RED #8 testing team & some details

[chuck colburn]

Some gnarly Terex stories Jeff! Colburn is undoubtedly relieved to hear that it was an F-150 and not an F-250 that got flattened...:biggrin:

Hahahahah....
That's true, anything less then a F-250 Camper Special with a M-Block in it is for wimps.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bubbaf250/

 

[Finner]

As boring as it may be the thing I look most forward to is a bunch of standard testing that defines the limits of the camera in as many spectrums as possible. As much fun as a small short type test would be I feel it has already been done very well with the PJ short and that concrete tests would be the most valuable way to spend the time.

 

[Steve Gibby]

I think that's a good point Daren. With several cameras, two days, and a team of 21 people divided into rotating teams, we should be able to cover a lot of standard tests and possibly a short or two, plus lots of shooting in various lighting setups/conditions, and lens/accessory combinations.

Bottom line: we'll cover a lot of ground

 

[Michael Hastings]

Scuba diving & skydiving

Scuba diving & skydiving

I figure a minimum setup to be a body, prime [*cough* 8R], onboard flash module and external battery. That's probably under 15lbs... quite light for a 35mm-esque setup.

Brook:

We can make it even lighter by trimming some excess metal off - that's what they make milling machines for - and I'm sure Gibby wouldn't mind:greedy: .

I have a skydiver friend that's pretty big (in fact his nickname is Big Jap(www.bigjapphotography.com) because he's a pretty big Jap at 6'5 220, so I'm sure at some point I'll convince him to strap a RED to his head (a real REDhead).

LOL...Sharky just likes to tease me about me supposedly being reluctant to put #8 in a water housing, but the fact is I'm not reluctant to do so, and I've shot in the water (shallow & surface) with my camera systems throughout my whole career. I'm planning to have a water sports housing made for #8 as soon as I get it - and you may very well be the one to make it.

I've waited a long time for #8 and I'll be the one to use it in a housing. We'll find Sharky another one to put in a housing while he waits for his! If a housing was available for #8 for in-pool shooting for LART, I guess I'd let Sharky use my rig...but I'd watch him closely as he did! :blink: :biggrin:

Gibby, I knew you were game - my comment was as much for the non-divers as anything. It may be more a matter of limited time at your tests, seems like there is a pretty full schedule already.

 

[Steve Gibby]

RED User members:

Please keep posting your testing suggestions for L.A REDTest (LART). Your input is much appreciated! We can't guarantee that we'll have the time, staff, and facilities to do the exact tests you suggest, but we'll fit in what we can.

Thanks!

 

[Brook Willard]

Gibby, do you know what sort of lighting we'll have available?

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Glass man

Glass man

I know the big curiosity is the operation of the camera but I am very interested in seeing the difference between lenses. If, in fact, the characteristics of the sensor are as neutral as I anticipate the RedOne may reveal the inherent qualities of each lens quite discretely.

Zeiss vs Cooke, RED branded glass vs Angeniuex, etc. Without the usual variable of film stock characteristics this should be illuminating (pardon the pun :innocent: )

It should be interesting to see the FOV of familiar lenses mounted on the RedOne with its S35 sized sensor. There have been many long threads about the proper "conversion" factors between various combinations of full sensor vs windowed and full 35mm aperture vs s35, etc. There is nothing quite like seeing it for yourself, particularly when you have a moving camera and several points of interest in the shot. I assume s35 DoF tables will hold up...

 

[Steve Gibby]

Gibby, do you know what sort of lighting we'll have available?

We'll be figuring that out shortly...

Give me your suggestions via PM or email and we'll keep them in mind as we plan it all out. I'm sure we'll want to use many different lighting setups - studio and natural.

 

[planet e]

i know that andrew is shooting a doc, and you are shooting stills. but will we be able to access some quick n dirty web same-day video-on-demand, without having to wait for a doc? stills don't do justice to many things that i'd like to see, which could benefit from motion, especially:

1) birger lens mount--i'd like to see this in action, i can't quite grasp how it will work from the stills
2) changing lens mounts
3) complete assembly process of the camera--not just seeing it operational and fully assembled, it would be nice to see all the parts being placed...
4) swapping out of drives and memory modules

i'm sure there's more.....

