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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 :)

Modular Dragon OLPF sneak peak

Ross Isaacs said:
I hope after all the research that went into the problems we are having in the underwater environment that there will be a special OLPF.
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Ross: somewhere back in this thread or another one, Jarred said there would be an underwater olpf. He implied that one of their guys that shoots underwater is already using one, but not sure on that.


Björn Benckert said:
but what would that be, I thought you bubble guys where using different colored filters for different depths and water conditions, no? What would the optimal UW olpf actually be?

So is it not a behind lens filter tray what you guys are after... or something like a colortunable motion mount?
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The filter doesn't have to be exact for a particular depth, it just needs to be close and then you can white balance for more precision. Also, sometimes you don't want to be balanced for precisely that depth because if you are shooting upward the water nearer the surface will appear reddish, which looks pretty unnatural. (at some point you just have to accept that water is a progressive filter - the more water between the surface to subject and subject to camera the more the light gets filtered)
 
A colleague of mine has constructed his own OPLF for underwater work specifically for the Epic MX as in his opinion the MX chip struggled in such a "blue" environment. He is a qualified scientist and this process cost a lot of money so not for the faint hearted. Unfortunately he got banned from Reduser when he discussed this process. Unsure if its all been forgiven?
 
Tom Gleeson said:
snip: Unfortunately he got banned from Reduser when he discussed this process. Unsure if its all been forgiven?
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there was more to it than that so I don't think so ;-)
 
I've got a Scientific American or American Science (or whatever) around here with a collection of articles on genius. I don't know what happened, but genius often comes with "eccentricities" . So if your genius is not getting under your skin a bit they might just be a knowledgable person with good memory instead. I'd just be happy to get well and get into Mensa myself (now one of the lower intelligence societies) but the cognitive memory health issues get in the way.

It is a shame that there are so few of these guys around to talk to.
 
Tom Gleeson said:
Michael,

Yes I am unaware of what caused the ban but it is unfortunate as he has a lot to offer.
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Besides being a very ######## ####-##-###, he was at times #############, at other times outright ########, his specialty the ######## ##### at the rest of us #### mortals with the #### to challenge his ideas and products.

Other than that, he was a really super guy.

He has never been shy to promote his stuff, if he had a viable solution, it would be out there, splashed all over the internet.

It is not.
 
Wayne Morellini said:
I've got a Scientific American or American Science (or whatever) around here with a collection of articles on genius. I don't know what happened, but genius often comes with "eccentricities" . So if your genius is not getting under your skin a bit they might just be a knowledgable person with good memory instead. I'd just be happy to get well and get into Mensa myself (now one of the lower intelligence societies) but the cognitive memory health issues get in the way.

It is a shame that there are so few of these guys around to talk to.
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Most 4 Sigs are monosyllabic, at best, anyway...

Thank you very much

Fury
 
Hi Nick, were you the guy?

Tom Hamilton said:
Besides being a very ######## ####-##-###, he was at times #############, at other times outright ########, his specialty the ######## ##### at the rest of us #### mortals with the #### to challenge his ideas and products.

Other than that, he was a really super guy.

He has never been shy to promote his stuff, if he had a viable solution, it would be out there, splashed all over the internet.

It is not.
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OK, is there a link to the thread, would be worth accessing his proposal? I know from my own experience that it is hard to access others work, most people won't see it unless they are at that technical level or creatively intelligent, or, If you are a popular person dumb people will fool themselves into thinking you are right, and if you are not popular even intelligent people will fool themselves into thinking you are wrong. I personally try to show people the simple stuff, I basically won't show some things unless the other person is a top level expert and capable in the job (skill versus knowledge).
 
To use these new "custom" OLPF's we will have to send our camera's into RED for retooling?

Jarred Land said:
Just thought I would give people a sneak peek on the Modular OLPF thats going to be available for Dragon soon.

There still people that prefer the old OLPF because even though skintones and highlight protection isn't as good as the new OLPF, they want a noise free image at higher ISOs that the old OLPF gives you by letting in more light. We of course will put whichever OLPF you want in your camera now... but the new OLPF module will make things alot easier to change.

The freedom and flexibility to make that kind of decision in different environments should be beneficial to everyone.. even if they only make the choice once and never change it again.

The Module install is pretty straight forward... we can do it or you can do it. Getting the old stuff out is the hardest part. The new "module" goes in easy and 4 little bolts and you are done. You dont need to touch any glass and you dont need to worry about putting it upside down or right side left. The front of the module is marked so you can see which one it is by just looking at the sensor so rental customers can quickly see which one is in camera.

At any rate... we are testing prototypes now and I expect these to be ready in 6-8 weeks after we get out of tooling. The OLPF Modules will be for sale in the store so you can choose whichever one you want or all of them and change at will. If you want to keep whatever OLPF you have in your camera right now you can still send us your camera and we can transfer your OLPF into a new module and send it back to you.

There will be 2 modules available out of the gate obviously ( The new OLPF and the OLD OLPF ) and IR PASS, ND, Clear and a few specialty ones will come after.

1406205543.jpg
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I'm finding a lot of this discussion quite strange. Why would you not want the possibility of more choices?

I think it's usually the case that most people will be aware of what kind of lighting conditions they will be shooting under. I mean you are going to know going in that it is a night shoot and then you may think "I want that OLPF that is more light sensitive".

As someone has already mentioned, it's not that different in concept to deciding what film stock you are going to be shooting on, only cinema film stocks presently top out at 500ASA so that's a maximum of 1000ASA if you push the film one stop. You can now go further with the Dragon low light olpf and still have a "clean" image.

