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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 :)

IS RED FIGHTING THE WRONG BATTLE ?

I don't even think it's a noise issue anymore, Dragon has a little noise and you shoot with that in mind. Pretty easy. However this CMOS Smear being "fixed" by upgrading to Weapon is the first time I've felt like I'm being worked over. This CMOS Smear issue should be something that is being worked on for all owners of Dragons, not making it a "feature" if you upgrade. That side by side says it all. It's been a quieted issue by Red for a while, now it's a selling point for the Weapon.
 
Yes, please explain to loyal Epic Dragon owners why our cameras can't be fixed and improved like this some how. This is honestly what Dragon should have been out of the gate. Our cameras received new boards, lots of new tech that was needed which increased the cost for upgraders (I bought mine through the store as a new Epic Dragon). But I ALWAYS had hopes that Dragon would become this without us having to pay an arm and a leg. I at least figured the Pixel smear issue that has been filled in the complaint section and via red tickets would get fixed for us. Color me a pissed off Red Dragon owner.

Demetri Zuev said:
Please emphasize on why this is not possible on Epic Dragon If it's the same sensor with same OLPFs. I'm happy for future Weapon owners, but this is something that should be fixed on current dragons too imo...
Click to expand...
 
Real question is will the H20 olpf have the tech that works with the weapon and cover 8K or will there be 8K weapon olpf and 6k olpf?

Just tying to decided what to buy and what to sell i guess at this point.
 
Jacob.schwarz said:
Will the OLPF for the Dragon work with the Weapon?
Click to expand...

It is a different holder for the glass. At NAB they said it does not use the four screws to mount. Description sounded like a thumbscrew of sorts for easier removal. Also has some mechanism for auto detection of which OLPF is installed in the camera.
 
Charles Bergquist said:
However this CMOS Smear being "fixed" by upgrading to Weapon is the first time I've felt like I'm being worked over.
Click to expand...

Jarred said "reduced" not "fixed" :) Hopefully greatly reduced, but who knows. I was talking to someone else about fixing in post and he suggested that it really needs to be fixed before debayer. Hopefully it can be further reduced / fixed some day on the software side during the debyaer process.
 
Looks like CMOS smear and other problems are vastly fixed. And I imagine the IR filtration can only be fixed in hardware. How much of this can be translated to the PC though where I have plenty of processing power, probably as much as a Weapon? And how much of this actually requires a $20k upgrade and isn't there some way to just replace say the power regulator in Epics for less smear? Are there any options to get this for less?
 
My theory: the Dragon sensor is a beast, just ask DxO, so the signal processing requirements are significantly higher that what the Epic was engineered for. A more capable sensor is going to register more low level energy both in and near the visible spectrum (electro-magnetic fields are all around us). Separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, is tougher when there's more chaff in the mix. It's my supposition that the reason we see more CMOS smear on Dragon than on other sensors is due to two things: 1) on other sensors the lower S/N ratio buries it, 2) other camera manufacturers are more aggressive in processing it out early in the signal chain.

For better and worse (engineering = no free lunch) we are getting a less processed version of the sensor's "native" output on Scarlet/Epic Dragons than other camera makers allow end users to "see". In the case of CMOS smear, most people would be happy to let the DSP kill it even if it cost them some real image information. The optimal approach is to use very sophisticated processing to kill the CMOS smear with minimal impact on the image - more precise wheat/chaff separation if you will. RED has typically been hard core about keeping most of the heavy processing in the decode step rather than in camera, in no small part to leverage future advancements.

In any case, there are some image characteristics that even the purists at RED recognize are best left behind via in camera processing. How far they want to take that approach, and how far their silicon can go in pulling it off is another discussion. If, as it seems, the RED approach is more Hippocrates' "first do no harm" vs a more aggressive approach that can't be unwound in RAW development I'm fine with that. If the boards in the Weapon are sophisticated enough, perhaps some of the worst of the "chaff" can be tossed without risking loss of real image information.

Cheers - #19
 
egon touste said:
i do have a reasonable understanding of colour science and math, unlike the author of this article.. which is his personal interpretation/speculation..

these guys are a little more technical, we should ask them to test an alexa? .. epic beat the FF hasselblads according to these tests, in terms of dynamic range and colour sensitivity .. it was a prototype dragon they tested

https://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/RED...rankly imo[/QUOTE] Could not agree more Egon
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I don't know how it works, but this needs to somehow trickle down to a degree to Epic and Scarlet Dragon. These improvements are what we have all been hoping Dragon would always be.
 
