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 Mysterium-X vs. ARRI Alev III sensor

image.php


LOL. Good one.
 
just coming off a feature shot on RED, as well as numerous commercials... I really think that a "fast" sensor will be another important tipping point for shooting RED. - especially feature work. To be able to use LESS light than if shooting film, added with the workflow benefits of digital = no brainer to choose RED for a lot of productions.

Right now RED is a light hungry sensor, if you want noise free images that will look good on large screens...

Imagine a 1000 asa giving clean images...
 
High-end cine professionals and cinematographers demanded higher sensor sensitivity and optical viewfinder.

And Jim is listening as he said.

- Optical viewfinder is in a work (even extremely expensive to develop with high selling price point later).

- Higher sensor sensitivity is almost done... (!?)
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Not to get all political and environmentalist on your butts but I love the idea that I could light a location interior off of one 20 amp circuit using one medium sized case of LED heads.

It is also worth noting that according to those in the know, one of the reasons the RedOne did not get selected for more US TV episodics this fall was its relatively low sensitivity (yes, there were other reasons).

Cheers - #19
Click to expand...

Yeah I remember hearing that was the reason why they didn't use the Red One for 24.
 
I am really excited about these faster sensors. Shooting 800+ iso gives so many more options. Since Red One has come out I have almost shot it exclusively. Prior to that everything I had shot was on film. I actually convinced the Producers of a commercial I shot recently, who were set on Red to shoot film (5218). I pushed it a stop because we had a lot of available light shooting and the Red just wouldn't have gotten it done. I felt just as dirty shooting film in a Red world as when I started shooting Red in a Film world.

Another great advantage to higher ISO's is that a lot of this low voltage LED stuff now comes into play. I always thought that the LED manufacturers would have to come up with new solutions to get brighter sources. In fact the cameras have improved on sensitivity to meet the LED's.
 
"The Mysterium-X has the same noise characteristics at ISO 800 of Mysterium (in a RED ONE) at ISO 250, even though the pixel size is exactly the same for both."

This is amazingly exciting news.
 
I love the idea of having the option of exposing by varying ISO. That just gives so much more control. "I want this shutter angle, this stop and there's this much light - OK I set it to ISO xxx". Obviously you'd have to limit any given scene to a single ISO to ensure shots would cut OK but, if you could dial in ISO from scene to scene, it would be huge!
 
I mean that, instead of setting lens stops for exposure, you could set stops for DoF and use the ISO for exposure. If you're rating at 400ISO and find the scene needs an extra stop, you shoot at 800, rather than opening up the lens. Then the next scene is three stops over at 800, so you rate at 100 rather than stopping down the lens. As sensor design progresses, changing ISO has less and less effect on the image so you can choose your stops and shutter angles for purely creative reasons and set your exposure by changing ISO. Even when ramping frame rate in a shot, you could correct the exposure by changing the ISO. I see this as potentially very cool.
 
I was doing exactly that with a 5D MKII last week.

Shane Betts said:
I mean that, instead of setting lens stops for exposure, you could set stops for DoF and use the ISO for exposure. If you're rating at 400ISO and find the scene needs an extra stop, you shoot at 800, rather than opening up the lens. Then the next scene is three stops over at 800, so you rate at 100 rather than stopping down the lens. As sensor design progresses, changing ISO has less and less effect on the image so you can choose your stops and shutter angles for purely creative reasons and set your exposure by changing ISO. Even when ramping frame rate in a shot, you could correct the exposure by changing the ISO. I see this as potentially very cool.
Click to expand...
 
Shane Betts said:
I mean that, instead of setting lens stops for exposure, you could set stops for DoF and use the ISO for exposure. If you're rating at 400ISO and find the scene needs an extra stop, you shoot at 800, rather than opening up the lens. Then the next scene is three stops over at 800, so you rate at 100 rather than stopping down the lens. As sensor design progresses, changing ISO has less and less effect on the image so you can choose your stops and shutter angles for purely creative reasons and set your exposure by changing ISO. Even when ramping frame rate in a shot, you could correct the exposure by changing the ISO. I see this as potentially very cool.
Click to expand...

You sacrifice dynamic range when you expose at other than the ideal center ISO settings. But if you have 12 stops or so of shooting latitude and your release format only needs around 8 you have room to shuffle without degrading the end result much.
 
