Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • 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 :)

My Scarlet Dragon arrived - noisy, but otherwise great!

David Kellermann

David Kellermann

Well-known member
Joined
May 19, 2009
Messages
1,076
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Location
Freiburg, Germany
Website
www.abt-cine.de
I got my RED Scarlet Dragon two days ago and love it. The picture looks definitively more "filmic" than on the MX sensor.

But I have one big issue: the noise. I know that there are many complains already on the forum about this issue and that RED is working on a fix. But the noise on my camera looks really extreme, no matter if I shoot at low light or not.

I installed the last release firmware 5.1.51 and did a black-shading after warming up the camera. Anyway I'm hoping that it will get fixed soon.

What I love about the camera is how well it handles mixed lights. Some friends came over for dinner yesterday. The room was lit with some daylight coming through the windows, a couple of light bulbs and the screen of a mobile phone.

1600ASA with a Nikon AIS 50mm @ f1.4 - Straight out of REDcine-X using ADD.

EDIT: Here's the R3D snapshot: http://www.store-abt.de/upload/A002_C002_0703PE.0000467F.R3D

s9hi5mke.jpg
 
David... post r3d...




I'm curious to see this nikon lens, in REDCINE-x ;)
 
When I've cranked up my d700 to 1600 ISO with this lens on it, I don't find it looks much better than the image you present here. Without zooming it to 100% or beyond! it's quite a pleasant looking image.

Battistella

just a question on exposure. Did you set the camera at 1600iso and expose with the iris according to the monitor, or did you view RAW and expose for a wide histogram?
 
David Kellermann said:
I got my RED Scarlet Dragon two days ago and love it. The picture looks definitively more "filmic" than on the MX sensor.

But I have one big issue: the noise. I know that there are many complains already on the forum about this issue and that RED is working on a fix. But the noise on my camera looks really extreme, no matter if I shoot at low light or not.

I installed the last release firmware 5.1.51 and did a black-shading after warming up the camera. Anyway I'm hoping that it will get fixed soon.

What I love about the camera is how well it handles mixed lights. Some friends came over for dinner yesterday. The room was lit with some daylight coming through the windows, a couple of light bulbs and the screen of a mobile phone.

1600ASA with a Nikon AIS 50mm @ f1.4 - Straight out of REDcine-X using ADD.
Click to expand...
Congratulations, David. Is your Scarlet Dragon a brand new camera or an upgrade from MX?
 
luigivaltulini said:
David... post r3d...

I'm curious to see this nikon lens, in REDCINE-x ;)
Click to expand...

Posted it in the first post.

David Battistella said:
When I've cranked up my d700 to 1600 ISO with this lens on it, I don't find it looks much better than the image you present here. Without zooming it to 100% or beyond! it's quite a pleasant looking image.

Battistella

just a question on exposure. Did you set the camera at 1600iso and expose with the iris according to the monitor, or did you view RAW and expose for a wide histogram?
Click to expand...

I shot at 800ISO and opened the iris as far as possible, so no science there.

I'm not complaining about the low light capabilities. What annoys me is that the Dragon has also quite a lot of noise when shooting in properly exposed daylight.
 
again, i don´t get into all this, with ADD, my images are so much cleaner. do i have the old OLPF actually ? ;-)
 
is there a trick to download this file ? i always get on advertising and software sites that i have to download ...
 
Jan Reiff said:
is there a trick to download this file ? i always get on advertising and software sites that i have to download ...
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't had access to my server. I will upload the file to my server in one hour.

EDIT: fixed it
 
ok, i saw the Raw, this is underexposed, and so, you have noise. underexposed is underexposed. don´t get in why it is so dark in general with a 1.4 glas, ...
BUT: with ADD i think it should look better, as i compare the stuff we shot yesterday.
 
Wow, that is noisy. Even if it's underexposed it's still too noisy.
I'm kind of glad I'm still waiting for my Dragon upgrade email; hopefully RED will have this issue fixed by the time I get mine.
Meanwhile I'll go shooting with my Epic.
 
but sorry, this is not exposed very well, and it is not in focus also , ... as it was only a snap of one frame i couldn´t use ADD, but even with a very fast correction and pushed over ISO 2000 and adding a curve, you can use this frame. it´s oft, and dark. both is not an issue of the camera
if you watch the histogram of the raw, there is nothing from mid to the right ...

http://we.tl/c1YlfBuTsf

i think we should really be fair, that a lot of "noisy" images posted here are simply not exposed in the right way, low light is misunderstood in some ways i think, ... some may expect a clean image out of box when you shoot into a room without windows, light...
and when the new firmware keeps what the first pictures by Jarred Land promised we will get off the red chroma noise, and this is a massive advantage to handle underexposed footage even better.
but when you want clean images, expose right. nothing has changed here since the first camera was born ...
 
