Getting full Dynamic Range from Dragon

[Clayton Burkhart]

It is Roys latest film and I actually worked a bit on it and it was finished in 4k and Roy really like the noise structure the RED ONE MX provide....

Also Roy is probably one of the biggest fans of 4k and RED that I ever ever talked with. Quite easy to understand as his takes are very often more than 10 minutes long and it's not rare that there is over 100 retakes before he is happy. He use the RED Drive and empty the mag once a day and he pretty much never turn off the camera, so I think it must be one of the most used red one's on the planet. He also says he likes the camera as it behaves so much like film and he thinks the REDONE MX let him use the exact same technique as they did with film. But the RED gives him the benefit of seing the direct result on the monitor. He does it all like he did with film, very low exposure, soft filter, 16mm ultra prime... and all the in camera tricks like matte paiting backgrounds, diffusion cloth etc are all used just the same. Also he do hardly any grading, every shot is, in lack of a better description, built up in camera, so light, set design and makeup is altered until he has a picture on the monitor that he is happy with. Sound like just about any shoot but this guy have the setdesigners paint away shadows in the set and such.

But yes, he could probably made the same film look really nice using an iphone. And on the other end, if he wanted I have no doubt that he could raise the budget to do the 4 years of shooting on 35mm film but he decided to do it on the MX and he decided to finish it in 4k and yes he had quite a few tests made before they decided how to do it...

But if you are running a rental company and try to attract the most demanding clients then they naturally go for the latest and greatest. But I think if they had to pick one of the two, a 8 year old sony or a RED ONE MX then I think most would go for the MX.

For us pixel count has made a huge difference. We got in line early for the epic MX, got it and used it when we where pitching for a 360 panorama project for City Bank. The task was to make a 3xUHD panorama interactive thing that was shot in Kuala Lumpur and then displayed in some of the banks offices. We would not have been able to win the pitch if we did not own the camera and we made back the full cost of the camera on the shoot and probably that x5 on the post for the project, HDRx was needed, Highspeed was needed and having the camera available in house was needed. So simply put the camera was more than paid of the first month of use and been in quite heavy use since then. Tomorrow morning we shoot some hamburgers. Mac Donalds want the exact same images for their high resolution prints as for their films... So Dragon and 6k is perfect for them. Same thing with a Swedish clothing brand that we work with. 5 times a year they shoot their collection with hyper expansive models, the clothing line is quite big so it's about 50 clothing changes for each model and for them to be able to use a few dragons and get motion and stills out at the same time is making it possible to do it in half the time which is quite a difference as they can book the models and photographer for less days. Also again, their web films got the exact same color treatment as their films, they find clothes colors very important. Also for every turnaround they show their web films on a fashion show sort of event the films are then projected using really fat barco 4k projectors. They find it important to show the fabric in detail...

And I can only say that there is no other motion camera than RED that I been able to sell towards still photographers, not even by a long shot. But when they get a good run trough how to shoot with light and are shown how a 6k r3d's work with ADD and raw in photoshop etc they like it... Why? Because it works not much different from their still cameras in terms of DR, resolution shutter speeds, etc. Simply I would not be able to throw them the same sales pitch with a sony, alexa or any other camera that I know of.

Of course all projects does not need a 6k camera or needs to be rendered with ADD on etc, but for me personally I can only say that I'm sure the Epic took me to quite a few places I would never even have known existed if I would back then picked a sony camera instead. And I'm sure that sony camera would not feel like the latest and greatest today... our Epic M MX upgraded to dragon a year a go. The demand for it in last january was so high that I really regret that I did not buy a few carbon dragon, I think they would have all been paid of long before the dragons where available to buy in the red store.

I just finished a job in Sydney, shooting 3 Dragons for a fashion label, but there is no way that pulling stills from a 6k camera compares to what most pro fashion photographers shoot these days, which is medium format. Lord knows I tried. But a P65 back yields so much more detail (and a 180Mb image) that the client absolutely insisted on it for their in store posters. Turns out they were right. So just as video may have moved on, so has photography, and pulling stills from Dragon might be fine for a beauty shot or an editorial, but not for all the rest by comparison.

Also, just because Roy is or is not a fan of RED, does not mean that as a spectator my observations are not valid. Since he did shoot on it, it means that he probably does like it. But what I see when I look at that film is that the lack of texture (it's almost too clean) actually makes it appear more video like, not less, compared to his old work. I feel that things like the countertop in the kitchen scene and the curtained wall in the wood panelled board room beome too present as compared to film.. In a phrase "I feel the set" in a way that I didn't before with his work on film. I also notice the makeup more. I am not sure you can get away with this stuff with any video camera, but this is precisely the criticism that ARRI has when you hear discussions about them moving to 4K. Even they feel that the relationship to the illusion of film is still for the moment better suited to 2K and harder to maintain at 4K and beyond and havent found a solution which satisfies them. Which is also the precise reason that they have put so much time into their color science in matching film stock and why the majority of top film sets shoot Alexa, not RED.

