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's Long Exposure and Sensitivity

Pawel Achtel

Pawel Achtel

Banned
Joined
Oct 12, 2007
Messages
3,648
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Tasmania
Website
www.achtel.com
I have no doubt that Epic is light years ahead of anything else in terms of the dynamic range. But, how will it handle long exposure and high ISO combination. Can Epic match this?

Shot a couple of days ago somewhere in Tassie wilderness with 5D II, RAW, shutter 30s, ISO 3200, f/2.8, no special grading, just recovery of blacks, no curves, and very basic noise reduction. (this is a single frame of a time lapse sequence).
 

Attachments

  • Milky Way 1.jpg
    Milky Way 1.jpg
    94.2 KB · Views: 0
I vote this as question of month.
If it doesnt already, please consider to delay epic an extra month (hatemail can be pm'd directly to my inbox) and make a feature where the shutter just opens, disappears for a while or goes out for a 30 second walk. This is a feature I miss on Red One. I also advise to increase the price where necessary. Just to keep the forum lively.
 
I volunteer to test it! :biggrin5:
 
When the time is right, we'll answer this one :)
 
Pawel Achtel said:
I have no doubt that Epic is light years ahead of anything else in terms of the dynamic range. But, how will it handle long exposure and high ISO combination. Can Epic match this?

Shot a couple of days ago somewhere in Tassie wilderness with 5D II, RAW, shutter 30s, ISO 3200, f/2.8, no special grading, just recovery of blacks, no curves, and very basic noise reduction. (this is a single frame of a time lapse sequence).
Click to expand...

Pawel, very nice shot BTW never seen our galaxy in so flat horizontal view, would be nice to see it in time laps.

I like staring in to our galaxy hours at a time.

It is like watching lights of a far away big city from the airplane.
 
Last edited:
Pawel Achtel said:
I have no doubt that Epic is light years ahead of anything else in terms of the dynamic range. But, how will it handle long exposure and high ISO combination. Can Epic match this?
Click to expand...

With HDRx you might even see the rattlesnake in the foreground....

Jochen

PS: Nice shot!
 
Part two of the question is .."will there be a live output of the previous frame, as is available in frame integration mode of consumer cameras."


Mike Brennan
 
Although it would be great to do long exposures (:30 sec. or longer) with the EPIC, unless the RED team can design it so power consumption is on par or even less the a DSLR, I don't see how one could do all-night time-lapse shots without constantly changing batteries and disrupting the sequence. As it stands, I am sometimes choosing a 5D over the RED for even some daylight time-lapse shots-- but only for battery consumption issues.
 
One of the solution to get rid of batteries at day/night extended timelapse shooting is to bring one of

Honda "Handy" range of generators and with it solve the camera longer power time supply.

Hope this will also work with Epic/Scarlet.
 
Joe Taylor said:
Although it would be great to do long exposures (:30 sec. or longer) with the EPIC, unless the RED team can design it so power consumption is on par or even less the a DSLR, I don't see how one could do all-night time-lapse shots without constantly changing batteries and disrupting the sequence. As it stands, I am sometimes choosing a 5D over the RED for even some daylight time-lapse shots-- but only for battery consumption issues.
Click to expand...

While I am just guessing/hoping that when you switch to the dedicated stills mode as opposed to the motion mode that battery consumption would go down (thus more comparable to a DSLR) as well. I always thought this because the optinal handgrip contains a small battery that seems to be most usable in stills mode. Not to mention they also have a bottom grip option which I believe also contains another battery. Anyways, with the DSMC concept I always just assumed that they would create a mode where the Epic would be comparable to other still cameras relating to battery life. So lets hope this is the case
 
Also, unless the design has changed, you can have several batteries on at once so you may only need to hotswap once if that.
 
Yes, as Sanjin and Jim pointed out, power is an easy problem to solve :smash:

...just wack a cuppla Red Bricks on her and she'll be right :smilewinkgrin:

Attached a frame from another time lapse sequence - Milky Way setting behind Mount Amos, Tassie. 24mm f/1.4 Nikon at f/1.4 and only 13 second exposure!
 

Attachments

  • 0647.jpg
    0647.jpg
    40.3 KB · Views: 0
Joe Taylor said:
Although it would be great to do long exposures (:30 sec. or longer) with the EPIC, unless the RED team can design it so power consumption is on par or even less the a DSLR, I don't see how one could do all-night time-lapse shots without constantly changing batteries and disrupting the sequence. As it stands, I am sometimes choosing a 5D over the RED for even some daylight time-lapse shots-- but only for battery consumption issues.
Click to expand...

I have been doing time-lapse with DSLR for years. The truth is, as much as I love the Red, a high end DSLR is still gonna give you better time-lapse, particularly at night. The down side to DSLR TL is post issues, and dust, and flicker and... Ok, maybe a Red is better after all, for the overall process, In short, DSLR suck at video but are great for time-lapse.
 
Mark, I would have agreed with you a few months ago. But look at what has been happening. For example, if you asked me a few months ago, which will be better for stills, Epic X or Canon 5D2, I would have said Canon. It's got more MP, a larger sensor... and it's a stills camera, purpose built. But now that we have seen HDRx, for example, I can't be so sure. If I was out in a desert at 4pm, trying to get a still, those extra 4 stops of DR might make me choose the Epic X.

No one knows for sure about this long-exposure stuff until the first Epic X test shots start coming out.
 
Tom Lowe said:
No one knows for sure about this long-exposure stuff until the first Epic X test shots start coming out.
Click to expand...

...another way of skinning the cat would be to take many short exposures and add them together although, due to the quantisation noise and pattern noise being added too, this is not quite as good as a single long exposure.

Anyway, the whole concept of trading the frame rate for dynamic range seems to have huge potential and this is why I quietly hope that the Epic will be superior even with a smaller sensor....not to mention fast cine glass at any focal length being available.
 
Of course, whatever software is used to demosaic will need to be able to kill hot pixels on site.

Adobe Camera Raw does an amazing job of killing CR2 hot pixels.
 
Tom Lowe said:
Mark, I would have agreed with you a few months ago. But look at what has been happening. For example, if you asked me a few months ago, which will be better for stills, Epic X or Canon 5D2, I would have said Canon. It's got more MP, a larger sensor... and it's a stills camera, purpose built. But now that we have seen HDRx™, for example, I can't be so sure. If I was out in a desert at 4pm, trying to get a still, those extra 4 stops of DR might make me choose the Epic X.

No one knows for sure about this long-exposure stuff until the first Epic X test shots start coming out.
Click to expand...

I am sure when I have the EpicX I won't use the DSLR for timelapse every again, or rarely. The Epic will be so small and versatile that I will use it for almost everything, and take it almost everywhere. I plan on owning two, one for big productions etc. and another that is usually in a light configuration for travel etc. I'll have it with me everywhere, it will sleep with me at night. :smile:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top