on an output?
 
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Michael Lindsay said:
I'd be delighted with 1/2 stop more in shadow and 2 1/2 stops more in highlights. We already easily have that in the highlights.
Click to expand...


This is seems like a sensible approach. Just depends how exponential the maths are.

Battistella
 
Jarred Land said:
that was always the intention, user replaceable OLPFs.
Click to expand...

This would be SO IDEAL for the underwater shooters out there using Epic. Take out your OLPF and install the u/w optimized one and wallah. Leave it in if your camera is dedicated u/w or switch back when you go topside.

Would be a big hit for underwater folks.
 
Not to hijack the thread, but while we are talking highlights, it seems to me REDgamma 4 makes things look crunchier overall, and when examining the highlights, and have A Epic MX with Redcolor3 and REDgamma 3 and a Dragon with Dragoncolor and REDGamma 4 the highlights hold better in the MX. Of course it is a different matter if you make Dragon RG3. Now, I am a simple Caveman Cameraman, not a colorist, but I feel I will almost always use RG3 over 4. Someone tell me why I am wrong. And also when would you want RG4, other than flat cloudy days perhaps?
 
Here is a screen shot of example:

DRAGON-RG4-VS-EPIC-RG3.png
 
Nate Clapp said:
Not to hijack the thread, but while we are talking highlights, it seems to me REDgamma 4 makes things look crunchier overall, and when examining the highlights, and have A Epic MX with Redcolor3 and REDgamma 3 and a Dragon with Dragoncolor and REDGamma 4 the highlights hold better in the MX. Of course it is a different matter if you make Dragon RG3. Now, I am a simple Caveman Cameraman, not a colorist, but I feel I will almost always use RG3 over 4. Someone tell me why I am wrong. And also when would you want RG4, other than flat cloudy days perhaps?
Click to expand...


Yes RG4 has a more aggressive curve than the RG3. But 90 percent of the time, RG4 is going to really improve the scene. RG4 really shapes the mid tones. Thats the beauty of working in RAW, pick what works for you. These curves get you in the ballpark, or start from scratch with REDLOGFILM.
 
David Battistella said:
i get what you are saying. RCX is not moving the ISO in a linear way, it's affecting the histogram differently. So you can't loose an nd and replace that mathematically with ISO in camera or RCX. Should just be like putting in or removing an ND.
Click to expand...

What Bjorn is describing is also why you can't just process the red channel and add noise reduction to get your desired effect.

You *can* use this fix pretty effectively at 800 right now - just move the individual color sliders and the noise will smooth out and disappear, but you lose the ability to use that cheat very quickly. If you look at the noise as you scale up the ISO, you can see how it appears "off" (therefore fixable) and not just disproportional (which is why you quickly lose the ability to fix it just by using the individual channel sliders) - it quickly becomes evident that if Graeme fixes the problem, we more than likely will get greater than useable out-of-the-camera ISOs higher than 800, which would be terrific.

Although I, too, would be satisfied with clean images at 800 (considering all the other good things we get with the Dragon sensor) better-than-MX is what we were shown and what was discussed in Dragon sensor demos, and I think useable, noiseless out-of-the-camera images at 1280 is entirely possible with this sensor, once Graeme tweaks it. It will be interesting to see how much more goodness is there. But I honestly don't think we will have to "settle" for clean images at 800. There's more there.
 
Nate Clapp said:
Not to hijack the thread, but while we are talking highlights, it seems to me REDgamma 4 makes things look crunchier overall, and when examining the highlights, and have A Epic MX with Redcolor3 and REDgamma 3 and a Dragon with Dragoncolor and REDGamma 4 the highlights hold better in the MX. Of course it is a different matter if you make Dragon RG3. Now, I am a simple Caveman Cameraman, not a colorist, but I feel I will almost always use RG3 over 4. Someone tell me why I am wrong. And also when would you want RG4, other than flat cloudy days perhaps?
Click to expand...

from my lay perspective ..

If you are happy with the contrast in the look from MX with RG3 then you will need a more contrasty gamma for Dragon as it is already a 3 stops more camera.
 
here is an example of same clips but both RG3 Dragon on the right. The dragon has slightly more detail but I hesitate to call it 3 more stops. both were at 800 ISO exposed for an skylight lit interior (I was testing exterior highlight roll-off among other things when I found the noise)
RG3-Dragon-vs-MX1.png
 
I trust Graeme, I trust REDcode.

Its gonna be be like getting a new camera all over again. This thing about noise started with observing the goalposts and how the behave compared to dragon. Now it's going to be fixed. Great.

battistella
 
Mark Wilkinson said:
What exactly are you saying here... please explain.

Thanks -
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I am sure Gunleik can explain it better, but in the mean time...

Shooting raw means you are capturing the entire dynamic range of the sensor at all times. Choosing an ISO, which is only metadata, has no effect on what is captured as long as you, the operator, don't change your exposure based on what you see but, rather, stay true to the exposure tools and get the exposure "right."

If you fool with the ISO, either in camera or in post, you are simply changing where middle grey is represented and the number of stops above/below that which are seen in the image on your monitor.

Make sense?
 
Yeah, that all makes sense.

What I keep asking about is Jared's comment that there is little or no penalty when shooting at low ISOs.

Or will the sensor just clip and that's that - it's too sensitive to rate at 50 even if the noise goes down... or whatever.

Nevermind, I'll just test it.
 