 

[Steve Gibby]

i know that andrew is shooting a doc, and you are shooting stills. but will we be able to access some quick n dirty web same-day video-on-demand, without having to wait for a doc? stills don't do justice to many things that i'd like to see, which could benefit from motion, especially:

1) birger lens mount--i'd like to see this in action, i can't quite grasp how it will work from the stills
2) changing lens mounts
3) complete assembly process of the camera--not just seeing it operational and fully assembled, it would be nice to see all the parts being placed...
4) swapping out of drives and memory modules

i'm sure there's more.....

All good suggestions...

We're still in planning, and we will be right up to the time of testing, but here's some thoughts on what you asked:

We'll shoot a lot of stills and video on both days. We'll be slammed at the end of the first day, so I'd guess some summary reports, posts, and a few pics will be what is posted. The second day will also be a very long day. I would guess that summary reports, posts, and pics would be posted that evening also. Some fast turnaround QuickTime clips of simple video may be workable. Some offers of hosting and bandwidth have come in. We're analyzing our options.

We've been communicating with Erik Widding (Birger). We will have Birger mounts to test. Which ones, and how in-depth we can get in testing them will determined before the testing sessions.

We will be changing mounts a lot. We will have two superb lens technicians as part of the team, plus several team members with deep experience with lenses, so I'd expect some very good info to be generated.

We'll be assembling and disassembling four different RED One camera systems, and going through scores of different lens/accessory setups, drive swapouts, etc. The teams will be very busy...

We'll have a vast amount of ground to cover in two days. We'll document it (Andrew), shoot stills of it ( me and others), and potentially videotape certain sequences for possible web/QuickTime posting. Besides testing out tons of aspects of lens use, accessory use, etc., we'll need to shoot tests, light or use natural light for footage sequences, test audio, shoot green screen sequences, and on and on and on.

We'll post as much as we can in a timely manner...but our primary initial mission will be to thoroughly test the cameras, lenses, and accessories, and shoot with them...then get around to posting the results.

It will be real busy...but a fun type of busy!

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I know that andrew is shooting a doc, and you are shooting stills. but will we be able to access some quick n dirty web same-day video-on-demand, without having to wait for a doc?

I can't speak for Gibby but I'm going to guess same-day and EOD posts will not be allowed in case one of us breaches the NDA of the location. But fear not I know I for one will be snapping away every free moment I have with my film and digital cameras and as soon as we're allowed to post there'll be a deluge from many members on all the teams. We're all shooters one way or another at heart and I expect a mountain of photos by the end.

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

May I suggest a simple audio test?

Just plug in a cheap mike and point it at the camera for a few seconds.

Then, have somebody speak a few P´s into the mike from very low to very loud. This should overdrive the convertors and we´ll hear how they deal with that.

It doesnt even have to be a good microphone to conduct that tests.
(Just dont forget the mini xlr´s......As I will......hopefully not on an actual set.)

All the best,
Jochen

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Or perhaps one of these could be added to the testing kit:

http://www.radioshack.com/sm-digital-display-sound-level-meter--pi-2103667.html

Is 50db low enough?

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Or perhaps one of these could be added to the testing kit:

http://www.radioshack.com/sm-digital-display-sound-level-meter--pi-2103667.html

Is 50db low enough?

Absolutly not. (60db is a normal conversation from 1 meter away).
I would refuse to work on a music recording set or studio with a 20 db noisefloor.

Jochen

 

[Steve Gibby]

Hi Gibby if I can help in any way please let me know.

I have a 16' trailer, Fresnel tungstens from Filmgear: 1)12k, 4)5k, 4)2k, 6)1k, 6)650w, 6)300w, 10)150w, parabeam 400, Kinoflow 4bank, stands, sandbags, Honda generators 4 2K's ecc.

Also lenses in Nikon F mount, the ZEISS ZF and the EOS Canon the EF L series glass.

So please let me know, I will be available no problem.

Also..(forgive me if this is a silly offer, but comes from the heart) for post screening I have the Sony Pearl true HD 1920/1080p Projector shooting on to a 12' Draper Tensioned Hidef grey screen, so if you guys needed it will be at your disposal.

Ciao,

KETCH ROSSI
www.KETCHFRAME.com

Sorry for the delayed response Ketch!

Thanks for that offer of grip and glass - much appreciated. I'm sure we could use that. I'll definitely discuss your offer with the other team members. We'll analyze the space requirements at the testing studio and also the aggregate list of tests we'll be doing, and then I'll get back to you sometime soon via private message.

Thanks again...

 

[david farland]

Gibby,

Have you a draft testing strategy yet?

What tests do you think are most important?.....what approach will you follow for these tests?

