RED DSMC Motion Mount has arrived!

[Mick van Rossum NSC]

Dragon will give us 2-3 more stops of light? We lose one stop with the MM, total net gain of 1-2 stops.

I think I'd just take the MM off for low light stuff. Is there any reason to need IR filtering in low light situations? Only need in bright locations that stopping down is required, am I right?

Will,
You lose one and a half stop of light, not one stop... (1.46 as the menu of the MM shows)

 

[Phil Holland]

Will,
You lose one and a half stop of light, not one stop... (1.46 as the menu of the MM shows)

The manual and menu now state 1.60 stops of light loss when the Motion Mount is attached. This likely changed since those first beta units.

 

[Phil Holland]

Motion Control Pan Test

Today I had my "most intimate" look at the Motion Mount thus far. I'll upload this footage at a later time likely with other test footage once I shoot more samples.

What I've done here is a 360 degree left to right pan over a duration of 4 seconds with a slight ramp at the head and tail of the move via a motion control rig all at 24fps using each mode the Red Motion Mount has to offer. 4 seconds is obviously faster than the ASC Manual would recommend for such a move, but this is more or less to show the full effect of the blur.

Why go to all this trouble? This will literally give you a 1:1 comparison with precise identical content to see the actual difference between the modes and how if effects motion blur. Which is pretty important from a cinematography standpoint and likely also a directorial one as well.


Each frame here is from different portions of the move. Clicking on the image will load a larger 2048x2732 pixel version for you to closely inspect.

10 degrees from the start of the move:



200 degrees from the start of the move (fastest part of the move):



300 degrees from the start of the move:



You'll notice I used both 180º and 194.4º shutter angles for Soft Shutter Mode. In the Motion Mount Manual 194.4º is referred to producing "the most natural and realistic motion". Meaning it's creating something very similar to what our human perception of motion is. Pay close attention fine details like windows and corrugated rooftops and you can really see the difference between the different modes.


I did several of these tests and made many observations today. Looked really, really close. I did stumble across another artifact that I need to explore a bit to see if there's a good way to solve for it.

More on that likely tomorrow evening. I've got to do some prep for my next short film this week and I'm running out of limbs to juggle with.

For now this is what I have to share.

*edit, because I know somebody will ask. Slight color grade. The shift you are seeing in warm to cool is magic hour. Last shot of the day

 

[oliver imfeld]

cool; thx !!!!

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

And there's also this

http://www.red.com/store/products/rotating-filter-tray-138mm

Not sure how I missed that

 

[Les Hillis]

Thanks for sharing the results of your testing Phil. I like the look of that soft shutter effect.

 

[Eric Santiago]

Phil you rock!!

Thanks for your contributions on this.

 

[Stacey Spears]

The loss of detail on the corrugated rooftops is interesting. I thought the soft shutter was supposed to maintain more detail in motion.

 

[Will Keir]

Phil,

Give us your paypal, this work you are doing and sharing with us is worth a donation! Much appreciated!

 

[Phil Holland]

The loss of detail on the corrugated rooftops is interesting. I thought the soft shutter was supposed to maintain more detail in motion.

This is a rather fast pan. I would say for "normal" content there's a smoother flavor to the material and it certainly looks different and effects the perception of detail in normal use.

 

[Phil Holland]

Phil,

Give us your paypal, this work you are doing and sharing with us is worth a donation!

Heh sure.

ebay@artbyphil.com


I'm on the horn with Schneider to get some information on how to more "normally" acquire 1/4 Wave Retarders in various sizes. I'm having the most success with the 45 degree one in 4x5.65", but you can rotated it to adjust the effect for sure.

 

[Phil Holland]

Off the horn.

Good news from Schneider. It appears they'll have part numbers and prices on their site by the end of the week on the 1/4 Wave Retarders for those interested in them.

They'll offer a variety of sizes, drop in, screw in. You name it.

They've always been available and are pretty common in 3D production.

 

[Paul Ellington]

Thanks for this Phil ... I'll buy you a beer when I swing through LA.

- Paul

 

[Phil Holland]

Thanks for this Phil ... I'll buy you a beer when I swing through LA.

It's been a while. Looking forward to that sir.


Had a free hour today when I got home. And did......

