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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 :)

Mike Seymour

Working now - unbelievable footage Mike. While I'm sure you'll cover it in fxphd (can't wait) - can you give us any hints as to what post-process was used to get to this result? I vaguely remember Jason saying in the last RC that he wished it was possible to keyframe the X-channel slider. I'm guessing it's either that - or two HDRx conversions from RedCineX at each end of the exposure range - cross-faded together in post?
 
Very nice. Further demonstration of the unprecedented capabilities that RED has delivered with Epic.
All kinds of possibilities for working with the two streams and using dissolves, masks, and blending modes.
 
That is what i wanted to see. I think the defining shot left is steadicam from inside a house to outside of a house. This is exciting stuff and shows HDRX as a very formidable force for verite style shooting.
 
There are many ways to use HDRx. This is one of them. Very nice. :-)

Jim
 
Background Tech

Background Tech

I was lucky enough to be invited by Mike to help as a DOP with the initial Sydney Epic Test Shoot. You can see me in a red T shirt attempting to hide on the back seat in a very small car. Here is some background to the Tunnel Exit video.

The first drive through city streets and into the tunnel the base exposure was the "correct" or normal exposure for the late morning light at a line under F22 with a polariser and the raw histogram showing some mild clipping in the strongest highlights and HDRx™ was set +3. This approach means the HDRx™ track is a bonus and if you did not use it we would still be OK with only minor clipping. Camera was set at 800asa.

We did do it a second time with a more interesting and dangerous approach as the exposure set to F5.6 plus pola overexposing the base track to grab more detail in the dark tunnel. HDRx™ was set to max at +5. This approach meant we would have to rely on the X track to make the EXT shot work but we should attain a higher dynamic range? The footage was put together in LA so maybe Mike could chip in on which of these takes he has published?

One of the great things about shooting film was you never really needed to stress about the highlights. Shooting electronic formatts I have found I am always obsessing about them and basing much of my exposure decisions with the highlights in mind. Shooting HDRx™ mode I can relax knowing its all there IF we want to call it in.

Something obvious but should not be forgotten as you cannot monitor the HDRx™ track live is that the higher shutter speed may get you into strobing hell with flouros, old magnetic ballast HMIs, screens and any flickering source.

The motion blur at 1/50 remains an issue on every motion camera when pulling stills. Using the X track is an interesting idea and if set to +1 you would end up with I think 1/100th second exposure but one stop underexposed. You might get away with this but if the HDRx™ is set any higher you will end up with seriously underexposed images on the X track and you have DOUBLED the data rate. I suspect if you require quality stills you would switch into stills mode and take the time for dedicated snaps.

HDRx™ is not to be used indiscriminately as it adds a new level of complexity not only in the doubling of storage, camera drive swaps and transfer times this second track has to be managed in post. Once the offline edit is done what does the editor have to do with his EDl to refer to the Xtrack or is it done at the colour grade session or is their a whole new process that needs to be added? Does anyone know the workflow yet and does any third party kit support it? Calling Mike Seymour??
 
That's amazing! Looks absolutely natural.

Were you pushing at the limits in the tunnel, or is there still more overhead in the raw data? Could you have brought up the levels at the beginning of the shot? It's hard to judge from the Youtube video, but it looks very clean, looks like there's even more there.
 
MY SAFE BET kind of HDR

MY SAFE BET kind of HDR

I can still see a slight sort of flicker with neon lights in the driving cabrio at the tunnel shot...

My concept of HDRy (ypsilon) that could deal with high and low ISO at the two tracks is a kind of safe bet in a comparison with HDRx that using shutter speed.

Maybe you can't get 18 stops of Dr with it but you could get 15 stops of DR for sure.

And that's enough for sort of natural roll of latitude that can be compared with film.

I still can't get in mind why RED choose that way of HDR that can maybe later become a sort of An Achilles' heel of EPIC DR when other competitor systems will

come at 4K stage with their own idea about HDR or so...

Also I was already warned by Jim to try to rule what RED is doing about HDR

but must say honestly I can't rule RED anyway and it was just an idea that I think is more convenient and appropriate to use for sort of safe bet HDR.

With high ISO only issue is the noise floor and a sort of over saturated blowout shifting colors that can be fixed with a flag that warn you

not to go higher over the borders.

But also use this what I wrote now with a grain of salt and it can be totally wrong opinion on RED's HDRx just because still didn't have chance to use it.

Just my two Austrian Schillings...
 
Sanjin... your method won't work in EPIC for a few reasons, and certainly not on this shot.

I'm quite sure the "other guys" will come up with something... but we aren't standing still either.

Jim
 
The flicker in the Neon light actually looked pretty cool. I honestly thought it was just the lights in the tunnel until you brought it up. Its not even remotely noticeable or distracting in any shape or form, it actually adds to the motion coolness factor.
 
Sanjin, i think you have to watch getting caught in the detail. Audiences will accept it. Also, I really think Jim and team are on the right track and any competitor will be having a massively hard time matching the work the team have done. What they have done is short of a miracle. Really. It cannot be understated.
 
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