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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 :)

Matching Weapon with Scarlet Dragon

S

Stuart Cameron

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Has anyone had trouble matching their Dragons (Scarlet or Epic) with a Weapon?

Today I picked up a loaner Scarlet-X Dragon while my Epic Dragon is in for repair and I tried to match it with my Weapon and the two images look completely different. Opened a ticket and got a response which made me laugh. They told me to make sure both cameras are using the same OLPF and the correct OLPF is selected in the menu. They also suggested I should go into the advanced colour temp settings and make sure the tint was set to zero in both cameras. Obviously I had already checked all these things along with every other colour and look setting in both cameras.

I have attached a few R3D Snapshots so you can see the difference between the cameras. I did a quick white balance in RCX using the grey card - you can see one is very green.

Anyone have any suggestions, or have had similar issues? we are shooting a multicam studio TV show with these cameras and if I give them footage like this they will have an impossible time trying to match it later in post - my current solution is to use the white balance info I got from RCX and apply it as a 'look' to the meta data in the cameras and hopefully this info will follow the files through post.

When we shot the location portion of this show on my Epic Dragons before the upgrade to weapon we had perfectly matched images. Both cameras looked identical.

Any help or insight would be good

Thanks

See drop box for R3D snapshots:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yku1bvhxa45k5au/AAC8pZ4UL2lFKbUjSxW0Qpw9a?dl=0
 
Last edited:
Stuart Cameron said:
Has anyone had trouble matching their Dragons (Scarlet or Epic) with a Weapon? Today I picked up a loaner Scarlet-X Dragon while my Epic Dragon is in for repair and I tried to match it with my Weapon and the two images look completely different. Opened a ticket and got a response which made me laugh. They told me to make sure both cameras are using the same OLPF and are set to the correct OLPF in the menu, they also told me to go into the advanced (lol) colour temp settings and make sure the tint was set to zero in both cameras. Obviously I had already checked all these things along with every other colour and look setting in both cameras. I have attached a few screen grabs so you can see the difference between the cameras. The top image in both screen grabs is what is coming out of the camera, and the bottom image is just a white balance in RCX using the grey card - you can see one is very green and the other is slightly magenta.

Anyone have any suggestions, or have had similar issues? we are shooting a multicam studio TV show with these cameras and if I give them footage like this they will have an impossible time trying to match it later in post - my solution is just to use the white balance info I got from RCX and apply it to the meta data in the cameras and hopefully this info will follow the files through post, but when we shot the location portion of this show on my Epic Dragons before the upgrade we had perfectly matched images.

Any help or insight would be good

Thanks

The attachments are tiny - see drop box for better images -
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dvchtzn04uxqn02/AABno8oTs9DEjIh5lvjS3Y2Ga?dl=0
Click to expand...

I matched SCARLET, EPIC, and WEAPON easily on my last project. I would not get put out by the fact that one leans green and one magenta. What matters is: once they are white-balanced in RCX (or elsewhere), either to your reference card or to some warmer or cooler color that you prefer, you should be good to go. Different sensors, different black-balances are always going to lead to slightly different results when shooting out-of-the-box with default settings. But I've had no trouble getting them to true up to each other using a consistent optical calibration signal at the start of the day (such as Chroma Du Monde or even the back of the RED Rules of Engagement book).
 
Very interesting. Looking at the metadata suggests the two sensors do read the light slightly different. Since the Weapon OLPF automatically adjust to the correct filter, is it possible the Scarlet Dragon was set incorrectly? Luckily when both cameras are manually white balanced, they seem identical. I don't imagine all sensors to be identical coming out of the oven. But perhaps Graeme can offer some insight?
 
Bob Gundu said:
Very interesting. Looking at the metadata suggests the two sensors do read the light slightly different. Since the Weapon OLPF automatically adjust to the correct filter, is it possible the Scarlet Dragon was set incorrectly? Luckily when both cameras are manually white balanced, they seem identical. I don't imagine all sensors to be identical coming out of the oven. But perhaps Graeme can offer some insight?
Click to expand...

I made sure the Scarlet was set to the correct OLPF setting to correspond to the installed OLPF - I thought that maybe it was a firmware issue, so I upgraded the camera as well with no change.

I'm just blown away - my two Epic Dragons looked identical, and I'm pretty sure none of them looked as green as the Scarlet does in a fully tungsten lit environment.
 
Well, it took me all of 30 seconds to make them match perfectly, so I see it as a complete non-issue.
 
Guy Staley said:
Well, it took me all of 30 seconds to make them match perfectly, so I see it as a complete non-issue.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Just downloaded the files and likely did the same thing.

The main difference is the general White Balance and Tint. Remember there have been changes in the optical path of DSMC[SUP]2[/SUP] bodies from DSMC bodies. Though clearly the general color science is tuned to the same target.

Stuart, a super nice trick is to use the Magnify feature on a gray patch on your DataColor chart there and knock out an Auto White Balance while magnified. This would provide the color match. There is a slight difference in Dynamic Range between the two cameras, but the color-wise that should solve your issue.
 
Thanks guys - I shot a new chart this morning and created looks to apply that correction to the RMD sidecar. The problem with smaller budget episodic TV is that they will abandon the R3D files once they transcode to their online ProRes or DNxHD masters, so if they don't have somewhat matching cameras they will eventually look at me because of the 'problem'. We all know its a simple fix, but to them its the end of the world.

The other issue which becomes an obsession, is that the monitors don't look the same which causes the knee jerk 'squirrel' reaction where a colour imbalance becomes the only thing they are focused on instead of directing.

Regardless - I have saved a 'look' using the correcting created in RCX, this corrects both issues for now.

Thanks for all your help.

S.
 
Phil Holland said:
Stuart, a super nice trick is to use the Magnify feature on a gray patch on your DataColor chart there and knock out an Auto White Balance while magnified. This would provide the color match. There is a slight difference in Dynamic Range between the two cameras, but the color-wise that should solve your issue.
Click to expand...

Wait, so if you do 1:1 on camera and then hit auto white balance it will only calculate from what's shown on the screen? Can we get a confirm from RED about that? If that's not true, it sure would be a great feature to have as I've often wanted to be able select only a section of the screen for white balance.
 
Matthew J said:
Wait, so if you do 1:1 on camera and then hit auto white balance it will only calculate from what's shown on the screen? Can we get a confirm from RED about that? If that's not true, it sure would be a great feature to have as I've often wanted to be able select only a section of the screen for white balance.
Click to expand...

All of the tools follow the crop...look at what happens to stoplights and histogram when you switch between 6K and 1:1.
 
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