---

Tungsten Lighting Tests

Setup a red head here at the house and plopped in front of it with a color chart. Same exact black shirt from the daylight test from earlier:



That's just a simple white balance and it looks pretty decent. There's certainly some "newness" to the color science on the Motion Mount and the newer version of Redcine-X Pro. I don't see anything bad and that's a relief.

Next time I'm down at the studio I'll take a closer look with a 2K, but here's me getting way too close to the light to see what 8 stops looks like:





I have to say in terms of color and IR cut I'm pretty happy with the Motion Mount. Like really happy. Now I'm curious how it plays with Dragon.


Also, fired up one strobe to take a look at how the "Strobe Safe" frame rates work out. Underexposed in my kitchen with various modes. No CC, just mixed halogen:





I've got a variety of strobes here and that's going to be the most telling. My first observations is that Square Shutter works as intended. Soft Shutter you have to be a bit more mindful about. I'll setup my Profotos and test those at various strengths as that effects the output "speed". I think I have adjustable strobe around here somewhere too.

Still investigating one particular artifact as well.

 

[Phil Holland]

Ahoy again. Tonight I have actual footage. I was going wait and edit all of this into something pretty, but I think it's better digested in simple "clip" form.

All of this was actually processed in Redcine-X Pro 21 Beta with GPU acceleration then chopped in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

---

Pinwheel Test

Instead of a spinning chart I do have something out in the garden that is adequate to demonstrate Temporal Aliasing in a real world scenerio.

For those new to Temporal Aliasing it basically describes the effect of strobing, judder, flickering, or jumping when an object is moving across the frame. This issue can be compounded due to an extreme pan involving rolling shutter, which isn't wonderful sometimes. There are some great white papers on Nyquist to read up on sampling rate, but really what we need to know is how the Motion Mount comes into play here. And more importantly from a cinematographer, director, and storyteller perspective just what does this look like and how can it effect our image?

So in ND Only Mode we get the effect of the classic shutter within the Epic with the Mysterium-X Sensor. A bit of rolling shutter, but pretty darn close to film's essential rolling shutter effect. Square Shutter produces what we would describe as a Global Shutter. On a pan vertical lines stay straight, however potential strobing and judder are still apparent. The Soft Shutter mode serves as something a bit new that tackles this and performs as a "Temporal Anti-Aliasing Soft Shutter". Which is pretty cool. It's essentially giving you a smooth image that's "global-ish" shutter-like, but produces something smooth and natural.

In the clip below I run through different shutter modes. Areas to pay special attention to are the blades, the pattern that develops near where the blades mead the body of the pinwheel, and the bolts that hold the thing together.

The clip repeats 5 times.

Here are a few crops from the footage at frames with similar motion for you to closer examine:

---

Motion Control Pan Test

A pan is something we'd see more of that strobing effect. In this particular test I run through the shutter modes. I've also added both 180 and 194.4 degree shutters on the Soft Shutter as the Manual for the Motion Mount describes that as being "most natural".

This particular clip is shot at 25mm and is faster than the ASC Manual's recommended pan speed to induce the effects of Temporal Aliasing.

Areas to pay special attention to are the wall texture, the corrugated roof top, vertical pipes, and areas with extreme contrast (the sky) which is often where judder is most apparent.

---

Daylight and Tungsten, Skin and IR Test

I'll be doing some additional lighting tests, but for this basic Daylight and Tungsten Test you just get my ugly mug and not an attractive actress. Although I did think to put on a wig at one point.

Key things to note here are the black shirt not exhibiting any IR contamination under both sources. At least none that I can see. I'll do more tests to see if I can squeeze some out though, but the IR Cut filter that the Motion Mount has is rather impressive to my eyes. Another interesting thing to note is that there is apparently some new Color Science that comes along with the Motion Mount. Check out that chart on the Tungsten image when it's White Balanced. That looks pretty damn good to me. Good enough to make me want to do more tests. On the ND 8 Daylight image my hair is just a bit warm to my eyes.

---

Some Additional Notes

Just a few quick thoughts:

- It's really wonderful to be able to just grab the camera without a stack of NDs or even a matte box to go out and quickly grab a shot. This is really going to open doors for octocopter and gyro-stabilizers as well as lighten up other hand held rigs. After a few days of shooting with the Motion Mount I think this is really one of the larger pluses.

