DRAGON vs EPIC MX Noise - NOT GOOD

[Zeb B]

Paging Quentin Tarantino ;-)

Just saying I didn't watch Taxi Driver and think "Wow, too bad they didn't shoot that digitally"

 

[D Anderson]

Truth.




Film's grain response is directly tied to it's sensitivity and the tonal range found in the exposure. In terms of it's visibility in modern and old stocks. It's certainly more visible in shadows and midtones and seems "fall away" closer to highlight clip/overexposure. It's still providing texture up until the last moments of recorded value, but around 88-90 IRE there is certainly a noticeable drop in it's appearance. At least when scanned and projected.


My last update to the Red Dragon Info and Data Sheets thread wasn't totally on accident

It's actually very relevant to this particular conversation about image noise, texture, and natural image quality.

We have put Dragon up next to Vision3 and the news is good.

Hi Phil, Are you saying the grain "problem" people have been discussing is acceptable? I read it as you are positive on this particular grain being there? RED are looking to remove the grain. FWIW I`m in the camp it should be clean.

 

[Nate Clapp]

As others have said, RED acknowledges they see it too, pretty sure they know the cause, and don't seem too worried (at the moment anyway) about a fix. I'm just happy that when I did my test and was mildly alarmed earlier this week, and looked on reduser, BAM here was the beginnings of this thread. I'm surprised someone didn't notice before now. My excuse is I have only had my dragon maybe 2 weeks and this was my first opportunity to test it. I don't know about anyone else, but I remember the RED One when we couldn't simultaneously feed sdi and the eyepiece without using a "don't use on commercial productions" and the Epic "can we play that last one back?" "Um. No." Builds. It's a bumpy ride. But it always gets better. Sometimes I hate that. This time I'm ok with it.

 

[Brian Boyer]

I'm surprised someone didn't notice before now.

Someone did…3 months ago. To be fair, forums are great for conversations but notoriously bad as a repository for valuable information. Things are scattered all over the place and easily missed.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...belong-to-us&p=1333204&viewfull=1#post1333204

as expected ... the more things change ......
ADD has arrived and is making great strides ..

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[steve green]

OK, here's the 64K question……I've got a night shoot next week, should I use my Dragon or my MX? The choice is available to me, am I going to get burned using the Dragon? Please, help me decide with relevant information. Thanks as always, this forum is awesome!

 

[Brandon J.F.]

BTW: I watched Taxi Driver again the other night. What amazing low light photography on that film. Like 60% was shot at night and a bunch with available city light only. The clarity, saturation and DR from a film that is almost 40 years old was stunning to see again given the context of our discussion today. Highlight roll off . . . check. Clean shadows . . . check. Skin tones . . . check. NYC circa 1970's film grit . . . check. Amazing glamor shots of Cybill Shepard looking totally lava hot . . . Fuqin A CHECK!!!

Yeah, and back then film stock was how fast? 100 ASA?

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

Someone did…3 months ago. To be fair, forums are great for conversations but notoriously bad as a repository for valuable information. Things are scattered all over the place and easily missed.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...belong-to-us&p=1333204&viewfull=1#post1333204

wow..... that really shows what's been happening...

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Wow, ok, missed that. Its pretty much what everyone with a problem has been talking about.

Maybe that Dragon with new OLPF needs to go back to RED?

a super rad design idea would be removable OLPF's... shooting in the bright day.. dealing with a lot of highlights?

pop in the filter that works best on maintaining your highlights..

going into night.. doing some darker scenes?

Pop in #1

 

[Nate Clapp]

I stand corrected. Thanks for the link. I would never have made it to page 50 of that thread otherwise. Good stuff.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

a super rad design idea would be removable OLPF's... shooting in the bright day.. dealing with a lot of highlights?

pop in the filter that works best on maintaining your highlights..

going into night.. doing some darker scenes?

Pop in #1

I'd love to see this as an option.

 

[Joe Kleber]

a super rad design idea would be removable OLPF's... shooting in the bright day.. dealing with a lot of highlights?

pop in the filter that works best on maintaining your highlights..

going into night.. doing some darker scenes?

Pop in #1

I'd like to see this too. …with a magnetic ring around the edge of the OLPF so I could take a little applicator and quickly pop it in without having to worry about threads, tiny screws, finger prints etc etc etc...

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

All seasoned colourists use LUTs for grading. There are quite a few available fro free. For a start check Adobe's Speedgrade. Inside Speedgrade one can export the available LUTs to a format that swallow Autodesk Flame/Smoke or Resolve.

