EMERGENCY - Scarlet Footage Problem (on location now)

[Dr. Sassi]

I might not match the "dreamy" idea of your aesthetic, this was just a little try to tweak the footage.
To use it as "look" you might load it in, if time allows it.
Good luck with the rest of the shooting.

 

[chris morgan]

thanks for all the help yet again, guys!

dr. sassi - downloading your look to play with, much appreicated!

i would agree with those who are saying there is more than just IR contamination going on in the first images i posted - i'm guessing there was a lens communication error (even though technically nothing vital is being communicated, it clearly has some effect on the image.)

i think part of why i initially panicked was that i assumed the later shots that suffer from the IR contamination (such as the R3D i posted) were also suffering from the initial softness and general wierdness that the first shots did. luckily that doesn't seem to be the case, and as many have pointed out, i'll be able to get a kind of vintage-y look from it, which was kind of what we were going for initially. it's not perfect, but not a complete loss.

IR contamination is probably something people need to be increasingly aware of, i'd agree... but it's really only started to be a problem with digital cinema cameras (to my knowledge) so it doesn't surprise me that it's not as much of a fundamental bit of knowledge as, say, f-stop or ISO.

but hey, everyone on this shoot is an expert on it now!

cheers,
c

 

[Dr. Sassi]

You're welcome Chris. Though the png you posted and the R3D file look pretty different. Good Luck.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

i'm guessing there was a lens communication error (even though technically nothing vital is being communicated, it clearly has some effect on the image.

I apologize for asking the difficult questions because I know you have had a hard day, but what exactly is a "lens communication error"? In even the most advanced digital cinema systems, lens communication is limited to the lens saying "I'm a 50 mil focused at 5 feet. My stop is T4." Cameras don't react to that info, they simply record it as metadata. The Epic, with the proper lens mount and Canon EF lenses, has the added ability to alter the focus and iris based on operator input, but it doesn't do anything automatically, least of all correct for operator error.

I'm pretty sure your lens wasn't telling the camera "I'm very old and have a filter in front of me that is passing tons of infrared, do something to make it better."
It just doesn't work that way. To suggest otherwise shows either inexperience or grasping at straws to avoid blame.

You recommended something that didn't work to an inexperienced DP. No amount of post is going to fix the colors or out of focus IR flaring. Don't muddy the issue by pretending that analog-age lenses can talk to a digital camera.

 

[Andrew clemson]

I feel your pain, but at least you caught it early on and it seems you have a solution to some degree.

Ive had worse, and its a shitty situation to be in, I know!

 

[chris morgan]

brent - what i mean by 'lens communication error' is what a few others have touched on here - that somehow the lens adapter (which has a focus confimation chip attached to it) in some way shorted or otherwise confused the lens mount's electronics. this would account for the (once again) image "snapping" into clarity. there is definitely more wrong in the first shot than simply IR contamination.

at no point have i indicated that perhaps the lens was relaying incorrect automatic exposure setting information to the brain, so i'm not sure why you're taking such a combative tone. i admit there were mistakes made on this shoot, and i've learned from it.

i appreciate your conviction that no amount of post will fix the problem, but i've since been able to get a result that i can live with, and that the producers are quite happy with, and i plan to tweak further.

i also want to thank dr. sassi publicly for his RMD file, which has given me a tremendous starting point on a few of the shots i was struggling with.

glad this community is here, for sure!