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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 :)

"Dueling with DRAGON: RED's 6K Sensor Takes on Older MX in This EPIC Camera Shootout"

Brian Boyer said:
I'm sorry. I'm a little confused by your answer. You start off answering my question about it always going green with, "Yes. So far that's what I've seen."

Then you state the green is due to the lights, which seems to contradict your first statement about it always going green. So, I'm not sure what's always the case and what was an isolated occurrence due to the lights.
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I've seen dragons going green in these lighting conditions as well. However my dragon responds to natural low light the same as the others I've played with/shot with, which in those situations DOESN'T have green in the shadows.

This camera came back from RED having passed it's quality control checks, when I got it there was dust under the OLPF, it again went back and had a replacement OLPF (no dust this second time) and passed it's QC checks. If you're implying it's a funky camera, just say so. But nothing in my experience with Dragon's indicates this camera is outside of the make/model's operating range.
 
Isaac Marchionna said:
If you're implying it's a funky camera, just say so. But nothing in my experience with Dragon's indicates this camera is outside of the make/model's operating range.
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Relax. I'm not implying anything about your camera. I'm not qualified to diagnose it nor do I own a Dragon, which is why I'm asking you what you normally experience because this test was the first time I had seen this behavior to such an extreme.

If you re-read the post of mine you originally responded to, you'd see that I was questioning whether the green underexposure happened with other daylight balanced lights or if it was specific to these particular ones (you cut that part out of the quote).

I said it seemed to be a worst case scenario and not representative of what people would usually encounter but I never indicated I thought something was wrong with your camera.
 
Brian, totally understand. I came into this test open minded, as I had shot some with the Dragon before, enough to start to form my own opinions, but hadn't done so in a controlled environment.

I think dragon responded to these lights in that green cast, which matches up with some other footage I've seen where I wasn't privy to the lighting setup personally. I think most of this test is worst case scenario, and again the Dragon looks lovely when exposed properly (as we should all strive for), the issue becomes how the darks really haven't improved over MX, which I was frankly surprised by personally. I was there for all the tests short of the MX ND tests, because I had to rush home for a camera prep the next day. But I trust Ryan's testing setup, as he had no axe to grind, and we all wanted the camera to make a big distinction for itself.

I think Dragon IS an improvement. It's just not as dramatic as earlier claimed.
 
after reading all this again, i am looking forward right now for my nightshoot with Dragon in France, ... i have no headache.
 
Gunleik Groven said:
sergio, if lowlight is the most important, go old.
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I wouldn't go old - the color of the old OLPF is pretty much the same as MX.

He should wait it out till there is a more general purpose OLPF.... The goldilocks OLPF you could call it.


The old OLPF is too cold - the second OLPF is too hot. The third OLPF was juuuuuust right....for the widest range of shooting.

Cant wait for the goldiocks OLPF.
 
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Gunleik Groven said:
the colors on dragon and mx are-as stated, quite different, both with new and old olpf. and only for the better on both
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Sorry, I re-read Jarreds post - he says there is better/vastly improved colour science between OLD OLPF and New OLPF.

However I did see some posts of colour on the old olpf that were decidely MX like - certainly I would agree with Jarred the 2nd OLPF knocks the first OLPF colour out the water. It makes choosing the first one quite difficult even if you do need the better lower end.
 
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Isaac Marchionna said:
I think Dragon IS an improvement. It's just not as dramatic as earlier claimed.
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I can dig it. RED may have oversold it a tad. However, I tend to believe the dust hasn't really settled on what Dragon (the actual sensor) is or isn't quite yet, especially in light of different OLPF formulations (no pun intended).

It doesn't currently seem to be remarkably better than MX in some areas…that is, until you stress it.

I remember reading an analogy someone was using to compare CPUs. If you have a race between a single horse pulling an empty chariot and a team of 8 horses pulling an empty chariot, the single horse will win. Put two 800 lb. gorillas in each chariot and the team of horses wins handily.

Under certain lighting conditions, MX goes sickly looking. Under others, it goes clinical. Under certain others, it goes all video-y. Dragon has greatly reduced or alleviated these traits from what I've seen so far.

It's still a little early but, as the current Dragon gets used more often, I think it will produce the best looking imagery to ever come from a RED camera in the hands of the people who embrace it for what it does well…and (this is important) it will be very noticeable - more so than each seemingly minor improvement would suggest.

People may say I'm full of shit but I'm starting to see it already. As a result, I think it's eventually going to make people feel better about the upgrade and more enthusiastic about using it.
 
