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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....

KETCH ROSSi said:
There is a name for that: EPIC 645... 9k 65megapixels, as it was projected some time ago... ;)
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I remember that, the question is when.

Jarred? Jim?

It would be an absolute killer system....just make Dragon bigger :)
 
Also I agree, we need better CPU/GPU Debayer, and Wavelet Decoding.

The Red Rocket is just to much for 1 Card on 1 System.

If the old rocket were like $1000 I'd be ALOT happier, especially after my old rocket just died without warning.....out of warranty.
 
Timur Civan said:
Does it behave like a 16bit file?
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Haven't had a chance yet. I don't think Red's going to go backwards though. I think it's going to behave in post much like .R3Ds do today except it's going to be meatier in every way.
 
Álex Montoya said:
When can we expect some footage, Phil? Do you guys have some kind of NDA for some time?
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I'm under NDAs for projects but not this. I'm just here to observe some motion picture history and help out in whatever way I can.


Matt Ryan said:
Ask Jarred, He's the one with the footage haha
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Truth.


Jarred Land said:
Expect to see images start trickling out over the next few weeks.
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That was posted last week on July 9th. I'm sure Red will post images from Dragon when they can. The good news is Dragon sounds like it's on "the downhill slope" in it's journey to becoming available for all of us.


If it was up to me I'd be testing it all week. Mixed subjects, daylight, tungsten, low light, humans, aliens, monsters, robots, etc....
 
I speak as a director, not a DoP. There seems to be a lot of talk about the the Dragon being close to 65mm film. I'm working on a project that I have been hoping to shoot on film. But the producer would rather shoot digital. I've shot on the Red One before and it looked fine. But for this project I do need that film feel that film texture. After seeing The Master (sadly I've not seen a 70mm print yet) it's become a dream to someday have my projects look that good - again for me the main thing is the texture of it. Now, if the Dragon really can capture images like that but in a small digital camera then we'll have the best of both worlds and there will be no turning back. Who would bother to shoot film then? As Roger Deakins once said...it'd be a dream to shoot Imax in a camera the size of the Alexa. (I know Imax and 65/70mm is different)

So to anyone who has seen test footage...while I understand that the DR will be in the range of 65mm...will the color and texture of the Dragon's image match it too? And when can we see some footage? Please!
 
Joseph O'Malley said:
I speak as a director, not a DoP. There seems to be a lot of talk about the the Dragon being close to 65mm film. I'm working on a project that I have been hoping to shoot on film. But the producer would rather shoot digital. I've shot on the Red One before and it looked fine. But for this project I do need that film feel that film texture. After seeing The Master (sadly I've not seen a 70mm print yet) it's become a dream to someday have my projects look that good - again for me the main thing is the texture of it. Now, if the Dragon really can capture images like that but in a small digital camera then we'll have the best of both worlds and there will be no turning back. Who would bother to shoot film then? As Roger Deakins once said...it'd be a dream to shoot Imax in a camera the size of the Alexa. (I know Imax and 65/70mm is different)

So to anyone who has seen test footage...while I understand that the DR will be in the range of 65mm...will the color and texture of the Dragon's image match it too? And when can we see some footage? Please!
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"The Master" again :-)
 
I can't wait to see the first images from Dragon, 6K is probably as sharp-looking (or almost as sharp) as 70mm film scanned at 8K+ and downrezzed, obviously there are differences in field of view and optics, but that fine "grain texture" might look pretty close. As far as we, mere mortals, know - Dragon is more sensitive and cleaner than MX, so I'm willing to bet that with richer digital negative (Raw) the image will look more than decent (at the very least) after applying Film LUT, tweaking the colors and whatnot. Even MX looks quite nice after applying film luts or filmconvert (grain levels at zero).

I'm not sure that alone would satisfy the needs of Nolan/Pfister team though, they will most likely demand 15/70-sized (IMAX) sensor, since they're so used to the large format now, but if the image is smooth, highlights are sweet and milky, with rich midtones and so much detail in the shadows... How could one argue with something like that? I know I can't.
 
