Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

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 :)

NAB13- Dragon Sensor Upgrade Program begins

Justin O'Neill said:
HDRx is absolutely essential for so many uses besides HDR! The extra sensitivity of Dragon means we can use a much higher shutter on the X track without getting noise. It is also a HUGE safety net with octocopter footage as motion blur can cause Warped footage to be unusable. Setting the X track to a higher shutter saves soooo many shots.
Click to expand...

Excellent point!
 
Jarred Land said:
no compromise.. its just kinda redundant with the Dragon if you used it for highlight protection. But if you guys want it for the sharp stills etc we can leave it in.
Click to expand...

Looks like an advantage defining a DSMC concept.
 
Please leave it in! I work as a VFX supervisor and for Visual effects is a really powerful tool. Both for tracking (especially on fast moving shots), rotoscoping and for cleaner green screen shots. Often it's not ideal what you are able to capture on set and to have an extra channel with less blur is really important to be able to solve some of the more difficult shots. One or two stops underexposed is often not a big deal compared to having sharper images to work with. So if you can leave it in, please do! :)
 
I'd like to see HDRx get kept... for this reason: it's serving a purpose for still images while shooting motion that the camera firmware doesn't really provide any other way, i.e. a usable motion track and a sharper shutter for stills extraction.

That said... I think the desire to keep it points to its true usefulness for motion + stills, which indicates a need for more focus in the firmware to serving that audience. So I'd say keep it for now, but look at what can be done to be a better image tool when stills as the output (tagging frames with the side handle record button, dedicated stills mode, etc. etc.)
 
Keep it for all the reasons stated above - it's not all just about DR - it's a fantastic useful option for stills and VFX.
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
Keep it; yea, more, expand it! I *still* want proper bracketing in stills mode. As in plus & minus several stops.

Get creative! You saw that welding helmet with the crazy real time HDR? Play with that a bit... when you're not wedded to traditional cinema 24fps / 180 shutter, you can use the speed of Dragon to have all kinds of fun... HDRx is two track... why not allow FOUR tracks, for permissible shutter / frame rate / data rate combos? Why not have base exposure, HDR +4 stops, +8stops, -4 stops - all running at once, for special effects and scientific jobs?

Don't kill it. Why would you ever throw away a tool out of the box?

Mike
Click to expand...

+1 Great ideas! :smile:
 
steve duncan said:
problem is that production budgets have gone way down. and with the lower budgets, nobody is willing to pay high day rates for the REDs. Adorama in NYC is offering the 5DM3 for $65 a day. The only camera consistently getting the $500 plus day rates is the Alexa. And a new 10K sensor isn't going to change that... the only way to afford to stay with RED, with heavy 4K competition looming everywhere, is if RED makes it affordable for us to stay. If not, we're going to get chewed up by all these lower costs 4k cameras. And when clients ask what's the difference between a Black magic 4k camera at 1k a wk, as opposed to 3k a wk for a dragon Epic-- good luck explaining what stops are, and how 4K isn't really the same with all cameras.
Click to expand...

Steve, let's put things in perspective:

2007:

Red: Revolutionised the digital film camera market and got the ball rolling. The RedOne had an akward form factor and mediocre colour rendition compared to film.

Arri: Builds the workhorses for the film industry. 2007 most projects in feature and commercial land were shot on 35mm.



2013:

Red: In digital cinema Red is one of many. Red's Epic turned out to be THE S3D camera, due to the small form factor. The colour rendition vastly improved compared to 2007. Red's assets are resolution, small form factor, modularity and sturdiness.

Arri: Still builds the workhorse for the film industry. Today only a very few projects are shot on film. Arri's transition to digital was oriented on the look and feel of film. Producers, directors and DOPs were grateful for this approach and stayed with Arri. The form factor is somewhat orientated on the 235 and looks familiar to the user. Arri's assets are film look, sturdiness, ergonomics, reliability.

Sony: Always had a leg in digital film, in the beginning in collaboration with Panavision. Sony is also a manufacturer for consumer products. This is pictured by their line-up ind HD cameras. Sony's assets are over-all high performance and reliability.

