IS RED FIGHTING THE WRONG BATTLE ?

[Lorenzo Lalik]

With the weapon camera on the corner coming up with 8 k on vista size sensor
Is red fighting the wrong battle ?
When most of the high end manufacture camera maker are looking for low noise high dynamic range camera with clean imagery and the best color science possible
Red is again rising the pixel count on a slightly bigger sensor
The vista sensor size will be probably amazing if it will be running in 4 k
The dragon sensor at 6 k still very noisy I can't imagine at 8k even on vista sensor size
The fact that we have to use different olpf to get better skin tone or better low light performance is really showing the weakness of the sensor performance
I really hope that the new weapon camera line will offer one day a clean 4 k version on vista vision size sensor for better low light noiseless high dynamic range imagery
Cheers

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Hi Lorenzo.
Good to see you here.

Not sure how you would classify Dragon as "noisy" or low DR... Compared to most anything out there. It is not a night-vision camera, that is true, but outside that.

Weapon will not have higher pixel density than the current Epic Dragon, thus: RED isn't cramming more pixels into an even smaller place.

RED has claimed that they get "some" more dynamics out of the sensor with new hardware. Hard to judge, but looking at how much the Alexa has evolved from it's original iteration to todays images, without changing the sensor, I'd say that is a very likely development also for RED.

When you claim Dragon is noisy, I wonder what you compare it to and under which shooting conditions.
And I must admit that my squinting OLPF has never left the camera since I got it...

Best

gunleik

 

[Lorenzo Lalik]

I never say that the dragon as low dynamics range it 's very decent specially for that price point
But I can confirm that the dragon sensor is very noisy compare to the sonyf55 or the c300
Also the noise shadow in the black as purple fringing it 's a very well known problem in the industry
i know that both of those manufacture are using internal noise reduction processing in the camera
maybe it 'time for Red to start

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Also the noise shadow in the black as purple fringing it 's a very well known problem in the industry

Maybe because no one knows how to handle it. D.E.B removes it, and it isn't purple, it's the red channel that's noisy. With D.E.B it's a clean noise texture.
So anyone "in the industry" that complains about it should maybe read up on how to work with Red. Knowledge seems to be a rare virtue these days.

The 8K sensor is VistaVision, so it's a larger sensor with the same amount of pixel density as the 6K Dragon. If you took a 6K portion out of the 8K sensor it will be the same as the 6K Dragon.

Also, I've worked with Dragon a few times and I've been involved in discussions about the noise, but when I received my own Dragon I found myself shaking my head at the exaggerated claims of bad noise. Yes, there's noise, but I must say that this is the best looking noise I've ever seen on a sensor. So yeah, you could shoot with another camera that has lesser noise, but whenever you do get noise with those cameras the image will look like crap. At least with Dragon you can have high noise that isn't ruining the picture.

But I agree somewhat that the next step should be aimed at lesser noise and even higher dynamic range. But the Weapon 8K is the same Dragon sensor as in Epic Dragon, so of course this isn't "fixed", because it's NOT a new sensor which people really don't seem to get.

I think that Red has surely taken notice of all the talk about noise. Look at what they did with Dragon. Everyone trash-talked the skin tones and bad color science on MX, for years this was the number 1 issue with Red and why so many turned to the Alexa. So they listened (compared to what many other companies do) and improved greatly on those aspects of the sensor. Now we have Dragon, which really look great in terms of color. So I guarantee you that Red's R&D department is experimenting with low noise sensor tech for the next generation sensors. In the mean time, people should just learn how to handle Dragon footage. I'm amazed at how many believe that it should only be a "point/shoot/edit/done" workflow. Learn how to handle the noise and learn how exposure.

I'm getting a bit tired of this noise debate. The points have been made over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

 

[Daniel Reed]

I think some notice the 17:1 wavelet compression artifacts with some exposure/setting combos in the low end on 100fps+ shots.
They call it noise, assume its in all footage off Dragon, and then tell others.

Those folks, then through misquotation in the he-said-she-said follow-the-herd world, create the "known fact" that Dragon is a noisy sensor.


