RED-One & TUNGSTEN Lights ???

[George D.]

Yesterday, I was discussing the RED-One with a very good DP friend of mine with many years experience, and two Academy Awards to his name. Though, personally he has not used a RED-One, a few years ago he had worked on several films where it was used.

He says that the biggest complaint from the camera operators was that the RED-One was designed for sunlight, and that the results it gave under Tungston illumination were less than desirable.

The kind of shooting we do is sometimes outdoors in sunlight, but a great deal of it is on sets lit by Tungston lights. So, I was wondering if RED has overcome that problem by now, and exactly what they've done about it? Is it now a simple matter of flipping a switch or what?

Thanks.

 

[Ariel Weiss]

Yesterday, I was discussing the RED-One with a very good DP friend of mine with many years experience, and two Academy Awards to his name. Though, personally he has not used a RED-One, a few years ago he had worked on several films where it was used.

He says that the biggest complaint from the camera operators was that the RED-One was designed for sunlight, and that the results it gave under Tungston illumination were less than desirable.

The kind of shooting we do is sometimes outdoors in sunlight, but a great deal of it is on sets lit by Tungston lights. So, I was wondering if RED has overcome that problem by now, and exactly what they've done about it? Is it now a simple matter of flipping a switch or what?

Thanks.

Hi

I think with MX it's all solved. Also with M, with the latest color science you will get great results. The most important thing is to expose perfectly, in tungsten rate the camera 250 iso (m sensor). Its also worth trying to gel the lights with some light ctb gel, quarter or half but only if you can spare the output. It is better to leave the lights un-gelled and get perfect exposure.
In post, its important to white balance correctly to what was shot and not go too far in brightenning the image or balance it toward the blueish too much.
Hope this help.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It's not a problem anymore. The new M-X sensor, the new color science behind the conversions, etc. all produce excellent results under tungsten lighting even at high ASA values.

Daylight will always be a bit cleaner, less noisy, but that's true with cameras like the Genesis, F35, ARRI Alexa, etc. as well. All digital sensors, including those in still cameras, are less sensitive to blue wavelengths so prefer a higher color temp balance. But 3200K is no problem if the noise in the blue channel is low enough to allow it to be boosted to compensate.

Red is sort of suffering from impressions it created three or four years ago, I think people who keep up with the latest developments know how much has improved since then.

 

[David Rasberry]

All silicon based sensors are flat spectrum balanced around 5k-6k. it is a physical property of the material. There is roughly a 2 stop difference between red and blue channel spectrum balance at tungsten color temps around 3k compared to daylight. This is a physical property of the light. So with any camera system you lose effective dynamic range under tungsten compared to daylight.
Excessive and coarse blue channel noise when underexposed was an issue with Red 1 early on but that has been long corrected with software upgrades, even for the M sensor models. With MX it is not an issue, it is on par with or better than most available alternatives.

 

[David Wyatt]

IMHO it's a bit like shooting with tungsten film in daylight & expecting it to look all nice - no professional would do that unless they wanted a specific look. On the old Red One use a colour balancing filter like the 80 series or on an M-X Red, like others have said, just don't worry about it :thumbup:

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Actually I find that skin tones look very subtly BETTER now (with MX) under Tungsten, when shooting 16000 ISO or so or less.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

love tungsten with RED.. no issues at ALL..

 

[Steve Sherrick]

To show how far RED has come with Tungsten, I believe when Jim bought the studio it came with a TON of tungsten lights. And I think Jarred uses them quite often. So, I think they are all very comfortable with tungsten now.

 

[jimhare]

Yes, this hasn't been an issue for about 18 months, long before MX.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

I agree with Jim. We used tungsten lights on our first film in a great many scenes, and they looked great!

Stephen

 

[Stephen Williams]

IMHO it's a bit like shooting with tungsten film in daylight & expecting it to look all nice - no professional would do that unless they wanted a specific look.

Many DP's have been shooting tungsten film in Daylight for years without bothering with an 85 filter. Barry Lyndon is an example that 'came out' OK.