Modular Dragon OLPF sneak peak

[Jarred Land]

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.

 

[John Marchant]

Happy days

 

[Phil Holland]

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.

Dude. That looks incredible. Really dig the idea of the Clear OLPF for sensor protection. A nice little DSMC OLPF SWAP KIT would be very cool. Maybe with an extra slot or two for those future specialty ones. I can see a slight haliation/low con filter being something a few might be after, just to give highlights that little magic. I'll admit thought, the new OLPF is going to be in mine the vast majority of the time. Exciting stuff.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Looks great Jarred, thank you for sharing.

 

[David Battistella]

Way cool!

I like how fast things change around here.

Battistella

 

[Clark Dunbar]

modular - OLPF's -> awesome solution!

thanks for the continued development and improvements in the system. Gotta love OPTIONS!

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

A standard OLPF that works on every sensor from all manufactures will never happen.. unless every camera from every manufacture used the same sensor. Its a very specific relationship between sensor and OLPF as you guys have all seen. (Snip)

I realize that many properties of an OLPF will vary based on the particular sensor. The lens designers are looking to lock down a few physical parameters so they can keep back focus consistent, all the other variables would still be up to the manufacturers as suits their sensor/desired effect. At the moment, for instance, with very fast lenses (MP's, Leica Summilux-C) rental houses are having to adjust based on which camera/OLPF the lens will be mounted on (Epic and Alexa mostly). Until the last decade or so the hero use case for cine lenses was film, so calculations were based on the properties of air between the exit pupil and the emulsion.

My phrase "one size fits all" referred to having the same amount of attenuation on Epic Dragon whether you were shooting high motion/high detail or low key lock offs. Also wondering if using a different OLPF when windowing the sensor would be worthwhile? I get that the relationship of the pitch of the sensor to the pitch of the OLPF stays the same when windowing, just wondering if the results would be enhanced by swapping in a filter "tuned" to that application.

Cheers - #19

 

[Matt Ryan]

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.

Clear?! That sounds like fun!

 

[Medavoym]

I agree with Phil - a LOW CONTRAST 1/4 (or equivalent) combined with the new OLPF would be fantastic! It looks vert filmic.

Also, it's paramount that the different OLPFs interchange as easy as possible in the field.

Thanks RED!

 

[Burke Doeren]

Will these new interchangeable OLPFs work with the MX sensor too? It would be awesome if they could!

 

[David Battistella]

Will these new interchangeable OLPFs work with the MX sensor too? It would be awesome if they could!

A guess is that they will be exclusive to Dragon, since they have to be tuned to each sensor. But that does not mean people won't be able to try it, you just might get some funky results as each sensor would respond differently.

Battistella

 

[Adrian T.]

Modular OLPF sounds awesome!

Would be cool to have some tool with some kind of handle that safely holds on on to a module while installing or uninstalling it, so we don't risk to touch anything we shouldn't or that we even drop the little thing by accident.

 

[David Battistella]

I'd just be happy if they could make these in such a way that we could click ND's in place over whatever OLPF we choose.

Like a whole set of IRND filters than click in front of the OLPF that could come out with a lens change. They would be just slightly larger than the OLPF glass and just snap right into place.

I think this would be a bigger deal than the OLPF's themselves, but if you are redesigning the OLPF and making it user installable, then maybe it would be good to include a full set of MINI ND that could click on in front of the OLPF as behind the lens nd filtration. If the IR in the ND was tuned to the dragon sensor the would be great too.

Battistella

 

[John Marchant]

OLPF thickness is critical for backfocus - hence swapping is the way to go

 

[Burke Doeren]

What would be REALLY amazing is if there could be a way to send power to one of these OLPF modules and include the tech from the Motion Mount. I know that's a lot to ask, but it certainly would be great.

 

[Mark van Coller]

I don't know if this is on the RED horizon but please consider making an under water OLPF as light does some strange things down there.

 

[John Marchant]

I'm sure that's on the list - many specialisms will benefit here

 

[David Battistella]

OLPF thickness is critical for backfocus - hence swapping is the way to go

John,

behind the lens ND affects back focus in a different way than the front of the lens? Is that what you mean?

 

[Jeremy Torrie]

A standard OLPF that works on every sensor from all manufactures will never happen.. unless every camera from every manufacture used the same sensor. Its a very specific relationship between sensor and OLPF as you guys have all seen.

And yes.. tuning an OLPF and the color science isn't trivial. Good thing we have already done the first 2 OLPFs.

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.

Pretty cool.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

John, behind the lens ND affects back focus in a different way than the front of the lens? Is that what you mean?

Short version: whatever is in the space between the exit pupil of the lens and the capture surface has to be accounted for when setting back focus. With film, it was just air in that space, so if you nailed the FFD at 52.000mm then a properly collimated lens could be moved from camera to camera without adjustment. Once you introduce a piece of glass, even a clear flat, between the exit pupil and the capture surface it slightly changes the optimal distance.

ND filters and other physical items in the optical path in front of the lens do have an impact on a number of things, including focus. That said, the math is very different in the space behind the lens where even tiny shifts can have a significant effect.

Cheers - #19