Their loss really.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I never say that the dragon as low dynamics range it 's very decent specially for that price point
But I can confirm that the dragon sensor is very noisy compare to the sonyf55 or the c300
Also the noise shadow in the black as purple fringing it 's a very well known problem in the industry
i know that both of those manufacture are using internal noise reduction processing in the camera
maybe it 'time for Red to start

The C300 (at least) applies in-cam noise-reduction, which basically ruins its image to me. So I guess that's one of the reasons I went from super-excited to not-so excited in the time span from release and until I got to test it.

F55 is a good camera. Dunno about NR in that, but DR and colors... Again the Dragon sorta does the trick for me.

But there are no rules against shooting C300 or F55 if you think they work better for you!

 

[Nick Morrison]

Dragon plus lowlight OLPF is not noisey at all, and still has great color.

 

[Jason L]

Dragon and the Low Light OLPF is a great combo. You can shoot at 2000 ISO no problem.

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

I understand the confusion about low light performance but I must take issue about DR. When I shot the beta test for Dragon the most important outcome was that DR was amazing and easily comparable to Alexa. That was with the low light OLPF.

While I will concede that Dragon is really not as low light capable as Alexa I do not see ANY issues with noise and color fringing if it is exposed correctly. The problem comes from people exposing it at 1600 ISO and expecting totally clean images out of the box.

Do we see noise and color fringing on Gone Girl? Or Exodus? No.

So while I agree that I would like more low light (meaning 1200 ISO performance) out of a Red Sensor, I believe that Graeme and Red have achieved true Beautiful DR AND skin tones.....

And the ability to blow the frame up in post or exhibit in large IMAX theaters....

 

[M.Halsell]

Sometimes, I never know when the thread is being trolled, or others are just unable to make their own objectives decisions of sensor behavior.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

I understand the confusion about low light performance but I must take issue about DR. When I shot the beta test for Dragon the most important outcome was that DR was amazing and easily comparable to Alexa. That was with the low light OLPF.

While I will concede that Dragon is really not as low light capable as Alexa I do not see ANY issues with noise and color fringing if it is exposed correctly. The problem comes from people exposing it at 1600 ISO and expecting totally clean images out of the box.

Do we see noise and color fringing on Gone Girl? Or Exodus? No.

So while I agree that I would like more low light (meaning 1200 ISO performance) out of a Red Sensor, I believe that Graeme and Red have achieved true Beautiful DR AND skin tones.....

And the ability to blow the frame up in post or exhibit in large IMAX theaters....

What Peter said.

 

[Antony Newman]

Weapon will be able to use more 'thoroughly' use the Blackshade data to reduce noise by 0.5 stops.
This will also increase the usable dynamic range by 0.5 stops.

VV: If a 36x24 FF lens is used, you'll get 0.75+ stops more light collected.

This should mean 1.25 more stops higher ISO with VV Weapon when compared with the 6K Dragon.

That's quite a jump!

AJ

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I agree that the F55 has less noise, but the price you pay is an "airbrushed" look.

The C300 has less noise, but it appears to be re-mapping code values internally to create a less accurate rendition - not a road I want to see RED go down.

Cheers - #19

 

[Nick Morrison]

I understand the confusion about low light performance but I must take issue about DR. When I shot the beta test for Dragon the most important outcome was that DR was amazing and easily comparable to Alexa. That was with the low light OLPF.

While I will concede that Dragon is really not as low light capable as Alexa I do not see ANY issues with noise and color fringing if it is exposed correctly. The problem comes from people exposing it at 1600 ISO and expecting totally clean images out of the box.

Do we see noise and color fringing on Gone Girl? Or Exodus? No.

So while I agree that I would like more low light (meaning 1200 ISO performance) out of a Red Sensor, I believe that Graeme and Red have achieved true Beautiful DR AND skin tones.....

And the ability to blow the frame up in post or exhibit in large IMAX theaters....

And dont forget Peter, your original tests were on the beta of the Lowlight OLPF - its gotten much better since then (better color, no red orbs).

The skintone OLPF is amazing, but we plan to use it more for daylight work...

