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Is Helium really better? A Dragon owner is asking

Bruce Schultz

Bruce Schultz

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I'm in the last stages of deciding whether to upgrade from Dragon to Epic-W Helium. My main concern is, and always has been that the Helium sensor has so many more pixels which for me translates into smaller photosites to collect light - so how is the Helium low light sensitivity? Can the Helium compete in low light situations with Alexa, Dragon, & Weapon with so many smaller photosites? I've read a few threads about it having less highlight rolloff than Dragon, Alexa or Weapon but what about noise in the shadows with the Helium vs the others? Or, has this paradigm changed with newer technology and is no longer relevant?

I'm asking for anyone with actual Helium shooting experience to post their views about these two issues; highlight rolloff and low light sensitivity. If the consensus is that Helium is better on all counts - then I'll be inclined to upgrade. But either way, all of us Dragon owners on the fence about this have only a few more days to decide and I'd like to make that decision based on reports of actual experiences with Helium sensors from the field and not views based on JPG's posted here and other places that show Helium footage in inaccurate resolution.

Thanks for any responses this week.
 
Bruce Schultz said:
which for me translates into smaller photosites to collect light - so how is the Helium low light sensitivity?
Click to expand...
Helium is better than Dragon in low light. You can only compare pixel size if using the same tech. If using different sensor tech for different sizes, you can't compare.

Since you are in CA, you should be able to get access to a Helium based camera and perform some tests for yourself. That is the only real way to know. Everyone has the qualities they care about.

I had Helium for a few weeks before getting my VV upgrade. I love the look of large format over S35, so I went back to Dragon for VV.
 
I'm in the same boat. And I'm quite confident that Helium is as much an improvement over WEAPON DRAGON (in terms of sensitivity and noise) as WEAPON DRAGON was over EPIC DRAGON.

As for other considerations...as you know, EPIC-W is restricted when it comes to HFR. The restrictions are most visible in 8K (for obvious reasons). But if you peek down into the 6K specs, you will see that Weapon MG can do 6K 3:2 out to 75 FPS, whereas EPIC-W stops at 30 FPS. I don't know if it's a typo, but that's what it says in the latest MEDIA OPS Guide, so if you shoot ANA, beware of that.

Secondly, if you live at the wide end of your lenses/zooms, EPIC-W is likely to really make you pay (in terms of data rates / frame rate restrictions) compared with WEAPON MG. I'm in line for a VV sensor (some time in 2049, I think) so I have that angle covered. For me, a camera that gives the option of a more dense 6K field is actually a plus, so that's good. But with some different lenses, it might be a step in the wrong direction.
 
yes, Helium is better in low light, but not much compared to a Weapon dmsc2 Dragon.
although then post the differences are minimal.
Right now I still prefer Weapon dmsc2 Dragon, dynamic and highlights.
But everyone here will say 'something different, better try yourself to do some tests.
If you had to choose right now between Weapon Helium 8k and 8k Dragon VV, definitely choose Dragon VV.
 
Epic W does 75fps at 6K

http://www.red.com/products/epicw-8k#tech-specs

Michael Tiemann said:
I'm in the same boat. And I'm quite confident that Helium is as much an improvement over WEAPON DRAGON (in terms of sensitivity and noise) as WEAPON DRAGON was over EPIC DRAGON.

As for other considerations...as you know, EPIC-W is restricted when it comes to HFR. The restrictions are most visible in 8K (for obvious reasons). But if you peek down into the 6K specs, you will see that Weapon MG can do 6K 3:2 out to 75 FPS, whereas EPIC-W stops at 30 FPS. I don't know if it's a typo, but that's what it says in the latest MEDIA OPS Guide, so if you shoot ANA, beware of that.

Secondly, if you live at the wide end of your lenses/zooms, EPIC-W is likely to really make you pay (in terms of data rates / frame rate restrictions) compared with WEAPON MG. I'm in line for a VV sensor (some time in 2049, I think) so I have that angle covered. For me, a camera that gives the option of a more dense 6K field is actually a plus, so that's good. But with some different lenses, it might be a step in the wrong direction.
Click to expand...
 