David Rasberry said:
You sacrifice dynamic range when you expose at other than the ideal center ISO settings. But if you have 12 stops or so of shooting latitude and your release format only needs around 8 you have room to shuffle without degrading the end result much.
Click to expand...

Depends if any analog gain is used or not
 
Jim just said on an other thread that it won't be exactly like that moving forward.

Apparently sensors are getting to the point to where they will have a -range- of native ISO. So if I understood that correctly, then maybe we'll have exactly this type of additional control over DoF, or versatility in terms of what exposure to work towards when lighting. Even if just a little range, it would be huge.
 
Jannard said:
For example, what is the "native sensitivity of a 5D II? Doesn't really matter. What matters is how high you can push the ISO and still get the results you expect.
Click to expand...

Very true, but one of the qualities unique to still cameras that the RED ONE lacks is the way that they appear to either map sensor data or apply gain to get a regular response at different ASAs. Using the 5D, for example, I can turn the ASA down to 100 [from 320, let's say] rather than putting in NDs without a discernible change in dynamic range above and below middle grey. On the RED ONE, if I change the sensitivity from 320 to 100, all I'm doing is adjusting the amount of DR above and below middle gray by means of a curve. So if I had two stops of highlight headroom at 320 ASA by the light meter, I only have 1/3 at 100 ASA.

Accordingly, no matter what ASA you set the RED ONE to, you're still dealing with the same exposure range and - at the core of it - sensitivity. If you change the RED ONE's sensitivity from 320 to 2,000, you're not actually seeing anything else in the shadows that you didn't see at 320. It's just an underexposed image that has been "dug out".

Inspired by this post, I ran to the garage to make a point. Here's an example from my Nikon D300, for example:

nikontest.jpg


I shot 14-bit RAW with the camera at 320 ASA and 2,000 ASA at the same shutter/stop. I "pushed" the 320 ASA image by sliding the "exposure" slider to "+4.0" in Photoshop CS4.

As you can see, there is more shadow dynamic range in the 2,000 ASA shot than there is in the 320 ASA shot. As for highlight detail, the brightest bit of detail in either frame is the white card on the right side of the trunk of the car. I can roll back the exposure in any one of these stills and read the highlight detail on the card itself.

Now without getting into the obvious technical bits, it presents sort of an interesting question. Is it better to have a RED-style RAW image or is it better to have a Nikon/Canon style curved RAW image? There are situations where either has benefits.

I don't really know what point I'm making. I suppose I'm just hoping that whatever you guys choose to focus on is "best". I personally think that having a gain circuit would be a huge benefit in extreme low-light situations. While it is not ideal in all situations, there are times when it makes the difference between getting the shot and not getting the shot. So whatever option gives us the most sensitivity in those extreme situations - be it RED-style RAW, curved RAW or gain circuitry - I hope you guys decided to go with it.

So, going back to your question Jim, does the native sensitivity of the 5D matter? No. It has enough tricks up its sleeve to make any ASA work... but that must be selected at the camera. Every ASA reacts to highlight and shadow detail predictably [+ and - DR] and every ASA results in a unique exposure.

Does the native sensitivity of the RED matter? YES!!! Because changing ASA at the camera doesn't change anything... all it does is push or pull the image. So no matter what label or curve you assign to it, it only has one sensitivity.

So if the Epic [etc.] has the same theory behind its footage, native sensitivity matters just as much as it did before. It just means that you'll have more room to budge. Native sensitivity only stops mattering when you've got a system like those on a Nikon or Canon... because their selectable sensitivity settings really do make a difference.
 
Remember though that the Nikon has a very aggressive black offset removal that crushes blacks to hide noise (among other things) - that's why you are in-effective in digging into the shadows in the RAW.

Graeme
 
All good points and we can only trust, from what Jim has said, that the new sensor technology Red is employing in the new cameras will, in some way, make this possible. It certainly inspires great confidence in me that the CEO of the bloody company is an accomplished photographer in his own right with extensive experience shooting with the very gear he's planning on usurping. Brook, you can bet your buttons that Jim's made tests not unlike your own - not to mention Graeme and the rest of the team.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top