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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 :)

LUT for Dragon Footage to Match Amira / Alexa

Michael Notar

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Looking for a LUT for Red Cine-x for use with Red Dragon Footage shot in S Log to match Amira footage shot in S Log.

Leads appreciated. Shooting early next week.

Production needs the Red footage transcoded to Pro Res 444 with a LUT attached that matches Amira as much as possible. They don't want to loose any DR in the conversion, S Log in, S Log out.
 
i know brook made one. perhaps he will share it with you...
 
By S-Log, do you mean Arri Log-C?

It'd be really cool if you did, Brook. It'd also be really cool if we could see chart by chart (or even shot-by-shot) examples too. Actually a RLF vs Log-C-LUT vs Log-C comparison shot would be ideal.
 
There is no such thing, as far as I know. To me, the color science is too different.

But: you could get very close to matching them by just having both cameras shoot the exact same color chart on the same set at the same time with the same lighting. Do that, and you've got a fighting chance of being able to even them out to the point where the differences will be minimal. But when the exposures change and the lenses change, the differences are not linear and not always predictable (at least in my experience).

If these are pickup shots, my advice is not to use a different camera. Spend more money and get the same camera used the first time.
 
We match them up all the time.
But in resolve or base light at final conform stage.
Very easy to do.
But make flat log luts to match ? Seems a bit over the top.
Amaria is just a HD prores video camera and Dragon being a 6k Raw camera. Like apples and oranges at the start of the process. But easy enough to degrade the RED images back down to Amira res, softness and latitude at final grade.
Question: Have you tried red log or red log film side by side with log C -
 
:lurk5::lurk5::lurk5:
 
Amaria is just a HD prores video camera and Dragon being a 6k Raw camera. But easy enough to degrade the RED images back down to Amira res, softness and latitude at final grade.

What does that mean? It is an ignorant and uninformed statement. Crapping on cameras, that are not Red, for no reason I might add, is a clear disservice to a Red community image as a whole. Having a healthy respect for a competitor is a sign of class.
 
Looking for a LUT for Red Cine-x for use with Red Dragon Footage shot in S Log to match Amira footage shot in S Log.

Leads appreciated. Shooting early next week.

Production needs the Red footage transcoded to Pro Res 444 with a LUT attached that matches Amira as much as possible. They don't want to loose any DR in the conversion, S Log in, S Log out.

If you can't find a pre-made LUT available for download you might want to make your own.

You could start with something like the CML-UWE camera test footage. Download and import the Amira footage and dragon footage into something like Resolve, grade the Dragon footage to match the Amira as best as you can and then export the grade as a LUT.

If you have access to both cameras then you could shoot your own footage based on your specific situation and probably get better results.
 
What does that mean? It is an ignorant and uninformed statement. Crapping on cameras, that are not Red, for no reason I might add, is a clear disservice to a Red community image as a whole. Having a healthy respect for a competitor is a sign of class.

Cameras have different quality. Is it still paying disrespect if we say Amira has less resolution and is soft compared to Alexa65?
We can make beautiful picture with some lower quality camera like the A7s. But the fact is it has Lower res as many other cam. I've seen "A most dangerous year" which has a superb photography but the lack of detail in the picture made me think "what a pity". 2k anamorphic DCP surely didn't help sharpness. I must confess, I like to see a picture from the first 1/3 front row.

Pat
 
We did this as a camera look preset for MX and pre-loaded it on our rental cameras ([url]http://www.cineground.com/blog/)[/URL] It was a big hit. We've been planning on updating it for Dragon but haven't gotton around to it yet - truth is, we haven't been feeling the rush because most people are now fairly happy with Dragon color right out of the box.

If/when we get around to doing an update, I'll post it here.
 
To make it right you would need a 32x32x32 color chart shot with both cameras same lens then colorpick all the boxes and drive a ALEXA to RED and RED to ALEXA 3dlut from there. But then to make it right both camera footage needs to be linear, as I understand dragoncolor is not linear and LogC is not linear. I think you can make the r3ds linear in red cine but you would need to make a lut that pulls the logc to linear before doing the ALEXA-RED, RED-ALEXA luts. So There is basically at least 3 luts that needs to be made if not 4 if you want to be able to use the raw sliders on the RED.
I guess if there is a defualt setting used like 800ISO, 5600K,no tint, no curves on both cameras then there could be only one lut for each direction to unify the two cameras. And exept for the DR mappings and ranges of the two you would get a very good match. Dragon Skintone would clip later but have less shadow detail for example.

But then again just doing a color match by eye, shot by shot is not too difficult, any colorist worth the title is able to get a match that is accurate enough for most.
 
But then again just doing a color match by eye, shot by shot is not too difficult, any colorist worth the title is able to get a match that is accurate enough for most.
That to me is the most reasonable approach. I haven't done a project in the last couple of years that used only one specific camera -- quite a few used combinations of Red, Blackmagic, even GoPro and Canon 5D cameras for certain shots. The problem is if the pickup happens in the middle of a scene, and matching those could be problematic.
 
We match them up all the time.
But in resolve or base light at final conform stage.
Very easy to do.
But make flat log luts to match ? Seems a bit over the top.
Amaria is just a HD prores video camera and Dragon being a 6k Raw camera. Like apples and oranges at the start of the process. But easy enough to degrade the RED images back down to Amira res, softness and latitude at final grade.
Question: Have you tried red log or red log film side by side with log C -


If you are a Good DP and get it right on Camera the 6K-RAW means nothing for the final delivery, Ultrarsharp ultra Hight resolution images may look great for commercial work (Cars, Building, landscapes, etc) but for a reason most highend Films had been done (and will be shooting) with ARRI sensor for a reason, Skin tones and softness is beautiful and natural and make people faces look great. unfortunately 6K is not so great for some things and need to be degraded to make mostly female actresses look nice. I has been watching undegraded Dragon-6K footage and 2K Arri Footage on 4K broadcast monitors and to be honest Arri is way more natural and organic.


Back to topic: I think Davinci Resolve (with the new color matching function) and a Compatible Color Chart on set will match almost any camera with a couple of clicks
 
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We do a lot of mixed-camera shoots with our Epic Dragon, so find this interesting. Any recommendations of an ideal chart for this? Particularly if using Catchlight?
Thanks for any advice.
 
If you are a Good DP and get it right on Camera the 6K-RAW means nothing for the final delivery, Ultrarsharp ultra Hight resolution images may look great for commercial work (Cars, Building, landscapes, etc) but for a reason most highend Films had been done (and will be shooting) with ARRI sensor for a reason, Skin tones and softness is beautiful and natural and make people faces look great. unfortunately 6K is not so great for some things and need to be degraded to make mostly female actresses look nice. I has been watching undegraded Dragon-6K footage and 2K Arri Footage on 4K broadcast monitors and to be honest Arri is way more natural and organic.


Back to topic: I think Davinci Resolve (with the new color matching function) and a Compatible Color Chart on set will match almost any camera with a couple of clicks

It's what has been said 15 years ago about SD vs HD. Actress faces looking bad is a strange argument. To bad it's such a biased argument used for choosing a manufacturer and not another one. I wonder if you will keep this argument whith Arri65 6k camera.

Arri 2k logic is giving you the ability to have more crappy set design and Fx renders and blur the borders with badly worked post prod. Who's actress face's are you talking about?

Pat
 
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