Whats the price on 8k Dragon VV? I cant find it on red.com.
 
Low light is stunning and Hfr is usable for me at 6k (75fps).
The dscm1 dragon got quite noisy at iso2000, the Helium is cleaner at iso3200.
For controlled lighting that is not so crucial, if shooting with available light it is the best camera available in my opinion.
The hfr of the dragon full sensor is the only advantage that I see atm. The rest is really
More like which film stock you prefer.
Highlights are great too now.
With dragon you always had to be on the careful side not to underexpose
Helium is a lot more forgiving with that but watch your highlights as always.
If you upgrade from dsmc1 the difference is massive in a good way!
I also really like rwg and log3c10 reminds me of arri.
For reference have/had scarlet-x, Red Raven and now Epic-w
 
It's hard to digest without using both (or at least looking closely at footage from both). I'm getting this question sometimes several times a day now.

The shortest answer is they are "different" and both have their unique pros and cons.

In terms of the smaller pixel size of Helium and how/why it's more sensitive to light and cleaner at higher ISO comes down to the fact that it's a different and more modern sensor technology. There are some side benefits of this as well in terms of being slightly better of encoding REDCODE RAW as well as the pixel's themselves being more detailed.

Helium is indeed still new and you just saw a pretty massive firmware update that creates better color.

Dragon on the other hand is a known factor in terms of color and general output, though the new IPP2 stuff works with every RED camera/sensor combo to date.


Side note and personal note. At this point it's a feeling of "different film stocks" and even different format sizes in my case. RED has provided two premiere solutions sensor-wise that now populate various camera models. The answer isn't simply what is better, but more what is different about them and what you want to do with it.
 
Get them both and be covered for every situation. :-)

Seriously, the advice about getting hold of one and testing is the best advice. Sometimes you need to get hands on and see what strikes your personal aesthetics and technical needs. For me, I have decided against buying any high end cinema cameras and just renting what is appropriate for the job since there really is a plethora of cameras available covering a wide range of needs.
 
Jacob Ryan said:
Epic W does 75fps at 6K

http://www.red.com/products/epicw-8k#tech-specs
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And that's on a cropped sensor, meaning it's way smaller than s35mm. It's like almost choosing 16mm whenever you want to shoot HFR. Problem however is that HFR in that case is limited to only realtime. You can shoot 48fps HFR with high speed at 5K with Dragon, meaning you could get slomo shots with HFR delivery. If high speed and HFR is something you need, Epic-W is not the camera you want.

I would argue that 8K VV is way better since you get the same capabilities of a regular Dragon but the benefits of 8K when shooting full frame.

As for the low light capabilities, they're there, but if you're doing narrative work with creative lighting that becomes somewhat irrelevant. If you shoot in real world places without much lighting, Helium is better.

Consider also the increased workflow demands for 8K. Storage and image processing power is a factor in this. Dragon 6K is less expensive when calculating in all the real production costs for it.
 
Christoffer Glans said:
And that's on a cropped sensor, meaning it's way smaller than s35mm. It's like almost choosing 16mm whenever you want to shoot HFR. Problem however is that HFR in that case is limited to only realtime. You can shoot 48fps HFR with high speed at 5K with Dragon, meaning you could get slomo shots with HFR delivery. If high speed and HFR is something you need, Epic-W is not the camera you want.

I would argue that 8K VV is way better since you get the same capabilities of a regular Dragon but the benefits of 8K when shooting full frame.

As for the low light capabilities, they're there, but if you're doing narrative work with creative lighting that becomes somewhat irrelevant. If you shoot in real world places without much lighting, Helium is better.

Consider also the increased workflow demands for 8K. Storage and image processing power is a factor in this. Dragon 6K is less expensive when calculating in all the real production costs for it.
Click to expand...

