Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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-M Monochrome 100% crops

John Marchant

John Marchant

Well-known member
Joined
May 4, 2010
Messages
2,168
Reaction score
2
Points
38
Location
Normandy, England
Website
www.kippertie.com
Following a successful test at Pinewood on Monday, I thought I'd share these 100% crops which demonstrate the significant benefits the Monochrome brings compared to mono-converted colour material from an Epic-X.

http://www.kippertie.com/red/mono/

I was impressed enough to push the button and order there and then, so we're expecting to be able to rent in the UK and Europe very shortly.

You can roll-over the shots to compare the Monochrome to the X. All material was shot at the Monochrome's default meta settings, ISO2000. The Epic-X was also at its default settings except for a 0% saturation look, and an ISO bump to 2000

Matching lenses, f-stops, compression etc were used, and zero sharpening or similar was added. The crops you see are at 100% or 200% nearest neighbour, having been rendered as TIFFs from RCX and passed through Ps CS6 for cropping.

You'll see for yourselves that at matching settings the Monochrome comes up a touch brighter, has far prettier compression and noise characteristics, and benefits greatly in sharpness too.

I believe there are crisper results still to be had - we only tested on a mix of cheap and available glass: original RED 18-50, Canon 24-70L, Nikon 85mm Ai-S.

There's also a big fat .psd file of a full 5k frame, with three layers - 800 ISO untouched EPIC-X frame, the same at ISO2000 in mono, and the Monochrome frame. You'll just have to bear my ugly mug in the centre of frame, so apologies in advance for the lack of pretty girls / awesome stuff in the shots.
 
Thanks for sharing, John! This is pretty amazing.
 
Nice test John,

while I absolutely support the crushing superiority of the Monochrome Sensor, I unfortunately must also critic just a little bit, that this test is not truly as correct as it should have been done, were lenses were not in the same DOF/Focus and also when doing such test it is imperative that not only the Camera/Lens Aperture distance and focus remain exactly the same but that also Framing and cropping be exactly the same, and of course Focus must be Tack on or there will be too much lost of detail either way, and noise created there were there should be none.

Just saying this as I have been doing so many of this tests as of lately for Rape of a Beauty that I found imperative to have such a precision set ups in order to allow for the best and most precise results to analyze.

Of course thanks for taking the time to do this, and Congrats on the purchase buddy!!
 
Thanks Ketch. I make no claims of ultimate precision here - this was just two cameras in a meeting room with no lights, no support gear and a few spare minutes. What's telling is that the differences are tangible even without scientific precision. If it had taken too much effort to understand the improvement I would have been disappointed.

I hope this is useful nonetheless, but as always I would encourage people to test to their own satisfaction. We're intending to support that possibility by giving advantageous deals where testing leads to bookings.
 
John Marchant said:
Thanks Ketch. I make no claims of ultimate precision here - this was just two cameras in a meeting room with no lights, no support gear and a few spare minutes. What's telling is that the differences are tangible even without scientific precision. If it had taken too much effort to understand the improvement I would have been disappointed.

I hope this is useful nonetheless, but as always I would encourage people to test to their own satisfaction. We're intending to support that possibility by giving advantageous deals where testing leads to bookings.
Click to expand...


Yes of course, in fact I did made such specifications, in favor of the fact that if it is clear the advantage with a simple test, imagine what will happen when a technically perfectly aligned camera and lens point of view and focus, as well as aperture and lighting, the Monochrome Sensor will come up as an even bigger winner, which for me is a no brainer, as I know how a Sensor sees the Photons of light projected at it form the passage of the lens elements but for those that don't a test always shows the difference... ;)


Best of luck with Rentals, and you never know, if I need to shot or test shoot something prior getting one, I could call upon you... ;)
 
Cheers Ketch. You know where to find me :)

I have projects of my own lined up for this camera, but it will definitely have to get out there and work for its living in order for me to justify its presence in our safe.
 
it's true that FOV and focus does not seems the same ,

but i have the feeling that the monochrome finally give sharp image at 100 % crop ... i have basically never seen an epic image (and i get a lot of them being in post production ) that is crips and sharp without using sharpness , ance i apply 2-3 points of sharpness is great but without it , it feels like the images from the Epic X john posted , i guess is because of the OLFP ?

g
 
John - holy crap.

That is insanely sharp. Were sharpness settings identical on both? That's rather amazing.

The grain itself is not that great an issue for me, but the detail is phenomenal...
 
Ivan Kovax said:
John - holy crap.

That is insanely sharp. Were sharpness settings identical on both? That's rather amazing.

The grain itself is not that great an issue for me, but the detail is phenomenal...
Click to expand...

Yup, identical sharpness settings - ie none added at all. Perceived sharpness with a little unsharp mask is absolutely razor, even without the best of the best lenses.
 
Thank you for performing this test even if all of the conditions weren't perfectly controlled. You can still see a visible difference with the monochrome sensor.
 
Thanks,

It's very informative.

Have you shot any Greta McBeth card?

I'm just wondering how they interpreted the colors reproduction to the tonal gray values.

Is it more like Kodak or like Fuji...?

Pat
 
Hi John,
The OLPF sure makes a big difference!

Here is a grab from some 6K derived from 3K shot on Scarlet, no filter.
It's work in progress. The challenge is to minimize aliasing through advanced image processing.
I think the detail is amazing, anyone can see by scaling the sharpest thing you ever shot and processed to 200% and compare the edge details to this frame grab.
Of course this takes a LOT of post processing, and is totally experimental at this point. There are still aliasing rainbows visible, though most are being suppressed.
There are also some ringing effects. Working on it.
Anyhow, you can see the direction I am going. 4K input will make even better results. Maybe 7K.

The 6144 x 2048 still ( was shot at 3K ) : http://www.mediafire.com/view/?8gm4s7egmdm4dbg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top