Gemini - ultimate indie anamorphic camera

[PatrickFaith]

Been playing around with gemini today with master prime anamorphic and only using practical & natural lighting - just amazing. I am prefering shooting at 1280 iso at the 3600x3000 6/5 anamorphic mode. It's just "lush", kind of reminds me of that "Fanny & Alexander" color feel. With 3000 pixels high it beats all the alexa lf type camera on pixel density for all "normal" anamorphic lenses people have around(i.e. all the lenses that don't go much higher then 18mm which is almost all the older anamorphics).

Even shooting natural light, by just slightly adjusting some window shades, it allows natural light shooting dawn to dusk. Also with just a simple light kit, with the 1280 iso, makes lush zone lighting extremely fast & simple (i.e. perfect for indie operations). The Gemini is just brilliant. I haven't played much with the low light iso's, but I think for matching to monstro I like the normal 1280 iso with the lenses at low t-stops.

Awesome RED, and thanks for helping out us Magnum weapon guys!

 

[Nick Morrison]

Yeah Gemini looks great

 

[PatrickFaith]

Yeah Gemini looks great

Absolutly, down your alley I've been pondering it a bit for docudrama type stuff - where it needs to be shot "natural" lighted yet still have a filmic/extreme_high_quality feel.

Night time shot, 4watt led garden lights:

 

[Nick Morrison]

Absolutly, down your alley I've been pondering it a bit for docudrama type stuff - where it needs to be shot "natural" lighted yet still have a filmic/extreme_high_quality feel.

Night time shot, 4watt led garden lights:

We do mostly stlylized interviews and studio work these days, at 320 ISO...so lowlight isn't that big deal for our work. But being able to get up to 800 or 1280 ISO and be super clean does come in handy.

As does a REAL anamorphic sensor!

 

[PatrickFaith]

We do mostly stlylized interviews and studio work these days, at 320 ISO...so lowlight isn't that big deal for our work. But being able to get up to 800 or 1280 ISO and be super clean does come in handy.

As does a REAL anamorphic sensor!

Having the height on the anamorphic is another just HUGE deal. Here's another pure natural lighted kitchen shot at night (junky flourescent undercounter lights).

 

[rand thompson]

Patrick,


I corrected and enhanced some.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Patrick,


I corrected and enhanced some.
...

Hey Rand, if you have any specific configuration you'd want me to shot just give a yell and I'll give you a link to a r3d when I finish. I will be testing with the camera through Sunday.

 

[rand thompson]

Patrick,

Thanks Alot! But I don't want to put you through any trouble of shooting anything for me. If you feel like maybe one day shooting something, I would appreciate whatever you felt like uploading. Again, thanks for the offer.


Rand

 

[PatrickFaith]

Here's some unscientific side notes on my testing between monstro and gemini:
-Both camera's match really well at 320 iso (no idea why, might have been my blackshade)
-Monstro image has a "feel" of a little more depth even when histograms match
-Gemini image is way better in conditions where I need the iso at 4000
-Color differences between different monitors is way bigger then color difference between camera's (i had to flip back and forth between my single ecf2 other wise I was chasing my tail attempting to match images between the two camera's on different lcd's)
-At monstro 8k Arri Anamorphics cover at 8:9, but at gemini 5k the lens covers fully at 6:5
-Lot less data for the gemini on the r3d (part of that is also I'm able to shoot at 6:5 for a 2.4 ratio while with the monstro I have to crop in post)
-I really don't like the 4k prores options for either camera's anamorphic modes (gemini 6:5 is short of 4k so then scales down to 2k, while the monstro lacks the 7.5k 16:9 mode ... but really I generally don't like going to prores anyway so this is a nit).
[added shot of the test taken with Houdini, lmao tease but you can see that in 3d if you have a hydrogen ]

 

[rand thompson]

Patrick,

Thanks for the detailed write-up! I alway find that when I try to get skintones in Gemini to an equally " Red/Yellow" distribution on the "Skintone" line in Resolve, that I induce some purple/magenta artifacts in the image. The only way it seems to negate this is to leave in more green or blue than I would like. Not so much so with Monstro footage.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Patrick,

Thanks for the detailed write-up! I alway find that when I try to get skintones in Gemini to an equally " Red/Yellow" distribution on the "Skintone" line in Resolve, that I induce some purple/magenta artifacts in the image. The only way it seems to negate this is to leave in more green or blue than I would like. Not so much so with Monstro footage.

I would agree with that with both of them at high iso, but at low iso like 320 I'm not seeing that. I do think there will be a tendancy for colorists to see high iso gemini which will re-inforce what your saying, but my view is gemini is "pushed" so I kind of expect that. But for example, if all I want to use gemini for in a shoot is a B camera for a A camera monstro (becuase I couldn't affort two monstro's), I could shoot/light the gemini for 320 iso and won't have any color matching problems.

 

[rand thompson]

I would agree with that with both of them at high iso, but at low iso like 320 I'm not seeing that. I do think there will be a tendancy for colorists to see high iso gemini which will re-inforce what your saying, but my view is gemini is "pushed" so I kind of expect that. But for example, if all I want to use gemini for in a shoot is a B camera for a A camera monstro (becuase I couldn't affort two monstro's), I could shoot/light the gemini for 320 iso and won't have any color matching problems.

Patrick,

You make an excellent point here!

 

[PatrickFaith]

...
-I really don't like the 4k prores options for either camera's anamorphic modes (gemini 6:5 is short of 4k so then scales down to 2k, while the monstro lacks the 7.5k 16:9 mode ... but really I generally don't like going to prores anyway so this is a nit).

Testing the beta firmware, and the prores issue went away by using the anamorphic mode with the 4/3 option. I do loose a hundred or so pixels on height with this mode, but it's not that critical for when I need to do 4k prores anamorphic shoots that have quick turn around (records in 422hq, which is also fast and nice).

 

[PatrickFaith]

Tested all my Nikon lenses with Gemini and the new build, all worked perfectly. (I btw don't use autofocus so don't know if that worked)
I like the feel of the Nikon lenses, but the Cinemascope anamorphic format is pretty much perfect for this camera. Gemini is real close to academy 4 perf cinamescope, guys like David Mullen are the expert on this, would love to see what they will do with anamorphics on Gemini.

Also matching the feel of the anamorphics to the nikons with this format justed didn't feel right.

 

[rand thompson]

Patrick,


Are these vintage Nikon Ai, Ai-S or are you referring to Modern lenses with Nikon Mounts?

 

[PatrickFaith]

Patrick,


Are these vintage Nikon Ai, Ai-S or are you referring to Modern lenses with Nikon Mounts?

I have AF-S set 24/35/58/85; a zeis distagon (15mm), and vintage. Vintage looks awesome btw, i really like my vintage 50mm 1.4.

 

[rand thompson]

Patrick,


Yeah, I owned and loved the Nikon Ai-S 50mm f1.8 , 50mm f1.4 , 85mm f1.4 , 85mm f2 ,105mm f1.8 and the Ai 55mm f1.2. I also had a Voigtlander 40mm f2 Ai-S Ulton, I never really liked the distortion of any Nikon Ai-S lens under 40mm. I liked the "Neutral" look of the Nikons sometimes in contrast to the Contax/Zeiss lens I also owned with a "Warmer" look with great "micro-contrast". The Zeiss ZF.2 lenses I had, had the "micro-contrast" of the Contax/Zeiss but with a "Cooler" look