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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 :)

First Day with Dragon

Ha, awesome... funny they are my favs too... (unless I'm able to shoot on anamorphics).

Matt Ryan said:
My personal favorites, Zeiss Super Speeds MKII.
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Doug Beatty said:
Another good point, I'd rather not shoot at 6K just to be able to down scale the noise on high ISO footage for cleaner UHD or 1080p output.

The penalty you pay for such high resolution on a relatively small sensor is the fact that each photon is less light sensitive and I think that's why Alexa at 800 looks better in low light scenes than Dragon at 800.

I have no doubt Red could make a lower res sensor (if they wanted to) that would allow you to get clean exposure in the dead of night for a 2K output, but they are staking their claim that resolution and dynamic range trump low light performance since there are so many tools readily available in post to process out said noise.
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This is a myth based on the behavior of a single pixel in isolation. Signal vs noise in total for a whole image is only affected by total sensor size and % coverage of light gathering areas. Larger but fewer pixels, all else being equal, will give you no more clean an image than smaller but more numerous pixels.
 
Dragon being so clean, its then easy enough to get that sort of range out of a 8bit JPG as well. :)

Pushedto2000ISO.jpg
 
Matt, correct me but in the last frame ( the one where he is standing completely outside ), i see dragon clipping in the highlight and shadow. If you say dragon was one stop under exposed, you would even get greater highlight cliping if the lens would have been one stop open. Have you tried redgamma 4 on that same frame? Look at the highlights.
 
paul schefz said:
i am watching the clip from your dragon super speed thread...about a 7 sec clip....watching this on a calibrated 4k monitor in RCX...no settings changed....am attaching a screen shot this is full at 100%......at 320 i would expect less noise....
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I've been on a bit of a losing streak lately so I'm not sure how much my opinion counts around here but I'm scouring the image at full res, 100% in REDlogfilm and I'm not seeing what I would consider an inordinate amount of noise at any ISO in this image.

Maybe my definition of or tolerance for noise is different than yours but I'd say that image is pretty clean. The moving image is even more revealing than the still.

I haven't shot at 320 all that much. Is it normally that much cleaner than this footage in this amount of light?
 
exported from REDCINE-x + add with the dragon ...
imported all in davinci, I tried to recover shadows and highlights.
I see no difference, or relatively minimal, Dragon moving image has a very soft in comparison to Alexa and that 's what I like ...
2 great cameras .

RED_zps6afeaa9a.jpg
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Jacobo Martinez said:
My personal opinion is that, as good ADD is, as of right now, it is for still photography, not for moving images, so I wouldn't compare alexa footage to dragon using ADD.
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Use the Add without detail.
I'm watching now on Christie 4K projector comparison.
ADD is also great on the go without a doubt.
The only flaw, takes a long time to render.

just a thought ;)
 
curious how much more people are charging for Dragon rental to compensate for the upgrade.
Are clients willing to pay a bit extra or are they continuing to try bring down rates so you take the fall?
 
Jacobo Martinez said:
Matt, correct me but in the last frame ( the one where he is standing completely outside ), i see dragon clipping in the highlight and shadow. If you say dragon was one stop under exposed, you would even get greater highlight cliping if the lens would have been one stop open. Have you tried redgamma 4 on that same frame? Look at the highlights.
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I'd say the Alexa has a stop in total. The highlights clip just a tiny bit more than the Alexa (Not a full stop) and a bit less in the low end (possibly not even a full stop). So just judging by this image I'd say Alexa has a stop more, but it's hard to say unless I did the test myself. Don't judge other peoples tests so much and rely more on your own in these situations. Too many people base fact off of something they didn't partake in. Redgamma 4 is too contrasty for high contrast situations. You should be judging using Redlogfilm. Redgamma 4 really crushes the blacks and pushes the highs beyond what I would do to grade these images.
 
Matt Ryan said:
I'd say the Alexa has a stop in total. The highlights clip just a tiny bit more than the Alexa (Not a full stop) and a bit less in the low end (possibly not even a full stop). So just judging by this image I'd say Alexa has a stop more, but it's hard to say unless I did the test myself. Don't judge other peoples tests so much and rely more on your own in these situations. Too many people base fact off of something they didn't partake in. Redgamma 4 is too contrasty for high contrast situations. You should be judging using Redlogfilm. Redgamma 4 really crushes the blacks and pushes the highs beyond what I would do to grade these images.
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Matt what we see is not safe stop 1.
I think we are very close and you only need a little to make a difference .. so difficult as you say judging by the test.
It would be nice time to do some tests on the colors and light tone of the skin in various light conditions.
 
roryhinds said:
curious how much more people are charging for Dragon rental to compensate for the upgrade.
Are clients willing to pay a bit extra or are they continuing to try bring down rates so you take the fall?
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They pay only a bit more, but mostly they want Dragon more than they want Epic X. if you are busy rental house, it takes one month to pay off $10 000. It's all about being busy - most gear most days sits on a shelf no matter who you are.

As a DP using the cam myself it makes certain set-ups easier (less worry about clipping), takes away IR headaches, looks a bit nicer all the time. How much is that worth? Hard to put $$$ on it really, but certainly we will rent it out more than 0 times on occasions when if we only had MX we would not have gotten the rental at all, so even if we don't get back $10 000 right away we get SOMETHING back, so that personal benefit will only have to worth some percentage of $10 000, no 100% of $10 000 to "feel like good value". Maybe in the end it will pay for itself completely.

Anyway $10 000 every three years is not a lot to pay for upgrade and upkeep of a high-end camera, and I have a feeling it will be way more than 3 years before Dragon is considered in any way out of date. Most 'progress" has been in releasing cheap prosumer cameras with on-paper Ok-ish specs and glaring flaws and very poor QC (BM is a prime example, GH4, etc.) - there has been very little progress at the true high-end.
 
Great test Thanks, I think they are really close on thin one, I was expeting more resolution with the dragon at 300% Agains the Alexa but for some reason is not the case.
 
I think these images, unfortunately, say a lot about noise, shoulder clipping and color cast:


Dragon:
Dragon.png


Alexa:
Alexa.png


These are Dragoncolor/RLF at 3200 ISO, 5600k - Arriraw 3200ISO, 5600k, no sharpening out of Resolve.
 
I've noticed on the new olpf/calibration that there appears to be a lot of red noise in underexposed footage. I'm betting that can be fixed by firmware/software update. I do agree though that Alexa has the upper hand on the low end. Lot less noise with Alexa...
 
The challenge with comparing the light meter shot is that if you load up both RAW images neither is clipping anywhere in the frame. So either camera could have been rated a stop lower and I doubt they would have clipped. Who would have clipped first? tough to tell.

 
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