In terms of DR, I agree with David. There is a lot of talk about 16-18 stops and frankly I don't buy it. I have shot quite a few times with Dragon now and I don't see it holding highlights or holding back noise to reveal in the shadows any better than the Alexa and I am certain that is only a touch more than 14 stops. Old boring debate in any case. That is my experience in the field, not shooting wedge tests.

Once again, the best way to obtain the maximum of DR, as instanced by Roy's work itself, is to shoot in a controlled environment. However, I am not certain that even if he/you were limited to 8 stops on a GH2, the final product would be worse. As technician we work with and to the limits of our tools and in the studio environment, sometimes 8 stops is all you need, heck even 6 stops. Look at Delbonnel's work on Inside Llewyn Davis, which was shot on film. He said himself, "most scenes have a very low contrast ratio, maybe 5 stops from white to black." His purpose was to imitate old film stocks. So the relentless pursuit of resolution and even DR can actually be contrary to the aesthetic which is a necessary part of the illusion of filmmaking.

Many people looking at this thread, will be like "hmm, maybe I can pick up some tips on how to exploit the maximum of DR from my camera by changing some mysterious setting or black shading in a dark hole with a flashlight to reveal shadow texture". But the truth is what you would probably tell them is "actually we used dimmers on that overhead flourescant to bring it just to the edge of exposure and hold the highlights, and created pools of lights around the chairs to give them more relief and dimensionality."

So wanna know how to maximize DR ? Know the real limits of your camera and modify the light intake until you get there.

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

I'm deeply happy for you Mark.

 

[Marc Wielage]

In terms of getting the most out of the dynamic range of the camera is that it requires a controlled environment. Controlled environments cost money. However, my sense is that Sony and Arri are also providing top notch DR now, so the nature of that controlled environment, in terms of prestige and reputation is what really determines the choice of the camera, not their technical strengths. In the end it truly is a battle of hype and marketing, because when I go into the grading suite I know any one of these camera lines can provide most of what we need.

I think this is very well-said, Clayton. BTW, it should be added that I'm not convinced currently available monitors and projectors can actually deliver 16+ stops of image. We frequently wind up having to compress the dynamic range to get it to "fit" into broadcast color space, particularly at the high end, and this is constantly a problem in post.

If anything, it's worse on the projects I've been getting over the last 5 years: we wind up using a half-dozen power windows to "dodge and burn" different sections of the image to help introduce flags where none were possible on the set, and also to add a little bit of fill to complement an actor's face where it would've been impossible to bring that light in on the set. Dynamic range doesn't necessarily hurt, but I still see too many window highlights being unnecessarily blown-out by DPs who aren't watching the histograms; it's even worse when people's faces are slammed, and that lost information is rarely retrievable.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

On paper Dragon beats every dslr camera on market.What im doing wrong with Dragon and not getting full DR out of it?
With D750 you can retrieve shadows from 5 stop under shot picture and still get decent results but with Dragon 1.5-2 stop under shadows gives only noise.Where is all this 15 stop DR hiding?
Check out this article; http://petapixel.com/2014/11/24/creative-underexposure-nikon-dslrs/

Comparing a video camera and a stills camera is always tricky, but since they both brand themselves as being able to do either, i guess it is a very appropriate point. I will do my best to answer this the way I see it with my experiences.

Dragon does not do in-camera noise reduction.

Neither does my Sony a6000 stills camera when shooting in raw (it does if you set up the jpeg mode), yet the noise floor of the raw files is such that i can push the blacks and still achieve really great results in Lightroom. 64000ISO is still usable on this camera. The dxomark test scores are an outdated and an unreliable way to rank cameras other than a rough guide on how to get a good stills camera at a particular price point.

What many stills cameras do is automatic pixel mapping (i guess the stills equivalent to black shading). I keep hearing on this thread that all these stills cameras do "magic in camera noise reduction" which is true and false. A better way to put it would be effective black shading and pixel remapping, lack of olpf or AA filter in many cases, and amazing circuitry appropriate to stills. The JPEGs will have applied NR if you set it up that way, but the raw files don't. Pixel mapping and shading the black point is not the same thing as noise reduction. One could use that identical argument to make claim that red uses noise reduction because the camera has a black shading function.

