Introducing the Panavision DXL

[Mike P.]

Hey Michael, will LIColour and LIGamma be useable across all .r3d footage (e.g. In RCXp)? If so, how would it negatively affect non-DXL captured footy?

Can you tell us what you guys have tweaked in that department? In the annoucement vid, Ian made it seem like a solid 1-light right out of the gate (maybe not "better" than DC2/RG4, but different, with the intention of having a nicer transition to post.)

 

[Bill Totolo]

https://twitter.com/CineBill/status/738116338565140482

Strange seeing std rod config on a Panavision, guess they wanted maximum compatibility.

 

[Abiodun Shote]

Nice job! Now can't the color principle behind this be applied to other Red cams? I want to assume this is LI and Greame adding some sauce or pixie dust on the sensors. Can't it be propagated to other camera lines or this has to do with ASIC board level engineering?

 

[Russ Fill]

Someone needs to do a shootout with the Arri65 and this cam. :ihih:

Would love to see how they compare.

And the Weapon 8K.

The best part of this announcement is I have the same camera, or will soon and with out the weight, and wait, or cost.. Well if I could or even wanted to by one of them..

 

[Sabyasachi Patra]

What is the data rate? How many TBs per min or per hour?

First Arri 65 and now this. Finally there is a line drawn between big productions and indies.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Michael any chance you can clarify if PV mothballed their in house 65? They teased it for years now and I was really hoping the project would come to market. Not that I'm not excited about this news just more so curious cuz so few 65 digital units exist I can't even find used phantom 65s for sale anywhere

 

[Matthew Quinn]

holy fkn banana cakes.. news like this makes me even more proud to own Red Cams. fkn historic.

 

[Antony Newman]

If LI colour science is able to eek out extra Skin-Tone magic from the Raw 8K sensor data...

+) Is this colour science IP that RED will be able to License and build directly into a future Weapon FW upgrades (if there is enough fire-power in the DSMC2 body?)

+) Is there a new Panavision tweaked OLPF that is more 'goldilocks that the STH, loosing an additional stop of DR to help control saturation anomalies?

Either way - this looks like an incredibly polished solution that should inspire confidence from industry veterans.

AJ

Update 1:
[Ian Vertovec] "We profile the cameras and build color adjustments in the widest possible color space. Then that adjustment is embedded in the RED SDK. This way we work off the raw data and you can still output to rec. 2020, ACES, etc, and still maintain all the original camera latitude. And since it is embedded in the RED SDK, it's available in any software that supports RED.

The .r3d's the DXL creates will have special meta data that only makes LI color available with DXL media. We are also planning on building our own OLPF and IR filter built to Panavision optical standards, so it really will be a completely different looking camera, but with all of the amazing advantages of Redcode and the 8K sensor."

Update 2
"On the user side, it will work the same way "DragonColor" and "DragonColor2" work now. You just select "Light Iron Color" instead. So it should be totally seamless to the way you use .r3d's now. Under the hood, we are doing quite a few unique things to create most cinematic off-the-shelf color possible. I won't go into details on exactly how, but our top priority is good, clean skin tone and rich, vibrant saturated colors and not plastic or electric-looking colors. We are not creating a look, but a rich, cinematic starting point to create a look. Come to CineGear if you want to see it! I also want to make sure this isn't framed as a "DragonColor" vs. "Light Iron Color" conversation. We've worked on footage from all the major cameras and everyone handles the same problems in slightly different ways (skin tone, IR cut, gamut remapping, etc..). So Light Iron color is really a little bit of what we've observed from the market in general, plus A LOT of input from many, many cinematographers over the years on what they love and don't love from all the images they've made."

 

[Ethan Cooper]

Michael any chance you can clarify if PV mothballed their in house 65? They teased it for years now and I was really hoping the project would come to market. Not that I'm not excited about this news just more so curious cuz so few 65 digital units exist I can't even find used phantom 65s for sale anywhere

Last week in Dallas I was listening to a panel discussion & a Panavision guy (not sure who, I don't play in that stratosphere) indicated that they have stopped development of a new camera platform they messed with for a while. I'm assuming that might be related to your question.

 

[Mike S. M.]

Well, if it is of any consolation, Panavision only RENTS their equipment and makes sure (like the GENESIS, which is based on a SONY 900) that all innovations/additions/modifications that they make to any camera and put their name on, is proprietary.