Adam Johnson said:
I don't know how it works, but this needs to somehow trickle down to a degree to Epic and Scarlet Dragon. These improvements are what we have all been hoping Dragon would always be.
Click to expand...

+1000
 
Sorry to revive an older thread here, and with such a lengthy post. But I'm curious if there have been any developments from Red on the CMOS smear issues on Epic Dragons in the last couple of months.

I went to drop off my MX for the upgrade on Monday since it's the last week to do so. I've been very concerned about the smear issue, and just very busy with my MX, so I've been holding out. And the only other time that I've personally done any testing with a Dragon was at a lighting event at Off Hollywood, where the CMOS smear was literally the first thing I noticed when I looked through the camera. I'm not saying it this way to be dramatic or provocative. It really was the first thing I saw. Backlit window, and the crossbar pattern of the window caused big streaks through the talent. No way to avoid it. One camera had STH one had LLO. It was there on both.

So as soon as I dropped off my camera, I decided to stop and play with the Dragons on display to help ease my fears. But it just increased them. It was far too easy to induce these smear artifacts, as well as the gate shadow. The first thing I saw when I looked through the Epic on display was the hard gate shadow in a flare from the overhead fluorescents. I didn't even move the camera, it was just on the LCD, plain as day (perhaps someone had been there before me looking for the same thing as left the camera at that angle?). Then I panned the camera up to the lights, and the frame lit up with the CMOS smear. So I panned over to the front window of the store, where there's a grate pattern against the brighter outside, which seems to be the Achilles heel in terms of this artifact. It was impossible not to induce the CMOS smear. All ISOs all f-stops.

So I turned around and said I'd changed my mind about the upgrade. The woman working there was very nice about it all. Asked me if I wanted to come back the next day and take a camera outside to test it in depth. So I did.

I tested the same scenarios with both the Dragon and MX. And the smear is in fact there on MX. But it's much less obvious. It's not bright pink and not nearly as bright. And it's harder to induce. I've never actually noticed it in my normal shooting. The gate shadow on Dragon was much less of an issue, (and I never saw it on MX). And though not ideal, can be more easily avoided by windowing down the sensor a bit in a worst case scenario.

There are things that I really really like about the Dragon. As everyone else has obviously been saying for the last year. But the CMOS smear, at least in many of the shooting situations in and around the Red store, and in situations that I feel are fairly common in the types of things that I shoot, is a big big problem. It popped up all over the place.

There happened to be another DP in the store who's had a Dragon for several months now. And he echoed that statement. He said he's only had to avoid shooting something/change a shoot because of it once. But that he mostly shoots in controlled studio settings, which I don't. But he said it's definitely a very real issue.

I'm not trying to crap on Red or incite team riots as often happens when flaws are pointed out. And I know, I know, if I don't like it, don't use it. But I just want an honest appraisal from both Jarred/someone from Red engineering and from fellow users about the current state of this obvious issue. I really want to be able to do the upgrade and take advantage of the other amazing benefits of the sensor. It looks great otherwise. But if it's at the cost of having to avoid certain shooting scenarios, as many users have stated, including the lengthy list Blair posted a couple of pages back, that's a very high cost. And having to spend another $19,000 to upgrade to Weapon just to have it minimized (and not even fixed), is too high a cost as well.

So... Jarred. Is there a fix? Either in camera or in processing?

And fellow Red users... How often do you encounter this and how limiting has it been for you personally?
 
I shoot dragon all the time in lots of environments. Mostly for commercials music vid and narratives. I can count the times I've seen the smear on one hand. I don't shoot high iso's though. 800 or below always.
IT HAPPENS ON ALEXA TOO! I've seen it firsthand.

Do I wish it never happened, yes, but it is nowhere near as prevalent as one might think reading some of the posts here. I'm not discounting your opinion/experience at all, just adding in mine. If you understand what can cause it, it's not that hard to avoid.
 
We've yet to encounter smear, though I've seen it when you force it. Then again, like Jake we shoot 800 and below. Also we shoot LLO, where the extra stop and change I feel gives you more of a smear threshold (smear comes from underexposure, and by definition Skintone is exposing less/blocking more, so I've assumed that's why Skintone is perhaps more smear prone...not to mention more sensitive in RED channel).

We've been shooting run/gun all month. Hasn't come up once. And the benefits of Dragon are huge - MUCH better color, DR, resolution, etc. The upgrade to MX was a HUGE improvement IMHO.
 
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