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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 :)

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

Highlights that look blown out when you push the ISO (DR Spectrumv) they are more evident in colored sources (color science?), after putting in the new log3g12 color space, I could still see a very bad roll off and crunchy orange (on skin) and similar to the rear light of the car as seen in one of the videos posted my Jarred on Halloween

I'm just eager to check these shots again when the new color science comes out.the "doubt" is based on chain of promises. :)
 
Asif Limbada said:
Highlights that look blown out when you push the ISO (DR Spectrumv) they are more evident in colored sources (color science?), after putting in the new log3g12 color space, I could still see a very bad roll off and crunchy orange (on skin) and similar to the rear light of the car as seen in one of the videos posted my Jarred on Halloween

I'm just eager to check these shots again when the new color science comes out.the "doubt" is based on chain of promises. :)
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Yes, but I would not worry to much. Only if you need it perfect today.
 
Tristan Houghton said:
Jason, how are you handling your heighlights as I'm seeing a massive difference from dragon.

Even with widegamma and log310 I'm still getting oversaturated clipping in areas that Dragon would just eat up.

If I expose for protecting the highlights I'm pretty much rendering everything else severely underexposed in the frame. Is it just me or is the response to these highlights remind you of early digital?
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I exposed slightly to the right (0.5-1 stops), and then brought it back in post. I've been saying this ever since I got the camera, but Dragon definitely is better at highlight retention. After this shoot though, I thought that Helium wasn't as far off as I thought it was from the Dragon as I was able to bring some of those highlights back. I've been speaking with Graeme and he told me that "The coloured highlight stuff is just gamut clipping where we’re mapping the colours the camera can see to the colours the monitor wants without management. With the new processing I’m working on I have some very good management in place to deal with this." I'm planning to meet up with him soon to discuss more about the helium color.

Björn Benckert said:
So the only thing, I think, could have been done a bit differently is the release of helium, possibly RED could communicated all this a bit better. Simply saying the camera is in a quite early phase and things will improve those that want to jump on it please do, those that want to wait until it´s ready don't.
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I agree with this, as of now I feel like I'm using a beta cam. My question is, why not release the camera after it's working properly with the right color space? Dragon came to me working perfectly, this... not so much.
 
I truly believe Dragon is still better, this maybe great for shooters fascinated by low light The wait game never ends.
 
As of now I totally agree that Dragon is better, low light is great but I'm not an event shooter. I shoot in controlled environments and it's not a feature worth giving up highlights over IMHO
 
Jason Han said:
As of now I totally agree that Dragon is better, low light is great but I'm not an event shooter. I shoot in controlled environments and it's not a feature worth giving up highlights over IMHO
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I saw that you're selling it, you go back to Dragon?
 
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Jason Han said:
As of now I totally agree that Dragon is better, low light is great but I'm not an event shooter. I shoot in controlled environments and it's not a feature worth giving up highlights over IMHO
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To my experience it behaves quite similar to dragon. With two exceptions.

1. It´s more lights sensitive, so it clips earlier. Hence a lot of the highlight issues discussed here. But that to me is really a none issue, buy a built in / OLPF ND filter and you can shoot, and rate the camera just like your dragon.
2. As it´s more pixels and also as I find it, cleaner pixels in the dark end you got a wider DR that you can use. So simply even when you protect your highlights you still got good coverage in the low end.

Now with the highlights cracking up in different colors, looking like early iPhone model type footage it´s easy to think that, dragon or alexa is better. But the little I seen of the new colorscience tells me that when its done the choice between dragon and helium is a rather easy one to make.

So yes, at this stage I think judging for or against Helium is a bit like judging the bread before its even baked, but the dough looks rather promising i think.
 
Jason, I think your work is amazing and the frames posted here are very beautiful.
I saw on the Epic-W Facebook group that you wanted to revert your upgrade back to the Scarlet-W. Now I read you are going with Alexa.

