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  • 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 - examples of natural, "filmic" color?

M Most said:
Well, actually Arri has already "sort of" done that for you. If you use their online LUT creator and make a LUT to go from LogC to Rec709 with no matrix, it pretty much does "get you there." It may not be exact, but it's very, very close - close enough that I use it fairly regularly.
Click to expand...

Hey! Thanks for the info!

The on-line tool is here: http://www.arri.com/camera/digital_cameras/tools/lut_generator/lut_generator.html

Just created a LUT and I am testing it in Fusion.
 
Sulekh Suman said:
Sorry Jake. That was my first post on the forum. I didn't realize the thread had come this far.
Danish post House Zentropa created a special look for Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Film, Susan Bier's " In A Better World"-2011(Red One)
"They came up with something that more resembled the characteristics of Kodak's VISION2 5201 50 daylight stock"-Morten Soborg

Great insights from Morten Soborg, DP and collaborator on the project.
http://www.videography.com/article/108284

Resolution alone won't help fuzzy ideas-Compare Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration-1998(Shot on Sony DCR-PC7E on mini DV) with Soderberg's Contagion 2011 (Red MX).
Click to expand...

In a better world was a beautiful film, and image rendition too.
 
Benjamin Rowland said:
There is a new trailer for "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" - shot on Red One and Epic. Skin tones look good in it.
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/thegirlwiththedragontattoo/
Click to expand...

Interesting, yes. "Good," well, not in the sense of what's being discussed here. The picture is a very highly stylized one, with very little "classicly beautiful" imagery or deep, rich flesh tones that are the subject of this thread. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not really an example of what's being talked about here.
 
I completely agree with everyone here. I have a good eye for spotting which camera is being used and have nailed Alexa footage many times when I see a trailer and can do the same with Red. And to me Alexa footage has simply better colors, richer and truer reds whereas Red footage always looks more digital. Keep in mind I own a Red MX and am a Red fanboy but I too wish my Red can look like an Alexa color wise...I hate tip toeing around issues, there's no comparison Alexa puts out better colors if you ask me, period. And every single person I've worked with at the indie level recently that I spoke to agrees...
 
arri red - red red.jpg

Ok, which side is which? One is macbeth red from an alexa, one from Epic, both taken under the same light at the same time.

Graeme
 
M Most said:
Interesting, yes. "Good," well, not in the sense of what's being discussed here. The picture is a very highly stylized one, with very little "classicly beautiful" imagery or deep, rich flesh tones that are the subject of this thread. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not really an example of what's being talked about here.
Click to expand...

Except that I've heard from multiple people that assumed it was shot on alexa...
 
Conventional wisdom

Conventional wisdom

Agree or disagree with these popular assessments:

1) The Alexa comes off the truck (matrix on) with a Kodak-ish color palette. [8]

2) Grading Alexa footage to look "natural" (as we are conditioned to expect it) is fast and easy. [7]

3) Epic footage requires more technique in grading to look "natural". [6] (with great power comes great responsibility - the RAW conundrum)

4) Epic skin tones look "plastic". [3]

10 is completely agree and 0 is totally disagree, MHO noted in [ ] above.

The other key convention at issue here is whether the goal is to mimic the "gold standard" of film with all its inherent properties and charm, or, to accurately match what your eyes would see. (yes, I know there are wide variances in visual perception from one person to the next but let's try and keep this simple).

FWIW there are so many elements that impact these issues beyond the camera choice; art direction, lens choice, lighting style, lighting type, makeup, wardrobe, creative intent, viewing conditions, etc. I think it is very difficult to look at any finished piece and mentally null out all those factors to reach a conclusion that image "x" looks different from image "y" only because of the inherent properties of the camera/sensor. This is not to dismiss what Bruce and others have noted, this is a discussion worth having, I just think we need to be careful about putting too much blame, or credit, on just the camera.



Cheers - #19
 
Deanan said:
Except that I've heard from multiple people that assumed it was shot on alexa...
Click to expand...

That doesn't change the conversation. Or the topic, which is about pictures shot on Red that exhibit "classicly beautiful," rich flesh tones.

I don't even know why this is continuing on. Different cameras look different. I think we all agree on that, and that is probably all that needs to be said. There's no need for defensiveness, or "proof" that colors can be the same on test charts. Embrace the differences, at least that's the way I feel.

BTW, the upcoming ACES support in Resolve that beta testers are not allowed to talk about ;-D does tend to somewhat mitigate all of this...
 
What's that up your sleeve?

What's that up your sleeve?

