Red One color offsets on monitor, RAW and RC

[Abraham Lim]

Ok fellow BT R1MX users and wise sages, could use a little help here. I've been very good about going through the entire manual and approaching my new R1 in a thorough manner. I've spent the last week going over every function and understanding the new protocol for RAW recording. But, I can't get past my monitoring setup because of the strange color I'm getting in the RAW and RedColor modes. There is a magenta cast to them and RAW looks actually more accurate and RC looks completely washed out. Here's my setup- Lights: 2 800W Redheads 3200K WB: Auto Balance (manual WB with white card) ISO 800/ 1/48 shutter 50mm Nikon 1.4 set at 2.8

GH2 3200K 5.6 1/50 400ISO lumix 14-42mm

REC709

RAW

REDColor

GH2 3200K 5.6 1/50 400ISO lumix 14-42mm

REC709

RAW

REDcolor Maybe this is normal, I don't know, but I used my Gh2 set to 3200K to take pics and video. The video is white balanced to the monitor screen itself, so you can see the color shifts clearly. Now, when the camera boots up the RED logo looks perfect, using the SMPTE bar generator in the camera everything looks good, and the menus as you can see are clear and saturated as well, so it's not the monitor or the HDMI cable (I changed it out twice). It's simply the way the image is coming out. Also I noticed after doing the video test, when you cycle from RC to REC709, the REC709 image is fairly even. When you cycle from the RAW to RAW 709 the image is over-saturated. Weird.

I know I'm not using a Red monitor, but as I said the monitor looks great and on target for all the colors EXCEPT the image coming out of the camera sensor. If this is something I have to get used to that's cool, I'm used to workarounds. But, if this is something that means the sensor color is off, then I have to get it looked at. I emailed my friend Doug Underdahl, and he told me that I should be using RC3 and RG3, but the only choices I have in my VIEW menu is RAW or RedColor-that's it. No RC2, RC3 RG3 or RLogFilm. This worried me until I saw a post here on build32 that said it brought RC3 and RG3 to Red One MX. So I assumed they were available in camera settings for Epic and Scarlet users only. Doug told me that he was pretty sure he had used them on his R1. So tell me guys can you access RC2, 3 on your BT R1? Thanks it's 3am in China I'm going to bed.

 

[Jimmy Gilmore]

This may not make sense but it is your monitor. Everyone I have talked to said that you will not get accurate color from a HDMI monitor and that's what I've experienced too.

I was shooting DSLRs before I bought my R1BT and experienced a similar situation doing my initial testing as well. I have a Ikan monitor, not a bad monitor but not the best either. I cannot accurately monitor color with it. Just exposure and focus. The rest is just a guestimate. I was able to nail picture on a 5d with this monitor too. Go figure.

Without a really good (non-hdmi) monitor and experience, you should treat shooting with R1 like you're shooting a negative. That's the purpose of these cameras anyway. Check your backfocus, use a tape measure, spot meter with a handheld to make sure your ratios are what they should be or you will be disappointed.

 

[Abraham Lim]

This may not make sense but it is your monitor. Everyone I have talked to said that you will not get accurate color from a HDMI monitor and that's what I've experienced too.

I was shooting DSLRs before I bought my R1BT and experienced a similar situation doing my initial testing as well. I have a Ikan monitor, not a bad monitor but not the best either. I cannot accurately monitor color with it. Just exposure and focus. The rest is just a guestimate. I was able to nail picture on a 5d with this monitor too. Go figure.

Without a really good (non-hdmi) monitor and experience, you should treat shooting with R1 like you're shooting a negative. That's the purpose of these cameras anyway. Check your backfocus, use a tape measure, spot meter with a handheld to make sure your ratios are what they should be or you will be disappointed.

Thanks for the reply Jimmy. I'm going to go out and shoot some 5600K exteriors and check the footage in RCX. That's the main issue here, if there is a problem with sensor output, if not I'll deal with it. I'm from a post background so calibrating monitors, whatever quality is a must before starting work. I'm going to try to snag an SDI monitor for a test because the difference between REC709 saturation when cyclying from/to RAW or RC is big. It's not so much the onboard monitoring for the operator, but controlling the client monitor look that has me concerned.

Also do you have RC2, 3 available in camera view settings?

 

[Jimmy Gilmore]

I think you've dug deeper into the in camera settings vs outboard then me. I'll have to check what I was shooting at in camera on the last shoot.

Client monitor is a bit of a conundrum for me. I'm a former agency guy from way back in the video tap days so I'd like to tell the client to buck the hell up and deal with it. Remember back in the day when I had to walk uphill in the snow all the way to school and back. It's like telling the client "It's not mixed so stop giving me audio comments!" I know a lot of folks use the element technica breakout and go bnc to video village with decent results. I'm not there yet as there are so many other items to purchase first.

I suspect, that I'll want to set the client monitor to look as good as possible and the DP/Director/Cam Op monitor as accurate to log as possible. Let us know where you net out on this.