Essentially unless you massively clip or crush the sensor the entire range is always present and your just manipulating the gray scale and noise/gain when you adjust ISO. A lot of people try and treat it like film and get a wide exposure for colorists. Sure you can shoot with a look on it and dial it the way you want, but depending how stylistic you get you may be crushing/clipping some parts of the image given an aggressive look. So lots of people subscribe to the shoot it wide approach. Truthfully the one lights we do in Redcine are nothing compared to full blown power windows and tracking in programs such as resolve, and it permits much more fine tuning and finessing of certain parts of the image.

Once this bug is squashed and its as crisp as old OLPF (or perhaps even more crispy) then people will be able to more accurately play with ISO. Truthfully on MX I usually do an S Curve, maybe crush the blacks a bit, bring up the highlights and just watch the levels on the scopes and the goal posts. Sometimes warm it up, it all depends on what the DP or director want burnt in. But I am a redcine user usually on slightly older bays. What I really look forward to is being a resolve guy on a new system since I will gain control in a whole more extensive way compared to my basic one lights of now...

For me its very interesting looking at both acquisition and post. I do a lot of DIT work, media management, and also some assistant editing so I get to see and hear a wide opinion on what works and doesn't work in the ecosystem. I try to push the work in r3d approach but lots of push back, so getting your one light or resolve masterpieces as close as possible for the proxies/dailies for post becomes pivotal if they aren't doing a conform. I wish more people worked in r3d but sometimes the post workflow just won't go for it.. Things are getting better with more optimization but I am getting a Rocket X cuz in the commercial world they usually just burn it in and don't conform for the majority of my work. There are a million ways to utilize r3d files and no way is necessarily wrong, some DPs know what they want and crush clip what they want it to look like in finals and could care less about a fat negative. I wold never say any approach is wrong, some DPs just know what they want and go in cam, some know what they want but leave it more forgiving for changes by shooting it wide... Lots of different thought patterns on this stuff, but I do recommend DPs play with redcine to see whats possible and what isn't or hire a halfway decent tech to show them. I think its worthwhile to at least understand the principals of a fat negative vs shooting for your look in camera... and yes this is a little more broad then talking about ISO, but exposure itself on red has many more tool sets then ISO when it comes to changing luma
 
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Terry VerHaar said:
I am sure Gunleik can explain it better, but in the mean time...

Shooting raw means you are capturing the entire dynamic range of the sensor at all times. Choosing an ISO, which is only metadata, has no effect on what is captured as long as you, the operator, don't change your exposure based on what you see but, rather, stay true to the exposure tools and get the exposure "right."

If you fool with the ISO, either in camera or in post, you are simply changing where middle grey is represented and the number of stops above/below that which are seen in the image on your monitor.

Make sense?
Click to expand...

ISO and ASA were introduced as industry standards for film light sensitivity.....so while you can obviously use iso (along with shutter and f/t stops) to adjust your exposure, every sensor still has a certain sensitivity that really does not change.....just like film has one, and still can be pushed and pulled....the metadata is just information for the post (or raw) software.....
certain hardware (ND filter, OLPF, ....) obviously changes the amount, quality, color, path,....of the light hitting the sensor so it obviously changes what the sensor sees (and can record)

when dragon was announced the detail that struck me was the claim of 16.5 stops DR from 250 -2000 iso....there was quite a bit of discussion about it....
now it turns out that maybe one can squeeze that DR out across that entire range but at what cost?
the hardware (camera, sensor, OLPF) still provides a pretty narrow optimum range (in terms of DR and noise) and the software can only get so much out of it...

i guess the idea of the user replaceable OLPF is interesting and in reality the only solution to provide the best file across an entire range of ISOs....i would be ok with it....
 
After This thread I'm very disappointed about the Dragon.



Nate Clapp said:
here is an example of same clips but both RG3 Dragon on the right. The dragon has slightly more detail but I hesitate to call it 3 more stops. both were at 800 ISO exposed for an skylight lit interior (I was testing exterior highlight roll-off among other things when I found the noise)
RG3-Dragon-vs-MX1.png
Click to expand...
 
paul schefz said:
ISO and ASA were introduced as industry standards for film light sensitivity.....so while you can obviously use iso (along with shutter and f/t stops) to adjust your exposure, every sensor still has a certain sensitivity that really does not change.....just like film has one, and still can be pushed and pulled....the metadata is just information for the post (or raw) software.....
certain hardware (ND filter, OLPF, ....) obviously changes the amount, quality, color, path,....of the light hitting the sensor so it obviously changes what the sensor sees (and can record)

when dragon was announced the detail that struck me was the claim of 16.5 stops DR from 250 -2000 iso....there was quite a bit of discussion about it....
now it turns out that maybe one can squeeze that DR out across that entire range but at what cost?
the hardware (camera, sensor, OLPF) still provides a pretty narrow optimum range (in terms of DR and noise) and the software can only get so much out of it...

i guess the idea of the user replaceable OLPF is interesting and in reality the only solution to provide the best file across an entire range of ISOs....i would be ok with it....
Click to expand...

Not being one to hold every statement to a standard of perfection, still, I'm assuming with the old OLPF that RED did indeed provide 16.5 stops DR from 250-2000 iso. If not, why didn't everyone scream "you cheated me!" when everything was on the old OLPF? But I agree with your concern about hitting that target with the new OLPF... that is, at what cost?

I really don't want to lose anything in the high lights.
 
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Jarred Land said:
I guess we could just make a bunch of tools....
Click to expand...

Would it come with instructions for building a clean room too? :-) In all seriousness, I would be interested in such a tool. Mostly so I can tune the OLPF strength for the given situation. Though the idea of being able to shoot IR sounds fun too.
 
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