First Look: Interchangeable OLPF on Dragon

[Álex Montoya]

There's no problems with backfocus whatsoever, right?

 

[Tom Gleeson]

I shoot wide open alot, Sadly the Motion mount doesn't like me dicking around anything under f2. Which annoys the shit out of me because I really would love to use it all the time.

Mark,

Is shooting wide open with MM all good if you avoid more than 4 stops of ND? I heard this was the case and imagined you would just use a base ND filter giving you 4 stops to play with and as light failed swapping out the camera filter ND?

 

[Mark Toia]

Mark,

Is shooting wide open with MM all good if you avoid more than 4 stops of ND? I heard this was the case and imagined you would just use a base ND filter giving you 4 stops to play with and as light failed swapping out the camera filter ND?

Yep, can do. But I was wanting the MM so i could avoid using filters all together.

 

[Phil Holland]

Woof. Back home from a massive 12 hour day of testing both OLPFs. Some boring tests and some that will net some footage, which I'll attempt to put up tomorrow. It's 2:30am at the moment and I've been staring passionately at very many boring tests

When I see the images you shot with the Low Light Optimized OLPF, I almost can not believe there is room for improvement... Isn't the highlight rollout and color as good as it gets on this images?

I mean, I'll come right out and say it. And it won't be a popular thought with both those critical of Dragon.

The truth is with either OLPF you can produce some of the highest quality moving pictures possible today. But that comes from being familiar with them and knowing how to get best out of the camera system.

There's no problems with backfocus whatsoever, right?

Well the good news Alex is I can say with 100% certainty that backfocus is consistent and retained when swapping OLPFs. Tested this a whole lot today.


More tomorrow with some A/B comparisons off the same camera and setup.

 

[Juan D Salazar]

Thanks again for sharing Phil -

 

[Eric Z]

Waiting to see your test results.

 

[steve green]

Phil,
The passion you have for this camera and lens stuff truly amazes me. I'm sure I speak for all here, our sincere thanks for all you do so we can collectively be in the know.

 

[Michael Lindsay]

Thanks Phil

Really apreciate you forum efforts...

Please, if possible, can you try to exactly quantify the light sensitivity difference between the two?... becuase I don't have both OLPFs I am unreliable but I don't feel it is a full 1.3 stops difference..

please do it off white clip... then the more difficult one (I relise this is a nasty /tricky thankless request)... off the shadows.

thanks again

Michael

 

[Roger Viloria]

Phil, you work hard and with passion, always open to share your analysis. Thank you bro!

 

[David Battistella]

Phil, you work hard and with passion, always open to share your analysis. Thank you bro!

Plus 1.

phil wins the reduser community service award monthly!

Were re very lucky to have all his work as a basis for discussion and helping advance the system for all of us.

Cheers to Mr. Holland! I raise a glass to you sir.

Battistella

 

[Martin Stevens]

I raise a bottle to Sir Phil.

 

[Phil Holland]

Thank you guys. Much appreciated, especially considering the type of testing day yesterday was

Okay. So let's get right into the hard stuff. Dragon is rated as a camera with a "cinema ready" ISO 250-2000 rating. I tested through ISO 6400 on both OLPFs with this particular setup, however, for the sake what "Dragon is designed to do" we'll start with some ISO 2000 comparisons as it's the top shelf of what we "should" be using.

These are 100% crops from the same test setup. I literally swapped out the Low Light Optimized OLPF with the Skin Tone - Highlight OLPF with the camera still setup in the same location as I was in a clean and controlled environment.

The 1.3 stops of variation in the calibration/OLPF Profile between the LLO and STH OLPFs is what provides the difference in texture. The more aggressive layers of the STH OLPF chews up "a smidge" of the shadows while provides "a smidge" more in the highlights. Subtle, but there.


So we'll start with REDlogFilm here:










And here's the same images with REDgamma4:










Pretty much what can be seen is why the LLO OLPF is cleaner at higher ISO ratings. The STH OLPF is just ever so slightly provides better color response overall, but at the cost of texture.


Next up a couple of the notable artifacts to discuss. Highlight Orbs/Glow and Small Aperture Red Dots.


On the Low Light Optimized OLPF you can get Highlight Orbs or on this particular setup a "Glow".



On the Skin Tone - Highlight OLPF this is not apparent and the artifact is taken care of.




Similarly there is another artifact that specifically happens with punch sources when shooting at smaller apertures, something that Mysterium-X shooters are familiar with.
This particular shot was around T11/13 if I recall correctly.

The LLO OLPF produces this artifact Red Dot Grid:



Where as the STH OLPF eliminates the undesirable qualities of the Red Dot Grid with it's own unique look:




So what am I taking from all of this? Well overall it's good news because this mirrors my findings when shooting with/testing out what used to be known as the V1 and V2 OLPF, meaning this Interchangeable OLPF system produces "expected" results. If anything was actually different I'd be kind of worried.