I think the thing I'm shakey on is that since this wasn't the camera I was very much promised, and it is a work in progress, that things like the removable OLPF kit should become standard as part of the camera. Simply put, this should be a free upgrade to existing Dragon owners, especially if the solution being proposed is a modular OLPF rather than a sensor that really is 2000 ISO native.

I'm not bashing. I just can't shell out more money to fix a problem I didn't plan on having when I've already plopped down 9500. Or being turned down by producers who want to rent the camera, only to ask if I have such and such OLPFs in my kit.
 
I'm grading some 6k Dragon footage now. SUPER heavy grade. Pushed all over the place. Qualifies galore.

Things I'm noticing:

Everything was exposed (properly with plenty of light) to ISO 400. I see no noise worth loosing sleep over at the 4k render we're doing.

Tons of color info. Good (perhaps not great) keys for qualifiers.

4k Render is tack sharp. I just wish I had a 110" 4k screen to watch on.

Super bright highlights just barely clip.

__________________

Is Dragon ISO 2000 if you want to be super clean? No. End of story.

ISO 400 looks fantastic. Perhaps too clean at times. It's perfect for beauty work with controlled lighting. 800 does seem to still be the go-to though giving you the extra reach on the top end.
 
Alan Gordon said:
I'm grading some 6k Dragon footage now. SUPER heavy grade. Pushed all over the place. Qualifies galore.

Things I'm noticing:

Everything was exposed (properly with plenty of light) to ISO 400. I see no noise worth loosing sleep over at the 4k render we're doing.

Tons of color info. Good (perhaps not great) keys for qualifiers.

4k Render is tack sharp. I just wish I had a 110" 4k screen to watch on.

Super bright highlights just barely clip.

__________________

Is Dragon ISO 2000 if you want to be super clean? No. End of story.

ISO 400 looks fantastic. Perhaps too clean at times. It's perfect for beauty work with controlled lighting. 800 does seem to still be the go-to though giving you the extra reach on the top end.
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Thanks for the feedback Alan. One of my friends who's been shooting new OLPF has been finding similar results, and LOVING Dragon.

Very happy to hear how flexible and accommodating Dragon is in the grade. Extremely important to me, so very happy.

best.
 
I must say that this test is quite disappointing. At some point, Red was sending huge claims. 18 stops DR, clean iso 2000, etc. After the dust went down... 14 actual stops and iso 320?
It seems that Dragon, is just shy of matching the Alexa on highlight roll off AND DR. This seems very far from what first expected from the manufactures hype, therefore disappointing. Still Dragon is great camera, insane camera, of course, just not what we all expected.
 
We just sent our Epic in & after seeing Phil Hollands old vs new OLPF tests and the radical difference in flaring, decided to go with new OLPF even though most of our shooting is high frame rates in low light as well. Posts like this make me question the decision & my sanity lol. Guess I'm gonna wait for OLPF V3 & see where that leaves things. :-/


Thank you,

Mark Pugh said:
Sergio I've been shooting with the OLD OLPF since December.
I was going to change to the new one, but then news about the one stop light loss broke.
I can tell you I haven't had one shot where skin tone was a problem. If there was sensor/olpf flaring from the sun, it only added character to the shot, if anything.
From what I've seen, any general improvement to colors from the New OLPF is very,very subtle.
However, losing a stop of light (New OLPF) would have been a serious issue on many occasions, resulting in poor shadows, or time and money on set to increase the light. Maybe not an issue for day exteriors, but in a studio, shooting high frame rates, pulling keys, that might be a bad situation for the new OLPF. There's no way that I'd swap my OLD for a new OLPF right now.
Everyone seemed incredibly happy with the old OLPF, until Red offered something else.
If I were you, I'd get the OLD OLPF installed for now, despite all the advice i hear on Reduser to the contrary.
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yesterday,again Strasbourg, France ... 9pm, ... new OLF, its´100% clean, ... when you have the redlogfilm as base, it´s like a HDR image without HDR, ... this camera is stunning ...

i will post better images and bigger and for sure some R3D later next week, ... this one here is no ADD, no DEB, ...
 

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Jan Reiff said:
yesterday,again Strasbourg, France ... 9pm, ... new OLF, its´100% clean, ... when you have the redlogfilm as base, it´s like a HDR image without HDR, ... this camera is stunning ...

i will post better images and bigger and for sure some R3D later next week, ... this one here is no ADD, no DEB, ...
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Nice!
 
i will post some next week yes
 
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