Dragon with the highlight/skintone optimised olpf looses between 1-2 stops in the darks when compared to the old olpf (low light olpf). So you are increasing the noise when you try to recover these dark areas. That is what Kemalettin is seeing when he raises the blacks.

In the end, a dragon is a video camera that has been re-purposed to be able to extract stills from the video stream (which has worked great for me in the past) and a nikon d810 is a stills camera that has been repurposed to shoot some video. You can't do 4k 120fps on the nikon. You can't sync flash on a dragon. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, especially when you line hop between stills and video.

Lets keep this point in mind.

 

[luigivaltulini]

I am not sure you can get away with this stuff with any video camera, but this is precisely the criticism that ARRI has when you hear discussions about them moving to 4K. Even they feel that the relationship to the illusion of film is still for the moment better suited to 2K and harder to maintain at 4K and beyond and havent found a solution which satisfies them. Which is also the precise reason that they have put so much time into their color science in matching film stock and why the majority of top film sets shoot Alexa, not RED.

In terms of DR, I agree with David. There is a lot of talk about 16-18 stops and frankly I don't buy it. I have shot quite a few times with Dragon now and I don't see it holding highlights or holding back noise to reveal in the shadows any better than the Alexa and I am certain that is only a touch more than 14 stops. Old boring debate in any case. That is my experience in the field, not shooting wedge tests.

.

ehhhh !!
I never heard a thing from its technical Arri , here in Europe !!
This is the first time I hear such a thing !!
Arri cares about everything, including the resolution, and we believe much, why they built the Alexa 65. Everything has its own path.

I do not understand your discussions, if you're happy with Alexa why not buys ??
Continue to discuss the usual stuff is boring.

Once again, the best way to obtain the maximum of DR, as instanced by Roy's work itself, is to shoot in a controlled environment. However, I am not certain that even if he/you were limited to 8 stops on a GH2, the final product would be worse. As technician we work with and to the limits of our tools and in the studio environment, sometimes 8 stops is all you need, heck even 6 stops. Look at Delbonnel's work on Inside Llewyn Davis, which was shot on film. He said himself, "most scenes have a very low contrast ratio, maybe 5 stops from white to black." His purpose was to imitate old film stocks. So the relentless pursuit of resolution and even DR can actually be contrary to the aesthetic which is a necessary part of the illusion of filmmaking.

Many people looking at this thread, will be like "hmm, maybe I can pick up some tips on how to exploit the maximum of DR from my camera by changing some mysterious setting or black shading in a dark hole with a flashlight to reveal shadow texture". But the truth is what you would probably tell them is "actually we used dimmers on that overhead flourescant to bring it just to the edge of exposure and hold the highlights, and created pools of lights around the chairs to give them more relief and dimensionality."

So wanna know how to maximize DR ? Know the real limits of your camera and modify the light intake until you get there.

On this I agree.
The important thing is to know the limitations of the camera.

 

[luigivaltulini]

Are we down to talking about bits ! Again! Sheesh!

David .. however they already very very cute and what I can pull out now with DRagon without HDRx

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[David Battistella]

David .. however they already very very cute and what I can pull out now with DRagon without HDRx

Thanks Luigi,

I love bits as much as the next guy. I know how important a calculation of bit depth relates to image quality, I'm just loving seeing the results of those bits in the form of Dragon images, more than the actual bits themselves.

All these machines make great images. I feel that the 6k images being grabbed at this bit depth will go a long way into the future.

in any case, how you distribute/create the contrast and how you use the light is really what makes the images.

Battistella

 

[luigivaltulini]

Thanks Luigi,

I love bits as much as the next guy. I know how important a calculation of bit depth relates to image quality, I'm just loving seeing the results of those bits in the form of Dragon images, more than the actual bits themselves.

All these machines make great images. I feel that the 6k images being grabbed at this bit depth will go a long way into the future.

in any case, how you distribute/create the contrast and how you use the light is really what makes the images.

Battistella

sure. ABSOLUTELY

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

ehhhh !!
I never heard a thing from its technical Arri , here in Europe !!

I do not understand your discussions, if you're happy with Alexa why not buys ??
Continue to discuss the usual stuff is boring.

.

I'm not sure being an owner operator makes much sense at this end of the spectrum.
So many out there, driving the price down. Very hard to earn one's investment back unless they have arrived at a good client base - which takes time and experience in the profession. I'm just getting there and I don't think that the Alexa would be the right camera for every job.
Sometime a little C100 is just perfect and more than enough.