We did a day of testing at a collaborator's studio (School of Humans) where there was a colorist working onsite on a show, he looked at stuff with us in his suite on Davinci with multiple outboard grading monitors - super cool of him (Thanks John). He is an experienced guy who grades TV shows and commercials for a living and is very experienced with R3ds. He brought the stuff in native. We looked at it in all the different color sciences ect. He showed my DP and I how he usually grades Red One footage so we now have a better idea of the post process with R3ds that working folks are using in the real world.

Basically be brings everything in Red or Film log, adjusts color balance first and them moves on to black point, white point and saturation. He showed us that the footage is a lot more pliable that way. Especially since we were really pushing the camera it made a big difference.

We were intentionally pushing the camera to find the breaking points of the footage (anything past 1600 gets grainy mho). Most of what I found was pretty well documented on the forum so I won't go into that too much. The point here is that what we were seeing in his suite was not what we were seeing on the monitor and the monitor is damn close on DSLR footage and I know you're coming from a dslrs.

I started working with film, mostly worked as an ad agency creative for 15 years (some directing), shooting 35 and super 16 and moved to having other people shoot Red for me and then started shooting DSLR stuff a couple years ago. So I'm a bit film biased but I love Red. I'm sure coming from a post background, you have your own way of looking at things.

Bullet point take aways from our test day was:
Use the in camera exposure tools with a actual light meter.
Know your ratios
Use your eyes. Look at the actual exposure and not the monitor. Eyes were good enough for Slocombe.
Don't put your faith in the monitor it's a sign post but not reality
Remember you're shooting raw
Look at your files on desktop, (even better a grading monitor) as you go if you can. There are a lot of guys more experienced than us that will shoot all day confident that everything is cool and are OK - I'm not completely there yet.
Look at in RCX, Davinci or even SpeedGrade.
Color issues will be diminished on the HDMI location monitor but augmented in the grading suite.
Treat files like negatives in every sense of the concept.

Here's an example of a color problem that wasn't showing up on the camera monitor. There was a house light we didn't kill was spilling just a little bit of ugly green fluorescent light on our unlit background - just enough to muck up the green channel but not visible to the naked eye. We couldn't see it on board but it sure was visible in the suite. Stupid mistake that was easily corrected in Davinci.

I'm finishing a couple projects right now and can share if a few weeks but not prepared to show any files yet.

Hope my blathering helps. And please update us on your next testing.

 

[Abraham Lim]

Your blathering is duly noted and appreciated Jimmy. Me thinks we came from similar places. Before HD and DSLR's I was exposing with meters and using my black and white Aaton video tap, which I didn't expect anything out of. But, I do like to know every detail and idiosyncrasy of my own camera; I obsess. Today though, I'm going to shoot some 5600K clips outside and bring them into RCXpro. Then I'll know for sure what's going on in the color channels.

Can you just tell me if you have RedColor 2, RedColor 3 and RedlogFilm as view options in your R1? This is what I'm dying to know as I only have RAW and RedColor to choose from.

 

[Jimmy Gilmore]

Your blathering is duly noted and appreciated Jimmy. Me thinks we came from similar places. Before HD and DSLR's I was exposing with meters and using my black and white Aaton video tap, which I didn't expect anything out of. But, I do like to know every detail and idiosyncrasy of my own camera; I obsess. Today though, I'm going to shoot some 5600K clips outside and bring them into RCXpro. Then I'll know for sure what's going on in the color channels.

Can you just tell me if you have RedColor 2, RedColor 3 and RedlogFilm as view options in your R1? This is what I'm dying to know as I only have RAW and RedColor to choose from.

It's in it's case and I'm in edit right now. I'll check later.

 

[Abraham Lim]

It's in it's case and I'm in edit right now. I'll check later.

Thanks Jimmy. Not so worried about it now. Took some shots outside popped them into RCXpro and they look great, no magenta no problem with the image itself. The monitor image still sucks, but I can live with that until I have an alternative or time to troubleshoot. As far as RC2, RC3 I'm still curious, but as long as you have access to them in RCXpro, I guess it doesn't matter. What's important is the exposure and RAW image are great.

 

[Jimmy Gilmore]

Abraham,
Sorry for the really late response. Finally unburied myself from the last couple jobs.

Sounds like we're coming to the same conclusions here. What I'm interested in is there a way to set looks in RCXpro and import them into the camera and get a truer looking image.
J

 

[Christopher Mills]

Jimmy, how about loading LUTs to the monitor through an external box? Isn't there some such animal..
otherwise, it seems like you'd be making the camera double work... or do you think this'll be like an F3 with output LUTS for S-log

 

[Dustin Hoye]

Abraham- RC2 and RC3 options are available for the R1MX with the Beta 32 Build release. However, using the user preset of "view RAW" will switch you back to CLR and RAW, so watch out for that bug.

Link from REDUSER thread "Build 32" under "Recon": http://red.cachefly.net/redone/beta/...32_v32.0.2.zip

 

[Jimmy Gilmore]

Jimmy, how about loading LUTs to the monitor through an external box? Isn't there some such animal..
otherwise, it seems like you'd be making the camera double work... or do you think this'll be like an F3 with output LUTS for S-log

Chris,
That's probably he smart way to go. However, more complex on set monitoring doesn't work with my budgets. I just picked up a second hand SmallHD, hoping this will help the situation a bit.