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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 :)

Monstro Low Light - Playing with Fire.

Aaron,

You have good eyes, I never would have noticed that.
 
I'm wondering if the multi-coloured noise in the underexposed areas is related to how adjustable the colours are in general.

I remember it was a bit of a 'thing' a while back how colour information was being lost with underexposure.

This is quite extreme mixed lightning. If you white balance on the lamp screen you get k1800 but there is other light sources in the room that are of other temperatures. So naturally when iso is brought to the extremes then those differences is also elevated and you get all sorts of strange colors.
 
Šabović Adis;1784776 said:
Hm...it's not Monstro Monochrome, so it has to be chroma. My 2c.

Mmmmm. My Sony A series cams have very different looking noise. Like film, they don't invent colors that aren't there just because there is no light. "In-camera noise reduction v. RED Raw blah blah" I don't think so. Not complaining - it is what it is - would just like to know for knowledge sake why is RED's noise pattern so distinctive and colorful?
 
Hey Björn, I've seen on all your Monstro frames so far that the top row of pixels seems a bit odd -- darker and more saturated. You can especially see this in the last version Rand just posted. You might want to do some further investigating there.

Yup, that's more than a single row of pixels. Also has a weird echo effect going into the lower frame.

8ak2DO.png




Dyi9ct.png
 
Mmmmm. My Sony A series cams have very different looking noise. Like film, they don't invent colors that aren't there just because there is no light. "In-camera noise reduction v. RED Raw blah blah" I don't think so. Not complaining - it is what it is - would just like to know for knowledge sake why is RED's noise pattern so distinctive and colorful?

But not black/white, right?

AFAIK, all electrical components introduce noise of their own, different levels and shapes - in audio, there's filtered, unfiltered, dithered, shaped, Pink, White, Brown, A-weighted, C-weighted....guess video is not that different at all.


0mbpC4.png



Not sure this is sensor noise, could be the redishness of the flame as well. Who knows... :smile5:
 
Thanks Rand. It seems like a normal level of contrast to me, which I do like too, but don't tend to use when I have an excuse to go for a darker and more high-contrast look.

I'm just impressed by the range of the sensor and the colours.
 
Les,

in mine, I think I might have tried to keep too much info in the shadows than was really needed.
 
I just assumed that was the point of what you were trying to do/show.

I was just messing around trying to make it look like something you might see in a film, within the limits of what was captured. The second pic was as far as I was willing to go in terms of increasing noise in the darker areas while avoiding blowing out the lamp, and the first was letting the retaining of highlights in the lamp dictate the grade (meaning the darker areas had to go). Bearing in mind this was just 'graded' in RCX, with some extra tweaks to the TIFF's in the photo-viewer.

I like how the RED camera/s allow those kinds of grading choices with just one exposure actually taken.

I'd still like to see a sensor with more dynamic range in the top end, just so you could expose for cleaner shadows while retaining highlight detail, at the risk of it starting to look un-naturally HDR-like.

But as it is, I wouldn't complain if I was forced to shoot something with a Monstro sensor.
 
In the grade, I was trying to keep the highlights managed without loosing relatively any highlight info while gaining as much detail in the shadow without adding relatively any noise. Foolhardy to attempt , but I wanted to push this image as far as I could. I think red will continue to improve the sensor and improve what the IPP2 workflow will be able to pull out of the sensor.
 
Rand, I didn't notice before how you'd also managed to neutralize the varying light temps and reduce the noise in the pale walls.

Hope you don't mind, but crushing the shadows back down a little in your picture covers up most of the noise in the wooden parts of the walls and makes for a nice look imo.



Edit - Thanks Šabović
 
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Les,

I don't mind. in fact I like that color white better than mine and the overall look.
 
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Shooting fire like this is a challenge. The DR is crazy so to hold the texture in the flame (and not have it just a blown out blob) you have to underexpose the background. If expose as normal, ETTR with no Stop Lights, then you have to go dig out the shadow detail in post. I shot several Poi spinning sessions with my Dragon with little luck. Noisy af when I held the flame detail. You have to have some fill light to reduce the DR - like shoot at dusk. RED cameras like to be fed light. Starve them and strange things happen ;-)

Anyone else have experience with shooting fire in pitch black?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb3UhzjQGXE&t=3s
Skip to 21 seconds.
Shot in 2013
Epic MX
Shot Wide Open on Zeiss SS's ISO's varied between 800-1600.
Processed in whatever was current in 2016.
 
Les, added slightly more white and added brightness, added more contrast to overall image crushing shadows reducing noise more. I Brought out more of the brown in the wood and brown in the leaves of the plant...

I just find that blotchy kind of noise in the shadows/underexposed areas too distracting. Imo it goes a little too far towards looking like digital artifacting, rather than a film-grain-like kind of noise.
 
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