I also could definitely see being my own worst enemy. Choosing the wrong camera for a job simply because I own it.
In the end, making the kind of investment that people make here sometimes shifts ones focus too much toward the equipment and at this stage of the game I want to get back to the creativity. Less of a technician, more just a guy with something to say.
I appreciate the tools, but too much focus on them turns one into a craftsman rather than an artist.

One thing I want to say is that I come to Reduser now because I feel there has been a change here. Perhaps it's down to the moderation.
More maturity. I feel I am amongst professionals now who can carry on a conversation about the important things like making the right choice based upon the aesthetics of a project, not because they have bought into a system. Greater openness towards alternatives.

Dragon is probably the first camera from RED I would actually consider owning, because for me skin, better DR and a good highlight roll-off matter a great deal. Didn't find that with the previous generations from RED. However, whenever I mention possibly buying in to a Red system, I have a friend who always say's "Drink the Kool-Aid, Drink the Kool-aid!" (reference to the Jonestown cult for those who don't remember). I think that was the way it was a few years ago, but less so now. This is a good thing.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

In my experience Dragon has slightly less DR than Alexa, which has about 14 stops.

My experience tells me otherwise. You're doing it wrong. And I'm also pretty sure you're trolling these forums since you never have anything but negative FUD to spread.

 

[Dunkan Wolf]

My experience tells me otherwise. You're doing it wrong. And I'm also pretty sure you're trolling these forums since you never have anything but negative FUD to spread.

Trolling? Not at all. I'm certainly not the only one who has come to the same conclusions.
I'm pretty sure you haven't read through all my posts. I love Red cameras. :- )

 

[Filip Orlandic]

Trolling? Not at all. I'm certainly not the only one who has come to the same conclusion as i have.
I'm pretty sure you haven't read through all my posts. I love Red cameras. :- )

Ha ha ha ha!!!

 

[luigivaltulini]

I'm not sure being an owner operator makes much sense at this end of the spectrum.
So many out there, driving the price down. Very hard to earn one's investment back unless they have arrived at a good client base - which takes time and experience in the profession. I'm just getting there and I don't think that the Alexa would be the right camera for every job.
Sometime a little C100 is just perfect and more than enough.

I also could definitely see being my own worst enemy. Choosing the wrong camera for a job simply because I own it.
In the end, making the kind of investment that people make here sometimes shifts ones focus too much toward the equipment and at this stage of the game I want to get back to the creativity. Less of a technician, more just a guy with something to say.
I appreciate the tools, but too much focus on them turns one into a craftsman rather than an artist.

One thing I want to say is that I come to Reduser now because I feel there has been a change here. Perhaps it's down to the moderation.
More maturity. I feel I am amongst professionals now who can carry on a conversation about the important things like making the right choice based upon the aesthetics of a project, not because they have bought into a system. Greater openness towards alternatives.

Dragon is probably the first camera from RED I would actually consider owning, because for me skin, better DR and a good highlight roll-off matter a great deal. Didn't find that with the previous generations from RED. However, whenever I mention possibly buying in to a Red system, I have a friend who always say's "Drink the Kool-Aid, Drink the Kool-aid!" (reference to the Jonestown cult for those who don't remember). I think that was the way it was a few years ago, but less so now. This is a good thing.

a good speech Clayton,
are partly agree with what you say.
It Reduser is a good tool for discussion, many people I contribute and help on anything. I like, I think it is the best forum.

hehe you said this is your US, I have a friend who always say's "Drink the Kool-Aid, Drink the Kool-aid!" (reference to the Jonestown cult For Those Who do not remember).
I think I have understood the meaning


However, in recent periods of work, 1 year now I can tell you that DRagon did many of my clients are happy, so much so that they prefer to Alexa. For me rent one or the other does not change anything.
But any change is mostly due to the color, the substance that give Dragon.
Epic vs Alexa was mainly due to this.

Clayton in post production I do not see a difference between XT and a DRagon in terms of dynamics, I can tell you that I see little more clean shadows Alexa Raw, but at the end of the grading difficult to distinguish ...
Then once in the WEB, can happen to everyone.

But if the question who has the most dynamic, always answer Dragon because in more as a tool has also HDRx and I can restore any items that interest me.

Clayton Dragon is a good choice now, for whatever reason. Although Dragon had only had 10 stops would be worth it.
You are an artist, and Dragon will make you happy.

