James Mathers (Digital Cinema Society): RED Epic for Sale? Interesting article.

[James Mathers]

Hi Nick,
Trust me, lots of practical experience tells me I can't shoot 5K with all my lenses, although most are good at 4.5K. Specifically, I'm talking about Standard Speed Zeiss; the longer ones are OK, but starting with the 24mm and wider I have to be very careful, and it is also affected by the focus setting, which is not something I want to be worrying about while I'm shooting.

I also had a gorgeous Angenieux 17-80mm that I couldn't zoom out past about 24mm, and required a very expensive modification into a 19.5-95mm, with a loss of stop to be able to shoot 5K.

James Mathers

 

[James Mathers]

Nick,
Forgive me if I misread you post. At second glance it seems you are saying that 5K MX coverage area is not the same as the 5K Dragon. If that be the case, then I see your point.

James Mathers

 

[Nick Morrison]

Nick,
Forgive me if I misread you post. At second glance it seems you are saying that 5K MX coverage area is not the same as the 5K Dragon. If that be the case, then I see your point.

James Mathers

Exactly. Think of Dragon 5K as similar coverage to MX 4K. (Same S35 coverage, but with an extra "K" in resolution, which is great for debayering down to true 4K, another big advantage of Dragon)

Dragon 5.5K coverage is similar to current Epic 5K.

Dragon 6K is now a bit wider than Epic 5K, and yes a bit challenging for vintage glass, and many zooms. But I'm always amazed by the coverage of some lenses (ie Super Speeds, Ultraprimes, etc). The new Leica T2's I believe have great 6K coverage also.

best

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Agree that the finer pitch on Dragon should allow use of most S35 glass at 5KHD so, if anything, Dragon is s a step in the right direction from MX.

Full disclosure, I consider James a friend, but even if I didn't, his essay was simply an honest recital of his personal experience with RED and their cameras. It was not a full frontal attack filled with bile and disdain. He's right, RED has done some amazing things but they have also made mistakes - you know, like the rest of us. Am I an apologist for RED, sometimes, when they are unfairly thrown under the bus. Amidst all the agendas and FUD here on the inter webs, James' essay is simply his POV - and, credit to Jarred and the mods, here for us to consider and debate.

Cheers - #19

 

[Phil Holland]

Nick,
Forgive me if I misread you post. At second glance it seems you are saying that 5K MX coverage area is not the same as the 5K Dragon. If that be the case, then I see your point.

Hi James, actually it's even easier for folks who have film S35 to experience to understand the formats found on Dragon. Here's a graphic I made visually explaining the format size:

Red Dragon and Film Formats


Above is a quick look at how the Red Dragon sensor compares to standard motion picture film formats. Notable observations to take from this are:
- Dragon's 6K is noticeably wider than S35, but nearly exactly as tall as S35 Academy. Useful for anamorphic shooters.
- Dragon's 5K is a smidge wider than S35 Full Aperture and a smidge shorter as S35 3-perf. Likely providing enough room for all S35 designed lenses.
- Dragon's 4K is just a bit thinner than S35 Academy.
- Dragon's 3K is noticeably wider than S16, and just a bit taller.

So pretty much any glass you have that is designed for S35 works just fine and in the optimal image area on Dragon 5K. If you prefer the Academy 35mm format you can utilize 4.5K instead.

I'll add to this as I don't know if you've read them. I've been testing Dragon out for a while and I've compiled a good number of my notes here:
Red Dragon Info and Data Sheets

And for any lens coverage concerns if you do decide to shoot higher than 5K:
Dragon Lens Coverage Information

waiting for the Dragon upgrade

It sounds like you're in line for the upgrade. I'm sure there will be news and more upgrades rolled out post NAB rush. There's a couple things that have been buttoned up that make Dragon a much more ideal camera. Mainly the new Calibration and OLPF. Those were back and HQ hardware revisions and precise on camera revisions.

 

[Adrian Jebef]

Problem is it doesn't work that way. If you only shoot 4K or 5K or whatever on a Dragon you are cropping the sensor and magnifying your image. So that means you are magnifying your noise which produces a softer picture. Anyone who has shot 2K or HD on an EPIC instead of shooting full-frame and then resizing later to 2K or HD rez in Post knows that shooting less than full-frame produces an inferior image.

Therefore the standard S35mm gate/sensor size is crucial. Continuing to make strange, wacky sensor sizes for added resolution is counter-intuitive and silly. Will every "new" RED camera have its own "new" gate/sensor size standard?

