LUT for Dragon Footage to Match Amira / Alexa

[Andrey Blanco]

You know what, probably you are right an 99% of the top Industry DP's are Wrong choosing the crappy ARRI sensor. and all is RED fault not convincing them to use Red's cameras. SD vs HD is a TV resoltion argument not cinema.

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

Yes it works with R3D's, Color Match Function works well after you already applied a color space to the footage for example: Rec.709

Last rev I checked, Resolve would not color-match R3D's. Did they add it?

 

[Patrick Tresch]

You know what, probably you are right an 99% of the top Industry DP's are Wrong choosing the crappy ARRI sensor. and all is RED fault not convincing them to use Red's cameras. SD vs HD is a TV resoltion argument not cinema.

Your point was "to sharp for the actress" wich was the same point made in SD times. I was just laughing at this statment.
I didn't say Arri has a crappy sensor, just their philosophy that you (and some big names) embrace 2k is enough for a movie master. Let's see where this leads us within 5 years.



Pat

 

[Martin Stevens]

Since you can always lower the resolution, in post, of 4K, or 6K, or 8K, I see no reason to avoid shooting with Red at higher than 2K resolutions.

However, acquiring in 2K leaves you at 2K, for you cannot add more resolution to it in post.

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Since you can always lower the resolution, in post, of 4K, or 6K, or 8K, I see no reason to avoid shooting with Red at higher than 2K resolutions.

However, acquiring in 2K leaves you at 2K, for you cannot add more resolution to it in post.

According to Arri's Ultra HD upscaling magic in the new Alexa & Amira... you can! Huehuehuehue.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Andrey, this is going to happen soon if the big player doesn't wake up. And in a creative point of view more resolution is only another color in our "palette".



From https://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2015/05/strategies-in-filmmaking-2/

Pat

 

[Marc Wielage]

Last rev I checked, Resolve would not color-match R3D's. Did they add it?

Humans can color match almost any shot, if they have enough time and skill.

 

[Andy Corleone]

More than 90% of the value and impact of a Film is on release and how was display at the time it was made, at this point 2K is enough, thinking about masters sound a bit over the top and lot of wasting unnessary resources . if in 5 years 8K tv is the rule and everybody is accepting it, that would be a different story but I think is important on living the present and focusing on what is the norm now.

Your point was "to sharp for the actress" wich was the same point made in SD times. I was just laughing at this statment.
I didn't say Arri has a crappy sensor, just their philosophy that you (and some big names) embrace 2k is enough for a movie master. Let's see where this leads us within 5 years.



Pat

 

[Mike P.]

What does this have to do with the RMD-to-Alexa LUT?

Zack/Andreas, did either of you put up yours up anywhere?

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

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.

a) Needs are most commonly addressed just like that in case of an infant or disabled people. Or through private relations and private projects. Productions (as in business entities) produce through budget. A part of which usually goes to a person competent to match camera looks when that is required.

b) SLog is Sony's Log. Designed for Sony cameras. Arri has LogC. Designed for Arri cameras.

c) That doesn't make much sense. If Log files are matched that doesn't mean that gamma corrected and look applied ones will as well. DR utilization compensation is adapted manually.


The helpfulness of this post becomes more apparent with time.



=>

Humans can color match almost any shot, if they have enough time and skill.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

It's what has been said 15 years ago about SD vs HD.

SD had inferior acuity to organic light capturing medium.
UHD + goes way beyond and introduces microscopy results to CU shots.

Actress faces looking bad is a strange argument.

It may look strange but it is a valid argument.

 

[Ken Butti]

Anyone have any Alexa LUTS they can share please? would love to give them a shot.

 

[William Kamp]

Once again, the question this thread was started on was never answered by anyone that had any knowledge. Rather everyone started bitching about why the person didn't rent an alexa to match, then the how either red or alexa is better, and then finally about how any human can match these cameras if their good enough...

How about we just answer the question and use this for what it is... to help.

