Red Dragon: Candle and Match Low Light Tests

[Daniel Peters]

Thanks for the post Phil…absolutely love the character of the Dragon

Dragon actually has an image with its own look…I love the buttery smooth look while maintaing sharp images with insane DR.

I know your glass rocks and Im gonna ask for a stupid request. But I love to see some grabs from your Dragon with EF glass, Canon or Rokinon…if possible that'd be awesome?

Cuz if I can afford an upgrade …I won't be able to afford new glass haha

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Thanks Phil!!!

I just played with your file a bit in RCX.

These are my newest findings described below:

Sorry but again me to complain about OLPF flare!!!

See it clearly at the right third part of the image below @ ISO 12800.

@ ISO 800 is well hidden.

@ ISO 2000 is slightly visible.

Now I call it a phantom flare just because you never know actually when it will start to appear at an image.

Hope that RED is working on a new OPLF glass design with a new coating that will eliminate that optical artefact.

Clicking the right mouse button to open the above image at the bigger dimension in a new tab!!!!

Dragon is surely the best sensor available for digital cinema today and really it deserves to get a much better flare-less OLPF!!!

And I sure Jim is aware about this optical issue and he will do his best to fix it during 2014!!!!!

Happy New Year!!!!

 

[SUNILPREM]

Thanks Phil
Happy New Year............




Sunil Prem

 

[Karim_Nassar]

those stills you posted really look like some dslr photographs to me. Just insane...

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

If you consider that literally every frame you shoot with Epic Dragon can transform magically into a 6144x3160 111.11MB 16bit image you start thinking rather differently on what a motion picture camera is. I know I am. These are moving pictures and in a sort of poetic way bridging my cinematography and photography backgrounds into one capture device. Sort of really bringing out the concept of what DSMC is really.

I'll have to get you some stills with lots of detail to show off exactly how nuts this is.

The color is there. The skin is great. The DR is crazy. The resolution is bloody impressive. I mean..... Who's not going to want to shoot with Dragon?

I love this post. I could not have said it any better.

 

[Phil Holland]

I know your glass rocks and Im gonna ask for a stupid request. But I love to see some grabs from your Dragon with EF glass, Canon or Rokinon…if possible that'd be awesome?

Soon Daniel. If you're curious the rainbow shot and the shot I took of the sun were on EF glass. I think the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS and the 200mm f/2.8L with a 2X TC.

I love this post. I could not have said it any better.

Cheers Mark! Have a great new year!

those stills you posted really look like some dslr photographs to me. Just insane...

It's really insane. Currently Dragon is the highest resolution camera I have here!

Sorry but again me to complain about OLPF flare!!!

Yep. It's a known thing and it pops up here and there. I'm somewhere in the middle where I clearly see it as an artifact that is mostly unwanted, however, I've already done some tests to see if I can utilize it like an extra flavor of lens flare. It's got it's own unique character and actually maintains the shape of the iris. So, while I'm curious to see what Red can do about it, I'm also curious about how I can currently use it for any sort of aesthetic reason.

 

[Jacobo Martinez]

For me one of the most impresive inovations of the dragon is to retain the same form factor of the epic, now that is really one of a kind, that says a lot of a company which is really commited to the clients and you know your investment is for the long term.

Phil you are a great mentor.

 

[Aaron McLane]

Thanks for the test Phil. Let me know if you want to play with our Leica Summilux-C Primes, we'd love to do some low light stuff with you.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Happy new year Phil. Thanks for all you super generous Dragon work these last months. The RED community owes you!!!

 

[Phil Holland]

For me one of the most impresive inovations of the dragon is to retain the same form factor of the epic, now that is really one of a kind, that says a lot of a company which is really commited to the clients and you know your investment is for the long term.

Phil you are a great mentor.

Very good point. Red's taken a bit of criticism on form factor, but you can make the camera small when you need it small and rig it big when you need all the fixings. Sort of unique in that way. I'm certainly on the positive feelings side of things with modularity.

I've had a few good mentors in my life. If anything I learned it's good to give back if you can.

Thanks for the test Phil. Let me know if you want to play with our Leica Summilux-C Primes, we'd love to do some low light stuff with you.