- Built in adjustable NDs save a crazy amount of time. More than even I thought.

- You are always losing that initial 1.60 stops of light, so if low light or even high speed shooting is your thing I'd highly recommend holding on to your "static" regular old mount.

- Effective ISO is really cool and simplifies things for those of us who still use Light Meters. It's a little crazy, but in ND Only Mode if you set your Native ISO at 320 an 8 stop ND adjustment is ISO 1. When you first see that pop up on the LCD Touch or Bomb EVF you'll sort of smile for a moment.

- I find that much like my normal way of shooting shooting I'm using up to ND 0.9 pretty regularly and 1.2 a bit more often than expected. Remember ND 1.2 (4 stops) is where the Motion Mount "tops out" for the Soft and Square Shutter Modes. If you need more filtration and want to use those modes bring an extra NORMAL ND filter. No need for IRND or Hot Mirror Combos here. Although I imagine you will have to grade a bit of the color cast out if there is one. I haven't tested every filter on earth yet.

- There's something really lovely about Soft Shutter. Sort of gives you that 360 degree shutter lookg while maintaining a 180-194.4 feel to the object of interest within frame. Something I'll be playing with a lot.

- If you're curious, and the manual warns against it and this will be the only time I ever do it, this is what ND 8 at T16 into the sun looks like:

Although I didn't see this flare effect when pointed at an 800w HMI.

- Also if you're curious, this is what a 1/4 Wave Retarder does to the sky as you slightly rotate it. Again, remember that a 1/4 Wave Retarder plus the Linear Polarizer that is built into the Motion Mount = Circular Polarizer.

- Remember, if you use a normal Circular Polarizer and reverse it you can indeed produce a Variable ND Filter. Take special care not to go too far as it does slowly effect the image quality of your material. I'd personally just carry and ND .6 and a 1.2 in the bag if you're an outdoors shooter and that would be a safe bet.

- Due to certain shutter angle/shutter speed limitations you'll find you'll be using ND Only Mode under certain artificial light sources like LEDs at higher frame rates is ideal. On some lights the modulation of the Motion Mount Soft and Square Modes produces a growing and shrinking flicker. However, it's best to test your own lights obviously.

- Be cautious if you go outside of the "Strobe Safe" range in your particular resolution and frame rate during quick pans while using the Square or Soft Motion Mount Modes. It's possible to produce artifacts you likely don't want. Switching to ND Only solves that problem.

- If you rate your Native ISO at 320 your effective ISO is now 106. If Native ISO is set at 800 the Effective ISO becomes 264. Just something to keep in mind, especially if you have low light shooting coming up or are just "used to things".


Last quick things here.


* Now that I've tested this with Mysterium-X I'm even more curious how it plays with Dragon. Hopefully that's a test I can do in the near future.

** There's a couple things I'm still investigating. Found a little bug in Redcine-X Pro, have one artifact I'm still investigating. Still have a bit more complicated tests to perform.

** That all said, I can see this thing living on my camera a great deal. I love having access to the NDs via the GUI. Really like that we now have a Global Shutter solution for those who want it. Soft Shutter has taken me a bit by surprise and I'm enjoying the aesthetic it produces. I'm somewhat curious and liking what I'm seeing when it comes to color rendering. Something has happened and it's noticeable. Especially those who shoot often under mixed lighting conditions. IR Cut seems to work wonderfully. This is actually a cost effective solution if you were going to purchase a similar range of Hot Mirror IRND Combo Filters that cover the same range. Pretty cool.


So yeah. If I this was actually a review and not a usage report I'd have to say it's pretty damn cool to have all of what this Motion Mount does inside the mount itself and controllable via hot keys or the GUI. Nothing else really like this out there that's for sure.

Hope that helps for those considering purchasing and using the Motion Mount. I'm keeping mine for sure.

 

[Amaury B]

incredible

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Thanks phil

Desire...

 

[Jeremy Torrie]

Awesome amount of info Phil! Thanks for dipping your toe in and putting in some time...I hope to have the two I ordered arrive fairly soon.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Phil - you should write a book about this... oh, wait a minute, that's just about what you have already done!

Great stuff. Thanks.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Really nice report Phil, thank you for taking the time to do the work and to share with us.