This thread is making me laugh for so many reasons. If you've been around on this board long enough you probably know why. Same old, same old. Hype, speculation of grandure, more hype, no images, no footage to speak of, speculation gone wild. Anyone noticing a pattern here? Oh, and the film killer talk has been happening since 2007. It wouldn't bother me if there weren't these wild speculative comparisons. If RED cameras could just be RED cameras that get better but Jesus everyone just wants to take the easy road to what they really want, film.
 
mikeburton said:
This thread is making me laugh for so many reasons. If you've been around on this board long enough you probably know why. Same old, same old. Hype, speculation of grandure, more hype, no images, no footage to speak of, speculation gone wild. Anyone noticing a pattern here? Oh, and the film killer talk has been happening since 2007. It wouldn't bother me if there weren't these wild speculative comparisons. If RED cameras could just be RED cameras that get better but Jesus everyone just wants to take the easy road to what they really want, film.
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Sssh, you don't want to awaken the red fanatics
 
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Antony Newman said:
@Kyle,

With a 16bit (linear) binary number, you can express a number between 1 .. up to a value that has been doubled 16 times
To be able to encode 16 stops of brightness (luma) - you therefore need at least 16 linear bits for each RGB.

(With clever use dither it is possible to create shades that goes beyond this limitation)

As the Dragon sensor is capable of 16+ stops of dynamic range, those least significant bits can actually be fully utilised.

Many cameras sensors may be used to store 14 or 16 bits ... but with mediocre signal to noise ratio, what is being recorded is a 'digital grain' of the noisiest analogue component of the camera.

When RED announced the power supply was being redesigned for the DRAGON upgrade, my take on that was that they never expected their (expensive) sensor technology to overtake the S/N ratio of the (much simpler to design) power supply.

Closely followed by the DR, I believe the metric you would be most intested in is the Signal to noise of the Dragon sensor (and not worry about how many bits are in used in encoding).

AJ
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Then the Dragon (16+) must have something different than a 16bit A/D converter, following your input. BTW, to think in 16 bit as 16 stops (if linear) leads on one end to a "stop" that has only one bit: black or white. (Which is the one of the problems why integer and linear isn't used as file format). The next neighbor "stop" would have four tone-levels and stop three then eight tone levels. Not really useable.
The A/D converter is "slicing" the signal in 16 bit or 65.536 tone values, and if 16 bit is used for that, then the signal can't be linear anymore before it is fed into it, if more than 16,5+ usable stops will be the result.
Dragon might have a different A/D conversation depth, or between sensor and A/D is something like a log converter.
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
I'd guess greater internal bit depth in the Epic/Dragon than what it writes out. Gavin's note about how EXR leverages 16 bits might be possible in camera, though that's pure speculation.

Cheers - Blair
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Anthony's and Gavin's post are both very interesting and appreciated to have. The RED raw file is based not on a linear storage so far I understand it, it is more like Cineon, where "log" is used to map the values into integer values, which can be then read out easily. (I think it is easy to confuse the RED raw bit depth with the A/D-conversion (ADC) bit depth -- sometimes. At least I got the impression that this is not always differentiated.)

Storing in half float (Open EXR 16bit/c) would be after the A/D conversation. For my VFX work I love Open EXR, but it has not the potential that the RED raw has - to read, e.g., a 1/4 resolution out of it. (At least I haven't found anything so far in the white papers of ILM's main format.

I have to admit, it sounds all a little bit geeky, as I can't change anything in the hardware, so it is more to know it and feel more comfortable. But the knowledge will not change my image quality, or I miss something.

(I'm certainly aware that I simplify here by asking what happens between Sensor and ADC, based on Charles Poynton, Digital Video and HD, 2nd edition, Page 191 and following, about filtering, etc.)
 
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6K will not be anywhere near as sharp as 70mm film, not in the same vicinity really...
 
Rudi Herbert said:
6K will not be anywhere near as sharp as 70mm film, not in the same vicinity really...
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Depends on what stock, no? I would love to get that kodak 2000ASA film stock... ups sorry just realized they got to 500ISO and that looked like shit 98% of the time... So if you consider the 800ISO of epic and then look at 2000ISO promised for the dragon and low noise floor. Then I actually think that it very much could outpreform film on 70mm even though the sensor is just one forth in size.

My epic 5k images down sized to 4k very much outperform super 35 film scans scanned with any of the 3 CCD 4k film scanners in a lot of ways. The epic is just cleaner, the film scans looks like they are drawn on sandpaper in comparison, even at low 50ASA film and such.

Basically I do not think people really understand how grainy film is at higher resolution. A 35mm film scan downsampled to HD might look splendid, but if you zoom in and look 1:1 in 4k then it's a totally different story, it actually look the shit CMOS stuff downsampled from 5k look smashing in a lot of ways.

So to me the 70mm comparison is actually quite fare... then again having 4 times the sensor size brings images that looks better, to me, even in super low resolution but thats the optical look from the sensor size and thats something different than sharpness and resolution.
 
Dragon sure is spreading it's wings and getting a workout... lots of shooting going on right now. Just spent an awesome few days with Inez and Vinoodh shooting something big.


\http://instagram.com/p/b4sQurAqZq/

1374189391.jpg
 
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