 

[Nick Morrison]

Problem is it doesn't work that way. If you only shoot 4K or 5K or whatever on a Dragon you are cropping the sensor and magnifying your image. So that means you are magnifying your noise which produces a softer picture. Anyone who has shot 2K or HD on an EPIC instead of shooting full-frame and then resizing later to 2K or HD rez in Post knows that shooting less than full-frame produces an inferior image.

Therefore the standard S35mm gate/sensor size is crucial. Continuing to make strange, wacky sensor sizes for added resolution is counter-intuitive and silly. Will every "new" RED camera have its own "new" gate/sensor size standard?

Yes but Dragon appears to have been designed so that 5K/S35 is a completely usable, professional choice. Even though, agreed, there will be less noise at 6K, the penalty at 5K should be gentle enough to still make 5K extremely viable. Dragon is not a 6K or nothing camera. With Dragon's extra DR and lower noise floor, Dragon 5K should be even more usable than 4K MX currently is (which many professionals are happy to shoot).

Also, 5.5K works with a large number of lenses also, so that's often available too (even Standard Primes at 24mm up cover 5.5k).

 

[Phil Holland]

Problem is it doesn't work that way. If you only shoot 4K or 5K or whatever on a Dragon you are cropping the sensor and magnifying your image. So that means you are magnifying your noise which produces a softer picture. Anyone who has shot 2K or HD on an EPIC instead of shooting full-frame and then resizing later to 2K or HD rez in Post knows that shooting less than full-frame produces an inferior image.

Therefore the standard S35mm gate/sensor size is crucial. Continuing to make strange, wacky sensor sizes for added resolution is counter-intuitive and silly. Will every "new" RED camera have its own "new" gate/sensor size standard?

Correct and incorrect. If anything for those fond of the look of S35 Dragon 5K produces a much more "familiar" image though superior in terms of scanned resolution. And you are still delivering a very high quality 4K finish with proper debayer logic as well. One of the major design benefits of Dragon was getting 5K into the S35 format size.

And the pixels themselves are a bit different compared to Mysterium-X as well as how the image is recorded to REDCODE Raw.

In terms of these larger formats being counter intuitive, I fully disagree. The industry clearly responded with their wallets when larger format sensors became availabe for a variety of different cameras.

What is right is that 5K exists in the S35 frame size as it maintains or exceeds the spatial resolution of film per format. This is what's important.

 

[James Mathers]

Phil and NIck,

Thanks for helping me get up to speed on Dragon; now all I need is the upgrade. I'll be heading to Vegas now for my annual marathon of DCS streaming booth tour interviews, so I probably will not be responding further to this thread; but I appreciate everyone's input and learned a lot.

Thanks!
James Mathers

 

[Nick Morrison]

Phil and NIck,

Thanks for helping me get up to speed on Dragon; now all I need is the upgrade. I'll be heading to Vegas now for my annual marathon of DCS streaming booth tour interviews, so I probably will not be responding further to this thread; but I appreciate everyone's input and learned a lot.

Thanks!
James Mathers

No prob. Have fun at NAB!

 

[Adrian Jebef]

In terms of these larger formats being counter intuitive, I fully disagree. The industry clearly responded with their wallets when larger format sensors became availabe for a variety of different cameras.

What cameras?

What is right is that 5K exists in the S35 frame size as it maintains or exceeds the spatial resolution of film per format. This is what's important.

It's not all about pixel resolution. The smoothness and clarity of the image is equally if not more important than the number of pixels per frame. Film doesn't have a pixel resolution. It can be HD or 8K. Modern 35mm film stocks prove that it will look fantastic at either or somewhere in between. I know that many RED shooters have no qualms about "pushing into the sensor" to shoot less-than-full-frame resolution images. I never do it. I think RED images look worse when zoomed in, even slightly. But that's just me. Maybe I'm a purest...

 

[Evin Grant]

I have a different opinion, I think the 6K 2:1 aspect ratio is a perfect balance between the 6K (5.5K) HD 16:9 format and the 6KWS 2:40 format, most S35 lenses I've tried cover these formats fine and they give more than enough resolution to finish in 4K even with stabilization and minor cropping. I've yet to see any (properly exposed) 4K MX footage let alone Dragon that felt "worse". Remember Fincher shot "Girl With the Dragon Tatoo" at 5K but only used a 4K extraction, so I'm pretty sure Dragon 5K is "good enough".

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

That's funny, but such is the world of technology right? If we want to run with the Red dogs we have to be ready for life on the bleeding edge, where nothing is quite good enough and everything changes... Quickly.

If the pace is too much for people I hear that innovations in HDV aren't coming too quickly these days. ;-)

The purpose of technology is to serve man. Not the other way around.

There is plenty of room for innovation and developments in other areas without introducing additional requirements and limitations as a price for a debatable type of gain.