Hope you find your answer, I'm looking for one too. I can rent a Red Dragon in my budget for $300 a day with the over saturation, but Alexas still cost me $750 a day... Adds up quick on small budgets even if I do like the "look" of an alexa more. Having a LUT that does this conversion sure would allow me to focus on telling my story rather than focus on building a LUT.

Oh well. I'll just keep suffering through the trolls and wait for some kind soul to actually answer the thread.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Having a LUT that does this conversion sure would allow me to focus on telling my story rather than focus on building a LUT.

Sorry to hear that you are really in trouble. Hope you forget about posting here and focus on telling your story.


Pat

Ps: I think you need a colorist. It's also good way to start.


[end of trolling]

 

[James T Mather]

Alexa seems to be much brighter (HDR like) at the low end and it's colour response with non-continuous sources is different (Dragon is much more primary and spiky with LED or sodium). In these situations Alexa is more pastel and homogenised. Keeping the Dragon's sources around 5000/5600 full spectrum is more critical. Alexa seems to deal better with conflicting sources (Sodium, LED etc). Also Red cameras tend to have a heavy magenta flare due to OLPF bounceback which may or may not effect you depending on your lighting style. Alexa seems to have a faint soft bleed around highlights. I know you can filter this (pearl, BDPM etc) but this doesn't always work due to sources in shot causing filter bounce in shot. Also Alexa is more grainless even when shooting the low end of the curve where as Red tends to grain up quickly in dark situations. In short, I find Alexa is generally more forgiving in off-normal situations. Red has a big neg resolution on it's side and is generally more manageable as a camera (size, FPS, anamorphic options etc) I shot a commercial recently using both and found them pretty impossible to really match due to colour and latitude response. We couldn't get the low ends to match so had to crush the Alexa footage to match the Dragon. This is all an opinion mind you so your mileage may vary. In daylight however, they are pretty easy to match.

I'm curious if a combination of Kipperties yet-to-be-released low con OLPF plus HDRX (and making sure your sources are 5000 full spectrum) will match both cameras exactly but this is often quite difficult (Hospitals with lots of fluorescent for example where it's impractical to go with full spectrum sources and replacing all the tubes is impractical).

 

[Tommaso Alvisi]

James, very well said and impartial.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

James, I think that the choice of the OLPF could also have a significant impact on your findings about Dragon. There are a lot of talk in favor of STO olpf but there are also a lot of downside on it. The shadows is one of them and LLO handles noise and color reproduction in the shadows much better that STO and the neccessity to use DEB with STO in lowlight also plays a big factor.
There is indeed a peak in colors in the majentas (IMHO not only due to the Sensor bounce back but because of the character of RED's colorimetry).
A recent test between Dragon and Amira showed a better color accuracy from Dragon than Amira's sensor. This test was not shot by me so you should take this statement with a grain of salt...
I'm not a fan of Arri's lowcon look and I therefore never choose this camera, so I don't have any input on how it handles colors, saturation and gamma VS RED's. Thanks for your post.

Pat

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Once again, the question this thread was started on was never answered by anyone that had any knowledge. Rather everyone started bitching about why the person didn't rent an alexa to match, then the how either red or alexa is better, and then finally about how any human can match these cameras if their good enough...

How about we just answer the question and use this for what it is... to help.

Hope you find your answer, I'm looking for one too. I can rent a Red Dragon in my budget for $300 a day with the over saturation, but Alexas still cost me $750 a day... Adds up quick on small budgets even if I do like the "look" of an alexa more. Having a LUT that does this conversion sure would allow me to focus on telling my story rather than focus on building a LUT.

Oh well. I'll just keep suffering through the trolls and wait for some kind soul to actually answer the thread.

Release from suffering in two steps of cognition.

1) LUTs are useful for transforming fixed values. Camera performances vary.
Based on numerous factors emerging in front of, inside and behind the sensor.

2) If the expectation was realistic, the desire to have something for nothing would not be a sufficient motivator for someone to spend time and effort meeting the expectation.

 

[luigivaltulini]

Once again, the question this thread was started on was never answered by anyone that had any knowledge. Rather everyone started bitching about why the person didn't rent an alexa to match, then the how either red or alexa is better, and then finally about how any human can match these cameras if their good enough...