BUT if you have $ 100,000, a good shoulder, a truck battery and you enjoy working hard then a nice XT for you:shocked:

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

a good speech Clayton,
are partly agree with what you say.
It Reduser is a good tool for discussion, many people I contribute and help on anything. I like, I think it is the best forum.

hehe you said this is your US, I have a friend who always say's "Drink the Kool-Aid, Drink the Kool-aid!" (reference to the Jonestown cult For Those Who do not remember).
I think I have understood the meaning


However, in recent periods of work, 1 year now I can tell you that DRagon did many of my clients are happy, so much so that they prefer to Alexa. For me rent one or the other does not change anything.
But any change is mostly due to the color, the substance that give Dragon.
Epic vs Alexa was mainly due to this.

Clayton in post production I do not see a difference between XT and a DRagon in terms of dynamics, I can tell you that I see little more clean shadows Alexa Raw, but at the end of the grading difficult to distinguish ...
Then once in the WEB, can happen to everyone.

But if the question who has the most dynamic, always answer Dragon because in more as a tool has also HDRx and I can restore any items that interest me.

Clayton Dragon is a good choice now, for whatever reason. Although Dragon had only had 10 stops would be worth it.
You are an artist, and Dragon will make you happy.

BUT if you have $ 100,000, a good shoulder, a truck battery and you enjoy working hard then a nice XT for you:shocked:

As I mentioned before, whether it is a Dragon, an Alexa or even a Sony F55, I would probably be happy with any of those cameras. In the grading suite they all deliver. I strongly suspect that the new Varicam is darn good as well. If I were thinking of being an owner operator though and had to make a choice between what camera was likely to hold it's value the longest, then my guess is that it would probably be the Alexa. Perhaps this is because it's the camera with the least amount of owner operator's ! :smiley: One thing is for sure, that's a camera that goes out every day from the rental houses and the kind of client it attracts have the budget to pay for it. Even with Dragon, I see many productions which try to lowball the camera team. So the Alexa seems like the wisest choice from an investment perspective. Now where did I put that extra $80,000....?

 

[luigivaltulini]

:smiley: One thing is for sure, that's a camera that goes out every day from the rental houses and the kind of client it attracts have the budget to pay for it.

Clayton,
This is the biggest problem ...
Today life is hectic and everyone is running and no time .. and even without money.
So it does not matter, or have an Alexa Dragon or F55.
The camera for the customer is always the last concern.
And find great customer becomes more and more difficult.
In recent years I have seen changes, before there were big jobs with big budget and so long, now there are so many works of low budget and small.
Our market has been pummeled by many small with small cameras at low cost. Today it is difficult to make people understand that for good work it takes an electrician, the DOP, the technician, the script, the makeup artist, ecceccecc ... and of course the costs rise.
So you have to survive and find solutions also independent.
However I can understand your state, it's hard to choose which camera now also because now they are quite good.
Why not throw a bit of money to get a good editing and color grading !! so you can unleash your artistic side to the "bottom" of the workflow!
I am sure that even if you offer in this package to the customer will be happy. Or in companies with a good colorist.

be only my personal opinion for this discussion then we can resume the DR

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

Clayton,
This is the biggest problem ...
Today life is hectic and everyone is running and no time .. and even without money.
So it does not matter, or have an Alexa Dragon or F55.
The camera for the customer is always the last concern.
And find great customer becomes more and more difficult.
In recent years I have seen changes, before there were big jobs with big budget and so long, now there are so many works of low budget and small.
Our market has been pummeled by many small with small cameras at low cost. Today it is difficult to make people understand that for good work it takes an electrician, the DOP, the technician, the script, the makeup artist, ecceccecc ... and of course the costs rise.
So you have to survive and find solutions also independent.
However I can understand your state, it's hard to choose which camera now also because now they are quite good.
Why not throw a bit of money to get a good editing and color grading !! so you can unleash your artistic side to the "bottom" of the workflow!
I am sure that even if you offer in this package to the customer will be happy. Or in companies with a good colorist.

be only my personal opinion for this discussion then we can resume the DR

Hi Luigi,
Actually the post production is handled. I have always done my own color grading, as well as worked for others on that front.
Using the right editor for the job is also important. It's like choosing a poet. Each of them has their own style.
However, when it comes to cameras, there is also another choice. Which is to buy none of them at all.
I don't feel a great pressing need to purchase. If I did it would only be so that I could shoot my own projects after it has been paid off by the clients.
But I don't think like rental houses and that's a good thing. If I do buy one, I would have to however.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I think the decision to purchase or not purchase a camera system is quite personal. There doesn't seem to be a one size fits all answer. Everyone's markets and clients appear to be different.

That said...many of my favorite DP's do own their own equipment, and it certainly seems to make them more versatile...and also seems to have helped them all grow professionally. Perhaps it's more of an NYC thing, where time/space are limited? And having your own system is an advantage?

Either way - it's horses for courses I suppose. Everyone needs to decide what works best for them!