Optimization rules over persistent growth. That can be easily seen if one observes Nature.

 

[Zeb B]

This thread: Funny how we crave and demand things we don't even fully understand. Human nature I suppose

 

[James Mathers]

Hi Zeb,

We all answer to some extent to our own Human Nature, but what some of the frustration I was trying to get across in my essay was that I have clients demanding the latest and greatest. True, they don't usually understand the technology, but still demand it, and in effort at economic survival as an Owner/Operator, I'm just doing my best to try and give it to them.

I wouldn't say I "crave" it, but in the case of the camera that is waiting for an upgrade, it is a forgone conclusion, and I'm very eager to get the Dragon because that camera is currently not operational. This one is a model "M" for which the upgrade was ordered during NAB last year, so one would think it should be close in line. However, the one I'm debating whether to upgrade or sell in my essay is a second Epic X that at this rate will likely not be up for a while.

I don't fully understand the features of Dragon, and that is also part of what frustrates me. Perhaps I've been spoiled in the past, but I've usually been able to get my hands on new technology fairly early. I suppose it is a perk earned for the countless hours I volunteer to the community running DCS. But here I am, cash in hand, to buy the upgrade so I can start to learn the Dragon for my own purposes, as well as to help to educate DCS members. I'm appreciative to all the folks here who are helping to update me, but also wondering how so many segued in front of me in the upgrade line. I don't think I have a bad attitude, and I hope I'm not coming off that way. Again, I'm a big fan of RED, and just hoping to get my upgrade.

Best,
James Mathers

 

[Dr. Sassi]

I agree, isn't that a prerequisite of being a cinematographer? ;o)

(... otherwise all movies would look like the same!)

This thread: Funny how we crave and demand things we don't even fully understand. Human nature I suppose

 

[Scott Crawley]

stabilization and minor cropping

:yesnod:

When it was first revealed that Dragon was going to be 6k I thought "Great we will be able to reach deeper into black and downscale to minimize noise." in addition to making use of stabilization.

As it turns out Dragon's DR and clean image seem to leave stabilization and minor cropping as the primary uses for the extra rez. Don't you all think?

Oh and there is the improvement in frame grabs for stills and plates...

 

[Nick Morrison]

Hi Zeb,

We all answer to some extent to our own Human Nature, but what some of the frustration I was trying to get across in my essay was that I have clients demanding the latest and greatest. True, they don't usually understand the technology, but still demand it, and in effort at economic survival as an Owner/Operator, I'm just doing my best to try and give it to them.

I wouldn't say I "crave" it, but in the case of the camera that is waiting for an upgrade, it is a forgone conclusion, and I'm very eager to get the Dragon because that camera is currently not operational. This one is a model "M" for which the upgrade was ordered during NAB last year, so one would think it should be close in line. However, the one I'm debating whether to upgrade or sell in my essay is a second Epic X that at this rate will likely not be up for a while.

I don't fully understand the features of Dragon, and that is also part of what frustrates me. Perhaps I've been spoiled in the past, but I've usually been able to get my hands on new technology fairly early. I suppose it is a perk earned for the countless hours I volunteer to the community running DCS. But here I am, cash in hand, to buy the upgrade so I can start to learn the Dragon for my own purposes, as well as to help to educate DCS members. I'm appreciative to all the folks here who are helping to update me, but also wondering how so many segued in front of me in the upgrade line. I don't think I have a bad attitude, and I hope I'm not coming off that way. Again, I'm a big fan of RED, and just hoping to get my upgrade.

Best,
James Mathers

James as an early adopter of a RED ONE, I imagine your Epic M should be close to getting a Dragon upgrade no? It was my understanding that early adopters were deemed first to get Dragon (as a token of appreciation), and then it was everyone else...in order by their timestamp.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with a Dragon, sir!

 

[Brian F Kobylarz]

Nick -

My memory may be faulty as it has been a while since my BS rep discussed the upgrade to Dragon but:
Recollection was that as one of the early adopters, there was an additional discount - especially if I picked up the Rocket X at the same time as the new Dragon sensor.
Those that purchased the M jumped the early adopters when it came to timing…

A bit complicated - especially since the actual program may be morphing. Jarred was recently considering an option to trade in versus upgrade. Might be announced during the show or they may still be crunching numbers to ensure it works financially.

Hoping that someone can chime in with the specifics on the original plan. Current production schedule doesn't give me time to research…

 

[paul engstrom]

Dragon 5k = all S35 lenses cover.

Our vintage TechnoCooke 19-90, 12x Angenieux, wide Cooke S4s.

And the imagery looks GREAT - not 'soft'.