Thanks for this,
Dave,

 

[Steve Gibby]

Gibby,

Have you a draft testing strategy yet?

What tests do you think are most important?.....what approach will you follow for these tests?

Thanks for this,
Dave,

As co-producers of the event, me and Ken Corben have asked all the testing team members (21 now) to submit their "wish lists" to us for what tests they feel are relevant and workable within the time we have (2 days) and the facilities we have to work in. Once those are all in, we'll analyze everything and then create a testing workflow for both days. They will be long days - but fun days when you enjoy testing new equipment - like we all do!

Several times on this thread, I've also solicited RED User members to post their suggestions on the thread, or PM them to me, Ken, or Evin. We'll throw those suggestions in the pool with the team members wish list for consideration.

Testing will be thorough and objective. We'll need to be left-brained and pragmatic at times - and right-brained and artistic at others. I think mid-brained people, who can go right-brain/left-brain at will, make the most versatile and capable testing team members. To carry that analogy even further, and for the same reasons - I think mid-brained people make the best producers, directors, and DPs.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Gibby

Here's my test wish list so far... just a few ideas off of the top of my head. Anyway, let me know if I can help. I'll be there in a flash. Unless of course, you guys schedule the tests during the week... in which case I'll be sitting at work doing movie titles instead. Or if you shoot in September - then I'll be in South Africa. Come and visit!

REFERENCE POINT
Let's have some kind of set of reference points. Spot and incident readings (I'm sure everyone has light meters, but I have a 608 Cine if you need it...), photos of the scene with a DSLR, and have an HD camera sitting nearby filming the scene at the same time. And good lighting diagrams. I'd be happy to be on set doing the above things - and doing this doesn't need to interfere with the shoot too much.

I'm not talking about a camera shootout - let's just get some ballpark images so that we can see how Red relates roughly to previous cameras we've used, so when we're scouting, planning, etc, we know how much light we need, etc. In theory, a DSLR would be good for this. Let's see if it's true.

GREEN / BLUE SCEEN
Does Red's Bayer pattern (which has more green sensors than blue) mean that greenscreen is definitely preferable to bluescreen for most situations (unless you're dealing with blondes etc)? How good is bluescreen (seeing as blue is kinda subsampled), combined with RedCode? Let's test both.

ROLLING SHUTTER
Under what situations does the rolling shutter become a problem? Gibby, you're going to want to know this in advance if you're planning on shooting events where people will be firing off camera flashes, etc. Does it vary with frame rate or shutter angle? Does motion blur help hide it? Let's try a few tests ranging from severe (camera flashes, random unsynchronized strobes) to light (simple motion, handheld, etc). Also, put up a few tracking markers and see how accurately the footage will track. I've VFX supervised my share of technocrane 3D tracking shots - let me know if I i can help. Anyway, I'm going to do a set of tests with my HV20 (which also has a rolling shutter) - I'll take the most successful ones and suggest them for the Red.

LOW LIGHT / NOISE
This is obvious. But very important. Lots of things to look for:
a) how much fixed pattern noise?
b) how much "normal noise"?
c) how much noise reduction does RedCine perform by default? How much is done on-chip? How much detail do we lose because of this?
d) does RedCine perform temporal noise reduction? If so, we'll get different results with moving subjects versus static ones. It's unlikely that this is done in camera, but you never know...
e) hot pixels? I doubt it though
...followed up, of course, by testing to see how much we can remove noise in post to raise the effective ASA.

LATITUDE
Of course the ol' Stouffer wedge must be brought out. But that only tells us so much. Some channels may clip before others (Eg like the Viper) - I doubt it, but we should check. The CML's method of having Macbeth charts shot at half-stop intervals is a good one - I'm not sure if we need to do all of that but a couple Stouffer wedges with colored gels on them, plus some over- and under-exposed Macbeth charts should clue us in to any potential non-linear color shifts.

QUANTIZATION
Related to this... do we really get 14 bits of info per channel? This is important for judging things like "how much do we lose if we go to 10-bit log" early in the post process...

CHECK FOR SENSOR / LENS ISSUES
You know what I'm talking about. I'd want to look for the same problems people encountered when moving from film to 1-CCD DSLRs. Is vignetting suprisingly high on lenses not designed for digital (due to the higher angle sensitivity of electronic image sensors compared to film)? I don't expect CCD-style highlight streaks, but is there purple fringing?