Actually 6K is just over the Standard 35mm (non-Super35) frame width.

This says Epic-W 6K FF is 80.67fps max and 22.43x11.83mm sensor size
http://phfx.com/tools/REDFormatKey/REDFormatKey.cgi?camera=REDEpicW8KHelium&format=all

What workflow demands are you referring to? Theoretically for 8k vs 6K you should be able to just use higher compression and edit with a lower quality ratio and get essentially the same post performance but yes full quality renders may be slower.
 
All of the input on this forum is great, but I strongly suggest doing your own tests when comparing cameras and features.

I've seen times when somebody makes a claim or reports a finding and everybody takes it as fact without doing their own tests ("LLO is 1.5 stops cleaner than STH" :cursing: People took that and ran with it, while my findings determined about 0.66 stops). I still haven't seen an accurate noise comparison of DSMC1 Dragon vs DSMC2 Dragon, so while I can guess DSMC2 is cleaner, I don't take the numbers seriously when people say you get x more stops.

We all want our cams, especially the latest, to be great and tell ourselves that the investment was worth it, so sometimes stuff gets exaggerated. Also, a lot of us trade in our old cam for the newest one, so we never get to run a proper comparison. Then you just get the subjective "I can already see that this is way better" reviews without the data.

But yeah, I'd wait until Helium is fully ready before comparing, unless you have a job causing you to choose before it's ready.
 
Akin A said:
We all want our cams, especially the latest, to be great and tell ourselves that the investment was worth it, so sometimes stuff gets exaggerated.
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Would that fall under confirmation bias? I agree with what you have said.

The n stops claim often does not take into account the OLPF in use either. Everyone's expectations are so different. And then the viewing monitor really matters. I have found that everything looks good on an iPad/iPhone. Even some of the A/B images posted where one is bad and the other is good do not look much different on the iOS device. While I like to read RU on an iPad, I can't use it to evaluate posted images on RU.
 
Since testing IPP2 on both sensors I would now shoot with either in a heartbeat as I can't see myself being limited creatively or getting distracted from storytelling for technical reasons while shooting. My focus pullers will be happy with the extra stop Helium affords me for 90degree shutter night action so I'm going all in with Helium. You can't go wrong with either sensor now IMO.

My standard setup will be Epic-W at a base of 1280ISO, 7K for S35 FOV and standard OLPF. I hope Graeme releases a 17x IPP2 .cube for Mg owners at some point.

Huge congratulations to Graeme and his team of geniuses for IPP2!
 
Steve Sherrick said:
Get them both and be covered for every situation. :-)

Seriously, the advice about getting hold of one and testing is the best advice. Sometimes you need to get hands on and see what strikes your personal aesthetics and technical needs. For me, I have decided against buying any high end cinema cameras and just renting what is appropriate for the job since there really is a plethora of cameras available covering a wide range of needs.
Click to expand...

You're a funny guy! I too came to the same conclusion. Love the RED ecosystem and the never-ending change, but it's a killer to try and keep up. Renting is the way to enjoy the new upgrades and not have a coronary every month when Jarred or Brent makes some pronouncement about some new brain they've developed.
 
A lot of times we get caught up in having the latest/greatest in technology...I know I'm one of them...and so we undervalue the current tech we have. While Epic-W has impressed me...especially now with the latest Color Science Release, your dragon cams are amazing tools...still far superior than most camera offerings out there today.

So while there are wide spread opinions/recommendations across the board, always remember that your camera is just a tool...nothing more. It's the person behind that tool that makes all the difference in the world. :thumbsup:
 
Mark Phelan said:
You're a funny guy! I too came to the same conclusion. Love the RED ecosystem and the never-ending change, but it's a killer to try and keep up. Renting is the way to enjoy the new upgrades and not have a coronary every month when Jarred or Brent makes some pronouncement about some new brain they've developed.
Click to expand...

Those bastards! hehe ;-)

Cheers - #19
 
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