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 :)

RED DRAGON Scores Highest DXOMark Score ever.

Congrats REd on the DXOMark news. Literally broke their charts! Wow!
Now, there is still the endless "skin tones" discussions of those who say, Alexa is better due to skin tones, which I dont agree (to say the least) after seen all the wonderful shots with the dragon by the talent on this forum. Can we please have a side to side test and head this subject head on?
This is the biggest elephant in the room and no one seems to actually do something about it.
I understand no one here wants to take the heat. Red can not do it officially, until all dragons are "official". So what is it going to be. The elephant keeps getting bigger!
 
Jonathan Yonkers said:
Congrats REd on the DXOMark news. Literally broke their charts! Wow!
Now, there is still the endless "skin tones" discussions of those who say, Alexa is better due to skin tones, which I dont agree (to say the least) after seen all the wonderful shots with the dragon by the talent on this forum. Can we please have a side to side test and head this subject head on?
This is the biggest elephant in the room and no one seems to actually do something about it.
I understand no one here wants to take the heat. Red can not do it officially, until all dragons are "official". So what is it going to be. The elephant keeps getting bigger!
Click to expand...

Mostly what I'm interested in is comparing invoices (for each camera, that is '-)... I've seen what the Dragon can do and I am satisfied with that... more than satisfied, actually 'cause I was satisfied with the Epic. Trading in those Epic boards and sensor has purely and simply got me thinking IMAX for the masses!
 
I'm tired of the skin tone debate. I don't think one camera (Dragon / Alexa) has an advantage of the other in skin tone. The truth is there are lots for film that have bad skin tones because good skin tone is tricky to grade. I've seen lots of bad skin and its not the cameras fault. Light, make-up, and mostly colorists are to blame, to be fair, lots of films don't really care about the skin that much, unless you are doing a cosmetics or skin care shoot it often doesn't matter that much. I recently did a little beauty shoot with the Dragon and Kino flos (which I think make skin look good) and the result were fantastic, I couldn't imaging better looking skin.
 
Mark Andersen said:
I'm tired of the skin tone debate. I don't think one camera (Dragon / Alexa) has an advantage of the other in skin tone. The truth is there are lots for film that have bad skin tones because good skin tone is tricky to grade. I've seen lots of bad skin and its not the cameras fault. Light, make-up, and mostly colorists are to blame, to be fair, lots of films don't really care about the skin that much, unless you are doing a cosmetics or skin care shoot it often doesn't matter that much. I recently did a little beauty shoot with the Dragon and Kino flos (which I think make skin look good) and the result were fantastic, I couldn't imaging better looking skin.
Click to expand...

Salient point. They probably aren't that concerned because they probably just want the colorist to get an "average" for a type. The audience doesn't know what level of color a Caucasian, an ebony, a latino skinned actor has for the particular role... not to mention the shade of makeup.

Of course the Perfectionistas care, but they are an audience of one. As you said, if the movie doesn't have good skin tones, it is the Colorists fault moreso than the camera shooting RAW.
 
More "theoretically it could look like ass…." nonsense: it is quite clear that Dragon IQ does not look like ass, in fact it is outstanding, and that tends to put the DXO test into a fairly meaningful context to those who know what they are looking for.
I'm not sure how you get to throw around the notion of what could be in theory while ignoring what is in fact.
 
Bill Anderson said:
More "theoretically it could look like ass…." nonsense: it is quite clear that Dragon IQ does not look like ass, in fact it is outstanding, and that tends to put the DXO test into a fairly meaningful context to those who know what they are looking for.
Click to expand...

If I told you I prefer Alexa because I don't like the look of RED and you told me that it has more resolution than Alexa you wouldn't be telling me anything I didn't already know. If I told you that I didn't care about resolution and then you said "Yeah, well DXO labs confirms Dragon has even more resolution!" I still wouldn't care. You just defeated your own argument by saying "Dragon does not look like ass" because that's the whole point it is only "quite clear" from looking at images, not from reading a DXO bench test. If you want to convince people that Dragon is great... show them great looking images. Showing people pie charts and bar graphs isn't going to convince them that the image is subjectively good. Let them test it and look at what actually matters, the image. Why would you be convinced by looking at Dragon that "it's quite clear it doesn't look like ass" but then then use a bar graph to convince someone else? You weren't convinced by DXO, you were convinced by the image quality--isn't it a safe assumption that other people also probably would learn best the way you evaluated Dragon performance?

