Scarlet - Mixed Results

[Joe Shemesh]

Hi all,
Used my Scarlet on its first job yesterday with mixed results -

Black balanced on location at working temp of 35C, after running camera for 25 minutes. As soon as we started recording,
the temperature quickly climbed to 45C, even though I had fan set to 80% standby and 40%record and the takes were only
30 sec each. The resulting images are very noisy, so wondering if any shooters here can chime in with some advice.

When I use the above fan settings on my Epic, temperatures rarely fluctuate more than 2-3 degrees, so has anyone found Scarlet more
prone to heating up once recording commences?

Had to send back my Epic to Red as it would not hold time of day and date - constantly defaulting to 00:00:00 with a date of 01012001
and now this cam is doing the same thing. Is this happening to others? Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!

best
joe

 

[John Marchant]

Noise is subjective, and so its difficult to help without seeing a file - save an r3d snapshot out of RCX from a problem file and upload it here. It'll only be small, I'm sure you'll get plenty of learned opinion

 

[Joe Shemesh]

Noise is subjective, and so its difficult to help without seeing a file - save an r3d snapshot out of RCX from a problem file and upload it here. It'll only be small, I'm sure you'll get plenty of learned opinion

Thanks for your reply John,
Have sent you a PM and here's a link to a RCX snapshot for anyone else that may have some thoughts on this -

https://plus.google.com/photos/115515196015588370892/albums/5790963589083505409?banner=pwa

best
joe

 

[William Albertini]

Try and get the camera as hot as you can before doing black shade. To get the temperature up fast I set standby fan speed at 25% and let it heat up until the safety override kicks the fan in and then run black shade calibration.

 

[Joe Shemesh]

Try and get the camera as hot as you can before doing black shade. To get the temperature up fast I set standby fan speed at 25% and let it heat up until the safety override kicks the fan in and then run black shade calibration.

Thanks William,
I'll give it a go and see if it makes any difference

best
joe

 

[Les C.]

@ RED - having the 'last black shade temperature' and the 'current sensor temperature' in metadata would help to de-bug noise issues?

 

[Ryan De Franco]

This seems all too common.

Shot with photographers on M, MX and Epic-X for two years. When Epic was a prototype, we were shooting it in the dark. The noise was always subtle, even when photographers put away their strobes and decided two 60W bulbs were bright enough to light a set. Or parking garage practicals+ one kino = lit for high speed.

(Oddly enough with the transition to motion came a bare indifference to the light, a fascination with the new process and all its buttons, a blindness to how the subject actually appeared. 'I can see it on the little screen, therefore it's exposed.')

Noise was there, especially with a starved blue channel, but it never looked the way blacks look on unfortunate Scarlet footage. You cant just own this up to 'scarlet users don't shoot as well.'

I've seen horrendous noise on shoots that were exposed correctly. We're talking white cyc, scoop lights, lit to a 5.6 and exposed a stop over, and the blacks are still noisy.

Graeme has said Epic/Scarlet sensors should expose one in the same, and most of the time they do.... yet sometimes a client comes back with my Scarlet and a hard drive full of noise.

 

[Joe Shemesh]

This seems all too common.

Shot with photographers on M, MX and Epic-X for two years. When Epic was a prototype, we were shooting it in the dark. The noise was always subtle, even when photographers put away their strobes and decided two 60W bulbs were bright enough to light a set. Or parking garage practicals+ one kino = lit for high speed.

(Oddly enough with the transition to motion came a bare indifference to the light, a fascination with the new process and all its buttons, a blindness to how the subject actually appeared. 'I can see it on the little screen, therefore it's exposed.')

Noise was there, especially with a starved blue channel, but it never looked the way blacks look on unfortunate Scarlet footage. You cant just own this up to 'scarlet users don't shoot as well.'

I've seen horrendous noise on shoots that were exposed correctly. We're talking white cyc, scoop lights, lit to a 5.6 and exposed a stop over, and the blacks are still noisy.

Graeme has said Epic/Scarlet sensors should expose one in the same, and most of the time they do.... yet sometimes a client comes back with my Scarlet and a hard drive full of noise.

Seems totally perplexing to me, daytime shoot, 2K HMI from one side and sunshine from the other and still noise everywhere https://plus.google.com/photos/1155...9083505409?banner=pwa&authkey=CLO10Pagouna3QE
Been shooting R1M and Epic x since the beginning and have never had an image look like this. Not generally one to blame the equipment before exploring all the possibilities, but this has me stumped.
best
joe

 

[Marc Wielage]

I've seen horrendous noise on shoots that were exposed correctly. We're talking white cyc, scoop lights, lit to a 5.6 and exposed a stop over, and the blacks are still noisy.

Ryan, is the noise equal in all three color channels (R, G, B) or is it higher in one? Just curious.

I'm also wondering if the noise is salvageable in some way with some grain reduction software.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I am asking purely for curiosity, not because I think I'm really helping. Also, I'm a future Scarlet owner.

Could it be that

- the lens had its iris at a narrower setting than intended? This might happen with lenses without aperture rings, where the default aperture is the narrowest, although this depends on the manufacturer.

- the shutter speed was set too short, e.g. 1/2000?

- the ISO was set too high (although irrelevant if using a light meter)?

