Resolution concerns, 2K 4K?

[Brook Willard]

Darkline, that was 320 with a 4 stop ND at 2.8 or 4 on the 300mm.

Remember, folks... we focused everything *by eye* using a 720p LCD. We never used a tape measure.

As for the harshness of the transition from inside to outside on the "HDR" shot, outside was unreasonably brighter. I don't want to give you a figure [A MILLION STOPS!] because I don't know. But what you're seeing there is the difference between being in shadow indoors with no lights on to being in direct specular sunlight in cloud-free 95 degree weather in CA.

 

[Kholi Hicks]

It just looks like soft-focus, to me. There've been countless amounts of times that I've gone to the theaters and caught slightly soft focus on the big screen, or even sitting and viewing on a large LCD at home; it's going to happen. And, it's not really soft focus, considering that you've got to blow that up to like four times it's size to see that. With moving images, you'll see it a lot less.

These aren't controlled environments, it's literally run-and-gun and all-for-fun.

S'all good, peoples. The best time to go hyper-analytical is when someone comes 'round with controlled and planned tests.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Think of this the good way - if you shoot at 4k and don't nail it, you still are getting 2k, which is way better than what the Star Wars etc. were shot on

Graeme

 

[Karl H]

Thanks Brook....I see, sounds like the HDR shot was pushed quite far in post, it must have been a few stops under as well as at a low shutter speed. Then people like me come along and treat it like it's a 'normal' exposed image... tut...

If you can focus that well with a 720p LCD then I think once the focus assist is working we may all find it easier than we imagined.

just to be clear, I'm as excited I think as anyone else on these boards, but like a kid with a new pet, he wants to disect it first. (or was that just me)

 

[Kholi Hicks]

Or when it goes to HD-DVD/Blu Ray/Standard Def, you'll have to look hard for it. As that's the most realistic distribution method for most projects.

 

[Brook Willard]

I still find it funny that people are pixel-for-pixel analyzing the stuff we've shot. On a controlled set with lights, direction, actors, marks and some care... any mysterious problems with dynamic range or noise suddenly disappear.

Of course, if I wasn't there... I'd be analyzing it.

 

[Kholi Hicks]

It'll happen. Everyone's stoked and everyone wants it to be perfect. In the land of reality, it's as perfect as you can get already and in the future it'll only get better.

I mean... look what it can do with available light? It's already cut the hyper-indie no-budget production budget by a few hundred dollars based on lighting costs alone.

 

[Brook Willard]

Well I wouldn't think that way. Removing lighting from a movie is removing cinematography. Thinking that this camera will let one abandon lighting is the *wrong* way to be thinking.

If anybody should be excited by what they've seen, it's the documentary crowd. The narrative folks already know how good it can look.

 

[Evan Owen]

It'll happen. Everyone's stoked and everyone wants it to be perfect. In the land of reality, it's as perfect as you can get already and in the future it'll only get better.
...

That's so true. I've started noticing my expectations have risen way too high since I started seeing RED footage. Actually, it's starting to bother me... haha.

Realistically, what RED is delivering, even at this early stage, is WAY more than enough for anything I'd ever need. :waaa:

 

[Jim Arthurs]

I still find it funny that people are pixel-for-pixel analyzing the stuff we've shot.

Think of it this way... it's not like your first few stills were the 4038th stills we'd seen released from PRODUCTION level RED's... they were the absolute first.

Up until that moment we had ONLY seen grabs from prototypes and hand built units and cautioned against speaking out on any issues because they were works in progress.

It was made more difficult because (for reasons I don't fully understand) everyone pressured you guys to start posting light starved sensor images right out of the gate...

 

[Kholi Hicks]

Well I wouldn't think that way. Removing lighting from a movie is removing cinematography. Thinking that this camera will let one abandon lighting is the *wrong* way to be thinking.

If anybody should be excited by what they've seen, it's the documentary crowd. The narrative folks already know how good it can look.

Not abandoning light entirely, it's more like it looks like that it needs less light than my HVX + m2 Adapter. =P edit here: Though probably wrong. Could it possibly eat light like an HVX + M2 setup?

Wouldn't ever ABANDON light, just saying that it could potentially produce a great image if the flexibility is needed on a tighter budget.