Not that long ago people were making do with the low light shooting options there used to be on camcorders. Back then you had to make huge compromises such as loss of colour response or even monochrome infra-red. Now you can use the dragon low light OLPF and there are only minor compromises and issues in exchange for great low light response. (such minor issues in fact that it took a while for people to notice them).

In any case RED have already stated that they are going to make another OLPF filter that will sit between the low light capable filter and the new one so you could just get that one and leave it in there.

Freya
 
Just placing this out for discussion:

Once we get into multiple OLPF's being produced, might it make sense to include a light pollution variant?

Thinking this could be part of a solution when shooting night scenes bathed in sodium or mercury streetlights. Plenty of other applications such as industrial / warehouse settings, low light - open skies.
Someday, as the sensor improves - astrophotography...
I know you can utilize a CLS filter to achieve similar results - but could an OLPF optimized for these scenarios yield a better result?
 
Freya said:
I'm finding a lot of this discussion quite strange. Why would you not want the possibility of more choices?

Freya
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This.

It is completely baffling to me that the idea of interchangeable OLPFs causes anybody concern. The entire Red system is based on modularity -- options, choices, and the assumption that Red's users know enough about what they are doing to make the choices they need.

Sure you have to be clear about what you're renting, if you rent. But how is that different from how speccing a camera has always been? I just don't get this line of thinking -- are you suddenly going to get stupid because Red gives you too many choices?

You have to know your craft. If you end up with the wrong stuff on your shoot, it's because you didn't prep the job properly, not because Red gave the world too many choices. And yes, of course there will be rental houses that won't have the OLPF you want. How is that new? My local rental house doesn't have Ultra Primes. Does that mean I can't use them? Of course not. I rent what I need from elsewhere. Or if it isn't that important to me, I use what they do rent.

There are lots of things Red does that you can complain about, but interchangeable OLPFs isn't one of them.
 
D Fuller said:
This.

It is completely baffling to me that the idea of interchangeable OLPFs causes anybody concern. The entire Red system is based on modularity -- options, choices, and the assumption that Red's users know enough about what they are doing to make the choices they need.

Sure you have to be clear about what you're renting, if you rent. But how is that different from how speccing a camera has always been? I just don't get this line of thinking -- are you suddenly going to get stupid because Red gives you too many choices?

You have to know your craft. If you end up with the wrong stuff on your shoot, it's because you didn't prep the job properly, not because Red gave the world too many choices. And yes, of course there will be rental houses that won't have the OLPF you want. How is that new? My local rental house doesn't have Ultra Primes. Does that mean I can't use them? Of course not. I rent what I need from elsewhere. Or if it isn't that important to me, I use what they do rent.

There are lots of things Red does that you can complain about, but interchangeable OLPFs isn't one of them.
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I think the wories comes from having people taking on and of olpfs... behind those you got the sensor a quite sensitive spot on the camera to say the least... dust spots on the olpf is no biggie just to wipe off.. dust spots on the sensor itself is as I understand it a different story. also taking on and off the olpfs is actually risking dust scratches etc on three glas surfaces. So no I would not like my rental clients swaping olpfs by them selves... as they can hardly mount a monitorcable without braking it. :)

But still im really looking forward to this. Next shoot is long exposure with streaking lights in the dark and then the old olpf with its red dots would be perfect .
 
FWIW, long streaking exposures are cleanest on current Dragon shot 25 fps 360 shutter and frame summed in post. Quite a lot of flexibility over the effect then too :)
 
Björn Benckert said:
I think the wories comes from having people taking on and of olpfs... behind those you got the sensor a quite sensitive spot on the camera to say the least... dust spots on the olpf is no biggie just to wipe off.. dust spots on the sensor itself is as I understand it a different story. also taking on and off the olpfs is actually risking dust scratches etc on three glas surfaces. So no I would not like my rental clients swaping olpfs by them selves... as they can hardly mount a monitorcable without braking it. :)

But still im really looking forward to this. Next shoot is long exposure with streaking lights in the dark and then the old olpf with its red dots would be perfect .
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I understand your concern about that, but doesn't that really come with the territory for a rental facility? It's why you require them to have insurance, etc. (And why it's such a PIA to do rentals as a sideline.)
 
D Fuller said:
I understand your concern about that, but doesn't that really come with the territory for a rental facility? It's why you require them to have insurance, etc. (And why it's such a PIA to do rentals as a sideline.)
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Sure, but if clients starts to change olpf every day at sundown... well then it's quite a risk that that camera will probably spend more days over at red getting new sensors than it would be rented out. And I think a few turns like that and your insurance company will not look at it as accidents but more like wear and tear...


John Marchant said:
FWIW, long streaking exposures are cleanest on current Dragon shot 25 fps 360 shutter and frame summed in post. Quite a lot of flexibility over the effect then too :)
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Can not have to long exposure need realtime or more. and it's quite big and dark... think a huge amount of people running down a ski slope (no snow/summer) all tangled in led christmas lights but yes 360 shutter and post trial is what we do doing a little test now, possibly they can hold fire/smoke flares as well to get some exposure up but not sure.

Sorry to derail the thread, But this is my experimentations from last night... me dancing in the dark with a screwdriver and headlight as my only available ledlights at the time... Dark clothes, crismas light suite and fire flares is what I need for test 2.0 :)

Post processed:

No post process except for panning:



edit... the more streaks the better, now I just need a ninja outfit and run zig zag and not stand still for 100 frames an I would be completely invisible :)

https://vimeo.com/104113718
 
Bjorn,
Your concerns are well placed. Changing OLPF's is not the answer. We need a sensor/OLPF combination versatile enough to shoot day exteriors, dusk, and night without taking the time and risk of dealing with arguably the most sensitive parts of the camera. And many times this change over having to be to be done in time critical situations. The more I read here that changing and compromising on OLPF's might be the final "fix", the more I miss my MX.
 
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