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Is this amount of noise normal? Epic-M Dragon w/Motion Mount

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Burke Lewis

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I decided to jump into the Red world with an Epic-M Dragon with Motion Mount. I've had the camera for a couple weeks and have loved the footage as long as it's been shot in bright daylight. It seems anytime I've tried to shoot in low light situations, I've had to revert back to my 5D mkiii. The noise and grain of the Epic makes lowlight situations unusable.

I know the Motion mount takes away 1.6 stops, but I thought it would still be ok.

I've been religious about black calibration, doing it by the book every time, but it still shows really heavy noise in anything over ISO 800...I've heard (and watched the candle sample video) that the Dragon should be usable up to ISO 2000 but I haven't been able to do that.

I've noticed the noise isn't uniform either. Here are some R3D stills: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7wp6xf4gienwzg7/AAD9V4ZeVoNMmu4_H5_tcOK4a. If you look toward the right and left edges, you can see the noise gets noticeably worse. The two frames where its really bad were taken when the camera wasn't yet at operating temperature.

I've also uploaded a comparison video to youtube showing my 5D Mkiii side by side my Epic Dragon in low to no light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee3gg8zAVmk&feature=em-upload_owner I know the 5D and Epic are completely different camera's, and that the 5D adds a noise reduction in camera, but I didn't think the difference would be so dramatic. In this example, the black shading was calibrated at "current FPS/Exposure" which was at fps 1/24, shutter 1/48.

Am I doing something wrong? Is this as good as I can do in low light with the Dragon w/motion mount?

Thanks!
 
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Motion mount indoors is killing your exposure. Your images are incredibly under exposed. Please so the same test without the motion mount. Exposure wise, your 5D and Epic should look similar.
 
Matt Gottshalk said:
ISO 5000?

Are you serious?
Click to expand...

Ha. Yes and no. ISO 5000 was just for the sake of this test. An extreme test. I've never done any actual production work at ISO 5000. I chose this as a test because of the candle video by Phil:https://vimeo.com/82944198. When he hits ISO 5000 it looks much cleaner than my footage, even before he applied a noise reduction filter.
 
I would say shooting 5000 ISO with a Motion Mount indoors is probably not recommended. I'd consider shooting 800 or even 1600 w/out a Motion Mount, and see how that looks by comparison.

Best.
 
Burke,

first, welcome to reduser ! I see these are your first and second posts.

It's a pretty interesting test. I'd say the graphics are off on the video because while the lens might have been at t1.8 your effective exposure is more like T3.3 or T4.0

I have not seen the r3d's but the noise on one side of frame indicates you were shooting with a cold sensor.

In other words, turn the camera on, expose it 1.6 stops less than the 5D, record, boost it to 5000 ISO to "match" the 5D show me side by sides with graphics saying it's the same exposure (when it is not).

I'd say your testing methodology is kinda "off". It's borderline trollish, but Id rather give the benefit of the doubt. Although I would say that the epic is not a 5000iso type camera and that number works far differently than it does in a 5D or an Alexa for that matter as both those cameras alter their internal electronics when the ISO is dialed in.

Battistella
 
David Battistella said:
I have not seen the r3d's but the noise on one side of frame indicates you were shooting with a cold sensor.
Click to expand...

I made sure that it was at operating temps before I recorded (46/65)...Maybe temp alone isn't enough to judge if the camera is ready to shoot.

David Battistella said:
I'd say your testing methodology is kinda "off". It's borderline trollish, but Id rather give the benefit of the doubt. Although I would say that the epic is not a 5000iso type camera and that number works far differently than it does in a 5D or an Alexa for that matter as both those cameras alter their internal electronics when the ISO is dialed in.

Battistella
Click to expand...

Haha. I don't mean to be trollish...like I mentioned before, I only chose 5000 ISO as an extreme comparison based off of what I saw in the candle test by Phil. I'm not trying to slam the Epic by any means, just trying to get a grasp on what the camera can do. I've been shooting DLSR for the past 5 years and was on P2 before that. The Epic is a different beast.
 
Burke Lewis said:
I made sure that it was at operating temps before I recorded (46/65)...Maybe temp alone isn't enough to judge if the camera is ready to shoot.



Haha. I don't mean to be trollish...like I mentioned before, I only chose 5000 ISO as an extreme comparison based off of what I saw in the candle test by Phil. I'm not trying to slam the Epic by any means, just trying to get a grasp on what the camera can do. I've been shooting DLSR for the past 5 years and was on P2 before that. The Epic is a different beast.
Click to expand...

cool.

youve come to the right place. You'll get a to of good advice here and best practices.

Enjoy!

Battistella
 
Burke Lewis said:
Ha. Yes and no. ISO 5000 was just for the sake of this test. An extreme test. I've never done any actual production work at ISO 5000. I chose this as a test because of the candle video by Phil:https://vimeo.com/82944198. When he hits ISO 5000 it looks much cleaner than my footage, even before he applied a noise reduction filter.
Click to expand...

As others have mentioned the Motion Mount is right away essentially an ND that's blocking 1.6 stops of light. Also, in the video referenced I was shooting with the older OLPF/Calibration which does have better noise performance at higher ISO ratings. Which is one of the reasons Red is working on the Modular OLPF Device.
 
I'd do some testing without the MM.

New OLPF moves the sensitivity about the same as a MM.
Adding them up means... Being able to shoot open lenses in more light.
The inverse is more noise when you cannot compensate with higher physical exposure (ISO does not affect actual exposure, only the amount of light that hits the sensor does)

I haven't seen the footy, but my hunch is that if you had to push it to 5000 to get useable image, it will often be considered noisy.

Do you have a standard mount?
 
Gunleik Groven said:
I'd do some testing without the MM.

New OLPF moves the sensitivity about the same as a MM.
Adding them up means... Being able to shoot open lenses in more light.
The inverse is more noise when you cannot compensate with higher physical exposure (ISO does not affect actual exposure, only the amount of light that hits the sensor does)

I haven't seen the footy, but my hunch is that if you had to push it to 5000 to get useable image, it will often be considered noisy.

Do you have a standard mount?
Click to expand...

I don't have a standard mount. After shooting on 5D's for the past handful of years, I was eager to say goodbye to rolling shutter. I'll probably end up getting the standard mount and keeping the motion mount in my bag.

The video is terribly under exposed on purpose. Just tried to push the limits.
 
Burke Lewis said:
I don't have a standard mount. After shooting on 5D's for the past handful of years, I was eager to say goodbye to rolling shutter. I'll probably end up getting the standard mount and keeping the motion mount in my bag.

The video is terribly under exposed on purpose. Just tried to push the limits.
Click to expand...

Dragon has twice refresh rate of MX. Rolling shutter should still well contained, even w/out Motion Mount. See this piece by Toia (old OLPF), to get feel of what to expect (the track footage with spinning tires, for ex):


best
 
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