 

[Joe Shemesh]

I am asking purely for curiosity, not because I think I'm really helping. Also, I'm a future Scarlet owner.

Could it be that

- the lens had its iris at a narrower setting than intended? This might happen with lenses without aperture rings, where the default aperture is the narrowest, although this depends on the manufacturer.

- the shutter speed was set too short, e.g. 1/2000?

- the ISO was set too high (although irrelevant if using a light meter)?

Should have mentioned earlier -
ISO 800, 25fps, 1/50th shutter, Red300mm

best
joe

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Actually Joe I was thinking of Ryan's post specifically but I forgot to make that clear. But it doesn't matter, at least we know your settings were fine.

 

[Justin Talley]

I had trouble with noise on my first day shooting with the Scarlet... then I black balanced under extreme heat... Left the camera on a table in Burbank in the summer to bake in the sun, black balanced and voila! The noise is barely there, and I've been happy as a clam with the camera since.

 

[Joe Shemesh]

I had trouble with noise on my first day shooting with the Scarlet... then I black balanced under extreme heat... Left the camera on a table in Burbank in the summer to bake in the sun, black balanced and voila! The noise is barely there, and I've been happy as a clam with the camera since.

Sounds pretty extreme to me Justin - but a few people here seem to have gone down a similar path.
Open to any suggestions and will keep testing.

best
joe

 

[Les Dittert]

Black shading , per Red, does not change the random 'grain like' noise at all.
Doing black shades at various tempuratures only pushes said noise further into black ( zero ) , something you can do in your color correction anytime.
Black shading does prevent 'fixed pattern noise' , that is held noise, hot pixels, etc. Different than moving grain.

Why do people still think black shading is some kind of secret fix for moving grain ?

 

[Peter Moretti]

...
Doing black shades at various tempuratures only pushes said noise further into black ( zero ) , something you can do in your color correction anytime.
...

I'm not following this. I can certianly crush blacks in post. But I don't know how to selective push only noise into black.

 

[Les Dittert]

I'm not following this. I can certianly crush blacks in post. But I don't know how to selective push only noise into black.

Thats right, you can't eliminate the moving grain AND keep shadow details at the same time via simple color correction.
Black shading calibration compensates for the pixel to pixel 'DC offset' variations on the sensor. This gives you a nice even dark exposure but does not change the random thermal noise , lets call it grain, that changes from frame to frame.

when this calibration is done at a different tempurature, the DC offsets for the whole array are raised or lowered in a generally global fashion. To some users, this darkening of the resulting images might seem to be changing the grain, but what is really happening is some crushing into black of the random noise along with the shadow details.

I hope this helps explain.

 

[Matthew Scott]

Thats right, you can't eliminate the moving grain AND keep shadow details at the same time via simple color correction.
Black shading calibration compensates for the pixel to pixel 'DC offset' variations on the sensor. This gives you a nice even dark exposure but does not change the random thermal noise , lets call it grain, that changes from frame to frame.

when this calibration is done at a different tempurature, the DC offsets for the whole array are raised or lowered in a generally global fashion. To some users, this darkening of the resulting images might seem to be changing the grain, but what is really happening is some crushing into black of the random noise along with the shadow details.

I hope this helps explain.

Awesome! Thanks for the explanation, it helps a lot

 

[Marc Oberdorfer]

Interesting thread, I just got my Scarlet about a week ago and didn't have much time to explore it yet due to work and family visiting.
Just did a black shade for the first time and followed these instructions from Phil:

Proper Black Shading Technique​

1. Attach the Red Body Cap to your lens mount and secure the cap with the locking collar on the mount.
2. Place your camera in a dark place or cover your camera with opaque fabric. Do not cover the vents.
3. Power up the camera. A/C Power is preferred. Black shading currently takes over 20 minutes.
4. Wait for the camera to come up to operating temperature. Usually takes 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Set your shutter speed to suit the project that you are shooting.
6. Begin your Black Shading Calibration.

After it completes you may want to verify things are okay. Leave the Red Body Cap on and crank the ISO up to 12800 and make sure your focus assist tools are turned off.
What you are looking for is an even black field. If for some reason it is not, likely light has some how leaked in.

After the calibration cranking up to ISO 12800 the image is definitely not black, more greyish and the noise is pretty even... I guess that's the way it's supposed to be right? Phil, if you read this maybe you can comment on it.



​

 

[Joesef o.]

What I've noticed is that my Scarlet is noisy at ISO 800 and is really not usable for me at that level. ISO 500 is where I feel I could get away with blacks, but ISO 400 is much better. The native sensor is ISO 320. Switch to view your RAW image and you'll see why theres so much noise. Sometimes the sensor is just not getting enough light for its 320 sensitivity. I've seen this debate on here before but I'm a strong believer that unless you're out in daylight, the ISO 800 is just not really a clean image. Go to 500 and you'll see a big difference. Problem is your highlight protection seems to drop... I dont get why the camera is designed this way. I've heard the explanation many times, but it still doesnt make sense to put the gray point higher for the 800ISO. You're just always under exposing your shot then, and always going to get a noisy image. Expose to your RAW and you'll get much better blacks. I tested this for a whole day and thats what fixed everything. Also FLUT is your friend!