Good bye old EPIC MX. I bid you farewell.

[paul schefz]

Hi Nick.
I only shoot at 800iso at night. I do see noise in the darkest of blacks in underexposed areas. Only if I try to push for more information.
i shoot everything else at 250iso. Noiseless , clean and smooth.
I do hear of people havering noise issues. But I'm not... Mind you I am a big advocate of shooting at 250.
I know of a lot of DP's ( that call me) with noise issues. Once I see the way they shoot I can quickly see the problem. Most shoot at 800 and float there histogram in the middle of the graph. In doing that they are technically shooting at 1600 to 3200 ISO. 1 and 2 stops under.
My advice is to push your histogram to the top of the graph but don't let the traffic lights come on. Just touch them then pull back at touch. Remember shoot at 250iso.
Live by these simple rules and you will never clip and you will be pretty much noise free.

People will disagree , but hey... Im
getting the results.

so you are shooting epic at 250 and dragon at 250 as well? the dragon announcement was something like if you are shooting epic at 800, you will shoot dragon at 2000....just as clean.....
still waiting for my dragon upgrade but everything i have seen so far is noisier then i would like....and at lower iso then i am shooting my epic now....

 

[Mark Toia]

so you are shooting epic at 250 and dragon at 250 as well? the dragon announcement was something like if you are shooting epic at 800, you will shoot dragon at 2000....just as clean.....
still waiting for my dragon upgrade but everything i have seen so far is noisier then i would like....and at lower iso then i am shooting my epic now....

Well... My exposure tests with the early beta DRAGON was very good... if anything my current DRAGON is slightly better again.
https://vimeo.com/71666317

All these noise issues are coming down to the way people expose. Why am I getting clean results and others are not ?
1600iso (exposed correctly) looks like the MX at 800 iso. Dragon easily has another stop up its sleeve in the blacks.

My dragon is the same as everyone else's.

PS. I shot my EPIC MX at 320 not 250

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

I've only had my Dragon since last week but have been bashing on it a bit, and it's fantastic. The latitude is stupid good!

What I found works for me is that I shoot it pretty much the same way that I shot my MX, keeping it in the 320-800 range. 320 for lowlight, up to 800 on brighter days. I frequently like to shoot at 500 on a typically bright day because that lets me push a couple of stops in each direction, if needed. For everything else, there's lights and faster lenses.

My exposure selection actually hasn't changed too much at all - what has changed is the purity of the image and the remarkable latitude that I have to play with.

I think when we see these charts which show a broader range of useable blacks, we assume it means the ISO sweet spot will shift 3 stops - and that's not what it means at all, at least that's not how I'm seeing it play out in how I expose Dragon. I pretty much expose it quite similarly to MX - but with much better results.

Which translates to more detail, finer grain structure, more available info in the RAW file, and less noise if I screw the exposure up.

I'm going to run some Toia tests at 250 and see if that changes my thinking - Mark, I know you were shooting your MX at a baseline of 320 - is there a reason you modified this practice to 250 with Dragon? - just curious about whether there was something in particular which changed your mind or caused you to make this modification.

 

[Mark Toia]

I'm going to run some Toia tests at 250 and see if that changes my thinking - Mark, I know you were shooting your MX at a baseline of 320 - is there a reason you modified this practice to 250 with Dragon? - just curious about whether there was something in particular which changed your mind or caused you to make this modification.

320-500iso for the MX was about as low as I could go safely , as I did not really like the high light clipping roll off on the MX and also it got noisey to quickly when you pushed pass anything over 800 ISO. Noise was not really acceptable for me. I only live with noise when I have no choice.
Dragon sensor has a far better highlight roll off and a stop more headroom room ... So I'll take that extra room and have now moved from 320 to 250. I hate loading up filters as well, so I'm even happier about that.
I've never used the Epic like a digital camera. I try to use it like a film camera. I respect the latitude of the sensor the same way I respected film latitude. If the can of film had 250asa on the side of it. Then that's what it was... Why push it or pull past that figure.
In this case Dragon (To me) is 250-320 ISO. I seldom venture of those marks unless forced to by low light. Which is the same way I used to shoot film. Lucky for us all the Dragon has a few more extra stops to play with over film. But why push the friendship.
Saying all that. I will open up the ISO to 2000 at maximum. Which is sort of push processing in camera by 3 stops.