 

[Björn Benckert]

With the weapon camera on the corner coming up with 8 k on vista size sensor
Is red fighting the wrong battle ?
When most of the high end manufacture camera maker are looking for low noise high dynamic range camera with clean imagery and the best color science possible
Red is again rising the pixel count on a slightly bigger sensor
The vista sensor size will be probably amazing if it will be running in 4 k
The dragon sensor at 6 k still very noisy I can't imagine at 8k even on vista sensor size
The fact that we have to use different olpf to get better skin tone or better low light performance is really showing the weakness of the sensor performance
I really hope that the new weapon camera line will offer one day a clean 4 k version on vista vision size sensor for better low light noiseless high dynamic range imagery
Cheers

8k will bring down noise quite a bit, 8k downscaled saved as prores in 2k or 4k will bring down massively, this is something we have not seen yet. But from just thinking of the spec. and the fact that dragon 8k downscale to prores before compression will drastically improve the all ready quite top notch lowlight and DR features of the dragon tech. Shooting 8k raw has huge benefits, being able to shoot 8k for in camera downsampled 4k also has it´s benefits when it comes to recordered noise etc. I think the built in proress XQ 12 or 16 bit stuff is not really there to just make offline proxies is a real noise killer to do it that way. So far red has had good reason only to record raw as the downsampling to 4k has only been fractions of the final resolution, 8k is 4:1 downsample then it for a lot of situations are very good to do that downsample before compression as it will ( have not seen it but I think im not wrong on this one) improve final resolution at 4k drastically. So no they are not only doing it to fight the "most pixels battle" most likely they do it to win the large format look battle and the cleanest image / lowlight / DR battle.... So if I´m not completely mistaken the spec for dragon 8k looks to me like a real winner. The higher data rates of weapon will up the preformance a long way as well. The only thing that comes close is the alexa XL array, if arri manage to stuff that into something small and sell it for around weapon costs.. but thats quite unlikely as they now only rent out those cameras and do it for 10k € / Day....

Hi Lorenzo.
Good to see you here.

Not sure how you would classify Dragon as "noisy" or low DR... Compared to most anything out there. It is not a night-vision camera, that is true, but outside that.

Weapon will not have higher pixel density than the current Epic Dragon, thus: RED isn't cramming more pixels into an even smaller place.

RED has claimed that they get "some" more dynamics out of the sensor with new hardware. Hard to judge, but looking at how much the Alexa has evolved from it's original iteration to todays images, without changing the sensor, I'd say that is a very likely development also for RED.

When you claim Dragon is noisy, I wonder what you compare it to and under which shooting conditions.
And I must admit that my squinting OLPF has never left the camera since I got it...

Best

gunleik

Have not tested it but IR pass olpf at night... that I think is a night vision camera lol.

 

[egon touste]

well dxolabs.com found the epic to be the most colour sensitive, highest dynamic range camera they'd ever tested..and i think they've tested them all
they reckon it beat the hasselblad medium format digital backs on both fronts
its low light is not the best however

a vista vision sensor would be great.. make it a 4.5k sensor and it would rule the camera world

..but instead , those of us who know what we want, have to instead pay for ever increasing bandwidth, and processing power, and power consumption.. to store and deal with data we don't really want..

its such a no-brainer to me..

alexa should not be in the game at all imo, but instead gets stronger.. the reasons are not technological, but in the design specs. .
reds design specs are subject to change..which seems to be their long term strategy
..but not listening is one strategy they've got down, and if they are..i think its to a minority, based mainly in america


edit:
FF 4.5k sensor, highest framerates, dynamic range, low light possible
full size XLR inputs
built in HQ NDs
Prores * optional for users who want it
offer sensor upgrades
halt the buy quickly price establishing/ marketing/ bollox.. long term red customers deserve more respect than that
..and you have a winner

 

[Steve Sherrick]

well dxolabs.com found the epic to be the most colour sensitive, highest dynamic range camera they'd ever tested..and i think they've tested them all
they reckon it beat the hasselblad medium format digital backs on both fronts
its low light is not the best however

a vista vision sensor would be great.. make it a 4.5k sensor and it would rule the camera world

..but instead , those of us who know what we want, have to instead pay for ever increasing bandwidth, and processing power, and power consumption.. to store and deal with data we don't really want..

its such a no-brainer to me..

alexa should not be in the game at all imo, but instead gets stronger.. the reasons are not technological, but in the design specs. .
reds design specs are subject to change..which seems to be their long term strategy
..but not listening is one strategy they've got down, and if they are..i think its to a minority, based mainly in america


edit:
FF 4.5k sensor, highest framerates, dynamic range, low light possible
full size XLR inputs
built in HQ NDs
Prores * optional for users who want it
offer sensor upgrades
halt the buy quickly price establishing/ marketing/ bollox.. long term red customers deserve more respect than that
..and you have a winner

Alexa should not be in the game? Do you mean on specs alone or on the eye test?