M Most said:
(snip)
BTW, the upcoming ACES support in Resolve that beta testers are not allowed to talk about ;-D does tend to somewhat mitigate all of this...
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike for injecting this into the discussion. As I understand it, the input transform for each device will compensate for any non-linear representation of scene referred color values. In theory this would make it possible to get virtually identical spectral representations into the post pipeline.

Cheers - #19
 
M Most said:
That doesn't change the conversation. Or the topic, which is about pictures shot on Red that exhibit "classicly beautiful," rich flesh tones.

I don't even know why this is continuing on. Different cameras look different. I think we all agree on that, and that is probably all that needs to be said. There's no need for defensiveness, or "proof" that colors can be the same on test charts. Embrace the differences, at least that's the way I feel.

BTW, the upcoming ACES support in Resolve that beta testers are not allowed to talk about ;-D does tend to somewhat mitigate all of this...
Click to expand...

We'll if you're going to respond based on technicality, then why are you commenting on a pictures style from a picture that has only existed as a trailer?

"classically beautiful" flesh tones is fashion. What defines that is continually changing...
Is it pale this year, or tan, or realistic without make up or ?
 
M Most said:
That doesn't change the conversation. Or the topic, which is about pictures shot on Red that exhibit "classicly beautiful," rich flesh tones.

I don't even know why this is continuing on. Different cameras look different. I think we all agree on that, and that is probably all that needs to be said. There's no need for defensiveness, or "proof" that colors can be the same on test charts. Embrace the differences, at least that's the way I feel.

BTW, the upcoming ACES support in Resolve that beta testers are not allowed to talk about ;-D does tend to somewhat mitigate all of this...
Click to expand...

Different cameras look different yes, except the problem is that the vast majority of people out in the field at least at the indie level where I work all agree that the "different" look of the Alexa colors is much better, richer, more organic, less plastic, etc.

My thing is, Red looks more edgy/digital and therefore is more right and perfect for films like The Social Network (about digital social media etc) and futuristic/sci-fi stuff like the upcoming Spider-Man where things tend to be stylized and high resolution is more important to give things even more of a sharp futuristic edge. But for something like period pieces and dramas the Red seems out of place color wise from what I've seen. I personally hope it's something more with the colorimetry settings as opposed to internal (unchangeable) board structure/chips whatever...because I hope to be able to get that beautiful Alexa color one day as a new color science upgrade in my MX
 
Deanan said:
We'll if you're going to respond based on technicality, then why are you commenting on a pictures style from a picture that has only existed as a trailer?
Click to expand...

I didn't bring it up. Someone else did, and pointed to the trailer as their reference. I simply responded in the context of this thread.

"classically beautiful" flesh tones is fashion. What defines that is continually changing...
Is it pale this year, or tan, or realistic without make up or ?
Click to expand...

Except that I didn't think we were talking about fashion, current trends, or this years model. Bruce was talking about something fairly specific that was further defined by some other posts. He's talking about rich, deep fleshtones without any "plasticity", red lowlights, or sheen on the highlights, and that are seen frequently on film, and particularly in some films that were specifically referenced. I get your point, but that's not what this thread is about. At least I don't think it is. But then again, I didn't start it...
 
M Most said:
......BTW, the upcoming ACES support in Resolve that beta testers are not allowed to talk about ;-D does tend to somewhat mitigate all of this...
Click to expand...

Well...ok. When it releases to the public, i will revisit this thread and let's talk about it :P

The core problem of this discussion is about Human Perception (Feel) vs Technically Correct Color Rendition.

I dont know how ACES can help in this situation to bridge it. I know here most people tend to agree that Alexa is more filmic as how they usuallly expect from Film Camera and they like it how it's being implemented digitally. But i dont think RED is any less filmic, it just to me a different. I highly disagree with Peter who says RED is not good for period pieces.

Most production people who doesnt know post that much, they might be confuse on what ACES is all about, so they still stuck in camera setting rather than seeing the progress in post. So this perception will stay on for a while. I personally like how Arri LogC footage look BUT i also love how i can manipulate image with RAW in RED, and that doesnt make me any like less anything about RED footage. It's a different thing.

The challenge is when you are shooting same footage on side by side. Which looks better. That's what i havent done yet....

Rivai
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Thanks Mike for injecting this into the discussion. As I understand it, the input transform for each device will compensate for any non-linear representation of scene referred color values. In theory this would make it possible to get virtually identical spectral representations into the post pipeline.

Cheers - #19
Click to expand...

