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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 :)

Hexolux Color Rendering - Dragon R3D's

I'm wondering though if the D7 being dimmed to 70% causes this color shift. Is it still the same when at 100% output?

It would be a shame if the dimming does impact the color because they tout f-stop dimming, which sounds like a very cool idea and one of those things that makes you wonder why it hasn't been done before now.
 
..
The Fiilex Q-500 is a neat product - different from the Hexolux. ... The focus control and output is no where near the Hexolux ...

That was a very useful information, thanks a lot, ZEB. If a source has no spikes in the spectrum, the color and intensity can be adjusted to a certain degree, but the light itself (evenness, size, falloff on the sides of the beam, focus etc) is a unique quality. I wish we would have an area for lights like we have for lenses here (SALT). It certainly is one of the main areas to affect the sensor -- the image.
 
The D7 is more like 5200k. I had one and compared it to my Skylux which is 5600k. After white card balance they were identical to my eye.
 
I agree with the others, the T7 looks better and renders more accurate colors. At least in my opinion.

I'm wondering though if the D7 being dimmed to 70% causes this color shift. Is it still the same when at 100% output?

Official paraphrased response from the Engineering Gurus at Hexolux:
It is negligible - you can measure it on the MK350, but it is a very slight shift. I don’t expect it to even be detectable in normal color workflows.

I will shoot the chart next week to check for color shift on both the D7 and T7 when I get back from my travels. I also want to know how many T-stops we have for dimming range. Would be handy to work up an EV chart like:

100% = EV 0
80% = EV -1
50% = EV - 2
30% = EV -3
10% = EV -4

If there is a 4-5 stop range (via dimmer - not focusing) in these lights I would be pleasantly surprised. Most likely 3ish. Dimming T-stop EV range might also be affected by focus setting . . . mind not working 100% right now. Long day and strong cocktails here at The Redbury
 
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Hey Les,
Nice work!...The Fiilex Q-500 is a neat product - different from the Hexolux...

Thanks ZEB, looked a bit further into it and the Hexolux do look like they'd be the better option, for me anyway.

Another group buy would be tempting.
 
I didn't realize Hexolux are full spectrum, so I PM'ed Pete about offering Plasma light engine.

How did they achieve no spikes with LED technology?
 
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Hi Billy Jim,

The phosphors over the LED convert the frequency of light. Its a matter of doing a lot more work tuning many phosphors to achieve this high color rendition.
 
There's certainly a shift. I can't say if it's the dragon sensor or the light since I don't have either to really tear into and test. Also unfortunately Nuke doesn't support Dragon yet, so I can't use a real linear-light surgeon like Nuke to build try and reverse engineer a LUT to precisely figure out what's going on. Here is my intuition though from looking at it in RCX.

1st up, just to get this out of the way, a large part of the reason why you're seeing such a shift in color on your cambook is because your light moved. Once the lighting changes everything is up for grabs. :D It's not really darker because of any complex color science so much as the top of your test chart is literally darker in shadow. So that makes everything on the test chart pretty much impossible to evaluate.

I would expect the closest match at the Hexolux "correct" values of 5300/3200. But if I clear out the RAW settings and try to debayer at 5300/3200 I see some red starvation in the daylight and some green starvation in the tungsten. (both are yellow tinted pretty strongly). Once you're red or green starved all of the color science is going to be off from there. So the question is, is the slightly color starvation a sensor anomaly or a CRI issue. That I can't answer without trying a few different lights under more controlled conditions. I'm inclined to say the slight shifts in neutrality are color science related not light related. Most useful though would be to redo the test with a bit more control. In a perfect world there would be a perfectly neutral set of polarizing film for the light and a really high quality linear pol on the lens to eliminate all specular highlights but just better controlling your consistency would be a good first step. When compositing the first thing I always look for are analagous neutral samples and you have that in the edge of the cambook which is medium gray but is very dark in one test but relatively bright in another. Once you run it through REDGamma those slight variations in luminance are going to be magnified from the S curve. If I match the luminance on the top of the chart (where red is) I see very similar saturation. If turn off the gain on the top of the chart the colors darken and as you would expect by definition will increase in saturation.

