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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 :)

Focus Assist Colours Build 20 & 30..

L

Laurie Rose

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Hi there,
First post, quick question..

Shot a feature last year on a RED One Build 17. All went very well.. Now I'm testing for a new feature shooting in September 2010.

I did a test day with cast, tried out a set of Lomo anamorphics with Build 20.1.4, but I think the Focus Assist colour is ONLY blue in this build?

Now here's my problem! I'm handheld and pulling for myself for this entire shoot! I also favour the RED LCD over the EVF for clarity, I used the Focus Assist in red on Build 17 with great success. So on test day, after we scrapped the Lomo's, I returned back to Build 17, the red edge Focus Assist and lovely Superspeeds! Joy!

Now, we're quite keen on testing the M-X sensor, because I'm confident I could do with the ASA on this gig. But it's critical for me to have red edge Focus Assist, blue edge is simply not visible enough. Is this possible in Build 30+?

I'd also like to add a voice to the switchable FALSE COLOR/FOCUS ASSIST campaign OR HAS THIS ALTERATION ALREADY HAPPENED!! Apologies if I'm missing it!


(I hope this hasn't been covered already, if so I'd love a pointer to the thread!)
 
Focus assist

Focus assist

We switched from red to blue because a number of our customers suffer from red color blindness. We have to pick one color in a build, unfortunately it's not something that can be made a user selection.
 
Build 30+ has the Multi option, although I find the V for "video" more confusing than "color", it's a great feature.

No one colour is going to be great for all backgrounds - maybe bright saturated green would be the most generally visible, but if you're colour blind, red/green is a common issue.
 
Cheers Eric, could you clarify that 'Multi' means having an option on colour for the Focus Assist? Or not?
You're right of course about no one colour being ideal for every set up but blue is next to useless for most set ups I can imagine?! Can it be turned up?

As for colour blind cameramen? Wowsers!

I'm not sure it's quite a campaign, but I've noticed the requests for separating Focus Assist and False Color onto different menus so they can be assigned to seperate buttons..
I'd like that.
 
I realise I know very little about the actual mechanics of writing a build but why could this not be user-definable? How about writing a quick new build? :)
 
Not that have the slightest prejudice against ANYONE with a disability but colour blind camera operators? And that is then cooked-in to the latest RED M-X build? Are there that many?

I love that I continue to learn something everyday!!
 
Laurie Rose said:
I realise I know very little about the actual mechanics of writing a build
Click to expand...

From what I've gathered through various snippets through the forum, making any change to the colour overlay system (false colour and the "peaking" system) requires some seriously arcane hacking of the EVF subsystem (which also drives the onboard LCD and the SDI path).
 
False Color Outline...

False Color Outline...

Not that have the slightest prejudice against ANYONE with a disability but colour blind camera operators?
Click to expand...

Well if you think about it almost all HD cameras until recently used b/w viewfinders so it's not that much of an issue.

Anyway we received enough feedback from RED ONE operators that we decided to make that change.
 
Hi Stuart

If it's going to stay blue, can you make the colour flash or do a Photoshop selection style marching ants effect. or make it a bit thicker, or basically anything, to make it more visible?
 
I'm completely baffled as to why the color couldn't be made user-selectable??? Is there a specific technical reason that I'm over-looking.

Bright green would be my first choice, but there's no one color that works in all situations, if overlaid onto a color image.
 
I would like red back!
What colour channel does peaking work in a B/W video viewfinder? Or is it based simply on edge contrast?
I use peaking constantly on HD/SD video for sharps, but it does have an impact on the impression of exposure but I just dial it out to confidence check myself.
 
Focus check color

Focus check color

I'm completely baffled as to why the color couldn't be made user-selectable???
Click to expand...

If we could have made it user selectable we would, but the reality is we need to pick one color.
 
Focus color

Focus color

Bright green would be my first choice, but there's no one color that works in all situations, if overlaid onto a color image.
Click to expand...

But it's overlaid on a monochrome image, so that constraint does not apply.
 
But it ISN'T overlaid on a monochrome image. When viewing in RAW, the focus assist is visible over the color image! Only when in REDcolor is the focus assist over a monochrome image. At least that's the way it is in my camera on Build 30.

I do find it incomprehensible that it isn't the world's easiest software tweak to allow the use to specify the color of the focus assist outline. I mean, it was red. Now it's blue. Green would be great, as well, but obviously not when shooting foliage.

Stephen
 
Too bad it can't be user selectable. Anyway, the blue is OK and I understand why it was done, but I would prefer red or green. Personal preference. In then end, it's still about what can accommodate the most users. I thought the red highlighting was more visible in some situations. I have to admit I'm still confused as to why it can't be changed, given that we can change the color of other items, frame guides, etc.. even the focus-assist waveform. The edge highlight color is still an RGB value that has to be specified somewhere.

That said, I can only state my wants and desires. I can't pretend to know the intricacies of the camera firmware or developing for the camera. I can think of reasons why an RGB value may have to be hard-coded within a firmware release, it just kinda seems weird that it would be just the one and not others. So I'll let it be. Blue works. It looks cool.
 
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