Canon: Is the the leading manufacturer for professional dslrs. With the 5D they gave power to the indy. Canon's asset is good performance for the price. This changed somehow with the C300

BMC: Like the 5D an akward form factor for a film camera. BMC has the same asset as Canon: good performance for the price.

Ok.

In the beginning Red was the leading camera manufacturer for indies and low budget filmmakers. This changed radically with the advent of the 5D and it's successors such as BMC. With Arri and Sony, Red a leading maufacturer of high-end digital film cameras that meet the needs of the best directors and DOP in the industry. This is the market where Red is sitting. The upgrade program of the Dragon sensor reflects that well and is compared to the offerings by Arri and Sony a bargain.

Lastly a word to loss of value. When I ordered my RedOne I was able to earn the whole ROI in just about a year. Then I got the camera upgraded through stage 2 to an Epic. The ROI of this upgrade was done in half a year. For me the Dragon up-grade is a no-brainer. If it is not, you should re-thing your business model. I'm not a famous director but a professional who is paying the bills with money earned with filmmaking. For guys like me Red's products are well suited.

Hans
 
Yes, it would be good to have. It has it's uses for tracking and VFX.

Actually I've always thought it would be interesting to have a 2nd shutter setting for the alternate frame - not just number of stops. For example, maybe have the main frame at 180 degrees and the other frame is 45 or 90 degrees. So it wouldn't be for HDRx really but for creative choose later. If would be like shooting 48fps with alternating shutter angles. But maybe I'm not getting how it really works.
 
OK.. HDRX stays. That was easy. Thanks guys... some good ideas here...
 
Jarred Land said:
OK.. HDRX stays. That was easy. Thanks guys... some good ideas here...
Click to expand...

Slight panic looking at reduser on my iphone while feeding cereal to toddlers this morning, but by the time I get to my desk this morning the right decision is done. Shit happens fast around here B)
 
Edit. Just saw that HDRx stays. HAPPY!
What I wrote before:
Please please keep HDRx. It's very useful and very powerful. I think people just need to get used to it a bit more since it requires some more testing and technical understanding to use it.
Myself I would love to have a more traditional hdr for time lapses. I found the Red is VERY nice for timelapses. It's the only high quality camera that actually makes the timelapse directly into a movie and not an image sequence. This means I can preview the timelapse on site. It's super cool. I just record for 10 minutes and then I put the preview speed to 10x. Super useful for experimenting. Didn't even use my Canon 5D for timelapses since the Epic was so convinient.
Very handy. And in timelapses I ALWAY use HDRx.

Some ways of making HDR/HDRx more powerful:
- Even more exposures would be cool here. For example 3 different shots with different shutter speed if each 3 shot is in HDRx we would actually get 6 tracks in total. Would not work for movies but awesome for timelapses of skies.
- A way of previewing both tracks. Now you only see one track which makes the director nervous since it looks like I overexposed. Being able to switch while recording would help this and make sure exposure is right.
- Redcine could use the HDRx better. Now there is only the blend. Better if it could do something more like an "exposure fusion" where it replaces the image based on luminance. So the overexposed areas takes from the dark_exposure and the dark areas takes from the bright_image. Anything is better than just blending the two images. Now you must set it up in After Effects or Davinci which is ok, but a bit slow.

For movies.
I was relying on HDRx in Costa Rica when we were running with SWAT guys from dark gloomy indoors to outdoors with no retakes quickly. It really helped there and made me feel more safe (ehm, regarding the camera at least).

Anyway I LOVE IT. It's one of the coolest features in the camera imho.
/Andreas
 
Jarred Land said:
OK.. HDRX stays. That was easy. Thanks guys... some good ideas here...
Click to expand...


I wasn't going to complain if it was gone, given the absurd Dynamic Range of Dragon... However given the amount of planned Still pooling ahed, I am extremely happy that it stays... Thanks RED Team!!
 
One advantage / disadvantage depending on how you look at it the sensor staying roughly the same size as the current mx. So you get 6k in the same footprint as former 5k. So if you want to shoot 5 or 4k you get more of a sensor crop and deeper depth of field no?
 
Jarred Land said:
OK.. HDRX stays. That was easy. Thanks guys... some good ideas here...
Click to expand...

