Red Epic-W Auto calibration

[Boris Jansch]

I notice since the version 7.0 I have 'Auto calibration' popping up from time to time. Anyone know if that's ok or do I need to redo my auto/manual black shade calibration?

Many thanks!

 

[Aaron Lochert]

That's just an indicator to let you know that the auto calibration is updating at that moment. Before, it didn't give you a notification, but would stall your screen for a split second. A lot of people were thinking that there was something wrong with their cameras because of the intermittent freezes, so RED have since added a notification. You might have noticed that the camera does not update the auto calibration during recording.

 

[Boris Jansch]

I always wondered what that intermittent freeze was all about, so it's great to know that all is well!

Many thanks,

 

[Davide Trapani]

I always wondered what that intermittent freeze was all about, so it's great to know that all is well!

Many thanks,

Me too! It’s nice to finally understand the reason!

I just have one more question: what exactly the camera is recalibrating?

 

[Ty Hunt]

Following. I want to know too and have never found an answer yet.

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

I believe it's applying a new sensor calibration as your sensor temperature changes. The scary part is that if you roll too early before your camera is up to temperature you'll be using the wrong calibration for the whole clip even after the camera comes up to temperature. And in my experience the calibration used below target temp can actually mess up your shadow noise quite a bit...

That said, this happens in manual and auto calibration, but remember do not use auto calibration on Helium, manual is recommended by RED and takes away some of the green shadows.

 

[Audy Erel]

Blackshading is a method to compensate for the irregularities of electrical signal at pixel level due to sensor temperatures and exposure times that will affect how the dark area is recorded. Each of those pixels may have a slight variables that makes them look brighter or dimmer (hot or dead pixel), some are towards one color (red, green, blue) where they should be having a exact same values for the brightness and hues in absolute black. In other words, blackshade is the way to zeroed the scale.