Highest acceptable ISO for Weapon MG 6K

[Carlos Gonzalez]

Hello,

Even though I own a Weapon 6K, most of my experience is with the Alexa and the Varicam 35. Just trying to get feedback as to how high the ISO can be pushed before having to use NR in post. Would love to hear from power users.

Thanks!

 

[David Battistella]

Depends on how well lit the scene is and how light starved the sensor is.

You can have poorly lit 800 ISO look crappy and well lit 3200iso look good.

The threshold is actually up to you.

David

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

This is such a tough question to answer because it's hard to determine the light at your disposal. Are we talking about shooting into a dark room, or is there a little bit of ambience?

I used to comfortably rate my Weapon Dragon around 1280 - 1600 without much problem, and even pulled the ISO up to 2000 and 2500 in very specific scenarios where I felt the grain was still organic enough not to put through noise reduction. The thing is... that was still with material that was lightly lit, possibly by either shooting an LED panel at the ceiling to raise ambience and / or side lighting with a little kick. Never really one to attempt to shoot into a black abyss, but if you're well lit - you'll probably have success at most of the higher ISOs.

Though, call me weird - but I absolutely love shooting a little underexposed to bring the grain out in the footage. I don't know why I find it so pleasing. Sometimes clean images feel too static for my tastes. So, I usually start rating around 1280 on DSMC2 Dragon and try to keep it under 2000. All on the Standard OLPF, which doesn't seem to dance with as much red channel grain as the Skin Tone.

It's really weird, because I needed to learn a whole new set of rules to balance exposure for Helium and it's starting to replace that muscle-memory for working with DSMC2 Dragon footage. It's crazy how clean the sensor is at any ISO, and it's almost making me forget what Dragon looked like when rated a little too high.

Maybe someone with more experience will also chime in, as my tastes may be vastly different than others who prefer much cleaner looks. I'm also very fascinated on what you think is right, even though you're posing the question out to us !

 

[Marc Wielage]

Though, call me weird - but I absolutely love shooting a little underexposed to bring the grain out in the footage. I don't know why I find it so pleasing. Sometimes clean images feel too static for my tastes. So, I usually start rating around 1280 on DSMC2 Dragon and try to keep it under 2000. All on the Standard OLPF, which doesn't seem to dance with as much red channel grain as the Skin Tone.

My observation is that you can always degrade images in post and make them as grainy as you want. There's 100 different ways to add grain and noise in post. Tons of shows and features routinely add grain at the end to give it a kind of constant "organic" quality.

What we can't do is take an image that's a little bit too noisy and make it look absolutely pristine without compromise. I would always rather have a pristine image that we degrade, rather than try to salvage an image that's already way, way too noisy. I say, shoot at the recommended ISO and don't underexpose, but protect the highlights in a reasonable way and give us adequate fill.

 

[Bob Gundu]

I've shot on my MG footage at 2500 ISO using the Low Light OLPF. Again this all depend on the light available.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Somebody somewhere, in a recent post, explained the secret of getting good footage of dark scenes: have something bright in them. Was it Kubrik? Ridley Scott? In any case, I can attest to the fact that grain becomes annoying when there's not something else in the frame strong enough to take your attention away from it. A bright flashlight beam or glare is enough to make the blacks look black, instead of a noisy swirl of grain and noise. If you have enough true contrast in your scene (lights and darks that both have enough heft to calibrate the eye), you can get away with a lot. If everything is +/- 2 stops, the eye is going to get real picky really fast.

 

[Alex Bros]

Of course it's all subjective, but I did a shoot a couple months ago on my 6k Weapon shooting just 2k Prores (from 6kHD), RedwidegamutRGB/Log3g10 at 3200 ISO in a movie theatre with the only light source being the bounce off the projection screen, we were all amazed at how clean it was. Apertures of f2-2.8, standard OLPF.

http://stimulantonline.ca/2017/06/14/cineplex-helps-dads-share-reel-love/

(We had a couple kinos up for the interviews but just the projector for the B-roll of movie watching)

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

Prores is cleaner, but for raw:

Using std olpf 500-1600

Skin tone 250-640

 

[Bobby Farokhzad]

Of course it's all subjective, but I did a shoot a couple months ago on my 6k Weapon shooting just 2k Prores (from 6kHD), RedwidegamutRGB/Log3g10 at 3200 ISO in a movie theatre with the only light source being the bounce off the projection screen, we were all amazed at how clean it was. Apertures of f2-2.8, standard OLPF.

http://stimulantonline.ca/2017/06/14/cineplex-helps-dads-share-reel-love/

(We had a couple kinos up for the interviews but just the projector for the B-roll of movie watching)

When you shoot directly to Proes (or DNX for that matter) you bypass the entire Red Raw compression and all the noise associated with it... if you shoot ISO 3200 Raw on the Weapon you will see very visible noise. The Helium sensor handles noise much better than Dragon across the entire ISO range.

 

[Hal Long]

When you shoot directly to Proes (or DNX for that matter) you bypass the entire Red Raw compression and all the noise associated with it... if you shoot ISO 3200 Raw on the Weapon you will see very visible noise. The Helium sensor handles noise much better than Dragon across the entire ISO range.

But going to ProRes or DNX introduces its own compression noise/artifacts, no?

 

[Nick Morrison]

I think it all depends on how you light it. Some of these portrait shots are exposed 1600 ISO on Skintone, on a Carbon Weapon, and came out great:

http://www.smallgiant.tv/#/60-days-s2-character-spots/

But again, there was enough lighting here so sensor wasn't starved...which I think helped a lot.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

Always depends on the olpf, compression, light hitting the sensor, the environment, etc. So there isn't a set standard.

I shot a music video a couple days ago on my MG, std olpf, at 2000 iso-on a white cyc wall. Feel that noise was definitely suppressed with so much white in the shot. Typically on a standard olpf I don't go above 1600 iso. LLO is good up to 2000 at least, and haven't tried the sth yet.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

But going to ProRes or DNX introduces its own compression noise/artifacts, no?

Technically yes, but is way different than r3d's compression. In real world use, FROM CAMERA, prores is cleaner