Ivan Cortazar
Well-known member
Hello everybody.
One thing that it has been bugging me a bit is the split frame effect in my Red. I have read in some posts that by using a lighting strike unit you can avoid that. But I find it not convenient for most of scenarios I might be involved in. So I decided to look for a work around and see if it would be possible to shoot with standard flash strobes and fix it in post.
I don't think this is an ideal solution but some of you might find it useful. If you are thinking of shooting a big budget commercial or a dance club or a Red carpet with Scarlet Johanson and 200 paparazzis, maybe this is not the best way, but if you need to pop a bunch of flashes here and there and are willing to play a bit with photoshop, this might do the trick. Certainly It made me feel so much better and now I won't hesitate to use my flash with my RED.
I have a Canon Speedlight flash 550EX and a Canon 20D. this is an old model, so there might be better options out there. But this one is pretty cheap to buy it online and even cheaper to rent it out.
I went into the flash menu and played with some settings and the best results I've got so far are the following.
Multi mode. 1/128 (so i dont; kill battery so much) 30 and 199 Hz
Camera Canon shutter speed 1/50
Red shutter Speed 1/50 at 24 fps
What this does, it seems that 100% of the times you'll get a full frame flash captured, but with some rolling shutter effects. These are generally easy to fix in Photoshop. But 50% of the times you'll get the full frame, and one extra frame with a small split frame, usually in the lower part or upper part.
You can see the videos and more image test in here:
LINK TO VIDEOS AND MORE PHOTOS
Depending on the scenario, the fact that 50% of the times you get one half frame might be a bit of an issue, but I think most of the cases would be pretty easy to fix in photoshop as well.
So shoot, export a tiff sequence. Open the files in Adobe Bridge. Find the ones that need to be fixed, and open them in photoshop and play a bit.
The good thing about it is you can see it in playback. Ideally I would download it to a computer and see if the flashes are good or can be problematic, in that case repeat the scene. :thumbdown: If you get lazy and dont want to photoshop, even though you'll see the rolling effect, because you always get a full frame exposed, I think it it feels better than with conventional settings when you only get half. I guess this is personal taste., in this case I would play with the settings and probably give it more exposure or time.
Also one good thing I found with this settings is that instead of doing the flashes just in post, with this method you can get much more realistic flashes, because it casts shadows and you can get extra exposure. If there is a lot of motion, things can get weird because I have noticed that the flash strobes a bunch of mini flashes, so instead of motion blur you'll get mini frozen images. But for that you have to do some crazy camera movement.
I hope you guys find it useful, and if you find a better solution please post it.
For me, now I feel quite relieved and now I can start writing a bunch of short films with a lot of flashes in it, like "flash me with love" or "paparazzi stories" :emote_happyhappy:
One thing that it has been bugging me a bit is the split frame effect in my Red. I have read in some posts that by using a lighting strike unit you can avoid that. But I find it not convenient for most of scenarios I might be involved in. So I decided to look for a work around and see if it would be possible to shoot with standard flash strobes and fix it in post.
I don't think this is an ideal solution but some of you might find it useful. If you are thinking of shooting a big budget commercial or a dance club or a Red carpet with Scarlet Johanson and 200 paparazzis, maybe this is not the best way, but if you need to pop a bunch of flashes here and there and are willing to play a bit with photoshop, this might do the trick. Certainly It made me feel so much better and now I won't hesitate to use my flash with my RED.
I have a Canon Speedlight flash 550EX and a Canon 20D. this is an old model, so there might be better options out there. But this one is pretty cheap to buy it online and even cheaper to rent it out.
I went into the flash menu and played with some settings and the best results I've got so far are the following.
Multi mode. 1/128 (so i dont; kill battery so much) 30 and 199 Hz
Camera Canon shutter speed 1/50
Red shutter Speed 1/50 at 24 fps
What this does, it seems that 100% of the times you'll get a full frame flash captured, but with some rolling shutter effects. These are generally easy to fix in Photoshop. But 50% of the times you'll get the full frame, and one extra frame with a small split frame, usually in the lower part or upper part.
You can see the videos and more image test in here:
LINK TO VIDEOS AND MORE PHOTOS
Depending on the scenario, the fact that 50% of the times you get one half frame might be a bit of an issue, but I think most of the cases would be pretty easy to fix in photoshop as well.
So shoot, export a tiff sequence. Open the files in Adobe Bridge. Find the ones that need to be fixed, and open them in photoshop and play a bit.
The good thing about it is you can see it in playback. Ideally I would download it to a computer and see if the flashes are good or can be problematic, in that case repeat the scene. :thumbdown: If you get lazy and dont want to photoshop, even though you'll see the rolling effect, because you always get a full frame exposed, I think it it feels better than with conventional settings when you only get half. I guess this is personal taste., in this case I would play with the settings and probably give it more exposure or time.
Also one good thing I found with this settings is that instead of doing the flashes just in post, with this method you can get much more realistic flashes, because it casts shadows and you can get extra exposure. If there is a lot of motion, things can get weird because I have noticed that the flash strobes a bunch of mini flashes, so instead of motion blur you'll get mini frozen images. But for that you have to do some crazy camera movement.
I hope you guys find it useful, and if you find a better solution please post it.
For me, now I feel quite relieved and now I can start writing a bunch of short films with a lot of flashes in it, like "flash me with love" or "paparazzi stories" :emote_happyhappy: