Jumping off the Red Wagon

[NOSA OBAYIUWANA]

Thanks Gunleik... will start a thread and see who else is interested

 

[luigivaltulini]

I think we should organise our own OBJECTIVE test.

I've been thinking of doing this for sometime now...

...anyone interested in doing this in the autumn @ the Sony centre in Pinewood studios?


Possible cameras available

Red Dragon (or Weapon if it is shipping by then)

Sony F55

Sony F65

Alexa XT (or SXT if it is available by then)

Arri Amira

BlackMagic 4.6K (not the mini)

Canon C300 mark 2

Panavision Varicam ...don't have access to one but I may be able to ask the guys at CVP to loan us one a the day...or two

Nosa, nice idea, it would also be interesting to have a 4K monitor, maybe even a small post Davinci.
Weapon wait would be great.


I gave a quick look at the test. Even better would be to 6k, the noise would be finer and better .
However I can not see this difference of 2.5 DR, Alexa have some small advantage .
But I love Dragon in everything even though I Alexa here next to me.

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[Nick Morrison]

I also wonder how much cleaner Weapon Carbon would be: not just 8k downscaled to 1080, but even 6K 2:1 compression...and with the extra 1/2 stop in the shadows.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

But I don't think Dragon needs any excuses... even at 5k and in its current state and without dancing nude at night under the full moon to make it work.
I think the perception of RED complexity is more killing than any practical result...

 

[Zeb B]

Nosa, I saw Geoff's tests, and took them with a grain of salt, for various reasons:

1) Geoff's determination of DR was apparantly decided by his subjective choice of acceptable/usable noise in the blacks/highlights.

As many redusers are aware, the amount of "noise" in a RED capture is highly influenced by your signal chain, so:

2) Geoff' insistance on handicapping the Dragon and shooting it at 5K (to keep it at s35), clearly had an influence on the signal chain - 5K is less clean than 6K, as you are punched in on the noise (notice also that Geoff I believe did not similarly punish the BMCC for being s16).

3) Compression. I don't believe we know what compression he shot. I never saw it listed. Was it 5K 5:1, 5K 8:1, or 5K 10:1. These choices have a major outcome on noise, and Geoff's choice of compression was not clearly labeled the few times I checked. Like 5K, the compression appeared to be a personal choice on his part.

4) Blackshading has a major influence on noise. To not do so before a test, could dramatically affect noise - Dragon is much more sensitive to MX in this regard. Again, we have no idea if Geoff properly blackshaded before his test. Each time I checked, this was never made clear.

My point being - Dragon shoot 5K @ 8:1 w/out a blackshade will have significantly more noise than Dragon 6K 5:1 with a proper blackshade. Without more clear info, we have no idea if were seeing the results of the former or closer latter (ie at 5K) in Geoff's test. Geoff's failure to mention compression or blackshading makes me assume he isn't aware of their significance. I dont believe he's a regular RED shooter anymore, so this is actually understandable.

In fact, if this is true, this says a lot about RED and how it lives within an Alexa dominated marketplace. Geoff, a seamingly regular Arri shooter, is probably used to turning on the Alexa and it just "works" - no blackshading, minimal recording options (RAW or a few standars flavors of Prores - it probably generally stays on Prores HQ 4444?).

When faced with a Dragon, Geoff (or similar Alexa users) may not intuitively realize there a number of more custom RED specific variables to consider:

A) which OLPF?
B) Have you blackshaded?
C) What resolution? 6K? 5K? 4K?
D) What compression? 5:1? 8:1? 10:1?

Each one of these RED specific choices has a major affect on your signal chain, outside of the more universal choice of EXPOSURE.

Not that I think REDs level of choices are bad - in fact when harnessed they are GOOD (and give you immense control over your capture). But they are certainly a complex set of parameters that demand time and experience to process. Weapon is addressing some of these parameters in interesting ways (auto blackshading could be a major timesaver and gaurantee of optimal capture).

That said....this is a long way of saying...without knowing more about Geoff's signal chain, I've taken his results with a pinch of salt.

Ironically, if asked to reveal his signal chain, my guess is Geoff would likely blame Dragon for being too complicated in the first place. Not fair, but this seems to be a perception from the more streamlined Alexa POV, imho.

Reminds me of the 1970's Jaguar V12 engine . . . super cool . . . but only 2 guys on the planet knew how to tune them properly to realize the full performance potential ;-)

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

Ok, Luigi's screen grab brought my attention to something that doesn't make any sense to me:

Look at the highlight rolloff on the LLO versus the STHL - flower detail and most clearly, the very rolloff on the right side of the waveforms. Why is the low light optimized OLPF clipping so much less than the Skin Tone Highlight?

That makes precisely NO sense. I couldn't see the OLPF in the metadata (should I?). And FWIW, it was redcode 4:1 not 5:1 stated in the metadata as well.

 

[Zeb B]

Zeb is on fire Why dont you guys add I HATE RED signature on your posts so we can understand you being sarcastic or serious.

Why so binary my friend? Hate v. Love? Can't someone use humor to reveal the absurd. Every test result that has been published that doesn't put RED at the top is met here with "the tester is an idiot" or "the criteria was wrong". If Geoff Boyle is too stupid to operate a RED in a lab environment then perhaps there might be another way to design the function too allow lesser peeps (me) a chance at realizing the product's full potential in the field. Remember Ryan Walters on the Zacuto Shoot Out couple years back? Another idiot? Give it a break and let's have an honest discussion amongst friends to help RED improve. Dragon is not a perfect solution. There I said it. Get over it.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

@ Mark

don't remember exactly what, but as the skintone is rated for more light, it was exposed for more light (lower ISO) and that makes the exposure difference/comparison kinda off. I can totally follow why though, A d it was discussed afterwards. but i think that is what u see. when u change the base ISO as to how much light you hit the sensor with in the comparison, this result makes sense.

not sure if I remember correctly, but I have a hunch I 'm not way off..

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

I get what you're saying - I think it was Graeme who said the LLO has about 1 stop offset in the firmware.

But I'm certainly not seeing the kind of smooth rolloff I've come to expect with the STHL. It's a very hard clip.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

Why so binary my friend? Hate v. Love? Can't someone use humor to reveal the absurd. Every test result that has been published that doesn't put RED at the top is met here with "the tester is an idiot" or "the criteria was wrong". If Geoff Boyle is too stupid to operate a RED in a lab environment then perhaps there might be another way to design the function too allow lesser peeps (me) a chance at realizing the product's full potential in the field. Remember Ryan Walters on the Zacuto Shoot Out couple years back? Another idiot? Give it a break and let's have an honest discussion amongst friends to help RED improve. Dragon is not a perfect solution. There I said it. Get over it.

Get over it? Im happy with my Dragon if i wasnt happy i would sell it in a heartbeat.
Dragon is not a perfect solution? http://www.red.com/shot-on-red
If Alexa or F65 is a perfect solution for you why not buy those?

 

[Zeb B]

Get over it? Im happy with my Dragon if i wasnt happy i would sell it in a heartbeat.
Dragon is not a perfect solution? http://www.red.com/shot-on-red
If Alexa or F65 is a perfect solution for you why not buy those?

Calm down Kemalettin . . . no one is insulting your favorite sports team or faith. Just having a discussion here about the imperfect world we exist in.

 

[Daniel Pearson]

Dragon is not a perfect solution? http://www.red.com/shot-on-red

I don't know if that Shot on Red list really sums up the quality of the camera, there are a lot of shitty movies in that list and some that weren't even shot on Red (as primary camera) such as Escape from Tomorrow which was shot on 5D... It certainly isn't a comprehensive list of recent cinematic achievements.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

guys. play nice with eachother.

As I understand me (and the OP) this discussion is not about the RED cameras capacity at delivering great pictures. If it was, I'd kinda be out.
It's more about: How to keep and expand markets.
And:
How not to lose market segments.

It is also (like all fun threads) a bit of a guessing game. As David B points out, the high-end stills market is not exactly small compared to the high-end cinema market.

And at the same time, many of us didn't buy a RED to do a Vogue front page and compete with a Nikon D800 on tech specs.

