Helium weird bokeh / clipped highlights (RED tech please look at this)

[Graeme Nattress]

Graeme - what are we looking at in terms of an ETA on the helium color science being ready? Even if it's not in it's final state, I'm guessing wherever it is now would be better than what we are currently using - dragon color science on a helium sensor.

Each camera, sensor and OLPF combination has it's own colour science and that is always done way ahead of camera launch. What, for the very most part, you're seeing is the differences in how you expose for the smaller higher sensitivity lower noise pixel as compared to the larger Dragon pixel you're more used to. Out of gamut colours are a different issue entirely and there's two ways to deal with them - 1) use older RC2, RC3 or DC rather than DC2 (or even the new REDWideGamutRGB), or wait for the full solution that is coming as part of the new image processing pipe (note not new CS - CS is calibration and alignment not raw development) that brings in a whole range of improvements to the image.

Graeme

 

[Chris McKechnie]

Each camera, sensor and OLPF combination has it's own colour science and that is always done way ahead of camera launch. What, for the very most part, you're seeing is the differences in how you expose for the smaller higher sensitivity lower noise pixel as compared to the larger Dragon pixel you're more used to. Out of gamut colours are a different issue entirely and there's two ways to deal with them - 1) use older RC2, RC3 or DC rather than DC2 (or even the new REDWideGamutRGB), or wait for the full solution that is coming as part of the new image processing pipe (note not new CS - CS is calibration and alignment not raw development) that brings in a whole range of improvements to the image.

Graeme

Thanks so much sir! Can't wait for the full solution! In the meantime...I'm not seeing RWG under any options in camera.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

RWG will be coming to the camera, but it's not like you're going to normally be viewing it as it's very wide and undersaturated. But it forms the base for the new pipe processing, so it's important.

Graeme

 

[Chris McKechnie]

RWG will be coming to the camera, but it's not like you're going to normally be viewing it as it's very wide and undersaturated. But it forms the base for the new pipe processing, so it's important.

Graeme

Yea...I'd apply a monitor LUT to fix that hehe

 

[Stacey Spears]

Meanwhile, shouldn't someone be improving the color science specific to DRAGON and try to make the roll offs better (since that's what is being claimed) since so many of us have DRAGON. A tried and tested sensor which everyone still use and love. I'm sorry I'm not buying any of this.

The new color science should improve all Red cameras. RWG is, as Graeme has reported, to normalize all sensors into one space.

 

[Alberto Guglielmi]

Helium needs to be exposed differently to our other cameras that have larger pixels. Helium is very sensitive and has very low noise, so you have to expose for a higher ISO to get the highlight protection you want.
Graeme

Hey Graeme,
from your point of view, what do you suggest the base ISO of the helium to be (with Standard OLPF)?

 

[Chris McKechnie]

Anyone know how to get LUTS off the mag? I load a mag with LUTS and I can't import them or add them to the camera. What's the folder structure needed on the root of the mag? I've tried \luts with no avail.

 

[Dan Kanes]

luts is the correct folder, but not all LUTS are ready for the camera.

I've found that for instance an Arri compatible LUT to go in, it has to be an "IRIDAS" Compatible .cube

I forget how the headers are set up in the LUT - you may be able to convert alternative LUT formats to the correct format using LATTICE (but I can't guarantee that)

https://lattice.videovillage.co/

 

[Tristan Houghton]

Graeme I would disagree with you about the sensor being able to handle high contrast scenes.

I have performed tests at 1600iso and find that even if you expose to protect your highlights anything even remotely close to clipping oversaturates and looses detail. To protect those highlights you have to underexpose the rest of the scene which results in a loss of colour fidelity in the rest of the image. I'm also finding it hard to even believe the histogram and traffic lights as i'm getting clipping in some shots which I can see in the RAW and when I check these tools it's not even triggering the traffic lights.

For me this is not a desirable characteristic at all.

I have a few examples I'm more then happy (actually wanting) to send you to get your feedback on because if I was missing something I would love to know as I want to love this camera but i'm finding it extremely hard to do so.

Cheers

 

[Kenneth C Merrill]

Graeme I would disagree with you about the sensor being able to handle high contrast scenes.

I have performed tests at 1600iso and find that even if you expose to protect your highlights anything even remotely close to clipping oversaturates and looses detail. To protect those highlights you have to underexpose the rest of the scene which results in a loss of colour fidelity in the rest of the image. I'm also finding it hard to even believe the histogram and traffic lights as i'm getting clipping in some shots which I can see in the RAW and when I check these tools it's not even triggering the traffic lights.

For me this is not a desirable characteristic at all.

I have a few examples I'm more then happy (actually wanting) to send you to get your feedback on because if I was missing something I would love to know as I want to love this camera but i'm finding it extremely hard to do so.

Cheers

This is disheartening to hear. And call my cynical, but I have a hard time being optimistic about a miraculous change with the new raw-processing.

 

[jussi rovanpera]

Most comments here are about the highlights, and clipping them. A saturated color is both highlights and shadows - some rgb color channels are bright and others are dark, and that difference is the saturation. So you can "clip" a saturated color without clipping highlighs.

In the attached photo you can see how the dragoncolor2 is crushing the red and green shadows, while the highlights are quite similar.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Helium doesn't struggle with high contrast scenes.... As we see in this and other threads, out of gamut colours are an increasing issue as more and more light sources are monochromatic like LEDs and produce colours far beyond most displays can see.This can be addressed now by picking DC rather than DC2 or working with the new REDWideGamut.

