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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 :)

Epic Low Light Sensitivity

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David Crans

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just curious if anyone has heard anything about the low light sensitivity of the Epic camera? How does it handle grain in low light situations? Same thing goes for the new scarets. Thanks.
 
Which Epic? Mysterium X or Monstro sensor?

One can speculate that there will be significant jumps in sensitivity first with Mysterium X, and then again with Monstro. But it is very, very doubtful that anyone with real knowledge will throw out any numbers at all on this thread. We'll simply have to wait and see.
 
There is a big difference between native sensor sensitivity and the ability to shoot high ISO in low light. Some sensors have huge pixels and very high sensitivity... but not necessarily low noise. Others have less native sensitivity and very low noise, which allows them to be "pushed" into high ISO. The big advantage to Mysterium-X is lower noise, which allows you to shoot higher ISO with the same noise levels as a much lower ISO.

Jim
 
Jim since your on this thread can I ask you to please ditch the idea of sticking ASICs in Epics and Scarlets and just ship em with FPGAs and whatever code you've got at the moment. Please. Or at-least, throw us a bone.
 
Stefan Christou said:
Jim since your on this thread can I ask you to please ditch the idea of sticking ASICs in Epics and Scarlets and just ship em with FPGAs and whatever code you've got at the moment. Please. Or at-least, throw us a bone.
Click to expand...

I would definitely prefer ASICs even if it takes longer. There are way too many benefits of ASICs over FPGAs.
 
Well you know, better late than never, but I'm getting inpatient. I just guess I'll have to get over it and keep shooting. After all, it's the subject not the camera.
 
Justin O'Neill said:
I would definitely prefer ASICs even if it takes longer. There are way too many benefits of ASICs over FPGAs.
Click to expand...

I am in deep water here (I am no technical guy - really), but as far as I understand the benefit of ASICs is it´s dedication to it´s task, and therefor their short boot time - but after shipping there is very few options to upgrade (bad), while as with a FPGA you have a long boot time (bad)- but you can continue to develop the thing for as long as it exists... (very good!)

I must say I don´t like the long boot time on my RED ONE, but i LOVE the way RED has kept improving, and keeps improving. (through firmware uogrades)

IMHO The FPGA seems to fit RED´s nature better, I would hate to have an EPIC camera with glitches that couldn´t be fixed, or needed to be shipped back for fixes.

I have learned to live with the long boot times, whenever I am DIT, I use every natural break in the shoot to swap batteries, and usually nobody ever notices, especially now that the RED sends out a monitor signal within a few seconds of booting.
 
Stefan Christou said:
Jim since your on this thread can I ask you to please ditch the idea of sticking ASICs in Epics and Scarlets and just ship em with FPGAs and whatever code you've got at the moment. Please. Or at-least, throw us a bone.
Click to expand...

new policy going to prevent a prompt answer here... wouldn't make sense
for them to comment. as much as Im sure they would like to :)

Lots of new astuff right now to get familiar with and master.

all in good time and remember, in this recovering economy
"All Delays are Divine"
 
A little bit if info can lead to dangerous assumptions. Of course we can upgrade the firmware on EPIC & Scarlet. Never said we ONLY had an ASIC in there...

Jim
 
ASICs YES!

ASICs YES!

ASICs should be a big improvement in so many areas: faster boots, higher throughput, a more refined image for monitoring, higher frame rates, etc. While it could make certain types of upgrades more problematic, the upside is huge.

In terms of sensitivity, I would expect the ASICs to help lower the noise floor and in so doing improve usable sensitivity. Time will tell if I am right about that.

Cheers- #19
 
Jannard said:
A little bit if info can lead to dangerous assumptions. Of course we can upgrade the firmware on EPIC & Scarlet. Never said we ONLY had an ASIC in there...

Jim
Click to expand...

Music in my ears!
My RED ONE #476 is the best thing I ever bought - it almost makes more money than I do...
Togheter we´re dynamite!
 
Any word on gain, gentlemen? I know it's not always ideal, but there are definitely times where adding a few dB would help immensely. I really hope there's a gain circuit in the camera. If I'm an idiot for wanting it, I'm open to hearing why. :) It just feels like a little analog amplification could help in some situations.
 
There are many more features and controls in the next gen. cameras. We are shooting 5K footage now in a test bed. The footage is incredibly clean. There is at least 1.5 stops less noise. We have a lot of controls in the R1. We have a lot more in EPIC and Scarlet.

Jim
 
Holly F... Great words Jim...
Waiting to see those little controls

Thanks
 
1.5 stops improvement in noise is very impressive! If you have just one stop less noise, that means you are getting the same image performance with half the total light. If you are starting with a camera that is already very good (R1) it's quite an achievement... I'm sure there are many who are eager to put this claim to the test.
 
Brook Willard said:
Any word on gain, gentlemen? I know it's not always ideal, but there are definitely times where adding a few dB would help immensely. I really hope there's a gain circuit in the camera. If I'm an idiot for wanting it, I'm open to hearing why. :) It just feels like a little analog amplification could help in some situations.
Click to expand...

If the noise level from your sensor + analog stage is already significantly above 1 LSB on the A/D (as it appears to be on R1) then additional analog gain would not improve your image quality. It would only reduce your dynamic range. Increasing gain in post (digital gain) would give you the same end result without the dynamic range tradeoff.

By contrast, if your analog signal is so clean that you can see quantization steps, then more analog gain would give you more real information than could be achieved by digital gain in post. But again, I don't believe that is the case, at least on R1.
 
Jannard said:
There are many more features and controls in the next gen. cameras. We are shooting 5K footage now in a test bed. The footage is incredibly clean. There is at least 1.5 stops less noise. We have a lot of controls in the R1. We have a lot more in EPIC and Scarlet.

Jim
Click to expand...

It seems to me that every obstacle that comes up along the way, Mr. Jannard is personally seeing to it that they are obliterated... one by one.

Fascinating.
 
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