Blair, the IDT is just (in the case of RED as we have always fully supported scene linear data) a colour space transform, just as sRGB, REC709 etc. are just colour space transforms. As implemented as an LUT (for those cameras that don't give you access to linear data) and colour space transform, the result is highly approximate for matching spectral response.

Just think back to earlier in the thread where Deanan mentions how Sony sets their red response filter characteristics wide to allow a lot of red through, Arri set their's narrow to let through less far red and RED set their's inbetween. If all three camera types record some deep far red colour - the Arri might not see it at all, the Sony sees it all and RED sees it inbetween the two. Now there are very valid reasons for why each camera manufacturer sets their response where it's at, but no LUT, IDT or matrix on this planet will make the Arri see the red it's native spectral response cannot see to match the output of the Sony which can see it. That is why, in one particular example, why you'll never get the same spectral response via ACES or any other colour space. Of course, three tristimulus values of a colour in a colour space will only ever approximate the actual spectral response of a colour under a real light with a real spectrum anyway....

Graeme
 
Deanan said:
"classically beautiful" flesh tones is fashion. What defines that is continually changing...
Is it pale this year, or tan, or realistic without make up or ?
Click to expand...

Fashion is often influenced or dictated by technical issues.

Is the current fashion the way it is because people want it that way... or because it's a tough to take things in any other direction for technical reasons?

Just looking for examples of stuff that bucks the trend that is done on RED. Because that's my favorite camera.

It's like I'm listening to recordings and everything has a specific low-fi sound. I'm told that the sound is due to the current musical fashion. Um, well... I don't want to do stuff in the current fashion because it doesn't suit my project. I want to use my favorite RED microphone to get a more natural, sweet, clear sound, so I'm looking for examples of great recordings done with RED microphones but without the current fashionable sound (which doesn't fit my project). Decent analogy?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
As far as the response of the Epic to the Red spectrum goes, I went back to a fairly technical test I did back in May to see how that stacks up. If you look at a Normal exposure in Redcolor2/redgamma2 and Alexa in Rec709 there isn't an extreme difference in tonal representation of the colors beyond "factory taste".
If you look at an exposure that pushes the boundaries (in the minus and plus range) you start to see some significant differences/deficiencies. It's right in that skin-tone range of colors in the top left that the Epic releases color retention. In the bottom Row there's the 2 cameras exposed 4 stops over Normal @ 800 ASA, the Epic developed RedlogFilm/Redcolor2 at 320ASA and the Alexa at LogC 800ASA. Same lens, same stop, same lighting, same chart.

ColorExposureCompare.jpg
 
Florian - if you look at the skin of your hand holding the chart, it looks a better on the Alexa. Look at the subsurface scattering and subtle red shades on the fingers!

Ignore stuff that you can easily color correct out (Alexa footage is a little green, both are desaturated)...

On Epic, the flat tone of the side of the hand is natural, but when you go into the shadows the Epic goes to a gray shade, whereas on the Alexa shot there is this red warmth and detail in the shading of the hand. It's like I can feel the blood coursing through your veins.

Again, I don't think Alexa is perfect by any means. Still prefer film. Want Epic to beat both!

Still, not really interested in Alexa vs Epic battle. Just want beautiful color examples on Epic. Unfortunately, this was an example of what I don't like about "RED colors"... and the other camera happened to be Alexa.

Graeme Nattress said:
Just think back to earlier in the thread where Deanan mentions how Sony sets their red response filter characteristics wide to allow a lot of red through, Arri set their's narrow to let through less far red and RED set their's inbetween. If all three camera types record some deep far red colour - the Arri might not see it at all, the Sony sees it all and RED sees it inbetween the two. Now there are very valid reasons for why each camera manufacturer sets their response where it's at, but no LUT, IDT or matrix on this planet will make the Arri see the red it's native spectral response cannot see to match the output of the Sony which can see it. That is why, in one particular example, why you'll never get the same spectral response via ACES or any other colour space. Of course, three tristimulus values of a colour in a colour space will only ever approximate the actual spectral response of a colour under a real light with a real spectrum anyway...
Click to expand...

This is really interesting stuff - yes, Deanan's post was tantalizing and I can't wait to try different IR filter levels and see how much this changes things.

BTW are the Kodak spectral response graphs for their film stocks accurate with regards to IR too? How the heck do they get their flesh tones so good? Is it even an IR thing? Did they train their silver halide molecules to frikkin' recognize flesh tones and make 'em look pretty? Bruce wants to know!

Thank you again RED for being so awesome on this thread. Fascinating technical discussion and fun and productive too.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Yeah..im looking at florian hand rather than the chart as well. The skintone is indeed better in Alexa.
 
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