LENSES - PL MOUNT
Do the Red 18-50 and 300mm lenses really work with a 4x5.6 mattebox without vignetting or should we get ready to use 5x6, 5.65x5.65 or 6x6 filters instead? Of course, we want to know how good the Red lenses are versus Cooke, Zeiss, etc? Breathing, CA, bokeh, ergonomics, etc? How much resolution advantage do the Dalsa anamorphics get for those doing 2.35?

LENSES - NIKON MOUNT
How long does it take to change mounts? How well do the Nikons hold up? Does the 17-35 really make sense, or does the short focus throw, the lack of hard stops and the lesser zoom range mean that we should really go with the Red 18-50 instead?

ERGONOMICS - CAMERA / RAIL / TRIPOD COMBINATIONS
How comfy is it to hold? Do our predictions about handheld work hold true? Does the O'Connor 1030HD really hold up or do we need bigger sticks?

FOLLOW FOCUS - MOTORIZED
How do the CVB / Red Motor and Birger systems stack up to the current industry standards (eg Preston, C-Motion, Arri for high-end, Bartech plus M-One on the cheaper side)?

BATTERY TIMES
Someone should have a stopwatch and record how long the batteries last on average. So people know how many battery packs to order, you know...

LCD & EVF
People are going to be undecided about whether they need to buy either or both of these. So it'd help them make up their minds a lot if we let them know how useable they are... resolution, viewing angle, color accuracy, daylight visibility...

OUTDOORS
Let's shoot outdoors, please!

TEST CLIP DVD
Most important. Let's put a stack of test clips on DVD or on a bandwidth-capable FTP site and let people download. Then this test becomes less of a "Members Only, LA cool kidz" thing and more of a "sharing with the global Reduser community" thing...

Again, let me know if I can help. You know my skill set. During the day I work at mOcean doing movie titles (eg Borat), trailer graphics (Ocean's 13, done at 4K for some reason!) and some VFX, after hours I run around doing camera tests (like this one http://www.freshdv.com/2007/06/nikon-lens-tests-with-the-sgpro-35mm-adapter-and-hvx200.html) and trying to direct music videos and suchlike. I'm a director / vfx supervisor, not a DP.

I also have a bunch of pro compositor friends (Pirates 3, Sky Captain, etc) who I am sure would be happy to give their opinion on greenscreening, etc (although again probably it'd just be for the best if you released the footage for everyone to play with).

Anyway, best of luck!

Cheers

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[GlennChan]

GREEN / BLUE SCEEN
Does Red's Bayer pattern (which has more green sensors than blue) mean that greenscreen is definitely preferable to bluescreen for most situations (unless you're dealing with blondes etc)? How good is bluescreen (seeing as blue is kinda subsampled), combined with RedCode? Let's test both.

I don't think it make that huge of a difference since you need all three colors to key material. A green color has an absence of red and blue... you need red and blue information to determine that absence.

In practice, I'd like to see greenscreen material with shadows on the greenscreen (e.g. folds in the greenscreen material, and cast shadows). Because not all greenscreen material is shot well, and in some cases it's extremely difficult to avoid shadows (e.g. on puppet shows where the puppeteers need to be keyed; if you need to shoot the floor). Shadows tend to have more noise and therefore be difficult to key.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I don't think it make that huge of a difference since you need all three colors to key material. A green color has an absence of red and blue... you need red and blue information to determine that absence.

Yep. We've mentioned some bluescreen possibilities for the REDTest in some of our preliminary discussions. But there's only two days of testing and lots to do. So getting bluescreen footage may not happen.

In practice, I'd like to see greenscreen material with shadows on the greenscreen (e.g. folds in the greenscreen material, and cast shadows). Because not all greenscreen material is shot well, and in some cases it's extremely difficult to avoid shadows (e.g. on puppet shows where the puppeteers need to be keyed; if you need to shoot the floor). Shadows tend to have more noise and therefore be difficult to key.

I've suggested some of this stuff to the group so far. We'll have to see, but this is on the forefront of my VFX test scenarios. I want to shoot some greenscreen that is improperly lit, has shadows, other garbage, color casts on both the screen and the subject, etc.. I want to see how well REDCODE and the camera's range deals with pushing and pulling the images in post in order to fix common screw-ups. We also need to see how well the camera and codec holds up to fine details, curly and whispy hair, smoke, etc..

We will be shooting both indoors and outdoors. So far, some of us REDTEST members have bounced some emails back and forth with various ideas, but we haven't got too serious yet. Still a lot of unanswered questions in regards to resources and timing. But I think over the next few weeks a lot will fall into place.