 

[paul schefz]

Well... My exposure tests with the early beta DRAGON was very good... if anything my current DRAGON is slightly better again.
https://vimeo.com/71666317

All these noise issues are coming down to the way people expose. Why am I getting clean results and others are not ?
1600iso (exposed correctly) looks like the MX at 800 iso. Dragon easily has another stop up its sleeve in the blacks.

My dragon is the same as everyone else's.

PS. I shot my EPIC MX at 320 not 250

i think i understand now....epic at 320 is much cleaner then at 800, IMO highlights clip a tad sooner but shadows are much cleaner......with dragon things stay pretty much the same, but highlights clip a little later, roll off better and there is more in the shadows to dig out? and of course the extra resolution helps as well...
i have to say that i have seen some dragon raw footage shot at 320 and well exposed and the noise was quite a bit worse then epic at 320 (well exposed).....i am assuming that is why you are actually going to 250 with dragon and keeping the histogram balanced/leaning a bit right because of less noise and (when in doubt) you would rather live with clipped highlights that roll of better (with dragon)?
i have no problem clipping highlights if i have to.....especially if the other option is muddy/mushy/unsavable shadows....
sorry, i did not mean to turn this post into this but the more footage i see coming from dragon, the less i am convinced that the upgrade is worth it to me.....this way of looking at it is putting dragon in a more positive light again for me....

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

320-500iso for the MX was about as low as I could go safely , as I did not really like the high light clipping roll off on the MX and also it got noisey to quickly when you pushed pass anything over 800 ISO. Noise was not really acceptable for me. I only live with noise when I have no choice.
Dragon sensor has a far better highlight roll off and a stop more headroom room ... So I'll take that extra room and have now moved from 320 to 250. I hate loading up filters as well, so I'm even happier about that.
I've never used the Epic like a digital camera. I try to use it like a film camera. I respect the latitude of the sensor the same way I respected film latitude. If the can of film had 250asa on the side of it. Then that's what it was... Why push it or pull past that figure.
In this case Dragon (To me) is 250-320 ISO. I seldom venture of those marks unless forced to by low light. Which is the same way I used to shoot film. Lucky for us all the Dragon has a few more extra stops to play with over film. But why push the friendship.
Saying all that. I will open up the ISO to 2000 at maximum. Which is sort of push processing in camera by 3 stops.

good, good. helpful. thanks. I enjoy your perceptions, they always shift mine a degree or two, and that can re-shuffle my thinking in a positive way.

 

[Mark Toia]

i have to say that i have seen some dragon raw footage shot at 320 and well exposed and the noise was quite a bit worse then epic at 320 (well exposed).....i am assuming that is why you are actually going to 250 with dragon

I'd like to see the R3D's for these shots your talking about Paul. My Dragon kicks my MX's arse in the noise department. So much so that I cannot even use my MX's anymore.
Do you have these DRAGON / MX shots handy. Can you post the R3D's for me. I'm sure somethings going on with your camera as may need fixing. I can still shoot 800iso and get much better results over the MX at the same ISO.

 

[Jack Shanahan]

GREAT shooting. GREAT editing.

 

[paul schefz]

I'd like to see the R3D's for these shots your talking about Paul. My Dragon kicks my MX's arse in the noise department. So much so that I cannot even use my MX's anymore.
Do you have these DRAGON / MX shots handy. Can you post the R3D's for me. I'm sure somethings going on with your camera as may need fixing. I can still shoot 800iso and get much better results over the MX at the same ISO.

i don't have dragon yet, so i am relying on any bit of footage i can find....
look at this thread:
DRAGON vs EPIC MX Noise - NOT GOOD

 

[Keith_D]

Wonderful work Mark and always helpful advice. Thank you!

 

[Brian Pascale]

Great shots, great editing and a lovely piece of music. Thinking I need to put together a set of fast lens. What do you think of the Sigma Art series?

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Well Mark... With MX you got great shots... With Dragon you'll get great/er shots yet...