I will say on this day of testing the highlight orb artifact wasn't really as apparent to me as it revealed itself here and a couple other tests within reasonable ISO ranges as a glow, but I'll knock out a candle test shortly and see if I can dig out the gremlins.

Small break for now while I export some footage for review, but so far this is what's to be expected and reveals the differences in texture/visible noise between the two OLPFs.

 

[steve green]

Phil, thanks agin for the test…..In your last test, what happens if the apertures are closer to wide open, say in the 2.8 - 4 range? Does that lessen the orbs?

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Great write Up as always Phil... THANKS!!

 

[Christopher Probst]

This only confirms my feelings in general. I find really nothing wrong with EITHER OLPF. They each have their place and its why I love the swappable system we have in place now. The "artifacts" of the Low Light OLPF are neglible and I almost never (99.99% of the time) shoot anywhere near an f/16... hell even an f/8, so the dot pattern is a non-issue for me and never really was.

Geting the larger glowing reddishg orb is also very rare and only when blasting the lens with a light in shot producing extreme lens flares as well.. that orb is usualy buried as a component of that effect anyway, and in my opinion, part of the look if you're going that extreme anyway. I only experienced it ONCE in the months I shot with the original OLPF installed on my Carbon and it was in a rock-concert setting with lights blasting into camera. It looked cool.

Now I'm just waiting to see more OLPF options come out to enable even more nuanced control of my work... Low Con and Motion Mount optimized being high on my list!

 

[Phil Holland]

Phil, thanks agin for the test…..In your last test, what happens if the apertures are closer to wide open, say in the 2.8 - 4 range? Does that lessen the orbs?

Yep. It's vastly "minimized" at wider apertures. This is essentially the same way Mysterium-X shooters have been combating that for a long time.

This only confirms my feelings in general. I find really nothing wrong with EITHER OLPF. They each have their place and its why I love the swappable system we have in place now. The "artifacts" of the Low Light OLPF are neglible and I almost never (99.99% of the time) shoot anywhere near an f/16... hell even an f/8, so the dot pattern is a non-issue for me and never really was.

Geting the larger glowing reddishg orb is also very rare and only when blasting the lens with a light in shot producing extreme lens flares as well.. that orb is usualy buried as a component of that effect anyway, and in my opinion, part of the look if you're going that extreme anyway. I only experienced it ONCE in the months I shot with the original OLPF installed on my Carbon and it was in a rock-concert setting with lights blasting into camera. It looked cool.

Now I'm just waiting to see more OLPF options come out to enable even more nuanced control of my work... Low Con and Motion Mount optimized being high on my list!

I agree Chris. But, there's a million different types of shooters out there with different needs and expectations. I was pretty much blown away by the early days of Dragon and it never "scared" me even after all those earlier tests. I've been often rolling with the Skin Tone - Highlight OLPF in the ISO 250-1280 range and generally pretty happy. Most of my shoots are landing at ISO 500 overall, because I like a bit of the texture really.

The real wiggle here is there are a lot of people reaching further into low light shooting and it's often a big reach. I've seen examples of shooters who are expecting to get a clean exposed midtone look by lifting up shadow information where there simply isn't enough light to make a decent exposure happen. It's even weirder when I see ISO 2000 shots that are underexposed by 1-3 stops and in those situations I don't know what people are really hoping for. Proper exposure techniques are so incredibly important to hammer down and develop.

Luckily everybody has this option soon enough and it's allowing people to choose the camera they want to shoot with really.


Here's just a quick image of me changing the OLPFs, in this case with one had as I documented it.




Not really a huge ordeal. My one word of caution is watch those little OLPF Torx Bolts. This isn't the official Red container, but I would recommend when taking them out dropping them into a place they can't fall off of. They are tiny.


Personally I don't think I'll be changing OLPFs that much really. Both of these OLPFs do good things. One thing I'll emphasize though is to get the best possible images out of Dragon use it within the ISO rating range that Red recommends and expose accordingly.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

So helpful, thanks Phil. So basically when at wider apertures the fixed red dot pattern from bright sources is diffused over the whole image lightly contaminating the color in the lowlight olpf. Still, I'll stick with that version most of the time I think.

 

[Jacobo Martinez]

Thank you Phil for your effort! I admire the level of dedication and passion you have toward this art form.
Since you said that you will be not changing OLPF that much, which one will you be using most of the time?

 

[Phil Holland]

Thank you Phil for your effort! I admire the level of dedication and passion you have toward this art form.
Since you said that you will be not changing OLPF that much, which one will you be using most of the time?

I'm certain I'll make decisions based on each project, but I've been rolling with the Skin Tone - Highlight OLPF and getting great results. The main reason I'm getting sticky right now with both OLPFs is to see if I'm loving one more than the other really.


One thing I am noticing is that appears the orbs have been "lessened" somehow.

From my old match test with the same lens:





To the Low Light Optimized OLPF and Skin Tone - Highlight OLPF I shot moments ago against "pure black".

 

[HD Hildebrand]

Thank you. That was really good to see. Any side-by-side skin tone tests, or bright exterior daylight comparisons in the works?