What I am seeking is robust LUT support in the camera itself. Both for monitoring and as the default metadata values. Use of LUTs in other parts of the signal chain, use of multiple LUTs and a host of other pipelines may be far more effective for some use cases. I believe if this capability was well implemented it would open the door to using Epics/Scarlets on shows where it would otherwise be impractical.

IF you believe that the better route to your goals lies in capturing lots of values and selectively adjusting them in the suite then I am mostly in agreement. I just think having a way to skip that step for live shows, quick turnaround, etc adds to the versatility of the camera without taking away your preferred choice. It's also still non-destructive at least in terms of the R3Ds…

Cheers - #19

 

[Jeremy Hildebrant]

Let's not forget how good the old olpf and calibration was and some of the first footage that got us excited about this sensor. There is a nice range of compression ratios and ISO settings that show what the camera is capable of (obviously Mark's skill has a lot to do with it too). I'm sure some of the noise is being hidden by web compression but it would sure be nice to get back to the versatility that this camera is capable of giving.
Mark Tola's http://vimeo.com/71666317

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Why? Why not?

Why? Why not?

Snip) INHO, the idea to keep a WYSIWG experience via metadata from the set to the NLE/postproduction is a video approach that has its reasons for some parts of the industry but is much better covered by Sony for instance than Red or Arri. A cobbler should stick to his last.
Hans

I see where you're coming from but where's the harm in having the capability? You don't have to implement a feature you think unwise. Send a flat, neutral image out of the video tap and grade it in a suite later - already there. I love having a dailies colorist and then a final color session at picture lock, its still the gold standard IMO. That said, as an owner/operator I could really use the kind of versatility that allows me to take a wide variety of calls.

The modular DSMC platform puts a highly capable digital sensor in a "brain" that can support a number of different production needs. The new live UHD/4K broadcast module for example… How exactly is versatility a bad thing? More potential for user error - perhaps - but considering the percentage of folks butchering the current workflow I don't see much negative delta.

Cheers - #19

 

[David Battistella]

Film...
https://vimeo.com/57190351

It's the brown tones that get me. The warmth in that part of the palate. I really feel like the original r1m sensor had that kind of tonal quality. I don't feel like I have seen a digital sensor capture that part of the palette, or the richness of that. Maybe some interiors on Spider-Man, in the house in the evening.

Oh wait. Was I supposed to be looking for noise! I was to immersed in the images to notice any.

Battistella

 

[Marc Wielage]

All seasoned colourists use LUTs for grading.

That is not true. Colorists use what's necessary for a project -- no more, no less. I can think of dozens (if not hundreds) of TV series that use no LUTs, or use custom LUTs that merely bring the image into range. How many colorists do you know?

 

[Peter Majtan]

a super rad design idea would be removable OLPF's... shooting in the bright day.. dealing with a lot of highlights?

pop in the filter that works best on maintaining your highlights..

going into night.. doing some darker scenes?

Pop in #1

Jarred already responded to that... ;o)

Jarred - maybe I am going a bit crazy here - but I know you guys have been playing around with a modular "behind-the-lens" ND solution...
It would be amazing to have the OLPF modular (user-echangeable) as well. This way folks can have several OLPFs at hand and chose the one (with appropriate calibration) to suit the particular needs. This could even extend to IR and other applications...
I am sure this could be "walk in the park" for you guys... ;o)

:sifone: Peter

your not crazy.. that was always the intention, user replaceable OLPFs. We have about 6 different ones already that we have made along the way ( IR PASS , no LP, etc. ) so it is a cool option.

Problem is that as easy as it seems for our engineers to do it, for normal people like me it is kind of a pain in the ass to change the OLPF without the proper custom tool.

I guess we could just make a bunch of tools....

 

[Phil Holland]

Stay awake for another few minutes. I have a post with examples that should be relevant to your interests.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Does film have more "grain" in the shadows, the mid-tones or is it equally distributed? Does it dance around? I always wondered about this comparison of noise to grain. Can you spot something shot of film / digital immediately based on the grain aesthetic?

BTW: I watched Taxi Driver again the other night. What amazing low light photography on that film. Like 60% was shot at night and a bunch with available city light only. The clarity, saturation and DR from a film that is almost 40 years old was stunning to see again given the context of our discussion today. Highlight roll off . . . check. Clean shadows . . . check. Skin tones . . . check. NYC circa 1970's film grit . . . check. Amazing glamor shots of Cybill Shepard looking totally lava hot . . . Fuqin A CHECK!!!

Taxi Driver never shot at night with just available light. It had a proper studio budget, and to shoot using sodium vapour is idiotic. They had several large grip trucks Not saying it's not a good film, just giving a reality check.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Stay awake for another few minutes. I have a post with examples that should be relevant to your interests.

I much enjoy all your posts.