You are of course free to do what you think it is best for you. And it won't matter to me in any way. So this is not a pro-red or else.

I just think you are a bit caught up in some missed expectations, and I recognize the same rush I myself had in the past. If I can extend an advice, why don't you have a bit more patience and wait a little longer to see what is good and bad on the camera? Maybe 8K is more valuable to you even if you have to pay attention to highlights, or maybe the low light is interesting in some scenarios. Or maybe even the cropped formats at 6K vs the scarlet-W . I am not sure, but I think sometime we all get caught in what the camera is not doing, instead of seeing the things that it is doing well. There is not one way only to shoot, and the camera is just a tool. Some tools are better used in certain ways than others.

I don't want to sound like an old uncle giving an advice, nether starting a long back and forth with all the other users. Just my 2 cents...:)
Again, your work is beautiful. And it won't matter to me what you shoot it with.
 
Björn Benckert said:
To my experience it behaves quite similar to dragon. With two exceptions.

1. It´s more lights sensitive, so it clips earlier. Hence a lot of the highlight issues discussed here. But that to me is really a none issue, buy a built in / OLPF ND filter and you can shoot, and rate the camera just like your dragon.
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So what you saying is the spectrum of DR is moved towards lowlight that clips highlights early. Wouldn't the claim of it being 2000 base ISO sensor would be based on the context that the highlights won't clip right? It's still retains the highlights at ISO800 just like Dragon, it's just beyond ISO 800 the clipping on highlights look worse than DRAGON.

So the pro is you can shoot lowlight and the con is just avoid practicals...until the color science surfaces, when we don't know yet as usual. Trust me I would be very pleased to see that I'm wrong, but if they can sell beta camera they should atleast support the buyers and give them the beta color science too in its various versions so we can track the progress.

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.
 
Alberto Guglielmi said:
Jason, I think your work is amazing and the frames posted here are very beautiful.
I saw on the Epic-W Facebook group that you wanted to revert your upgrade back to the Scarlet-W. Now I read you are going with Alexa.

You are of course free to do what you think it is best for you. And it won't matter to me in any way. So this is not a pro-red or else.

I just think you are a bit caught up in some missed expectations, and I recognize the same rush I myself had in the past. If I can extend an advice, why don't you have a bit more patience and wait a little longer to see what is good and bad on the camera? Maybe 8K is more valuable to you even if you have to pay attention to highlights, or maybe the low light is interesting in some scenarios. Or maybe even the cropped formats at 6K vs the scarlet-W . I am not sure, but I think sometime we all get caught in what the camera is not doing, instead of seeing the things that it is doing well. There is not one way only to shoot, and the camera is just a tool. Some tools are better used in certain ways than others.

I don't want to sound like an old uncle giving an advice, nether starting a long back and forth with all the other users. Just my 2 cents...:)
Again, your work is beautiful. And it won't matter to me what you shoot it with.
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But I agree with Jason, with the current color science you could not really use helium in a regular production. People would be pissed about the color rendition no matter of the other qualities. Simply people expect improvements on all fronts and that those improvements are there and installed on delivery. Personally I don't care much as I´m a sucker for the latest and greatest and would probably be very happy to have a Weapon VV 8k even if it could not even record a single frame... I would sit there and fiddle with it and think how great it will be when it actually works, while others would find the same situation as totally not acceptable. So some want a reliable workhorse and some just want to get what comming next but have it yesterday.
 
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.
 
Did you get your E-W yet, Chris? I saw you're selling the case.

Chris McKechnie said:
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.
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Bjorn I agree with you about the customers being annoyed that we have a camera not representing colour properly especially in skin tones at certain light levels and struggles with high contrast scenes, as I'm one of them. I was under the impression that my purchase of a Weapon Helium was a production ready camera and not still in development.
Having that much money tied up in a camera I'm too afraid to take out on set wasn't part of the deal and it has left me feeling extremely anxious.
 
Helium doesn't struggle with high contrast scenes. 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. 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
 
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