I said this before, and although its decided, let me add to it again:

Maybe you could expand or change HDRx a bit if you just name it X-track and
- create a shutter dependent setting which shows the exact shutter of the x track for stills and VFX (makes for easy understanding and moves it away from the HDR thinking.
- make the current HDR stop setting an option to the one above
- move it away from the UI top level if you want people to understand its necessity has been decreased.

EDIT: I omitted it because I thought this was too much, but +1 on what Andreas said
- have the number of X tracks increasable as much as possible (3 or 4 tracks) for bracketing for stills and timelapse
 
Hans as perhaps you should have started this with the fact that in 2005 Arri released the D20 ? , a digital movie camera with manual shutter and 35mm sensor, fairly groundbreaking at the time. Although I am a great admirer of Red and how they have pushed the industry forward , lets keep some perspective. I just spent an hour or so reading this whole thread and quite frankly there is no wonder that we are sometimes seen as figures of ridicule and why some members have taken a back seat and no longer get involved with forum posts, right now i'm kicking myself for getting in the ring here and expecting a flaming from an over enthusiastic apoplectic reduser. It's baffling that there Is so much Alexa / canon / sony bashing, what's the problem? 4K, 2K, 1080p, why so angry over who chooses which format ?. It's a choice, the basis that choice is made upon is multitudinal.
Steve is obviously very angry and feels differently to many of us regarding the upgrade options, but lets take a breath, it's just his perspective, it's how he feels and that's fine too, he's allowed to do that, and we are allowed to respond, just have a think before pressing send.
NAB always induces a kind of frenzy, almost bacchanalian. There are some great choices out there for all of us. Great cameras, great innovators, great companies creating the type of changes in the industry the likes of which have not been seen since the "talkies", and we are all part of that. Lets do it well so future film makers look back on us with respect. This is a great forum, lets keep it great.

Big love going out to all you dream makers.

Bob.

P.s great that HDRX is staying.!

Hans von Sonntag said:
Steve, let's put things in perspective:

2007:

Red: Revolutionised the digital film camera market and got the ball rolling. The RedOne had an akward form factor and mediocre colour rendition compared to film.

Arri: Builds the workhorses for the film industry. 2007 most projects in feature and commercial land were shot on 35mm.



2013:

Red: In digital cinema Red is one of many. Red's Epic turned out to be THE S3D camera, due to the small form factor. The colour rendition vastly improved compared to 2007. Red's assets are resolution, small form factor, modularity and sturdiness.

Arri: Still builds the workhorse for the film industry. Today only a very few projects are shot on film. Arri's transition to digital was oriented on the look and feel of film. Producers, directors and DOPs were grateful for this approach and stayed with Arri. The form factor is somewhat orientated on the 235 and looks familiar to the user. Arri's assets are film look, sturdiness, ergonomics, reliability.

Sony: Always had a leg in digital film, in the beginning in collaboration with Panavision. Sony is also a manufacturer for consumer products. This is pictured by their line-up ind HD cameras. Sony's assets are over-all high performance and reliability.

Canon: Is the the leading manufacturer for professional dslrs. With the 5D they gave power to the indy. Canon's asset is good performance for the price. This changed somehow with the C300

BMC: Like the 5D an akward form factor for a film camera. BMC has the same asset as Canon: good performance for the price.

Ok.

In the beginning Red was the leading camera manufacturer for indies and low budget filmmakers. This changed radically with the advent of the 5D and it's successors such as BMC. With Arri and Sony, Red a leading maufacturer of high-end digital film cameras that meet the needs of the best directors and DOP in the industry. This is the market where Red is sitting. The upgrade program of the Dragon sensor reflects that well and is compared to the offerings by Arri and Sony a bargain.

Lastly a word to loss of value. When I ordered my RedOne I was able to earn the whole ROI in just about a year. Then I got the camera upgraded through stage 2 to an Epic. The ROI of this upgrade was done in half a year. For me the Dragon up-grade is a no-brainer. If it is not, you should re-thing your business model. I'm not a famous director but a professional who is paying the bills with money earned with filmmaking. For guys like me Red's products are well suited.

Hans
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top