People fucking love Anamorphics that flare and are soft as butter. Those lenses would positively FAIL DXO labs' tests. But they look fantastic. DXO labs have no baring one way or another on whether a Dragon image "looks like ass" or not. The two are completely independent variables. And saying that this is going to convince DPs everywhere to embrace RED is naive and foolhearty. You could have less bits of color resolution but a far more pleasing image. There are plenty of JPEGs which are in sub 8 bit color that look gorgeous and 32 bit monstrosities. Technical is important but ultimately it comes down to subjective.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
I'll stand with Logan.

This is really cool. But the reason people shoot Alexa is "film like skin tones". The DXO labs confirm what RED has always been strong on: technical specs. It could have 20 stops of dynamic range a 10k sensor and look like ass but blow away the DXO tests. By definition a technical test won't quantify the subjective choices of artists.
Click to expand...

We used to have people in the diy digital cinema camera days saying this stuff, but they weren't reading the right specs rightly. The problem is insufficient specs and reading them all. Things like color filter specs and the level of color constancy across the range (more so color accuracy and deviation across the dynamic range) and what the codec/Bayer pattern/olpf/lens does to image dynamics like skin texture and tones are additional things. It is physically impossible not to be able to broadly physically quantify these things, even what is in a normal individual persons head. Then you hand it over to post.

I got to admit though, the Red One and color science etc really missed it at first. Originally when Jim tried to spoof his upcoming camera, he showed a sample shot of what the technology would do that was not matched for years until the MX I think (I think somebody had said it had Canon metadata). There are certain things that make things really convenient or popular that is simply what Arri exploited. To be able to produce a harmonised silky image easily. Now Red has the chance, and the chance to in camera decide a look to go straight to air/ record. I hope it comes in April.
 
Gavin, a shaky harmony between theory and practice has always existed, we know this, and we apply theory and evaluate it in practice; and when things align, as they often do, we tend to praise this marriage, when they don't we swear and make adjustments… But I see no point in taking a perfectly good marriage and abusing it by conjuring up what might "theoretically" be wrong with it: The DXO tests have been quite robust and the cameras at the top of the list got there for very good reasons, ones that are legitimized at the highest levels of art - and never once has any of their top scoring sensors been outscored by one that, in practice, "looks like ass".

This is not to say that we should now expect others to throw their cameras to the floor and worship Red, but we could at least have the decency to acknowledge this result for what it is and not paint anyone else a zealot for doing so. People come in wielding big sticks and talking gibberish in what seems to be an attempt at enlightening the rest of us on the basics - and it's all becoming quite monotonous.
 
Bill Anderson said:
This is not to say that we should now expect others to throw their cameras to the floor and worship Red..
Click to expand...

It's bad grief. that we have to even mention that at all Bill. Its only a camera, and fanism goes too far.
 
Bill Anderson said:
Gavin, a shaky harmony between theory and practice has always existed, we know this, and we apply theory and evaluate it in practice; and when things align, as they often do, we tend to praise this marriage, when they don't we swear and make adjustments… But I see no point in taking a perfectly good marriage and abusing it by conjuring up what might "theoretically" be wrong with it: The DXO tests have been quite robust and the cameras at the top of the list got there for very good reasons, ones that are legitimized at the highest levels of art - and never once has any of their top scoring sensors been outscored by one that, in practice, "looks like ass".
Click to expand...

The point that Logan got skewered for though wasn't that the Dragon looks bad, theoretically or otherwise. It was all of the people who said that the DXO tests *proved* single handedly that RED was the greatest sensor and therefore DPs should therefore abandon Alexa Etc and get on the RED bandwagon. But as far as I'm concerned, the MX is also a technically great sensor. And I'm not thoroughly pleased with Nikon's IQ even though it "outperforms" Canon. So just as the D800 surpassing the D1 didn't move photographers over enmasse to Nikon, I doubt that the DXO Dragon test (even if it beat an Alexa sensor) also won't have the same effect. And it's all for the same reason, ultimately these tests are dependent on the subjective application of the technology. After all noise would kill your DXO score, but grain is still 'desirable' by many. So to Wayne's point, yes a sufficiently complete set of testing should theoretically tell someone everything they need to know--but a picture is worth a thousand bar graphs and plots. And it definitely beats a single digit number "101".
 
Hmm, try comparing pictures of a thousand cameras, against selecting by a range of numbers that represent what you like, then look at the handful (but in reality each camera with require dozens of pictures to compare over the range). Different ways to do different things. But I agree with you that at the moment cameras often have different flavors (ranges), setups (no select any look of any manufacturer), and different work to match them that people prefer. Cameras are still primitive but getting there.
 
I was trying to settle an argument with my Nikon fanboi friend about the highest rated sensor and went to find this DXOMark test result and got a 404 error. Anyone know where it is or what happened to it? Current link?
http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Red/Epic-Dragon-Prototype
 
Would love to see an update using Weapon!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top