Primaries are very very sensitive to exposure. Take this for a thought experiment and it's easy to see why. If you have RED you have R: 1.0 G: 0.1 B: 0.1 If you want to increase brightness one stop you would technically end up with 2.0, 0.2,0.2 but since we clamp to 1.0 for display what you actually get is RGB 1.0, 0.2, 0.2 You've halved your saturation. Things get even more extreme once it gets run through a gamma curve.

EDIT: Oh yeah, also the lens might be tinting as well. I don't know what the Leica glass shifts towards, but it will have its own filtration effects. And those effects will be perceived differently with different white balances at the sensor. If I were to reshoot these tests to really test the lights reshoot with a very controlled light and chart and then one with a daylight filter on the lens. Then your entire camera variable should be eliminated. (assuming your daylight filter is dependable.)
 
There's certainly a shift. I can't say if it's the dragon sensor or the light since I don't have either to really tear into and test. Also unfortunately Nuke doesn't support Dragon yet, so I can't use a real linear-light surgeon like Nuke to build try and reverse engineer a LUT to precisely figure out what's going on. Here is my intuition though from looking at it in RCX.

1st up, just to get this out of the way, a large part of the reason why you're seeing such a shift in color on your cambook is because your light moved. Once the lighting changes everything is up for grabs. :D It's not really darker because of any complex color science so much as the top of your test chart is literally darker in shadow. So that makes everything on the test chart pretty much impossible to evaluate.

I would expect the closest match at the Hexolux "correct" values of 5300/3200. But if I clear out the RAW settings and try to debayer at 5300/3200 I see some red starvation in the daylight and some green starvation in the tungsten. (both are yellow tinted pretty strongly). Once you're red or green starved all of the color science is going to be off from there. So the question is, is the slightly color starvation a sensor anomaly or a CRI issue. That I can't answer without trying a few different lights under more controlled conditions. I'm inclined to say the slight shifts in neutrality are color science related not light related. Most useful though would be to redo the test with a bit more control. In a perfect world there would be a perfectly neutral set of polarizing film for the light and a really high quality linear pol on the lens to eliminate all specular highlights but just better controlling your consistency would be a good first step. When compositing the first thing I always look for are analagous neutral samples and you have that in the edge of the cambook which is medium gray but is very dark in one test but relatively bright in another. Once you run it through REDGamma those slight variations in luminance are going to be magnified from the S curve. If I match the luminance on the top of the chart (where red is) I see very similar saturation. If turn off the gain on the top of the chart the colors darken and as you would expect by definition will increase in saturation.

Primaries are very very sensitive to exposure. Take this for a thought experiment and it's easy to see why. If you have RED you have R: 1.0 G: 0.1 B: 0.1 If you want to increase brightness one stop you would technically end up with 2.0, 0.2,0.2 but since we clamp to 1.0 for display what you actually get is RGB 1.0, 0.2, 0.2 You've halved your saturation. Things get even more extreme once it gets run through a gamma curve.

Will redo test adding HID and Tungsten while trying to control the light distribution more bettah. No easy since they all will have different light modifiers. Thank you for the insight
 
Nice test Zeb, hats off.

I won't make any definite statements related to light alone with few variables combined (new sensor + new color science + new light) but few quick general impressions. I started from DC and RG4 exported from RCX without WB.

From first impressions both look nice, I prefer tungsten. With daylight I started with 5300K and 5600K routes and it does seem to be closer to 5300 as said.
Daylight has a slight bump in green-yellow region but I was able to correct it relatively easily and also nicely match 5300K and 5600K exported grabs.

I don't see anything problematic from these examples - from what can be deducted based on these grabs alone.
For more objective analysis other light sources as a reference with same exposure would be helpful.




I had the scene for dinner last night and in a smoothie this morning ;-)

Hope you at least steamed that chart first. Magentas can get hard to digest.
 
Yesterday, yet another friend of mine to whom I have loaned my D7's, struggled mixing with kinos and hmi.
Unfortunately, I rarely shoot with just a couple of projectors (happy, then, with my 2 Hexo D7). More often I'm playing with many, different lights. And as much as I love Hexolux fixtures, I find myself using them less and less on set because I don't know how to gel them.
Do you??
HMI and Kinos are more in the 6000k and Hexo more in the 5200k. That would be a simple 1/4 CT correction. But, what gel then for the "lesser blue component" on the Hexo?
I imagine some blue color gel would do. But there are hundreds.. And I'm not sure I want to buy dozens and dozens of different sheets not knowing where I'll go.
Thanks for helping
 
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