Misinformation behold! The Genesis has nothing to do with the F900. The F900 was a 2/3" broadcast camera with 24p. The Genesis has a S35 sensor with more pixels than the Red MX sensor. It was fully built for cinema.

 

[Mike S. M.]

You guys ever see that Side by Side doc that Keanu did? Remember the part where Fincher is talking so much shit about how crap the Panavision Genesis was? He's probably silently smiling to himself right now (and/or maybe a little annoyed that his production had to pay to make the xenomorph).

His complain had nothing to do with the image quality of the Genesis. He was talking about the workflow. He didn't like the tape workflow, which Panavision changed to solid state soon after the camera's release. So your remark that Fincher was talking so much shit about how crap the Panavision Genesis was, well, is wrong. He was complaining specially that he couldn't watch playback of the real material because Panavision warned him tape could degrade. Again, it had nothing to do with the image quality, which you make sound like it did.

 

[Mike S. M.]

makes sense to me, panavision has always had panavised versions of almost very leading industry camera, its' really a great move for both parties. better red then sony again, boy was that a mistake.

Why was that a mistake? The Genesis was the most commercially successful digital cinema camera till the Alexa showed up.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Why was that a mistake? The Genesis was the most commercially successful digital cinema camera till the Alexa showed up.

Was it? I remember Red really brought digital on a totally new level when the first Red One came out. At least here in Sweden it seems the entire industry of commercials went over to digital the second the Red One were somewhat stable (built 16).

 

[Simon Dunne]

-Light Iron founded
-Outpost and Lilypad designed and produced
-On set data standardised
-Panavision come in for the standardisation and data workflow knowledge
-Design the DXL with Red
-Offer the complete camera package
-End to end workflow is now 1 step closer to being standardised

As for light iron, the biggest 'complaint' you hear about red from those that don't understand RAW, is colour and skin tones etc. My guess is light iron have made the colour logs built in, so on set, you get the same look as film to appease the DoP's that don't know about RAW and prefer the 'look' of Alexa. Then you go back to post with the RAW....cheeky

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Jesus Christos, next thing you know RED was developing large format 70mm camera for Panavision the whole time! Honestly I'd not be surprised to wake up in the morning to the news.

 

[Christopher Probst]

One reality check....

I love how all of the people hating on Red are suddenly professing this is the best camera ever... It's a fucking Red Weapon! The raw file is still exactly the same. Applying a LI "LUT" does not fundamentally change the characteristics of the Dragon sensor.

The Millennium DXL camera is partially the result of the steps taken with NHK's 8K broadcast version of the Weapon, Fincher's Xenomorph specs and Panavision's own check-list of desires. And it's a beauty for sure!

Congrats to all, and I for one am gladdened that more tentative cinematographers are going to be duped into the Red workflow unbeknownst to them due to some clever marketing. It only helps the Red cause, and that's a good thing.

 

[Brian F Kobylarz]

Some clarifications (if I'm not having a senior moment)...

The Panavision modified F900 was introduced about 20 years ago for Attack of the Clones. Prior to the film coming out, SONY gave us an advance look at some of the footage and the capabilities at an off-site showing at NAB. They zoomed the digital pic split screened with film to demonstrate when the image degraded.
Mechanically, the front plate of the F900 was reinforced and modified to work with the PRIMO glass.
They also installed a different optical filter to bring the look closer to film emulsions.

However, not all PRIMO's would work due to the rear element hitting the prism block. Optical adapters tried resulted in spherical aberrations that were unacceptable. The switch was made to other manufacturers. Zeiss was one of them.

Lucas moved on to the SONY F950 for his next SW project . The switch to digital was on.


The only relationship between the Panavized F900 and the Genesis that I can think of is that Panavision switched their inventory to Genesis, retiring the F900's.

 

[Adrian Weinbrecht]

It looks like everyone loves this new camera...........

Maybe it's time to organise another Reduser group buy ? ��

 

[Gene Sung]

It looks like everyone loves this new camera...........

Maybe it's time to organise another Reduser group buy ? ��

If we can get 10 people, PV might knock off $500, hit 20, maybe $1000? :smiley:

 

[Demetri Zuev]

If we can get 10 people, PV might knock off $500, hit 20, maybe $1000? :smiley:

Off a day rate