My Impressions on Epic M

[tomapete]

Noise? No.

As a person who spends his entire life pixel-peeping high-ISO footage (I shoot dark-skies timelapse at ISO 3200 on a regular basis), I can tell you that, looking at this Epic footage, noise was the very last issue on my mind.

I was much more concerned about being wide open on that lens, and maybe missing focus.

You can criticize a lot of things, but noise?

Here is a TIFF: http://timescapes.org/noise.tif

This "noise" is nothing compared to most DSLRs. Look at the clouds. Clouds are a noise magnet.

I missed the TIFF you posted Tom. Really clean, wow.. i mean that's just amazing - no DSLR i think of comparable resolution is that clean at ISO 1000. Thanks for posting it.
Actually i ran the the jpeg from earlier thru NeatImage and it came out so incredibly clean too. Beautiful colors.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Epic Dreams

Epic Dreams

I've been having dreams about shooting on the Epic lately, literally. :blush:

I've been daydreaming about returning to and filming dozens of locations I have come across in the last year or two on the road, but had decided at the time, "I'll come back and shoot this on the Epic instead." After shooting on the Epic M, it's difficult for me now to shoot slo-motion on the Red MX. I know in my mind that I will have to drop the resolution to 3K to get 50fps, and that is not something I want to do anymore, after having sipped from the Holy Grail of 5K, at 96fps+, with no compromises.

The other night I dreamed about an "HDRx Preview" button on the touchscreen that would allow a shooter to manually preview the "under" frame, in order to protect certain highlights, for example. If you see a blown out patch on the LCD screen, you hit the "HDRx Preview" button and then crank up the stops, 2+, 3+, 4+, etc, until that highlight is protected to your liking. Then you hit record.

I told Graeme about my HDRx dream, and his reply was, "Just don't get the bayer pattern nightmares I've had those, and they're nasty...." :biggrin5:

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Sometimes it is hard to let go when we go to sleep. I've consciously continued trains of thought through my dreams, and woken up still thinking about it only to go right back to work. I guess it is commendable to be so absorbed on what you are doing, but I worry that it might prevent you from getting the same quality of sleep you would get otherwise.

I hope we get to use +1 or +2 for 99% of scenarios. Even when you don't need the full range it is nice to increase the sweet-spot.

 

[Tom Lowe]

As Jim has pointed out, the sensor and codec are so good to begin with, that very few shots will even require HDRx. After people play with the camera and the various HDR blending modes, I think we will all begin to learn instinctively which shots might benefit from HDRx, and which might benefit instead from a higher framerate, lower compression ratio, etc.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Instincts will vary greatly of course. While some will be well prepared, others will have to push extra hard to overcome tendencies towards the obvious in their art. And there is certainly no shortage of the obvious, and the well worn paths, in art.
We'll have to be diligent in reshaping our instincts, and to avoid the reflexive, in order to make the most of this new technology.

 

[Tom Lowe]

There will be a learning and adjustment period, to be sure. Added to that will be the fact that HDRx software will take many forms and change even as we are learning, I am sure. You can shoot +4 stops HDRx, but there will be many different ways to skin that cat in post. It's a brave new world. Exciting times, indeed.

 

[AnthonyFlores]

Tom - Can't wait to see your work with the Epic, once the timelapse capabilities are enabled and also ideally with a 16mm Leica C lens Thanks for all the posts and contribution recently ....

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I keep thinking that it is the same second-generation M-X technology in Epic "only with higher resolution". But I keep forgetting that all that information and added light that will be captured is getting averaged out into the final delivery, giving us an even lower noise floor, and a smoother image with higher detail. I feel M-X has a great deal of DR, though I wish it was a stop or two higher to really blur the difference between digital and film at the top end. I am not saying that digital looks bad, I like the noiseless and grain-less look. And I am not saying we aren't close! But film's top end roll-off is more similar to what we see with our eyes in mid-day sun if we are very discerning. That is why I am so hopeful for HDRx, or Mostro but that isn't coming yet so I am shamelessly grabbing my pon-pons for HDRx. I want it to work SO bad. And I believe it will work in most situations.

I know we won't need HDRx to make stunning imagery, that has been made very clear already by the samples people are posting --and of course capturing beauty is about much more than this. I just want "more" when I am in this environment, chatting on a forum about how things are and how they ought to, or could be. Not the same as when we hit the road and become vigorously pragmatic. Here I always want more, and more after that. I don't know how exited I will be about advances beyond this last spec necessary to blow past film in all measurable ways. But there's always something.