Well Aaron I will take you up on that for sure. You have my favorite cinema primes and it's good source more sets for sure. My Dragon starts officially working in January. I'll hit you up in 2014.

 

[Phil Holland]

Happy new year Phil. Thanks for all you super generous Dragon work these last months. The RED community owes you!!!

Cheers Nick. Happy 2014 to you too. It's going to be a beast of a year!

 

[Matt Ryan]

6400ISO with Neat Video. Instead of crushing the blacks I wanted to bring out as much low end detail as possible. Could have gotten clean results without nr by just crushing the blacks, but that's not as fun! It's crazy how much is in the low end. That back wall even has color info! All I did was a curve and some neat video.

Please excuse the JPEG compression.

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!

 

[David Battistella]

Nice Matt!

I have neat video as well and have been just stunned by the results. The combo of neat plus dragon will be amazing. Render times are still pretty huge so I try not to count on using neat video but it's a great tool to have.

Great stuff.

battistella

 

[Matt Ryan]

Nice Matt!

I have neat video as well and have been just stunned by the results. The combo of neat plus dragon will be amazing. Render times are still pretty huge so I try not to count on using neat video but it's a great tool to have.

Great stuff.

battistella

Thanks David!

I agree, Neat Video with Dragon have been an excellent match. Much better results than when used with MX footage. I literally got a 92% from the Auto Profile and still getting sharp footage with detail! That's never happened for me before. The render times are ridiculous, but I stumbled upon the option to use CPU and GPU in the Neat Video menu which helped a bit, but like you say, I'd keep it to a minimum.

 

[ivan friedman]

Thank you Phil for the nice shots! and Matt.. this is amazing results.

Recently I found myself using DN on Resolve more often because specially for the long processing times that Neat Video requires in after effects as you pointed out. I am usually satisfied by results... and always heard that DAVINCI was the best one..but i could not say really.. Do you guys find that Neat Video is really that better compared to Resolve 10? what is in your opinion the most appropriate DN tool for Dragon footage?

Thanks,

Ivan

 

[Matt Ryan]

Personally I find Neat Video better than Resolve 10 noise reduction at the moment. I'm assuming in future updates Resolve 10's built in NR will catch up.

Download the Ultra HD .mov processed at 6400ISO with Neat Video here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6nohbfdmos9yfn/PhilDragon6400ISOneatvideo.mov
Make sure to download it and watch it on your own system, not with the Dropbox web player. Keep in mind all I did to this footage was push ISO to 6400 and use a slight s curve. Then I used Neat Video on the R3D in Premiere and rendered. I could have just crushed the blacks and been happy with no noise reduction, but my goal was to dig into the footage further.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Amazing work Matt. Love it. Looks like Neat Video is going to be part of the Dragon "special sauce" in 2014!

 

[ivan friedman]

Yeah.. that's crazy... Thank you very much for the input Matt. Now I'm impressed.

Hardly see any noise at all.. and the picture remain sharp and detailed.. I think neat video deserves more digging indeed I'll do more tests. Anyway I think that would be unthinkable with the MX.. cant wait to receive that great tool..

A bit off-topic but..Its amazing this UHD plays so smoothly on my mac pro.. usually it doesn't.. what quicktime settings did you use if I may ask..?

Thanks again and happy new dragon year to you all!

Cheers,

Ivan

 

[Matt Ryan]

Amazing work Matt. Love it. Looks like Neat Video is going to be part of the Dragon "special sauce" in 2014!

Thanks Nick! Neat Video is killer with Dragon

Yeah.. that's crazy... Thank you very much for the input Matt. Now I'm impressed.

Hardly see any noise at all.. and the picture remain sharp and detailed.. I think neat video deserves more digging indeed I'll do more tests. Anyway I think that would be unthinkable with the MX.. cant wait to receive that great tool..

A bit off-topic but..Its amazing this UHD plays so smoothly on my mac pro.. usually it doesn't.. what quicktime settings did you use if I may ask..?

Thanks again and happy new dragon year to you all!

Cheers,

Ivan

These were my settings from Premiere CC

 

[Nick Morrison]

Matt I don't work with Premiere, I'm an Avid guy. What's the next best application to run it in? After Effects?