How about we just answer the question and use this for what it is... to help.

Hope you find your answer, I'm looking for one too. I can rent a Red Dragon in my budget for $300 a day with the over saturation, but Alexas still cost me $750 a day... Adds up quick on small budgets even if I do like the "look" of an alexa more. Having a LUT that does this conversion sure would allow me to focus on telling my story rather than focus on building a LUT.

Oh well. I'll just keep suffering through the trolls and wait for some kind soul to actually answer the thread.

I have been many times in your situation and understand you, and I could understand the customer.
Look for Lut to match these two cameras is not easy, I did not succeed more times, except for simple situations. My colorist can do better than me !!
However, you like the look of Alexa, why not try a little 'low-contrast filter OLPF made by Kippertie?
I am attaching a couple of Tiff OLPF carbon 2, qc. So perhaps you can find some inspiration,Unfortunately, i can only share these.
This to me is a good solution, as long as you want to go in the direction of Alexa.
I have not tried the carbon2 LOW LIGHT Olpf.
What I see is that many people often shoot Alexa 800 and Dragon 800 ISO, and then find themselves in post production, to push blacks inferior Alexa, and make a denoise on Dragon, complaining of the noise of the Dragon, and say that the colors are better on Alexa !!
.The Two cameras at ISO 800 do not respond the same, for me.
Usually, I use Dragon Alexa 500 and 800, if you intend to use the two cameras on set. This brings me to have a good product in post-production.
You love Alexa, I can say that since I use Dragon, Alexa for me is a step back in the colors.
But each of us is different

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c5adllpidt777f2/OLPFsthlowcar2.zip?dl=0

 

[Marc Wielage]

Once again, the question this thread was started on was never answered by anyone that had any knowledge. Rather everyone started bitching about why the person didn't rent an alexa to match, then the how either red or alexa is better, and then finally about how any human can match these cameras if their good enough... How about we just answer the question and use this for what it is... to help.

The answer is there is no easy answer.

My opinion is that there is no "LUT" that will match an Alexa to a Red Epic. Too much depends on lighting, lenses, exposure, color temperature, camera setup, and so on.

I do think an experienced colorist might be able to get the cameras close, but they're never going to match exactly. I think it's generally a very, very bad idea to take two different cameras and use them within the same scene. Inevitably, you wind up taking the best camera and degrading it to make it approximate the look of the worst camera. And "worst" would be a subjective impression based on exposure, lenses, and so on.

You might as well ask: "can I relight an entire scene that was shot on location without lights" or "can I improve the sound of a scene where we forgot to take the microphone off the camera?" There are some things for which you have to have basic skill and experience going into production. Without that, you'll just sail right off the cliff. The key is hiring good people who make the right decisions.

LUTs are not the answer. In this case (as the great Juan Salvo has said): ​the colorist IS the LUT.

 

[James T Mather]

The difficulty arises in off-continuous sources I find. See this comparative test Adrian Jebef shot and you'll see the issues with off-continuous sources - the spiky greens for example. https://vimeo.com/69557367

Watch the mixed source night exteriors on the Red - very green compared.

This means the sensor response is inherently different to multiple kinds of sources, so if you have non-continuous sources mixed with full spectrum (as you must on night exteriors for example unless you have an insane amount of control) then you'll get spiky green in your image at the source so extracting this becomes like trying to extract salt from a meal. Kind of impossible.

In daylight I find them somewhat matchable although the Dragon loses saturation as the exposure drops (ie: in more low-key shots the Reds don't have as much saturation as the Alexa which has more colourful HDR shadows. I've found post-pushing the low end saturation doesn't work either). In short, I don't find them completely matchable due to their sensor characteristics. Red has a very different approach to colour than the Alexa.

Question: Is it possible to get an OLPF that doesn't bounce back magenta. I don't tend to shoot flares on the Dragon because I don't like this magenta colour which greatly effects my lighting style on Dragon. I'd like to though. Any suggestions about which OLPF might get rid of this? Kippertie?

James Mather