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 :)

Noise on Epic-w

O

Olivier Gresse

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2015
Messages
235
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Website
duolproductions.fr
Hello,

Everyone says that Epic-w is very sensitive but the rushes I watch in Red Cine-X are pretty noisy, yet these rushes have been shot at 1280 ISO so not so high!

Is there something I do not do well? Camera setting? Or options in Red Cine-X? Do you always use the denoise software?

My FS7 is much more sensitive than the Epic!

Thanks
 
Not to be mean, but lots of RED noobs hitting the boards. I hate seeing titles like this as a longtime user as it makes me think something serious is going on...nope. Just a lot of learning to be had. FS7 is no match...in any category.
 
Olivier Gresse said:
Hello,

Everyone says that Epic-w is very sensitive but the rushes I watch in Red Cine-X are pretty noisy, yet these rushes have been shot at 1280 ISO so not so high!

Is there something I do not do well? Camera setting? Or options in Red Cine-X? Do you always use the denoise software?

My FS7 is much more sensitive than the Epic!

Thanks
Click to expand...

Don't forget to do black shading at working temperature.
 
Adam Johnson said:
Not to be mean, but lots of RED noobs hitting the boards. I hate seeing titles like this as a longtime user as it makes me think something serious is going on...nope. Just a lot of learning to be had. FS7 is no match...in any category.
Click to expand...

Why do redusers always blame the user when complaints are made? Red has never been a champion in low light.
Epic-w is no exception. I also find it to be noisey beyond ISO 800.

FS7 is definitely a better low light camera.
 
Milano Questa said:
Why do redusers always blame the user when complaints are made? Red has never been a champion in low light.
Epic-w is no exception. I also find it to be noisey beyond ISO 800.

FS7 is definitely a better low light camera.
Click to expand...

I feel, the Epic W is not really any less noisy then the new Weapon Dragons.. It just has more, smaller pixels. That being said, I get extremely clean images out of my Carbon Dragon at iso 2000. But as its been pointed out here, you need light hitting the sensor.
 
Redcode raw can't be beat I think.

The big key is the same for ANY camera system, .. you have to learn what it "wants" to really shine.
People who think buying the most expensive camera means they can just take it out of the box
and make film history are in a fantasy world. ( not referring to the original poster, just making a point )
Just like anything exceptional, .. it takes work to achive. And like great films, it's in the pre-production.

So I don't think anyone is "blaming" in a negative way but perhaps pointing out that a better understanding of the system is needed.

So getting off my soapbox, ... Olivier can you supply us with a screen grab and metadata / shooing specs??

Curtis
 
It is easy to misinterpret what ISO is and does on a RED camera so new users sometimes are confused at what they are doing and seeing. Unlike some other cameras, boosting ISO on RED when shooting doesn't introduce any gain in the signal so it doesn't introduce or eliminate noise.

As someone pointed out above, noise is completely an artifact of the exposure; i.e. how much light is hitting the sensor. That's why it's hard to comment on whatever issues the OP is seeing since there are so many variables that could have been changed to reduce any potential noise. From everything I have seen so far about the Epic-W, exposing properly at ISO 1280 should reveal no noise.
 
Hi Olivier,

If your end delivery is HD, I find the Epic-W with the lowlight OLPF is rateable at 1280-3200 & I like the noise. It is gentle and very small and higher ISO's helps a little with highlight retention. But shooting for 4K delivery I might lower the ISO a bit. Plus shooting 8K, the noise is much smaller, definitely shoot iso800 or less at lower resolutions such as 6-4k for faster frame rates & black-shade /auto blackshade.
Maybe try shooting some short clips under 2GB & post we transfer links to your r3d's?

Craig Lees
UK
 
Noise is quite subjective as well. I was doing some comparisons and i've not had a chance to finish them off yet, but i have the Sonys as well which i'm very familiar with. I'd be happy rating the EW at 3200, pushing even further in extremes. Nominally i'd aim for 800 to 1280.

I don't find the EW noise objectionable at all. It's quite organic and in motion it's quite nice as well. I find the whole image quite organic in fact compared to the other cameras. Perhaps a function of the resolution and the tonality. To be honest it's aspects like 'nice' noise that define what most of us call cinema. Compression noise is awful though and even in RAW on the FS series that can crop up in horrible ways.

I suspect daylight balanced lighting would tame the noise more and also the enhanced debayer can do some serious magic to some types of noise as well.

cheers
Paul
 
I share the same experience as Craig and Terry. Much less noise then my Scarlet but still needs
"proper" light for the sensor.

As I come from a film background ( ya know, that stuff that came on reels way back in the day )
I treat the sensor like a film stock, .. lighting to get proper exposure and treating the ISO as just another "adjustment"
Now I'm still treating the sensor what I think is on the hot side at around 1000iso, .. but I'd have to agree that 1280 seems perfect.
I tend to be a little hot on the sensor but I also like to crush the blacks in RCx.

If I was shooting a short or something I didn't want that contrasty and punchy look I'd rate at 1280 and not crush the blacks.

On thing is shooting a little hot and pulling the black down always seems to reduce visible noise.

Curtis
 
Terry VerHaar said:
It is easy to misinterpret what ISO is and does on a RED camera so new users sometimes are confused at what they are doing and seeing. Unlike some other cameras, boosting ISO on RED when shooting doesn't introduce any gain in the signal so it doesn't introduce or eliminate noise.

As someone pointed out above, noise is completely an artifact of the exposure; i.e. how much light is hitting the sensor. That's why it's hard to comment on whatever issues the OP is seeing since there are so many variables that could have been changed to reduce any potential noise. From everything I have seen so far about the Epic-W, exposing properly at ISO 1280 should reveal no noise.
Click to expand...

Ofcourse it does, just not at camera level. Any amplification of ISO is digital gain. In post or in camera.
 
Usually what I see is that people expose for "ISO1280" and then crank up FLUT, curves, gain or some other iso equivalent later in the image chain such that they're really at a total higher iso. Like you could set ISO to 640 then apply an aggressive brightening curve that brings the final image up to something like ISO 3200.
 
Sorry, I didn't want you to panic, I'm learning the camera and I'm just wondering what I don't do well ...

I noticed that the saturation was at the maximum at the time of the recording, weird, I don't think I have touched this parameter in the camera! Is this parameter create more noise?

What's the differences beetwen the Broadcast preset, the motion preset...

Here are two captures in R3D.

http://www.duolproductions.com/R3D/A001_C058_1126B6.0000033F.R3D

http://www.duolproductions.com/R3D/A001_C062_1126UQ.0000000F.R3D

Thank you for your feedback !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top