 

[Frank Hague]

I'm sure you know this already, but 6k R3D files are way smaller in data than 4k PRORES of equal dimensions. And not colour backed like PRORES either.

You can drop a RAW directly into a time line and you can grade RAW in that time line...

Not sure what the attraction to PRORES is anymore. ? other than low res editing ?

I only use PRORES when Im forced to edit swiftly on a laptop. With bigger machines I don't go near PRORES. Your limited within that colour baked world and your images then become compromised in that world. Not to mention your hard drive has to be twice the size to handle 4444 4k even 422HQ 4k is bigger than R3D's.

However, I do use PRORES for final Mastering once I get that perfect look Im after.

Food for thought.

Broadcast editing suites for companies like Fox and the Tennis Channel where I regularly work at run off shared drives and use the same DNXHD files for Avid. The larger RED files don't cross the boards as well. Even if they did, it's very difficult for these systems to upgrade their editing platforms so most are still on Avid 5 or 6 and thus not really ready for the AMA / Raw rendering workflow (nor do I think that would work well in shared editorials like these anyways).

The 2K prores (or any .MOV for that matter) is big in these situations.

 

[Frank Hague]

Has anyone read the result of Geoff Boyles test at the University of the West of England. This is not meant to challenge anything or change anyones opinions, I'm just curious about what people think of it.

According to the test....


Red Dragon with the skin tone filter in daylight showed a D.R of 12.5 stops

Alexa showed a D.R in daylight of 15 stops

The Varicam in daylight 12.5 stops

The C500 in daylight 12 stops



I'm not trying to instigate another Reduser "battle"... I'm just wondering if anyone has seem the test and what they think of it.


Here is a link to the results below

http://www.cinematography.net/CML-UWE-tech.html

These "findings" are such bullshit it's not even worth commenting on. I've shot feature length docs with C500s as well as 50+ commercial projects with the Dragon and even comparing their dynamic ranges in the same breath is a waste of air.

The Dragon and the Alexa are so far beyond every other camera I've used in terms of dynamic range. I don't think I've met anyone that's familiar with a wide spectrum of cameras that would argue otherwise, at least not in my inner circle.

Also, Geoff's first test resulted in the Dragon and Alexa having nearly identical DRs (with the Alexa having a half stop or so more in the highlights). How does this test fail so badly when his first seemed pretty indicative of where our natural eyes all figured them to be?

Obviously the Dragon is super noisy (no matter how many times Jarred and them will argue that it's not noisier than the Epic, I believe that to be just another Red half-truth / fallacy), but I strongly disagree with the notion that it's noisy enough to cancel out multiple stops of DR.

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

Jump already...this horse has been beaten and it is dead.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Broadcast editing suites for companies like Fox and the Tennis Channel where I regularly work at run off shared drives and use the same DNXHD files for Avid. The larger RED files don't cross the boards as well. Even if they did, it's very difficult for these systems to upgrade their editing platforms so most are still on Avid 5 or 6 and thus not really ready for the AMA / Raw rendering workflow (nor do I think that would work well in shared editorials like these anyways).

The 2K prores (or any .MOV for that matter) is big in these situations.

Agreed, my broadcast clients demand Avid DNX 115 8bit QT deliverables (not 10bit DNX 175), as 115 is what they natively edit 23.98 with (generally on Avid 7 or 8). They do ALSO demand the R3Ds as backup, however.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Jump already...this horse has been beaten and it is dead.

Really? For the cost (and the footprint) I find Dragon hard to beat (at least for what I do!) But everyone needs to choose the tool that works best for THEM. Generally speaking, there are no right answers, only personal choices. Sometimes a GoPro is the best answer...

 

[Bob Gundu]

Really? For the cost (and the footprint) I find Dragon hard to beat (at least for what I do!) But everyone needs to choose the tool that works best for THEM. Generally speaking, there are no right answers, only personal choices. Sometimes a GoPro is the best answer...

I think Brandon was referring to this conversation as a dead horse... not the Dragon!

 

[Nick Morrison]

I think Brandon was referring to this conversation as a dead horse... not the Dragon!

Haha. Got it. I need to go to bed!!