 

[Brook Willard]

Think of it this way... it's not like your first few stills were the 4038th stills we'd seen released from PRODUCTION level RED's... they were the absolute first.

Up until that moment we had ONLY seen grabs from prototypes and hand built units and cautioned against speaking out on any issues because they were works in progress.

It was made more difficult because (for reasons I don't fully understand) everyone pressured you guys to start posting light starved sensor images right out of the gate...

You do make good points.

I wish we had some lighting and somewhere to shoot. No light was allowed to leave the stage and no set was allowed to enter it... so we were fairly limited in what we could shoot. It was mostly an experience for us to learn the camera while posting stuff for you guys.

It looks like the other projects that shot this weekend had a little more budget [even if the budget was still zero], so some nicer imagery should be coming.

I've now seen what the camera can do in a "broken" environment. Now I'm excited to see what it can do on a set with equipment and a crew.

 

[Jim Arthurs]

I found one of the sharpest images so far on www.fxguide.com (article here).

I just took a look at that article, Graeme, for gosh sake PLEASE disable that sharpening setting as default in the next build... it is killing these images when people don't know that the setting is there... look at those hyper-blown out windows and the edges of the sills... I know that's not what you're after... make people have to dig a bit if they want to turn that on... and go through a few alert boxes before they can adjust it...

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I'd mentioned we should have such a warning of the "do not turn this feature on" type thing in camera for things like sharpening.....

It's now defaulting to "off" for the next build.

Graeme

 

[Jack Wester]

Not abandoning light entirely, it's more like it looks like that it needs less light than my HVX + m2 Adapter. =P edit here: Though probably wrong. Could it possibly eat light like an HVX + M2 setup?

Wouldn't ever ABANDON light, just saying that it could potentially produce a great image if the flexibility is needed on a tighter budget.

Ditto that. Less light, but of course from the right directions, of the right kind and of the right color is less expensive than producing a 10000W for each shoot.

What are your thoughts on matching the RedOne with led lighting equipment. Does anyone have any comments on these (www.litepanels.com)?

 

[Jack Wester]

I'd mentioned we should have such a warning of the "do not turn this feature on" type thing in camera for things like sharpening.....

It's now defaulting to "off" for the next build.

Graeme

Good move! :biggrin:

 

[Damien Molineaux]

Darkline, if only it were so simple.....

The measured resolution from the 4k is over 3k, but say we downsampled it to 3k, we'd now need to be in RGB, not raw, and therefore the file size just got bigger, not smaller. Downsample to 2k, and you've got a 2k full of nearly 2k resolution, but the file size is 3/4 of that of the 4k and you've lost 1k of resolution for that. That's why 4k is best recorded as 4k.

Graeme

Great thread, I've been through all the pages so far. Thank you for all that info, Graeme in particular. I just wanted to add one little thought to the above. Downsampling before recording (in camera), apart from not really saving space also locks in the image. The beauty of Red Raw, is that's it's raw ! Allowing you to tweak the image in post. It's not about making the choice later in the production process, images are nearly always tweaked in post, except usually you're tweaking an image (we're speaking about the digital world here) that's already been tweaked in camera.

To me, Red Raw is the key element of the Red revolution. Making a high quality image is one thing, but being able to handle this easily 24 4k frames per second... genius !

4K on a CF card, it hasn't sunk in yet !

THANK YOU
Damien

 

[Antoine Baumann]

Yeah great informations.

for the focus, if I am not mistaking Jim did use the panasonic LCD to focus the "engine" picture (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=76457&postcount=1), so you might even take sharp focus shots with a 720p LCD, but need some practice.

I am very thanksfull to Blair's team for posting the pictures of their test, it is exciting all fo us.

antoine.

 

[Deanan]

Quite many on this forum also have wondered about the lacking noise. Graeme, to which extent the wavelet compression has an effect to this?

The low noise images are a result of a great starting point (sensor) and maintaining the low noise throughout the system.

Deanan

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Those FXGuide shots were really really painful to look at with the blown out window. Even at 1k . BLACK LINES! AGHHH!! What is this the 1950s? I'm just going to assume it was all sharpening for the sake of my sanity otherwise No white backgrounds ever!