 

[Brian Boyer]

when I received my own Dragon I found myself shaking my head at the exaggerated claims of bad noise.

I felt the same way. You'll find it if you go looking for it but, in practical use and normal viewing distances, it's a non-issue.

Yes, there's noise, but I must say that this is the best looking noise I've ever seen on a sensor. So yeah, you could shoot with another camera that has lesser noise, but whenever you do get noise with those cameras the image will look like crap. At least with Dragon you can have high noise that isn't ruining the picture.

Dragon has the best looking noise in the business, which is way more important than people give it credit for.

But I agree somewhat that the next step should be aimed at lesser noise and even higher dynamic range. But the Weapon 8K is the same Dragon sensor as in Epic Dragon, so of course this isn't "fixed", because it's NOT a new sensor which people really don't seem to get.

Jarred said Weapon gains about 1/2 stop in the shadows due to the improved electronics. That means the STH OLPF's stock just went up.

I did tests on the Scarlet Dragon and STH where I shot the same static scene and exposed for ISO 800, ISO 640 and ISO 500 by opening the iris in 1/3 stop increments. I used Dragoncolor2 and REDgamma2 (REDgamma4 is bit aggressive for my tastes). As Peter said, when exposed correctly, noise isn't really an issue.

On the ISO 800 exposure, a stopped frame has a little bit of "crunchiness," especially at the 8:1 REDCODE limit Scarlet Dragon places on 5KFF. When played, the picture improves and the texture isn't objectionable to me at all. There's a noticeable and significant improvement in noise at ISO 640, with an even better improvement at ISO 500.

Weapon's roughly 1/2 stop gain at the bottom should make its ISO 800 footage behave a little better than the 1/3 stop improvement in noise at ISO 640 on Epic/Scarlet Dragon. The added benefit is you get to retain Dragon's roughly 7 1/3 stops of highlight latitude above middle gray at ISO 800, if you need it.

Weapon at ISO 640 should be a little better than Epic/Scarlet Dragon at ISO 500, and you still get 7 stops of latitude above middle gray.

Weapon at ISO 500 should be a little better than Epic/Scarlet Dragon at ISO 400, and you get 6 2/3 stops of latitude above middle gray, which is still more than the maximum most other cameras can achieve.

 

[Charles Bergquist]

I just want to see the 1/2 stop shadow improvement before I pull the trigger. The Epic-Dragon upgrade had some great improvements but it also inflated the ISO claims a lot. Really hoping to see CMOS smearing tests on the Weapon and see if that gets cleaned up in processing, which I believe it can.

That said, the compression improvement on the CF Weapon should clean up the shadows as well.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Dragon plus lowlight OLPF is not noisey at all, and still has great color.

This is true, and it would be truly perfect and something I would gladly pay 20K or more for, but LL OLPF has pink blob problem around bright lights in frame, and both OLPFs still have CMOS smear issue, and maybe still the gate shadow issue. I hope Weapon, or some new OLPF, fixes both these problems. I know I sound like a broken record bringing this up, but they are real problems for some styles of shooting, and fixing them doesn't seem to be much of a priority.

I am doing this because I want Red to succeed in a big way, and I'd love there to be a new Red camera that meets my real needs, not the needs some people on this forum tell me I "should' have - I would only have those needs if I were doing something else.

On the plus side no other camera currently available better meets my the needs of our sets and our kind of workflow more often than an Epic MX, at any price, from any vendor. At 17 500 it's a steal, and a great way to fall in love with Red shooting. Redcolor 04 makes it even more amazing, and requiring far less corrective tuning in the grade.