noise on image of red epic/ iso question

[adam brennan]

I am fairly new to the Red Epic W. I am going to take the Reducation class through Abelcine soon. I noticed if I am using iso 1600 or around that, I seem to see noise in the black areas quite a bit. I feel like I am watching a DJI 4k video quality seeing so much noise. What is the best ISO this camera performs at? Just kind of disappointed in this performance with the money paid for it.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

How much noise you see is all down to two things: how much highlights you want to protect, and how good your exposure is. Plenty of times I've seen stuff shot at say ISO 3200 (where you expect a bit of noise) but the actual exposure for key elements in the scene is so dark that really they should have had the ISO set to 12,800 so no wonder it was noisy. If you use any of the normal ISO range and expose correctly for it then sure, you'll see an increase of noise with increase of ISO (and an increase in highlight protection too) but you won't get an un-usable image.

Things that can make things not obey the above: 1) using STH when you should be using STD or LLO. With STH you're going to get the best colorimetry but you do need to throw light at the sensor. 2) not using the full sensor. Don't shoot 4k for 4k or 2k for 2k. Shoot 8k for them all and downsample. 3) compression - more compression will exacerbate the appearance of noise.

Graeme

 

[David Battistella]

When this situation arises it is best to post an r3d and plenty of people here will offer help and advice.

David

 

[adam brennan]

Thank you for the responses friends! I hope the Reducation will help me with understanding this camera more. I know it's a powerful camera, but I have a lot to learn still.

 

[Homer Dulu]

Adam,

You should check this link out:

http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/exposure-with-red-cameras

If you follow the suggestions in Parts 1, 2 and 3, you will be good with noise.

Basically, try to give the sensor as much light as possible, try to not to light up the goalposts and traffic lights too much, and not rely too much on bumping up the ISO to bring up shadows. If you do that, your noise should be minimal.

For me, with the latest Epic-W BETA firmware (with the new ISO calibration), I try to expose well at around 400 to 1280/1600 ISO. That gives me very little noise at 8K, which looks great when downsampled to 4K and 2K.

Finally, although the Epic-W is a low-light beast, it's still a cinema camera at heart, and thus still needs light to make it sing.

 

[Neil Abeynayake]

Thank you for the responses friends! I hope the Reducation will help me with understanding this camera more. I know it's a powerful camera, but I have a lot to learn still.

REDucation at AbelCine is one of the best places to learn about your camera. Nice people, great environment, good food (they'll feed you to death). I've taken that class too. Your instructors are most probably full-time employees at AbelCine. They know a lot about cameras they service/sell. However, these folks may have to fill many roles related to sales and service what the company offer. They may not have in-depth knowledge (I'm referring to really deep stuff) about using this new camera on feature length movies/commercials or using it in all situations etc. This is partly because at AbelCine if they have issues with anything, they'll grab the best available equipment from their rental lineup. During our class hands-on camera demo/instruction sessions, instructors had setup two ARRI SkyPanels (1 Arri SkyPanel S60-C and an Arri SkyPanel S120-C). In addition there were a bunch of Arri L10-C Color LED Fresnels hung from the ceiling. Many people may not have the luxury of lighting a scene that way on a day to day basis. So, when you take the class ask specific questions related to your camera. They'll find answers one way or the other.

The best advice you may receive is being active in this forum. People who created the camera are responding to your questions. Graeme's advice on this issue, is the best answer so far. As David stated, if you post a R3D file of the noisy footage, people who are familiar with your issue can chime in how they solved their problems.