Just got home and took two pictures in my flat. Is my Scarlet even noisier than others? Thinking about sending it back to get a new sensor.

Bookshelf

Siemens star

I know that the first picture is rather noisy, but to be fair it was quite underexposed. My issue is that I see also lots of noise when properly exposing the camera.
 
Jan Reiff said:
but sorry, this is not exposed very well, and it is not in focus also , ... as it was only a snap of one frame i couldn´t use ADD, but even with a very fast correction and pushed over ISO 2000 and adding a curve, you can use this frame. it´s oft, and dark. both is not an issue of the camera
if you watch the histogram of the raw, there is nothing from mid to the right ...

http://we.tl/c1YlfBuTsf

i think we should really be fair, that a lot of "noisy" images posted here are simply not exposed in the right way, low light is misunderstood in some ways i think, ... some may expect a clean image out of box when you shoot into a room without windows, light...
and when the new firmware keeps what the first pictures by Jarred Land promised we will get off the red chroma noise, and this is a massive advantage to handle underexposed footage even better.
but when you want clean images, expose right. nothing has changed here since the first camera was born ...
Click to expand...

I know that the first picture was underexposed. But I rather posted it to show that I like the way the Dragon sensor handles mixed light.

Have a look at the the new R3D snapshots I posted. There's definitively quite a lot of noise in the midtones. I don't complain about the current noise issues of the Dragon cameras, since they should get fixed soon.

I rather wonder if my Scarlet is worse than others and if I should send it back to get checked.
 
when i open the Siemens Star, i see lot of empty room on the right side of histogram, so there seems to be much more exposure you can add, which may reduce the noise significant.
 
Jan Reiff said:
when i open the Siemens Star, i see lot of empty room on the right side of histogram, so there seems to be much more exposure you can add, which may reduce the noise significant.
Click to expand...

Yes, but there's also space to the left. I know that I always can add more light and shoot at 250ASA. But my RED Scarlet MX didn't had those issues, and neither should have my Dragon.
 
I have the new OLPF, I shot a lot last month with the camera in all kind of situation and to be 100% honest, I don't have to complain about any crazy noise situation.
Based on my feelings, my Epic Dragon reacts sometimes differently than my MX especially when shooting backlight...
I also think as others suggested here that there's a crazy latitude in the highlights and way less in the shadows but as long as my histogram is alright I don't have any noisy footage.
I'm a bit confused with all the posts about that issue... Did I pick a lucky number with my upgrade?
I didn't have that much time to read on Reduser in June so when I came back home and fell on all these posts, I had a shocker.
I went through all my footage to check if there was an issue I didn't notice... but everything looks alright so I do not have to worry about it.
BTW I do blackshade after every firmware upgrade and when moving from one location to another if there's a big temperature difference.
I also blackshade before shooting high speed if I was shooting at 25p for example but I'm not blackshading before every take or every couple of hours.
 
may you send Red Support some Raw Files, then they can look into it

there will be no "noise fix "... they improved the chroma noise very well, but still when you expose wrong there will be always noise - in your first frame there were massive chroma noise, and i only achieve this with my dragon when i really deny the sensor at least a small amount of food
 
David Battistella said:
When I've cranked up my d700 to 1600 ISO with this lens on it, I don't find it looks much better than the image you present here. Without zooming it to 100% or beyond! it's quite a pleasant looking image.

Battistella

just a question on exposure. Did you set the camera at 1600iso and expose with the iris according to the monitor, or did you view RAW and expose for a wide histogram?
Click to expand...

If you go for a wide histogram your probably exposing the sensor at 250 ISO.......rather than 1600....which means you need a much bigger lighting package for a night shoot.......

Having an early Dragon that's not been updated yet, I don't have any noise to worry about.
 
what temperature was your Dragon sensor at? how long did you let it warm up for? I let mine warm up for about 1 an hour because I was simply playing with the dragon ;). Then I decided to actually record some footage. Anyways, my sensor temp was at 65 degrees which I'm assuming the factor black shade was set for. Anyways, the noise on my images did not look like this, but then again I do think the shot was simply underexposed. Im sure it is a combination of reasons for the noise in your image. But I do agree it shouldnt be this noisy at 1600 ISO regardless. At 3200 maybe, but not 1600
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top