Graeme

We are experiencing this also with the Dragon sensor, albeit not as pronounced. DC does a much better job than DC2 in this regard. It's a know issue since 2 years, with magenta coloured light. Personally I don't care much because I use DC for all my stuff and don't use DC2, got bitten once. The problem some may have is that DC2 with the "2" added seems to be market as the "better" colour science. Obviously it's not. IMHO, in Red's colour sciences portfolio there are too many choices.

Aces, linear workflows, Rec-2020 etc... are in their infancy. On the postproduction side most of this is not understood by the vast majority, and to be fair only a small portion of the market needs a wider gamut than video anyway. These developments are not easy to understand. As a result the vendors of cameras and postproduction solutions work hard to implement workflows that don't need a deeper understanding in CS but will lead to the right result.

ADSK for instance implement an automatic CS workflow in their lastest FFS versions. But to be fair its a big step but not done fully. Still a lot of room left for further improvements. Same applies for camera CS.

I don't have a Helium sensor camera to my disposal but from it's specs it seems to be a good step in the right direction. Without any practical experience and only educated by this thread the public release of Helium seems to be a bit early to me.



Hans

 

[Sabovic Adis]

Graeme I would disagree with you about the sensor being able to handle high contrast scenes.

I have performed tests at 1600iso and find that even if you expose to protect your highlights anything even remotely close to clipping oversaturates and looses detail. To protect those highlights you have to underexpose the rest of the scene which results in a loss of colour fidelity in the rest of the image. I'm also finding it hard to even believe the histogram and traffic lights as i'm getting clipping in some shots which I can see in the RAW and when I check these tools it's not even triggering the traffic lights.

For me this is not a desirable characteristic at all.

I have a few examples I'm more then happy (actually wanting) to send you to get your feedback on because if I was missing something I would love to know as I want to love this camera but i'm finding it extremely hard to do so.

Cheers

You mean when viewed on monitor, during recording? Using what gamma space?

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I have performed tests at 1600iso and find that even if you expose to protect your highlights anything even remotely close to clipping oversaturates and looses detail.

Which gamma and gamut ?

 

[Nick Morrison]

Graeme I would disagree with you about the sensor being able to handle high contrast scenes.

I have performed tests at 1600iso and find that even if you expose to protect your highlights anything even remotely close to clipping oversaturates and looses detail. To protect those highlights you have to underexpose the rest of the scene which results in a loss of colour fidelity in the rest of the image. I'm also finding it hard to even believe the histogram and traffic lights as i'm getting clipping in some shots which I can see in the RAW and when I check these tools it's not even triggering the traffic lights.

For me this is not a desirable characteristic at all.

I have a few examples I'm more then happy (actually wanting) to send you to get your feedback on because if I was missing something I would love to know as I want to love this camera but i'm finding it extremely hard to do so.

Cheers

I wonder if new color science will address.

 

[Tristan Houghton]

Monitoring has been in Dragoncolour and redgamma3, then check raw viewer and still no warning from traffic lights. I have them used the "video" tool to look at middle grey and check for highlights visually represented with yellow/orange/red.

I then have been viewing in redwidegammut and log3g10 and adding contrast and saturation via slider and then from there a very slight s-curve.

I'll post a couple of r3d's today

 

[Björn Benckert]

Monitoring has been in Dragoncolour and redgamma3, then check raw viewer and still no warning from traffic lights. I have them used the "video" tool to look at middle grey and check for highlights visually represented with yellow/orange/red.

I then have been viewing in redwidegammut and log3g10 and adding contrast and saturation via slider and then from there a very slight s-curve.

I'll post a couple of r3d's today

Just wait for it.

 

[Sabovic Adis]

Monitoring has been in Dragoncolour and redgamma3, then check raw viewer and still no warning from traffic lights. I have them used the "video" tool to look at middle grey and check for highlights visually represented with yellow/orange/red.

I then have been viewing in redwidegammut and log3g10 and adding contrast and saturation via slider and then from there a very slight s-curve.

I'll post a couple of r3d's today

I asked that question because the "general recommendation" is not to use monitor for exposing purposes. It's better to use light-meter, to light and expose for sensor, properly (I don't know what the ISO or EI recommendation for Helium is, but let's say it's 2000), than to use the monitor for same purpose, because it's brightness, contrast, saturation not to mention gamma, color space etc. can all be set differently and could mislead You to light and expose wrongly.

It's all in "development" (post) anyways...given the recording is done correctly. :biggrin:

 

[Tristan Houghton]

I have used all of reds tools with Dragon and never experienced this before so why would this be so different? why would reds own tools suddenly be any less accurate?

I was checking these exposures in raw mode before rolling too.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I asked that question because the "general recommendation" is not to use monitor for exposing purposes. It's better to use light-meter, to light and expose for sensor, properly (I don't know what the ISO or EI recommendation for Helium is, but let's say it's 2000), than to use the monitor for same purpose, because it's brightness, contrast, saturation not to mention gamma, color space etc. can all be set differently and could mislead You to light and expose wrongly.

It's all in "development" (post) anyways...given the recording is done correctly. :biggrin:

Yes but even if you record it properly, and nothing clips, if you don't have the right color science...you won't know for sure.

Right now Dragon Color seems to be making some Helium colors and highlights "bleed" or "distort" in a way that, probably, won't be the case once Helium color is released.